“Don’t take your eyes off the enemy!”
Rag shouted to the members.
The aftereffects of his shoulder injury still lingered, but his voice did not waver.
“Miryeong opened us a chance!”
Rag gritted his teeth and jerked his chin toward Wollyeon.
“Wollyeon. That commander isn’t a knight.”
“Don’t kill him—”
Wollyeon had already read the situation.
The moment the formation wavered, the commander would step forward.
And if the commander wavered, the army would waver.
The members’ shots poured down again.
The shield wall rose as one,
and bolts and arrows struck the shields with a clatter.
The soldiers held firm.
But while they were “holding firm,” their gazes turned upward.
It was at that very moment.
The commander stepped out from behind the shield wall and shouted.
“Maintain formation! Take cover—”
At that instant, a tiny gap opened between the interlocked shields.
A gap barely wide enough for a single hand.
Wollyeon drew one breath.
An exceedingly brief aim.
Then she fired.
Thung—!
The thick crossbow bolt slid through the gap as if slipping inside.
It pierced the joint of his iron light armor and drove straight into the commander’s left calf.
“Ghh…?!”
The commander’s leg buckled, and his body collapsed forward.
Already not in normal condition, he tried to endure it, only to sink to the ground.
“Commander!”
Two soldiers hurriedly rushed in to support him.
At that moment, one side of the shield wall fell into disorder.
Rag did not miss the opening.
“Now!”
He shouted until his throat nearly tore.
“Engagement team, back in!”
“Fire team, cover them—gaps in the shields! Legs! Wrists!”
The shooting resumed.
This time, it was not shooting to “kill,” but to “immobilize.”
The front line was pushed back step by step, and the soldiers’ feet began to tangle.
Then the engagement team charged in.
Before the formation completely collapsed—
right at that boundary.
—
“Are you just going to keep running, Hara?!”
The knight pursuing Miryeong roared.
The sound of his armor rang out harshly.
He charged in rage, yet at the same time he was certain.
Certain he could catch up.
Certain he could crush her head-on.
Miryeong’s running steps—
suddenly stopped.
The knight’s eyes wavered for an instant.
Because stopping also meant she intended to take him on.
Miryeong tilted her head slightly.
“…You seem confident?”
Wind pooled around the tips of her feet.
Very thinly, yet swiftly.
As if the air flowed in a different direction only in that place.
Miryeong’s hair swayed beneath the moonlight.
“You knights…”
Miryeong said in a low voice.
“Overestimate yourselves far too much.”
A storm coiled around her.
The knight flinched back, then immediately took his stance.
He raised his shield and lowered the tip of his sword.
“I am Rein—”
The moment he tried to speak his name,
Miryeong’s storm slammed into his side.
Kwaaang—!
The knight’s body was hurled sideways.
He crashed into a couple of trees, bending through them, and at last was thrown to the ground.
His armor absorbed the impact, but his joints could not.
One arm was broken, and one leg twisted.
The knight groaned and writhed.
His hand groped across the ground, trying to find his sword.
Looking down at him, Miryeong said,
“I’m not curious.”
She took one step closer, then stopped.
“You’re a knight… so you won’t die from this much, will you?”
The end of her words was cold.
Miryeong turned her back.
Leaving the knight writhing on the ground behind her—
she headed back toward the battlefield.
The full moon was still bright.
—
“The supplies… we burned them all!”
Ria and Rion spoke almost at the same time.
They were so out of breath their words broke off, but their eyes were clear.
They had left no flames behind.
They burned only what was necessary and put it out before it spread.
Only smoke flowed thinly between the tents.
“Hah… hah…”
Hureuta also caught his breath.
“Good. We’re… done too.”
Before his eyes was Kail.
With his arms and legs tightly bound, he was breathing roughly.
As if heat still remained beneath his armor, his breathing was irregular.
“Khak…!”
Kail spat curses and glared at Hureuta.
“You bastards… what the hell…!”
His body squirmed, but it would not move as he wished.
It was not only the rope that bound him.
The heat remaining inside his body was making his muscles sluggish.
Hureuta said quietly,
“At first, you must have been fine.”
He swallowed a breath once.
“But… you shouldn’t ignore heat building up inside.”
“Looks like you thought your armor would block everything.”
Beside him, Marin was sitting on the ground.
Clutching one arm, he gritted his teeth and caught his breath.
“Haa…”
Marin muttered with a face that could not even smile.
“Think it’s broken…”
Ria and Rion both turned their gazes toward Marin at the same time.
“Twins.”
Hureuta spoke.
“Take care of Marin and get out.”
“I… still have something to do.”
Ria gritted her teeth.
“Sir Hureuta, alone—”
“I’ll be fine.”
Hureuta cut her off shortly.
“It’s over here. If we stay any longer, we’ll only shed meaningless blood.”
All throughout the camp, roars, the sounds of metal, and shouts mixed together.
And among them, especially—
there was a place from which came the sound of collisions like thunder striking the earth.
