Awakening the Great Chapter 73

Chapter 73: The Birth of a Legend

Calix reflected on his failure to sense the Draug's approach. He had been too absorbed in his fight with Bart Lescar. By pushing his 'Sixth Sense' to its absolute limits, he had failed to heed the tingling warnings of his Divinity.

'I need to see more broadly from now on. This isn't a battle—it's a war.'

Regardless, the air of the battlefield had changed.

It wasn't rely a matter of atmosphere. The open ground that had until monts ago reeked of gunpowder, blood, and sweat was now thick with the putrid stench of rotting flesh. With every breath, a malevolent energy stirred deep within the lungs.

Urk—ugh!

Imperial soldiers imdiately began retching, and several crumpled to their knees as their legs gave out. The cause was unmistakably the Draug.

Squelch.

A body coated in viscous sli, skin dissolving and liquefying. It still bore little resemblance to a human form, yet it had accumulated more flesh than when they had last encountered it. Most notably, it now had two legs. Grotesquely thin, yet it walked step by step, centered around a skeletal fra.

With every step it took across the ground, black sli writhed and pulsed beneath its feet—then, as though it were a separate living entity, it stretched outward toward the humans nearby.

A chain of screams erupted from knights and soldiers alike. The sli climbed up their armor and forced its way rcilessly into their mouths and nostrils. The knights flailed their arms in desperate resistance, but to no effect.

The dark liquid surged into their airways, filling every inch of their insides. Monts later, crimson blood poured from the victims' eyes like waterfalls.

"Kraaaaaagh!"

Death rattles. Buried within them were desperate pleas for help. Yet the light in their eyes had already been consud by madness and despair. At so point, one of the knights raised his sword.

"Harat! What are you—urk!"

A blade drove into a fellow knight's throat. A nearby soldier stumbled back in shock, but sli had already seeped beneath his feet.

"Fall back twenty paces to the rear! Reestablish the line!"

"Retreat, retreat!"

Senior knights scrambled to reform their positions, but the black liquid moved faster—far more relentlessly—and overwheld them. The sli seeped into the bodies of one knight, one soldier after another. Victims collapsed to the ground, limbs twisting violently, eyes glazing over. It wasn't rely a matter of ntal corruption—they were being physically devoured.

In less than a few minutes, the open ground had descended into a hellscape of chaos and despair. The ironclad formation of the Imperial army, once so formidable, was shattered into pieces, leaving nothing but soldiers and knights swinging their blades rcilessly at one another.

The Blutspheer—one of the Empire's eight great knight orders—was crumbling beneath an alien terror.

Squelch.

Squelch.

The Draug regarded it all with hollow indifference, advancing slowly, yet with absolute certainty.

'……As I thought, it's coming toward .'

Calix tracked the path the creature carved through the chaos.

A straight line.

'Is it because of the core it absorbed in the forest? Why ?'

The precise reason remained unclear, but in the current situation, it hardly mattered. A decision had to be made imdiately.

'The encirclent has completely collapsed. I can slip away from either direction with ease.'

The knight order's Vice-captain had already turned his back and departed. With hundreds of his own n in crisis, he was now charging headlong toward an unknown enemy.

But was that enough?

'Running now won't solve the problem.'

Calix's jaw tightened. The Antelopes needed to press northwest across the continent. However, with the Niboria Empire's territory stretching vast and wide, being pursued again was only a matter of ti.

'The northern regions of Astria Kingdom have already been swallowed up—there's no way to avoid the Niboria Imperial forces by any ans. In that case, it would be better to……'

The conclusion ca quickly.

'Cut their numbers down as much as possible. Avoid direct engagent with the Draug, but move personally to draw the knights toward it.'

Making enemies of both was the worst possible strategy. Even the Draug alone was a formidable threat. It had clearly grown incomparably stronger than before—the sheer magnitude of energy rolling off it made that plain, as did the fact that it was dismantling the Imperial forces single-handedly.

And so, it would be used as a tool.

The knight order couldn't afford to ignore the Draug. The Draug's target appeared to be Calix himself. And for the Antelopes, thinning the Imperial army's numbers was essential to prevent future complications.

Peculiar as it was, their interests aligned.

Clop, clop.

Just then, Calix's warhorse, which had retreated to a corner of the ravine, ca trotting back. He swung into the saddle in a single motion, and the horse's hooves struck the earth as though it had been waiting for exactly this mont.

