Episode 16
Roki observed the enemy formation from afar.
It was surrounded by barricades that were not thick, but high.
The problem was that, if the barricades were being used for “defense,” the Nod were not inside them.
Rather, should I say they had their backs against them?
‘Just what are they thinking?’
Roki gripped the Knight among the chess pieces with his fingers.
‘Could it be a last stand? If so, how pitiful.’
He placed the chessboard and pieces he had made with his own hands not long ago onto the frozen surface and observed Aum, visible in the distance.
“Well, it’s none of my concern. To know the enemy’s intent, it’s best to fall into their trap. For now….”
Roki gripped a chess piece and placed it on the board.
“Knight, moving out.”
***
The first to begin moving were the Skeleton Cavalry.
The skeletal horses raised their front legs, let out hideous screeches, and began to run.
They lowered their lances, which had been thrust toward the sky, straight ahead and charged at full speed.
The frozen road that hadn’t trembled even when five thousand men marched on it was crushed and cracked beneath the hooves of the skeletal horses, shaking the earth.
—Kraaaaaak!
The specters opened their mouths and screamed.
From mouths that would have emitted breath if they had been human, only a red current, as if devouring souls, flowed out.
A dark, ink-black haze rose from the skeletal horses and their lances.
It was the skill, “Clash.”
A technique that increased speed while simultaneously raising attack power and defense.
The Skeleton Cavalry currently galloping across the icy plain were faster and more powerful than any cavalry in this world.
Aum swallowed dryly at the trembling of the earth caused by no more than fifty mounts and stretched out his hand, shouting:
“Close ranks!”
Full plate armor made of steel.
Massive round metal shields burdening both hands.
The Nod warriors’ shields overlapped layer upon layer, bringing to mind a single massive mountain of rock.
“Pikes!”
Behind them, Nod pikemen with long spears stood ready.
“Berk Warriors!”
The elite of each tribe, personally selected by Aum Rinia.
The artifact user group, the Berk warriors, gathered in the rear.
They intended to engage the charging undead legion head-on.
The undead do not tire.
Devoid of emotion, they feel no fear and obey orders absolutely.
An absolutely immortal legion that would faithfully carry out orders even while their bodies disintegrated.
Using tactics to buy time against such beings would be the worst possible strategy.
The best plan was for the tribe warriors to hold them back as much as possible while the Berk warriors, the artifact users, destroyed as many undead as they could.
Nearly five thousand Nod would become the “shield,” while roughly fifty Berk warriors and tribe chiefs with outstanding skill would fight as the “sword.”
‘It’s a nonsensical tactic, but… for now, it’s the best we have…!’
He hoped to take down as many undead as possible in one go.
They couldn’t lose everything in their first battle.
“Sparta Tribe! Show them what a wall of steel is!”
As if intending to stop the cavalry head-on, the chief of the Sparta tribe among the Nod shouted at the top of his lungs.
They believed themselves to be the strongest “shield” on earth.
Until now, no arrows, swords, or spears had been able to pierce their ranks.
The only things they couldn’t block were giant catapults or large ballistae.
So they believed that even if it was a legion from hell that seemed to have stepped out of myth, they could easily block them, since the enemy was undead.
The Skeleton Cavalry drew their lances back at high speed. And just before impact… they rotated their lances rapidly, yet without a single tremor, in a spiral motion, and thrust them forward like machines.
—Kwaaaaah!
The awl-shaped lances spun, scattering black haze in all directions.
When it touched the steel mountain, the Nod shield warriors could see through a small gap.
They could see their shields melting away from the spiraling lances!
The shields warped and melted in the direction the lance spun.
When the warriors realized this and their expressions turned to horror, the shields were pierced in a spiral shape.
“Wha—… kraaak?!”
—Kwakwakwakwung!
And impact!
The steel mountain collapsed from a single clash.
Warriors who couldn’t withstand the shock despite their heavy armor were flung more than ten meters through the air before crashing to the ground.
—Puk! Crunch!
With their heavy weight, it was only natural that bones were shattered by the impact of the fall.
