Chapter 231 - Urban Warfare

"Demons! The Demons just keep coming!"

"The battalion is on the verge of annihilation!"

Cries of despair rose everywhere. It was unfolding just as Ferda had expected. People usually said scaling the outer walls was eighty percent of a siege, but against these enemies, it was the reverse. They were entering an indestructible canyon and forest of buildings—the home ground of the predators that lived within.

Demonic creatures swarmed them, and Demons revealed themselves. The orders in response were simple.

"Advance! The knights will be your shields!"

"Press forward harder! Kill every last one!"

They drove their soldiers into the jaws of death, just as King Heodret had planned. Cruel as it was, they could feel that he was right. There was no way through without advancing boldly.

The terror born of chaos lasted only a moment. As soon as fear dulled, madness took its place. On the battlefield, the soldiers learned one truth: kill, or die.

"Don't leave a single one alive!"

"Stab everyone you see! Cut off their heads too if you aren't sure!"

Like barbarians invading civilization, they stormed homes, stabbing and slashing everything alive before doing anything else. The only difference was that the buildings neither burned nor collapsed.

But the king of Heinkel apparently had no intention of merely watching his people die defenseless. A purple magic circle shimmered beneath the soldiers who had raided one house.

"I-it's a trap!"

The magic circle burst, engulfing the soldiers in something like a black cloud.

"Cough, cough! Is everyone all right?"

"Urgh... Ghhh... Grrrk..."

Groans of pain became phlegmy rattles. Their bodies began changing too, into the ghoul demonic creatures they had seen more than enough of before entering the city.

SKREEEE!

"Aaaaargh!"

"Kill them! Hurry up and kill them!"

Through the schemes of Dark Mages, even allies could become enemies. They were whittling down the enemy's numbers, but their own were steadily dwindling too.

"Regent Ferda!"

Ferda looked back to see Ureas standing there. The prince had not drawn his sword even once.

"Clear a path! I shall enter the castle and settle this!"

The damned bastard was treating him like a subordinate. But with the situation so urgent, Ferda set his feelings aside. He had intended to do that anyway.

"William!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Switch to urban combat tactics."

"Understood. Split into platoons! Platoon commanders, report once your units are formed!"

The knights changed formation in an instant and advanced toward their assigned sectors.

SKREEEE!

"Demonic creatures ahead!"

"Grenade!"

A knight took a grenade from his belt, pulled the pin, and threw it. Mana exploded in the midst of the swarming ghouls. Those near the center were reduced to scraps of flesh; those farther away were poisoned by the blue mana.

GRRK, GRRRK!

The ghouls twitched as though paralyzed.

"Kill them all!"

The knights drew their swords and advanced, beheading the ghouls and cleaving their hearts.

"Advance!"

"Keep watch on the rooftops and doorways as you move!"

Even Ferda's troops, moving in tight groups, began to suffer casualties. Demons on high rooftops hurled sharp projectiles, picking off the tactical infantry.

"Argh!"

"Jason!"

"Maintain close formation! Spread out and we all die!"

They left the bodies behind, doing nothing but advancing and attacking. With the buildings refusing to collapse, it hardly felt as though they were pushing the enemy back at all.

At last, Alberto left the front of the defensive formation and came back to Ferda.

"Regent."

"Whoa, this man can talk?"

Zed and Arwen looked startled when Alberto spoke. Paying them no heed, he said what he had come to say.

"I don't want to waste time."

There was only one reason Alberto had followed orders so readily throughout this operation: he was waiting for the moment they entered that inner castle.

"I'd like to break through too, but that looks difficult right now."

"..."

Alberto returned to the vanguard. No—he walked farther forward still.

"What's he doing?"

His intention was so obvious that there was little point wondering. Gripping his enormous shield, he braced himself. Then he charged.

KRRRRAAASH!

He shoved aside everything ahead of him, smashing through by sheer brute force. Unable to withstand him, ghouls went flying and splattered against the walls like rotten tomatoes, coating them in green blood.