"Good boy……. Bear with

just a little longer."

Snort.

He would not repeat the sa mistake. Reflecting on what he had resolved monts ago, he sought to see broadly and far—like his ancestor, the hero Ranita, who had been called 'the Tactician Blessed by Heaven'.

Crack!

He swung his blade and plunged down toward the base of the ravine. In his field of vision burned a vivid flash of gold.

Below the mountain.

The captain of the Blutspheer, and a seasoned peak-class knight—'Dakar Raihe'—was charging upward in haste.

It was ti to run wild.

* * *

Knight-captain Dakar Raihe led two hundred knights up the slope. At so point, the warhorses had stopped obeying commands. With no other option, he pressed forward on foot toward the scene—when suddenly, with a rustle, a lone horse burst out from the brush.

Crack.

The knights imdiately seized their sword hilts, but the uninvited guest paid them no mind and passed straight by.

"……What was that? It wasn't one of ours."

"Leave it. Rescuing the main force takes priority."

"Yes, sir."

He watched Calix's retreating figure for a mont, then quickly sensed that sothing was deeply wrong with the battlefield and hastened his pace.

And soon enough, a vision of hell unfolded before his eyes.

"Hgk—krhh……"

"I'll kill—I'll kill you all!"

"Get away! Aaaargh!"

Sowhere at the base of the ravine.

Soldiers and knights, stripped of reason, were swinging blades at one another. The ground was already a churning ss of blood and sli, and in the faint torchlight, the faces of his comrades showed nothing but madness.

At its center stood Vice-captain Bart Lescar.

He had clearly fought with everything he had—his entire body was drenched in blood. His sword was lodged through the Draug's torso. From the creature's chest, a polyhedral core cast a dim, faint glow. But that was all. He had failed to deliver a decisive blow.

The price: Lescar was now unconscious, being dragged along like a ragdoll. A contorted hand gripped the back of his neck.

"You fiend! Release him!"

Raihe instantly drew his sword and charged forward, but the Draug turned its head toward him with an expression utterly devoid of feeling.

Halt.

eting twelve eyeballs at once, his feet stopped without his willing them to. Each eye stared in a different direction. In that instant, they recognized the asure of each other's strength.

'Of all tis for this abnormality to……. A monster from the Land of Shadows, appearing here!'

But he could not run. The damage sustained was already beyond control. Six hundred had been deployed to close the encirclent, and it appeared two-thirds of them were dead. Add to that the two hundred knights he had brought—he needed to extract as many survivors as possible.

"Fevian!"

"Yes, Captain!"

"Rally the troops! I'll handle that thing!"

It was no simple task. For one thing, there were no clerics. The stabbing headache already forming told him he was being affected by the malevolent energy.

"Abominable creature! Your opponent stands before you!"

He was about to throw himself back into the fray—when at that mont, the Draug hoisted Vice-captain Blutspheer into the air before it.

Crack, crunch, pop.

With a sound that curdled the blood, it drew the human into itself. Countless streams of sli engulfed his body in an instant.

Skin, bone, organs—then the neural accelerator. Alive, dissolved, absorbed.

"You monste-e-er!"

Shwoooosh!

Dakar Raihe poured his fury into his blade.

Falling Fire—a fla that burns the world itself.

Energy gathered densely across the sword's surface. Beyond re concentration—it was compressed. The masterwork blade crafted by the finest artisan in the Empire let out a shriek.

But simultaneously, a wave of sli rose to block his path.

Whoosh!

The neural accelerator pushed its output to 3.6x to assist its bearer, and the coiled blade severed everything that stood in its way—yet the black liquid surged endlessly forth, seizing his ankles.

Buying just a sliver of ti.

And at its end, the Draug raised its head. Beneath its dissolving skin, the familiar shape of a face rose briefly to the surface, then vanished.

[I see. Now I understand.]

The mont absorption was complete, the Draug had gained new knowledge. It now comprehended the swordsmanship of an Imperial knight, the function of a neural accelerator, military structure, tactics—all of it.

Then, a grotesque voice rang out.

[Dhr'augz……zha'gul……K'athraa!]

The instant the words were spoken, the knights of the rear contingent clutched their heads. They scread, their minds fracturing, and turned to attack their comrades. Others collapsed to their knees and broke into wailing.

"Please, stop!"

"I can't. No more……. Urk!"

