Chapter 191: Merciless Battlefield

Clang! Ping, squelch! A longsword, swept out in haste, collided with a heavy short-axe; the axe slid down the length of the blade, only to be caught by the sword’s crossguard.

Yet, this seemingly successful parry proved meaningless, for the second axe in the dual-wielder’s grip struck down without hesitation, embedding itself into the neck of the Alestler soldier who had dared to block the Seventan raider’s advance.

The strength of a mid-rank squire was immense; to mortal flesh, a strike from metal weaponry is always fatal. The axe blade tore through neck muscle and sinew with effortless brutality, carving a path until it jammed against the rigid gap of a cervical vertebra.

Crack! Squelch! The raider, expressionless, pried the axe embedded in the soldier’s neck, snapping the spine in two before yanking the weapon free.

The decapitated soldier lingered for barely two seconds—too brief even to taste the agony—before his corpse collapsed onto the chaotic battlefield, where the embers of a meteor spell still smoldered and spread.

"Agh!" the raider let out a feral roar. Devoid of any proper defensive gear, these men were the ultimate shock troops and line-breakers.

Having dispatched one target, they abandoned all defense, ignoring the mass of Alestler infantry pressing in with swords and shields, and launched a fearless charge toward their next prey.

Once a soldier was marked by a dual-axe-wielding berserker, his life was effectively forfeit.

There was, in truth, a standard way to deal with this frenzied breed: cast aside the fear of them and drag them down into death with you.

"Aaaaaah! For Alestler!" A young infantryman let out a roar, filled with terror yet resolute. Seeing the raider charging straight at him, he raised his longsword.

The short-axe was held high, ready to smash down upon his head. The young soldier instinctively wanted to parry, but he forced the impulse down, roaring as he braced his sword against his chest and, without a single wasted motion or moment of hesitation, lunged forward!

"Squelch! Squelch!"

Driven by the strength of a squire, the longsword pierced the raider’s thin defenses; the sharp blade tore through skin and muscle, driving deep into the chest cavity to puncture the frantically beating heart.

Simultaneously, the raider’s short-axe mercilessly cleaved open the young soldier’s skull, spraying a viscous mist of white and pink.

Two sounds of rending flesh rang out in unison. The raider’s corpse, carried by the momentum of his charge, slammed into the body of the young soldier whose head had been split open, and both corpses crashed to the ground.

This was but a microcosm of the slaughter on the front lines; the intensity of this battle far exceeded any previous conflict between the two kingdoms.

The raiders’ charge, which discarded all defense, made them easy to kill—they possessed no vitality beyond that of ordinary men, only fearless courage and terrifying momentum—all it took was one slash to tear their flesh.

Yet, warriors capable of mutual destruction like that young soldier were few; most Alestler infantry still attempted to parry, only to be slaughtered in the next heartbeat.

Before being taken down by a suicide strike, the dual-axe-wielding raiders always managed to drag several men to hell with them.

The Seventan offensive was ferocious. These fierce warriors from the frozen north treated combat with an almost instinctive mastery, and their death-defying willpower pushed their destructive potential to the absolute limit.

In the first clash, Alestler retreated step by step. The meteor spells had failed to produce the expected results against the anti-magic shield walls, failing to create an opening for a counterattack, and instead providing the berserk raiders the opportunity to charge into the formation and hack away with madness.

"Bang!" The last raider’s corpse fell within the Alestler ranks, but the destruction they had wrought far exceeded their own numbers; the heaps of corpses surrounding them were their handiwork.

Most of the Alestler infantry wore expressions of horror. Facing these madmen who ignored life, death, and pain, even soldiers with hearts of iron felt their spirits chill.

"Advance!"

A ruthless, hoarse, yet resolute and unstoppable roar echoed out. To their astonishment, the Alestler soldiers heard a familiar voice rising from the pile of raider and infantry corpses.

The Seventan commander who had been issuing orders earlier—was he, too, a raider?

"Kill!" the Seventan army shouted in response to the final command of their leader, who lay amidst the carnage, his right arm severed, his lungs punctured, gasping his last breath while coughing up blood as he issued his final order.

That resolve—the sheer, terrifying momentum of a force willing to pay any price to tear the Alestler line asunder and trample their land—was chilling.

How could the Alestler soldiers, facing this surging, blood-drenched Seventan army, not be shaken and filled with instinctive dread?

Some Alestler soldiers had yet to recover from the rhythm of previous small-scale conflicts, where a tacit understanding usually prevented total slaughter. Facing this bloody meat grinder of a battlefield, their resolve began to falter.

"Damn it! What is wrong with these guys? Are they insane?"

"What kind of enemy am I facing..."

"Don't be afraid! Stop shaking, you bastard!"