Hureuta lifted his head.
As if he had read the direction of that sound at once, he turned and ran.
“There….”
The end of his words was cut off by the wind.
He ran straight toward the sound of thunder.
—
Kwa-reung—!
Once again, Adel’s powerful sword strike crashed down onto Muryeong’s axe.
The impact rang out as if striking the earth, and dirt sprayed beneath Muryeong’s feet.
Muryeong was not pushed back easily.
As befitted one who wielded Dragon Fighting Aura,
he let the impact flow away and received it with movements that seemed one step ahead.
Even at the moment of collision, his center did not crumble.
But Aslo was different.
As several exchanges passed, a thin line was drawn across Aslo’s right shoulder.
Blood seeped out belatedly, and next, the same wound appeared on his right leg.
They were not major wounds.
But had they been just a little deeper—
they would have stopped his movement immediately.
Adel had already long since surpassed his own limits.
The rougher his breathing grew, the higher his Idrin surged.
What reflected in his eyes was not discipline, but madness.
Not an intent that said, “I’ll cut you down and end it,” but killing intent that said, “I’ll erase the sight of you alive.”
Aslo gritted his teeth.
‘If we can’t stop this man… our side will collapse first in the end.’
At that moment—
“Muryeong!”
Hureuta’s voice rang out.
The instant Muryeong heard that voice, he pressed Adel’s sword down with his axe.
Hureuta came in low.
His hand struck Adel’s side, near the joint in his armor.
Tuk—
It was not impact, but heat.
Fire Palm.
A palm art that did not burst flame from the outside, but pressed heat into the inside and made it “accumulate.”
Hureuta showed this holy knight no mercy.
With the utmost he could draw forth under the full moon, he drove it in thin and deep.
Adel’s side stiffened for an instant.
“What… is this now?”
It was a cold voice.
A tone that refused to acknowledge pain.
But his body reacted.
His breath cut off for a beat, and the tip of his sword trembled faintly.
Adel swung his greatsword as he was.
An unhesitating sweep to cut Hureuta down.
Whoosh—!
“Hup!”
Just as Hureuta twisted his body to evade,
Muryeong’s axe came in first.
Kaaang!
The axe blade met the sword strike head-on.
Sparks flew, and the impact ran up Muryeong’s arms.
Muryeong gritted his teeth and held firm.
Then he immediately twisted the axe blade and pushed the sword outward.
Taking advantage of the opening as Adel was forced back, Aslo dug in from the side.
Torn tent cloth dragged along the ground and brushed his ankles, but Aslo paid it no mind.
This time, he aimed for Adel’s wrist.
The hand holding the greatsword—
he had to shake that.
But Adel’s reaction was faster.
The greatsword came down and cut off Aslo’s path.
Bang!
The sword struck the ground, sending dust flying.
Aslo rode the shockwave and slid backward,
but if he had been late, it was a distance at which he would have been cut down.
Hureuta did not miss that moment.
Once again,
this time at Adel’s thigh—
he aimed for the joint where movement gathered.
If he did not disperse the places where heat was “accumulating,” Adel would immediately adapt.
Tuk—
Heat seeped in again.
The corner of Adel’s mouth distorted ever so slightly.
It was impossible to tell whether that was pain or anger.
Instead, he—
drew up his Idrin, which had already passed the critical point, even further.
“You’re quite skilled.”
With those words, Adel raised his greatsword.
This time, it was aimed at Muryeong.
A choice to break the one holding firm in front first.
Muryeong raised his axe.
“Wow.”
Kaaang—!!
Another collision erupted,
and the distance between the four tangled and shifted.
Aslo moved to the side again, Hureuta one beat farther back,
Muryeong guarded the front—
preparing to receive Adel’s madness once more.
—
Meanwhile, in the forest far from the camp.
The wounded brought by Jincheong’s group were lying on cloth spread over already-tamped ground.
Yeonhwa, Taejin, and Kallen swallowed their breaths in broken gasps as they looked over the wounded.
One person’s breath leaked from an arrow wound,
another’s cut had split open,
and another trembled, burned by an ally’s flames—or by their own.
Bido also moved his hands beside them.
He held cloth to help stop bleeding, tilted waterskins, and pressed down trembling hands.
The noise of the battlefield reached even this place.
Horns, shouts, the sound of metal breaking.
Though it came from far away, it shook the inside of his chest with it.
There was only one thing Bido could do now.
Keep the people lying here from dying “before the battle ended.”
Still on his knees, Bido checked once on the ordinary longsword he had set beside him.
He hoped he would not have to use it.
But it was a weight he had placed there to use in place of Tiamar’s sword if the need arose.
It was then.
Beyond the cloth, from within the darkness of the forest, a very small metallic sound rang once.
Jingle.
The sound of armor joints brushing together.
Or the sound of a scabbard’s ring shaking.
That sound did not stop,
and slowly, it was drawing closer to this place.
The Deraul stone in Bido’s pocket began to hold heat.