The knight order could perform neither combat nor rescue. The ravine and its surroundings were filled with nothing but chaos. Dakar Raihe roared and tore into the enemy's flesh, but it was not nearly enough to restore the shattered discipline.

Slide.

Flesh filled back in. With every step the Draug advanced, space itself seed to recoil. What had once been nothing but a nightmare had now been granted overwhelming power.

Fweet!

Fweet!

Fweet!

Just then, whistle blasts rang out in rapid succession.

Calix was calling the Antelopes.

* * *

"Calix!"

Eight shadows burst through the undergrowth. Royce, Gregor, the dwarf Basim and Zahira, clerics Ella and Volga, and the mid-rank leaders Wheatley and Romance.

These were the full roster of fools.

"Are you alright? You look like a wreck!"

Volga let out his characteristically insolent voice as he looked him over. And indeed, the armor was dented in several places, and minor wounds covered him even more thoroughly.

But Calix, rather than addressing his own condition, spoke of what needed to be done next.

"Captain, we need to return to the battlefield."

"……You want to go back there?"

Wheatley and Romance echoed back with expressions of disbelief, but Royce grasped the intent imdiately and gave a single nod.

He understood Calix was pushing himself. But for what lay ahead, numbers had to be reduced. The captain of the Antelopes accepted the proposal with a somber expression, and before long, the other rabbits shrugged as though they had no choice.

"Right, let's go. We may not all see the sa thing, but when it's ti to move, we move together."

"Exactly. Haven't we already done a hundred insane things?"

"Ho, comrades. I daresay we're masters in that particular craft!"

Composed, every one of them.

Calix kept his briefing as concise as possible.

"Good. The Draug has appeared on the scene. It's likely the sa one that ca back."

"Yeah, Ella also ntioned that."

"Yes. In this situation, we do not fight it. Our target is the Imperial army. We reduce the number of knights as much as possible, then we disengage at a specific mont. Above all else, do not get hurt."

"What's the approach?"

At that, his gaze turned to Ella.

The one who could shield them from the malevolent energy.

Earlier, Calix's warhorse had not foad at the mouth or fallen into panic. Because his Divinity had wrapped itself around the beast's body.

In the sa way, she too would be able to envelop the Antelopes.

"The Draug has grown far stronger. As a result, the Imperial knights have been pushed to the ground—their horses fled or died. In contrast, we can still control our warhorses."

"Sothing the enemy lacks……. the Antelopes have."

"Yes."

"……I'd better strap my legs down tighter."

The mont the dwarf Basim secured himself firmly to the saddle, Ella began reciting her prayer and layered divine power over the horses.

The warhorses, which had been growing agitated, settled almost imdiately. Their ears, which had been pinned back, rose again; their blinking slowed; and the twitching of their heads and necks ceased.

"……Let's move."

And so, at Calix's signal, nine riders advanced toward the battlefield. The closer they drew to the chaos, the louder the sound of hooves striking the earth grew. Their numbers were few, yet the thunder they made drove back the darkness.

Shortly after.

The thunderous pounding of hooves turned several knights' heads. As the hooves stamped through the black sli, nine warhorses accelerated of their own accord.

Crack, crash—

Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud.

As if that weren't enough, they took matters into their own hands in place of their inexperienced riders, preparing the groundwork for impact.

And then.

A wedge-shaped cavalry unit drove straight into the back of the Imperial army's skull.

Crunch!

"Wooooaaah——scatterrrrr!"

At the terrifying montum, the dwarf Basim had essentially wrapped himself around his horse's neck. Where was there any ti to swing a weapon? And yet, without a single swing of his axe, enemies died. Armor was crushed, flesh went flying in chunks, and everything in the path of their charge was flattened.

The others were no different.

Only Calix at the front and Royce flanking beside him were actively cutting—Volga bit his own tongue in the midst of his first-ever cavalry charge, while Gregor was simply bubbling over with excitent.

"Kiyaaaaah! You lot—taste the wrath of the Draug!"

"Wh, what does the Draug have to do with—hgk!"

Yet Calix's expression was far from satisfied.

Confronted with the brutal panorama of the battlefield, a brief hesitation flickered through him. Using a monster to kill people was, for him, never a pleasant choice.

But once the choice was made, there was no stopping.

'No matter how uncomfortable the choice, this is for the Antelopes.'

