Chapter 115: A New Order
Ti stopped.
Calix's gaze drifted beyond the edge of reality. The sensation of blood-soaked breath, torn muscle, fractured bone—all of it faded in an instant.
Was this death?
He thought it seed fine. There was no pain. Neither cold nor fear. Then, light blood from within his chest.
Wind brushed across his face. Strangely warm.
In that mont, the scene of the battlefield vanished. The scent of grass lingered, and the residual warmth of a fire kindled in the snow drifted around him. A familiar hand caressed Calix's cheek.
In that touch lingered an old sorrow, an unresolved longing, and the warmth of a mory once set aside.
His breath, quietly, settled.
Then a low and gentle voice tickled at his ear.
"It is not yet ti."
A few brief words. Yet within that whisper, a crack split through the frozen ti. Quietly, yet surely, the laws of the world began to move.
A warmth spreading like a shield enveloped his wounded body. As light stretched brilliantly outward, no wicked hand could reach him any longer.
Only then did Calix's eyelids tremble faintly. His heart beat fiercely, and hot blood coursed through his veins. Soon, alongside a labored breath, terrible pain surged in. That vivid sensation told him that the young man's life was still continuing.
'Nothing is over.'
No—he had not allowed it to end.
He rose like a wave and pressed forward once more, into the heart of the battlefield.
***
Midra harbored no doubt in his victory.
Humans possessed such pitifully fragile bodies. Even if they had awakened to the power of chaos, he need only squeeze like a hand around their throats, and their breath would invariably cease.
[Ahahaha, freeze to death while still alive!]
The resistance of mortals was, truly, aningless.
Fwooooosh.
But the mont that amber flash erupted, Midra flinched without realizing it. Sothing that had surged up abruptly neutralized his power. Like stone crumbling back into sand, the layers of his authority broke apart piece by piece.
In that gap, the tip of the blade—chaos condensed into a single point—drove deep. Space split along the path Calix charged, and the distance closed in an instant.
[No! This cannot be!]
Incomprehensible terror and his ego as a legion commander clashed against one another.
There was no way to stop it.
Crack!
He extended his arm, but his fingers were cut clean away. Dark bluish-gray flesh shattered to pieces against re steel, and even bone split apart with ease.
Cold mana seeped from the severed area as sensation vanished. In his field of vision—nothing but chaos. And at last, he found himself face to face with a human who had co right up to him.
Whether his consciousness was half gone, his eyes were no longer focused. Even so, he pressed steadily forward toward the destination he had set for himself. Gripping the sword's hilt with desperate strength, he drove toward the beast's heart—the source of its power.
Only belatedly did Midra realize the identity of the one who had interfered, and scread out.
[You—Minebris, you—aaaaahhh!!]
It was a roar mingled with fury, hatred, and fear. That was precisely the mont.
That the blade reached its destination.
Tok.
A single point ca to rest against Midra's chest.
The chaos that spread from the blade's tip rippled outward like a wave. The pulse of power buckled and burst the beast's skin, and shattered bone apart joint by joint. The flesh built up by layering shadow was ripped away helplessly.
And at the end of it, the essence of existence was exposed.
A bluish, dark-red core—Srna, the nad sword, grazed the surface of the Order that had been split in two.
At that mont, silence blanketed the entire battlefield.
Pukwaaaaaash!!
A hairline crack—and through that gap, a trendous surge of mana erupted outward.
***
Human and beast alike, enemy and ally without distinction—everyone perceived the anomaly.
A massive shockwave swept over the plain. In the mana storm, all the soldiers could do was remain standing on the ground.
"Ugh……!"
"Calix!"
By then, Airien had barely managed to catch Calix, who had been hurled away by the force. His faint breath and countless wounds were plainly visible.
But because of that, the invisible wall had disappeared.
[To think that a coward who fled, who buried herself in a mountain range, would dare…….]
Midra's pupils shook savagely. He tried to plug the hole in his core with both hands, but it was not enough. The power that had once made the living yield was pouring without cease through his fingers.
Zing—
A strange sound struck his ear. Even having traversed countless battlefields, he had never suffered such an injury. If the blade's tip had not gone slightly astray at the last mont, he would surely have reached obliteration.
Thud!
Then Midra stepped back and, misplacing his foot, staggered. With the threat of death before his eyes, he could not even control his own body properly.
Maintaining the form of a physical shape was a struggle in itself. As though paint were splattered in the air, dark-reddish flesh divided and clumped in repeating cycles.
The dignity of a legion commander had vanished without a trace, leaving behind only spite and obsession. Naturally, that rage was directed entirely at one single human.
[You, I will—certainly…… kill you!]
Imdiately after provisionally sealing the wound, Midra glared at the humans blocking his path. As though declaring it was now their turn, the Mountain Rabbits had gathered together and raised their swords.
Laughable, and irritating.
He had permitted a critical attack, but there remained so asure of leeway. And conveniently, the human who wielded chaos had lost consciousness—so he would wring the remaining ones to death. And after that, he would restore balance so that the core would not collapse.
The plan appeared perfect.
Yet the small gap that Calix had left behind called forth an unforeseen fate.
Whoooooosh—
The air of the battlefield reversed in a single instant. Under the overwhelming sense of pressure that flooded in from the far side of the plain, the wounded beast's head snapped sharply to the side.
It was not simply an assertion of presence. The grain of the world split into two opposing poles, and collided.