Dozens of humans were thrown about like light objects and died gruesome deaths.
But they were the lucky ones.
Those who had managed to hold their ground were trampled beneath the skeletal horses’ hooves, their sturdy armor and shields crushed.
“P-Pikes!”
The warriors in the rear hurriedly lowered their spears to block, but even that was insufficient.
The spearheads merely scratched the charging Skeletons’ armor before shattering.
—Squelch!
And the humans who had thrust their spears were instead pierced by the lances, dying instantly with massive holes in their bodies.
“T-This is insane! I was never told they were this strong…?!”
The chief of the Spark Tribe deployed at the front stumbled backward in panic.
But just as the lance reached right before his eyes, after a fleeting expression of despair, the chief quickly ducked his head.
He felt a sensation as if a hot flame had grazed his hair.
“Did you think I’d just take it?!”
The chief swung his axe with all his might at the skeletal horse’s knee.
—Crack!
Only then did one of the Skeleton Cavalry lose its balance and fall.
Having lost its knee to the acceleration and the axe’s impact, the skeletal horse slid across the floor, flailing.
“You damn bone rack! See, you’re nothing special! I was worried for nothing! Good! If you’re a corpse, act like one and stay dea—”
In an instant, the lance pierced through the chief’s head.
Despite having fallen from its horse at tremendous speed, the Skeleton was still moving.
The Skeleton rose to its feet.
Glowing eye sockets glaring, it looked down at the Nod with its massive frame.
“S-Surround him! He’s lost his horse!”
Hundreds of warriors surrounded the unhorsed Skeleton.
As if finding the sight amusing, the Skeleton moved its jaw, clacking its teeth together in a laugh.
—Kahahahahaha!
“Y-You bastard!”
Just as the warriors were about to strike down the Skeleton all at once—
A grand and magnificent melody was heard from afar.
The sound of drums, horns, and lyres echoed across the earth.
A Skeleton orchestra equipped with various instruments, positioned in Roki’s formation.
Their skill, “Performance.”
They were supports that raised allied undead’s healing, attack power, defense, and mobility.
In an instant, the skeletal horse that had lost its knee had its leg restored to its original state, then reared up violently and went berserk.
Accordingly, the Skeleton mounted the saddle and began swinging its lance like a madman again.
Though it was a thrusting spear, simply swinging it around was enough to massacre the Nod.
Trampling the Nod with its hooves and piercing them with its lance, once it felt the encirclement had loosened enough, it rejoined the formation.
The Skeleton Cavalry drew a semicircle to flank around before returning toward the main force.
“Dear heavens…!”
A single clash.
With it, over two hundred Nod warriors had died.
And the enemy hadn’t suffered any damage at all.
It was more intense and threatening than a raging storm.
“…Damn it!”
Aum clenched his teeth.
The undead’s might beyond imagination left him no room to command.
In mere minutes, hundreds had been killed by fewer than fifty cavalry.
Yet the damage to the enemy formation was zero!
If this situation continued, they would inevitably be put at a disadvantage.
The Nod, who had been shouting war cries moments ago, now lost their will and looked at Roki’s army far away and their comrades who had just died with fearful eyes.
They could see corpses strewn about like dolls, and many bodies fused into lumps with their armor.
They had wanted to fight, but before overwhelming “military might,” they had become one-sided sacrifices.
‘We clashed only once, but morale is in shambles.’
The Nod were currently torn between the “will to fight” and the “will to flee.”
If, in this state, a few screamed and ran… the repercussions would spread uncontrollably.
‘We’re still holding for now… but what about the next attack…!’
“B-Brother!”
Per quickly approached Aum.
“H-How do we stop those…?”
At Per’s words, Aum turned his gaze to Kudan.
“Kudan, could you take them down?”
“I could, but….”
Kudan frowned and shook his head.
“They’re too fast.”
“Too fast?”
“It’s a mobility issue. If they charged straight at me, perhaps… but I can’t catch up to them on foot. And I’m not particularly skilled in cavalry tactics, so if I pursued on horseback, I’d end up prey instead.”