"How... All by himself..."

Even his fellow knights watched in awe. All they could think was how fortunate they were that he was not their enemy.

And he was doing more than breaking through. The paving stones, which had withstood repeated bombardment without a scratch, were being ground away. Ferda did not miss that detail.

'Those didn't budge through three days and nights of pounding...'

It was proof that the mana sustaining the city was weakening. For a moment, it seemed Alberto might carry that momentum straight into the inner castle. He did not.

BOOOM!

Even his shield could not break through the barrier before the inner castle gate. A still greater power protected that place. He had ended up in the middle of a street teeming with demonic creatures.

Demons and demonic creatures instinctively pounced on the man who had walked into their killing ground. They would pass judgment on the fool who had charged into the heart of enemy territory.

"Zed, Arwen, Luri! Move!"

They moved swiftly while the path was clear. Ferda worried about Alberto, but only for a moment.

BOOM!

CRACK!

Amid thunderous crashes and tremors, the bodies of Demons and demonic creatures flew apart. Shock wave after shock wave erupted, pulverizing everything around Alberto.

By the time Ferda arrived, it was already over. Alberto stood covered in green and purple chunks of flesh. Unconcerned by his appearance, he set his shield behind him, gripped his club in both hands, and brought it crashing down on the barrier.

BOOOM!

"Urgh!"

The shock wave was powerful enough to make their knees buckle. Ferda barely escaped it by floating a little way off the ground.

"Alberto."

BOOM!

"You'll never break it that way."

BOOOOM!

"Gamigin's protective magic works by setting up totems inside and outside. You can't break it until you destroy those totems."

"..."

Apparently understanding Ferda at last, Alberto lowered his club. With their way into the inner castle blocked, enemies continued swarming toward them.

"What do we do now?"

Ferda raised his head and focused mana into his eyes. To sustain a barrier of this magnitude, they would have either scattered a large number of totems across the area or concentrated the power into just a few. The former would be difficult to track but easy to destroy; the latter, difficult to destroy but easy to track.

'Fortunately, it's the latter.'

Only a mage could see it, but the flow of mana was clear. Seven totems were scattered throughout the city. He could not handle them alone. Ferda sent a telepathic message to the mages of the coalition and imperial army.

"We must destroy the totems to enter the inner castle. Any mage should be able to follow the flow of mana to its source. Track them down and destroy them."

"Understood."

He shared similar information with the imperial army. They were desperate to enter the inner castle, so they were certain to give this intelligence top priority.

"What about us?"

What else?

"We destroy totems too. There are two near us."

Ferda turned to Alberto.

"Take one of them."

"Where is it?"

"Judging by the mana flow, you should head that way."

Countless buildings stood at an angle across the direction he indicated. Without an excellent sense of direction, anyone was bound to get lost in that maze of alleys. Alberto, however, seemed unconcerned.

Looking where Ferda pointed, he picked up the shield he had set down. Then, just as he had on the main street, he charged again.

BOOM!

BOOM!

BOOM!

If there is no path, make one. The saying suited him perfectly: every obstacle in his way was swept clean aside.

"What kind of strength is that...?"

"You're telling me."

Arwen and Zed murmured in awe. But it was not simply a matter of Alberto's monstrous strength. Buildings that had previously resisted even a scratch were beginning to succumb to explosions, collapsing one after another.

'That means a great many of the humans supplying the mana have died.'

Legion was faltering. That was how he could interpret this.

'But could this really be all it amounts to, even with such an ideal spell?'

Puzzling, but such things happened all the time in magic. When one man first developed the spell Mana Burn, people had called him the Lord of Mages. Yet a solution emerged in less than a month. Carrying an artifact imbued with the external blocking magic used for meditation made it impossible for anyone even to attempt Mana Burn.

Magic was merely an endlessly complicated game of rock-paper-scissors in which nothing held absolute superiority. Legion, too, could easily have been overrated precisely because its demanding conditions had kept it from being realized.