[……A human's sword!]
Midra retreated instinctively. The hatred and fury that had lingered within his body was swept away as cleanly as if washed off.
At the sa mont, every person standing on the battlefield felt it—that the tide had changed.
The pitch-dark sky had, before anyone noticed, opened into blue. The cold that had filled the air slowly withdrew, and golden sunlight soaked the heart of the battlefield. The screams that had been seething disappeared, and only the sound of quiet wind filled the ears.
Near the horizon, beneath a line of light that shimred like heat haze—a man gazed down upon the battlefield with colorless eyes.
The Master of the Latia Republic.
The human 'Order' had descended.
***
Despite the great distance between himself and the Master, Midra felt an enormous sense of crisis. To continue fighting in this state was no different from self-destruction.
But it was not over yet.
He still had cards left to play.
A beast that could not strike down the unwelco intruder—but could buy just enough ti. Strictly speaking, it was not his subordinate, but an existence that dwelled buried in darkness was hiding to the northwest.
[Wretched form born within the grave, heed the call of your lord!]
A brief silence followed.
Imdiately after, sothing slowly revealed itself from within the shadows of the northern mountain range.
It was a Draug.
[I have need of your hands. Seize that one by the ankle. I will pay the price as well. I shall transfer to you a portion of a legion commander's authority.]
The solemn command pierced through the constraint of distance and flew to it.
To this, the Draug gave a brief answer.
[Impossible.]
Midra's pupils shook widely.
[I received orders from De Generitum. You must be defeated for my mission to be fulfilled. No matter how I think on it, there is no reason to join hands with you.]
[I cannot comprehend this…… How dare you, how could you, it cannot be……!]
It was impossible. No matter how independent an entity it was, to refuse a legion commander's orders—the absolute solidarity of the strong, the system that had ruled the Land of Shadows, crumbled like an illusion.
Even further, the Draug mocked him.
[Braka, Braka!]
'Submit, submit'
It cried, as though unable to contain its amusent, raising a finger to jeer at the one who would be taken away.
[You speak now like a mortal. How far down do you intend to fall?]
Midra's spine ran cold. A moan flowed out faintly, as though it might break off at any mont. Only then did he grasp the reality of his situation.
Yes.
He had been defeated.
The mont he reached that conclusion, Midra did not look back. He no longer called out anyone's na, nor issued any command.
The shattered form flickered as though dissolving into the air, and dark-reddish flesh and black energy were torn away from the roots—but he simply stretched out both hands, and pulled the cold and the darkness into his body whole.
The Draug watched.
Driven solely by the desire to survive, unable to look even an inch in any direction around him. In frantic haste and panic. Far away, beyond the boundary of darkness—
It ran, without so much as a glance back.
***
Nothing but silence filled the battlefield.
Everything had ended in a single fleeting instant.
The great beasts fell into chaos and fled, and a handful of knights and soldiers gave chase with vengeance written on their faces. But the great majority of the soldiers simply stood and looked blankly around.
The frigid air had grown warm, like a fire had been lit. Brilliant sunlight pierced through the clouds and illuminated the battlefield. Over blackened, congealed blood, shattered swords and shields, the countless corpses of fallen comrades—the wind brushed past with a gentle sway. The space that had been filled with screams and wails was as quiet as if nothing had ever happened.
"……Is it all over?"
Soone murmured low, in a voice that could not believe it.
Faces overco with exhaustion, eyes staring blankly into the air. A veteran of a hundred battles sat down beside a friend's body and took his hand. So gripped their spears and trembled; others dropped their shields to the ground and covered their faces with both hands.
But only for a mont.
Without needing to be told, everyone began calling nas, checking whether their comrades had survived.
The Mountain Rabbits were the sa.
"Marik!!"
"He's still breathing!"
Royce and Ella checked on the Vice-captain's condition, and the priestess Isabela ran to Adrian Deconti. Gregor kept his place at Calix's side.
"We survived. We—did it……."
Barakh muttered, almost as though he had lost his mind. Yet his words carried gently across the battlefield, reaching every corner.
"Well done, well done!"
Basim could barely hold himself upright, yet he wrapped his arms around Airien in a sudden embrace.
"You've got big ears—how are you so fast anyway! Damn, you blasted……."
She started to push him away in surprise, but soon carefully patted the dwarf warrior on the back. His body was trembling quietly.
The Alliance soldiers, too, wept and tried to shout in triumph, only to have their voices catch in their throats. So lay where they had fallen and could not rise for a long while; so clenched their fists and bit their lips; so managed to offer a faint smile to a comrade beside them.
Emptiness, confusion, exhausted bodies—all of it pressed down on the sensation of victory. But at the end of it, a voice rose to declare humanity's triumph.
"Long live the Alliance!"
"The Mountain Rabbits! Calix!"
"We have saved Star Haven!!"
There was no restraint of emotion. The masses repeated, each in their own way, weeping and laughing, sobbing and cheering. The fact that they had survived—that single truth beca the wellspring of an explosive flood of feeling.
Uwaaaaaah!!
Soon, the shouts of triumph rose richly and filled the plain.
The beginning of a new history. Across the entire continent, humanity's very first victory. Winter retreated as though driven out, and in the space it left behind, the Light of Dawn settled in.
Yet at the center of it all, Calix lay collapsed as though asleep. His body was continuously breaking apart, and healing, and breaking apart again.
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