As Aum let out a frustrated groan and pondered, Per shouted:
“Brother!”
“I’m thinking.”
Aum closed his eyes, then snapped them open as if something had struck him and shouted:
“Close ranks again.”
“What? B-But Brother. That was useless! They broke through the steel wall of the mighty Spark Tribe!”
“Yes. So this time, form the tight formation as loosely as possible, and only with the agile ones.”
“…What?”
“There is always a way.”
Aum smiled faintly.
“If the opponent charges… we use that force against them.”
***
A change was visible in the lances of the Skeleton Cavalry that had flanked around and returned to the main camp.
The ink-black hazy aura was gradually fading.
Cooldown.
They couldn’t use a skill they had already used at will; it was only available for a fixed duration.
This meant that all the Skeletons gathered here could exert extreme power for a set time, after which they required a brief cooldown.
But at this point, even simple attacks without skills would be enough to collapse the enemy formation.
“No matter their numbers, humans eventually tire. And they are weak, too.”
The enemy had no cavalry. Even if they did, they wouldn’t be able to match the Skeleton Cavalry’s speed, and their weapons would be insufficient to pierce Skeleton armor.
If things continued like this, though it would take time, a hit-and-run approach with the cavalry alone could bring the enemy down.
“Well… they could charge blindly at me relying on numbers alone.”
The way to overcome such a fatal weakness was simply to overwhelm the enemy commander with sheer numbers.
However, if they targeted him with a force of five thousand, the casualties would be enormous.
Roki glanced at the Nod formation.
Once again, they were connecting shields layer upon layer to form a mountain of rock.
However, it looked much looser than the barrier they had made before.
“…What are they scheming?”
It was no different from suicide. But there must surely be a reason they had done so.
“Curious.”
Roki gripped the Knight once more and moved the chess piece.
The Skeleton Cavalry’s eyes blazed red.
The cooldown had passed, and black haze once again billowed from their skeletal horses and lances.
Unlike before, the Skeleton orchestra’s skill in the rear made their power even stronger.
—Kraaaaaak!
A hideous, shriek-like war cry echoed as they began their charge anew.
They advanced in a wedge formation, looking like a single spearhead flying forth.
The ice shook with a sound that reverberated through the earth.
“Th-they’re coming!”
“Hey! Don’t move!”
“Hold formation!”
“B-But he told us to make it deliberately weak…!”
Just as the Nod hesitated—
Something was positioned behind them, accompanied by the sound of wheels turning.
“…No way?”
When the Nod glanced at it… the Skeleton Cavalry had already reached right before their eyes.
Aum smiled as he watched the enemy charge.
“Everyone… evade!”
“Jump!”
“Move fast or you’ll become hedgehogs!”
The shield wall disintegrated in an instant.
Everyone sprinted for their lives. So hurried were they that some even threw away their shields.
The mountain of rock vanished in a flash, revealing a single man.
Kudan Ragna, wielding a massive war hammer, glared at the Skeleton Cavalry.
And behind him were the dozens of “siege engines” that Aum Rinia had prepared.
“Chariots” with small “ballistae” mounted atop them were aimed at the Skeleton Cavalry.
The Skeleton Cavalry faltered, their eye sockets widening.
They seized the reins and tried to swerve, but having already built up speed, changing direction was difficult.
Nevertheless, they turned with excellent horsemanship.
But that brief moment of “hesitation” was enough to make them “targets.”
In the gaps as the Skeleton Cavalry’s formation began to split open, Kudan leaped forward without fearing the ballistae positioned behind him.
He swung his war hammer directly at the skeletal horse of the Skeleton Cavalry at the vanguard of the wedge formation.
—Boom!
The massive hammer collided with the skeletal horse’s barding.
The barding instantly cracked and crumpled. The skeletal horse wrapped within it likewise had its bones crushed.
Along with the sound of grinding bone, the body of the Skeleton rider was shattered into pieces and scattered in all directions, and the bone fragments gradually turned to specks of light and disintegrated.
“It’s not over yet—!”
Without stopping, Kudan began to smash through the Skeleton Cavalry.