Still, he would not let his guard down. They were at war.

"Why don't we go that way too?"

"Is there anyone here who can do that?"

"Well, I thought we had someone who came close..."

"Do I look like a bull to you?"

When Luri shot him an irritated glare, Zed hastily backed down. In the end, they followed the main street, though Ferda began to wonder whether they should have gone straight through, even if it meant charging like a bull. The Demons were concentrating their attacks on him.

"Ferda Valdrova!"

"Kill him! Lord Godwin wills it!"

"You seem rather more popular than those other royal bastards."

"So it seems."

No one pursued Ureas or the coalition's kings as relentlessly as they pursued Ferda. In fact, the enemy was less aggressive toward them than toward ordinary soldiers. Against Ferda, however, it was no exaggeration to say they were eagerly employing every means at their disposal to kill him.

Arwen and Zed did everything they could, and Ferda did his part as well. He drew the staff concealed in his shadow. The spell he cast was a 3rd-tier elemental attack.

"Lightning Bolt."

A projectile of lightning, the fastest element, shot from his staff. But Ferda's lightning was no ordinary lightning. It was heaven's defiance lightning, which only the First Witch, Lucy Philiaz, could wield, and its destructive force was powerful enough to defy the natural order.

'One shot is enough now.'

As long as his target was not an agile Butcher-type and he had enough time to aim, he could readily achieve one shot, one kill. A mere 5th Circle mage, dispatching a Demon with a single 3rd-tier spell! But however fast one man ran, there was always someone who could fly.

"Master Ferda."

Luri spoke from beside him. Her expression was as sharp as the axe resting on her shoulder.

"I'll clear the way."

She had shed her usual human appearance and taken on the form of a Dragon Spawn, complete with pointed horns, wings, and a tail. True to her descent from Silverwind, she cut down her enemies with her axe, merciless and unhesitating.

A fine blade was still a fine blade, as the saying went. Her skills must have grown rusty while she attended Valdrova, yet she remained formidable.

As Ferda watched her, something suddenly drew his gaze: the tail bulging out at the back of her skirt. Every movement of that enormous tail made the hem shift. Its movements were so supple and swift that his eyes followed as though momentarily hypnotized.

Seemingly aware of his gaze, Luri narrowed her silver eyes.

"Where are you looking?"

Ferda answered bluntly.

"Your rear looked rather thick. It caught my eye."

Her cold, steel-like eyes wavered violently. She glanced behind herself, flushed bright red, and glared at Ferda as though she wanted to kill him. She started to say something, but apparently could not find the words, and simply whipped her head away.

What had gotten into her?

"You have no idea what you did wrong, do you?"

Zed sidled up to ask. He had hit the nail on the head.

"Did I do something wrong?"

"What you just said was on Penelope's level. Possibly worse."

"What...?"

Only then did Ferda realize that he had said something inappropriate. He would have to buy her something delicious later.

They moved swiftly, Luri clearing a path while Arwen and Zed guarded Ferda's flanks and rear. Their destination was a cathedral of the Order of Altes. Even Alte's emblem, which should have gleamed gold, had faded to gray. He could sense the totem's energy inside. A place that revered life had become a place that sang the praises of death.

"Let's destroy it quickly and move on."

As they opened the cathedral doors and stepped inside, Ferda instinctively turned his head. For the briefest instant, something had caught his eye. That sensation made his hair stand on end. He understood what it was when he looked at Arwen beside him.

"Ah..."

Fear settled in the eyes of the once-indomitable knight. Ferda knew that expression.

'A Trauma.'

The mysterious demonic creature that had tormented both him and Luri was in there now. They had to deal with it somehow before going farther.

But as the saying went, the darkest place was beneath the lamp. The answer was closer than he thought.

"What's with all the damn eyeballs?"

Zed gazed up at it calmly, practically sporting a question mark above his head.