Questioning, disbelief, self-loathing for their own cowardice, terror at the enemy’s strength, and the despair of foreseeing their own deaths—the morale of these soldiers was finally beginning to crumble.

The collapse of military spirit is the taboo of the battlefield; it is true on Earth, and it is true here.

"Do not retreat! Behind you lies your kingdom! Your wives, your children, your friends, everything you cherish is behind you. You have no room to retreat! Hold the line!"

A deafening roar erupted from the Alestler side, and a massive military banner was abruptly raised from the rear.

The emblem on the banner represented the Alestler Empire, and with the raising of that massive flag came a surge of magical energy that washed over the entire Alestler formation.

Fourth-tier Joint Mental Magic: Legion Command. A heart-stirring rhythm resonated in the mind of every Alestler soldier along with the magical pulse.

Coupled with the shouted commands, the fear born of the enemy’s momentum was extinguished in an instant.

"Do not retreat! Our home is behind us! Stop these damned invaders, and leave them here with our corpses!"

"Aaaaaah!"

The power of legion magic manifested once more. The shattered morale was instantly reforged; all the Alestler soldiers grew valiant. Having cast aside their fear, they were soldiers in the true sense.

"Click, click, click, click." The ground writhed. Under the condensation of magic, the earth elements caused the surrounding soil to harden, then gather and animate.

These hardened mounds, indistinguishable from stone, assembled and joined together: Fifth-tier Legion Magic: Earth Elemental Legion.

One by one, earth golems burst from the soil, charging into the battlefield from both flanks of the Alestler formation, swinging massive, powerful fists of stone to smash at the enemies before them.

"Boom!" The elemental fists collided with the heavy, thick shields of the armored soldiers. This time, it was the armored soldiers who were smashed backward.

Standing upon the earth, the golems could continuously draw earth elements from the ground.

As the battle progressed, as long as the core condensed by the mages remained intact, in this magic-rich environment, these golems would grow larger, heavier, and stronger, until they reached the most formidable state of an earth elemental golem: the Mountain Giant.

And, by some unknown principle, the death of men released a trace of magic; on a battlefield strewn with corpses, one never had to worry about the concentration of ambient magic.

The strength of the earth golems was astonishing. The Seventan armored soldiers, who had completely crushed the Alestler infantry, were no match for these immensely strong, hulking, and ever-growing earth entities.

Under the powerful blows of the earth golems, the heavy shields began to warp and deform, and the soldiers holding them were forced back step by step.

The bones in the arms bracing the shields groaned under the unbearable strain, dislocating, twisting, and snapping, along with the destruction of their arm guards.

"Boom!" A second blow landed, and the armored soldier, struggling to resist, was driven into the ground along with his shield by the massive earthen fist.

The ground cracked and buckled, and beneath the shield, the soldier’s armor was shattered, his internal organs ruptured, and blood spilled from his nose, mouth, eyes, and ears as his life flickered out.

The addition of the earth golems—formidable meat shields and line-breakers—to the Alestler front line slowed the Seventan suppression.

The armored soldiers, used to trampling the Alestler ranks, found themselves outmatched by the earth golems, and were even pushed back by these earthen entities.

Encouraged by the Legion Command, the Alestler army surged with momentum. Seizing the opportunity, they charged into the Seventan ranks, which had been caught off guard by the golems.

They swarmed the armored soldiers, who could not fight off so many foes at once, or bypassed the heavy infantry—whose speed was hampered by their armor—to strike at the Seventan rear, slaughtering the weaker knight-squires who had been held in reserve to fill gaps in the line.

Blowing the horn of counterattack, Alestler seized the chance to halt the Seventan advance and launch an effective counter-offensive.

The massive, ever-growing earth golems pushed forward, with infantry surrounding them, using the golems' hulking frames as cover to finish off any enemies the golems had smashed into helplessness. It was, in essence, an otherworld version of infantry-tank coordination.

"Advance! Advance! Drive these invaders out of our kingdom!" Roaring at the top of his lungs, the commander urged his soldiers forward, pushing the Seventan line back beyond the kingdom's borders.

"How much longer? These earth golems are too difficult to deal with! When exactly will those things we bought be delivered to the battlefield!"

Within the Seventan ranks, watching their line being pushed back, a Seventan man dressed as a scholar, well-protected, demanded of the soldiers beside him.

"Soon, soon! The transport team has sent word that they have arrived; the war golems should be arriving here on their own momentarily."

The soldier explained hurriedly, checking the message in his communication crystal repeatedly.

"Hummm!" As if in response to the soldier’s words, a low, deep hum, possessing great penetrating power, ignored the chaotic din of the battlefield and reached the very front lines.

The Seventan army quickly parted to create a path, and a massive alchemical golem emerged.