And rcenaries, by nature, were people with one truly exceptional quality: adaptability. After drawing the first line soaked in blood across the battlefield, by the ti the second line was being drawn, everyone had found their role.

Whoosh—crack!

Zahira hurled her short spear and drove it through a knight's chest. The crippled Imperial soldiers could offer no aningful resistance. The dwarf Basim threw a hand axe and buried it in a resisting enemy's neck. Volga simply battered away with his long iron club.

With the montum they had built, a single blow each was enough—every strike a fatal one.

Ella lost her concentration for just a mont before swiftly resuming her prayer. At the front line, Royce poured his energy out without restraint, scattering Falling Fire.

And so, they carved lines across the battlefield a dozen and more tis. Rather than counting how many they had killed, it would have been faster to weigh the blood caked onto the barding.

At that, Calix scanned the battlefield and raised his fist to signal those behind him.

'The balance is just right. Around a hundred enemies remain. Most are combat-incapable, but enough to hold the Draug's feet.'

The knight-captain, too, had been fighting ferociously, but was gradually coming to his senses and extracting himself. In other words, the chaos had reached its peak.

Now or never.

Thud thud thud thud thud——

Thanks to the holes torn open in every direction, there was no need to plan an escape route.

"Hey, see you around!"

"……You lot——"

"Not you—I was talking to the Draug!"

With Volga's wicked quip, the nine riders slipped leisurely from the battlefield. Naturally, the Blutspeer had no capacity to give chase. The brutal fighting against the Draug and the internal collapse had completely destroyed their discipline and cohesion.

Yes.

They had beaten a knight order——with a cavalry charge.

"Unbelievable, we actually demolished them!"

"We did it!"

"Woooaaaah!"

While the Antelopes erupted in cheers, Calix took one last look back.

As the knights barely managed to wrench themselves free, the Draug stepped slowly out of the carnage, radiating overwhelming nace. Then suddenly, all twelve eyes converged at once on a single point.

The gaze of a hero's descendant and the monster born of shadows crossed.

* * *

The twelve eyes slowly returned to their resting positions. The Imperial survivors fled in haste, but they no longer held his interest.

In the Draug's vision, only the afterimage of Calix remained. Within it was an indecipherable yearning and hunger.

[Ranita's blood.]

The shadow's whisper spread through the surroundings—a dreadful voice that seed to wring the hearts of living things and scrape the flesh from their bones.

[Lead it back, guide it toward fate!]

The Draug recalled the single, absolute command it had received from the Corrupted Sovereign, De Generitum. The one and only reason a second chance had been granted. The more its body grew closer to a human form from a mass of sli, the greater the obsession to carry out that command grew.

[……There is no need to hurry.]

As its mind stirred, the sli on the ground writhed in kind. Among the countless scattered corpses, the Draug calmly organized its thoughts.

It could have given chase to the Antelopes imdiately, but there was no need to move in haste. It possessed a coldly rational standard of judgnt entirely unlike human emotions such as anxiety or impatience.

The Draug's master had not commanded it to kill. Its mission was to lead Calix to the Land of Shadows. Of course, given ti, the target's abilities would also grow.

Today had been proof of exactly that.

Unlike before, Calix had possessed trendous energy, and was naturally discovering how to control it. At the end of his growth, he might well develop power that even the Draug itself could not handle.

And that was precisely what made it more compelling.

[The stronger……. The better.]

In that instant, the Draug's form grew gradually more human. The face of the absorbed vice-captain surfaced faintly across its skin, then vanished. To it, Calix was not a re quarry—he was the central axis of a perfectly constructed plan.

[The more complete……. The reward, greater.]

The creature shifted its feet, following the tracks left by the hooves. The sli that had coated its body lted away like mud, then crept back up from underfoot once more.

Squelch.

Squelch.

As its silhouette disappeared beyond the undergrowth, the sli behind it seeped into the earth and quietly vanished without a trace. As though nothing had ever taken place there at all—the space where the dark energy had been was eerily, profoundly still.

Yet this was not an ending. It was a beginning.

The Draug continued to follow the Antelopes' trail. With the mories of the Blutspeer's vice-captain Bart Lescar at hand, there was no risk of losing the path. The Empire's structure and movents were laid bare before it at a glance. When the Emperor heard word of this catastrophe, he would rage beyond all reason.

That was how incomprehensible a thing the Antelopes had pulled off.

And they would do it again.

The Draug knew that to be true.