It looked somewhat familiar; from the gaps in its metal frame, an orange-red light bled through, and two glowing crystal plates pulsed on its head—the Destroyer Golem...

The war machine that once cast its shadow over the Royal City now stood upon the battlefield where it truly belonged, its frame even more gargantuan than the one before, each heavy footfall leaving a crater in the earth.

To the Destroyer Golem, the world was perceived through the feedback of mana to its core; its vision was the vision of magic itself, rendering the earthen core of the Land Golem a beacon of unmistakable resonance.

Scorching energy gathered at the twin crystals upon its brow, and in the next heartbeat, a searing ray of annihilation tore across the field, vaporizing everything in its path into nothingness.

The Seventan soldiers standing in the way were granted no mercy, their armor pierced as easily as parchment, and the Destroyer’s target—the earthen core of the Land Golem—was likewise shattered in a single, ruinous instant.

Before this ultimate weapon of alchemy, born for the sole purpose of slaughter, the Land Golem’s thick hide, so formidable to common infantry, proved brittle and was effortlessly rent asunder.

As the core collapsed, the massive earthen frame crumbled into ruin, while the beam, having pierced its target, continued onward to bisect the Alastair infantry who had been advancing alongside the golem.

The tide of battle shifted in a blink; the slight advantage Alastair had held seemed to evaporate the moment the Seventan war machine entered the fray.

The mighty Land Golems, once so imposing, appeared tragically fragile before this engine of terror.

Suddenly, every Land Golem faltered, then, as if obeying a silent command, they surged forward in a desperate charge, their singular target the Destroyer Golem.

Though their pace was far from swift, their sheer mass made them an unstoppable force, trampling the Seventan infantry beneath them as they pressed toward the distant war engine.

"Damn it, stop them!" the Seventan operator cried out, sensing the peril, and his orders were relayed with frantic haste to the ranks.

Waves of Seventan infantry swarmed forward, desperate to stem the tide of stone and clay.

Yet, the novice knights were ill-equipped to handle such constructs; they could easily evade the lumbering giants, but they lacked the strength to inflict any lasting damage upon their hardened, earthen hides.

"Boom!" The annihilation ray erupted once more from the Destroyer’s head, a terrifying lance of heat that tore through the battlefield toward the charging golems, but a complication arose.

The beam first shredded the bodies of the Seventan soldiers, cutting a swathe of carnage through their own ranks as burning, severed corpses rained upon the earth.

Only after carving through the defenders did the ray succeed in shattering the core of the lead Land Golem.

"Curse it, they’ve shifted their cores to the lower depths of their bodies; to destroy them, I must slaughter my own men!"

Sweat beaded on the operator’s brow; the dilemma pressed upon him with suffocating weight, leaving him paralyzed by indecision.

In that brief, fleeting gap, the Land Golems accelerated, seizing the opportunity created by the decimated ranks to lunge forward with reckless abandon.

By the time the operator recovered and began to fire the annihilation ray without regard for the cost, it was already too late.

Though several golems were obliterated, nearly half reached the Destroyer, their clay bodies merging and clinging together until they formed a massive mound of earth, entombing the slower machine within.

Deep inside, the earthen cores converged, fusing into a single, massive, and volatile heart of raw stone energy.

The mana surged beyond the threshold of structural stability, and the purest of magical detonations was unleashed.

"Boom!" The explosion roared, the shockwave of mana bypassing the Destroyer’s physical armor to strike directly at its internal core.

The resonance shattered the machine’s internal circuitry, and the Destroyer Golem was consumed in the final, violent sacrifice of the golems.

A pillar of fire bloomed amidst the Seventan lines, instantly reducing the nearby infantry to a mass of mangled gore, while debris and liquid flame rained down, setting the very earth ablaze.

"Ignore it! Even if the Destroyer is lost, they cannot summon more golems for now—seize this moment and charge!"

Though the blast had torn through their own formation, the Seventan commander remained unruffled, coolly rallying his forces to press their advantage against the Alastair line.

Yet, at that very moment, a soldier hidden among the advancing Alastair infantry stripped off his specialized gloves—designed to mask his aura—and a terrifying surge of battle energy erupted.

Under his command, the scattered, burning flames from the explosion began to rotate and coalesce, spiraling into a vast, towering vortex of fire.

As the inferno grew, consuming everything in its path, it became clear that such destructive power could only belong to an Inner-Reach master, and at least of the Great Knight tier.

"Hmph, it seems I must seize the opportunity myself!"

Black Burn, the Fire-Wielding Officer, let out a cold, bloodthirsty laugh, and with a sweeping gesture of his hand, he unleashed the vortex, a sea of flame that swallowed all in its wake.

Inner-Reach: Scourge of the Blazing City.