Awakening the Great Chapter 81

Chapter 81: The Boundary Of Life and Death

The sound of footsteps squelching through mud echoed from every direction. Ragged breathing, hooves slicing through the mire, screams and battle cries swarming in like a horde of bees. The infantry of the Niboria Empire was surging forward, as though to swallow the entire field whole.

"They've caught our tail!"

"Forty paces!"

Hadiya called out the enemy's position in a cracked voice, and Royce arranged the cavalry into a semicircle. Calix looked around from atop his horse.

There were far too many enemies.

"We can break through one point, but…… We can't hold them all off!"

Zahira ground her teeth and shouted, but there was no choice. Soon a whistle sounded, and the Antelopes charged toward the enemy lines all at once.

Thud-thud-thud.

The hoofbeats were faint. The waterlogged ground was part of the problem, but above all else, the warhorses had exhausted their strength.

Boom!

A single charge—and barely twenty n went sprawling. Then, in the very next instant, spear tips rose on the Imperial side.

"Ungcap!"

"Unhorsed on the right!"

Calix at the vanguard wheeled to the right. In one move, he went to aid the ally who had fallen from his horse, while simultaneously luring the enemy into forming a defensive line.

"Advance! Advance!"

But the enemy's feet did not stop.

To make matters worse, the horses let out harsh snorts. Their legs kept slipping, and grass and earth had beco part of the mire, dragging at their hooves. It was an environnt far too brutal for warhorses to exert their strength.

It was then.

"Everyone fall back!"

The mont they retreated to their positions, one man dismounted.

Calix.

He patted the horse's neck as if to say well done, then pulled his feet from the stirrups and planted them on the ground. Squelch—the mud pulled at his legs, but upon the young man's face rested a resolve heavier than any of it.

And without a word, he drew his sword.

Crack-crack-crack, shiiiick.

Imdiately, red flas burst from the entire length of the blade. Not even the driving rain could extinguish the blazing mana.

"From here on……."

He said.

"We fight on the ground."

Heat spread across the sodden earth. As if defying spring itself, Falling Fire blood. Yet it was not the birth of life—it was more like a prelude to ruin.

"He's pouring that much mana into it?"

"……He's made up his mind."

Gregor, in full control of his senses, clicked his tongue. His characteristic wry expression had vanished, though a thin smile still lingered at the corners of his mouth.

Calix's Falling Fire was imperfect. The petals did not bloom in any regular pattern, and the flas were inconsistent.

But within that wavering lay conviction.

That was what mattered.

***

At the center of the Imperial vanguard.

The centurions kept calling out the sa words.

"Take courage! The Empire's finest blade is drawing near!"

"Lord Imran Akran watches over you!"

"Advance! Advance!"

The flas the Antelopes had spread scorched patches of the ground, but the soldiers no longer feared. Their dread had been buried beneath a far greater renown.

"He cos!"

"We cannot show him a shaful sight!"

Centurion Kravis turned his spear point downward and drove it into the ground. Even that simple act drew a war cry from the soldiers around him.

With that, the commander made a swift and cold calculation.

"Taking fifty n with a thousand is a luxury!"

"Divide the force and strike the wanderers from the neck! Capture the refugees first!"

Leaving a fixed number of troops behind, the Imperial force sent three to four hundred n racing westward. As the rear infantry changed direction, the clatter of armor and battle cries rang out riotously across the muddy ground.

Calix's eyes turned that way. He did not repeat the sa mistake. He kept a broad view of the battlefield and at once began to plan his response.

"Captain!"

In the frantic situation he gave a short shout, and Royce took over from there.

"Marik! The two of us will follow!"

"But—"

"Only resistance fighters are at the front line! We have to lend a hand!"

"……Understood!"

A fleeting exchange of glances, and then Marik and Royce mounted up and headed for the riverside. Their decision ca because two pillars—Calix and Gregor—still remained.

Calix looked back. Several hundred displaced wanderers who had yet to make their escape were still lined up at the rear.

[Maintaining Reality Acceleration 2.6x]

He silently readjusted his grip on the sword and ignited the flas once more.

Without question, this ti he was standing in the right place.

***

The plain was torn apart. The screams of the wanderers mingled into one. Those throwing down their packs and fleeing, those with children on their backs who had lost all sense of direction. The mont the Imperial blades cut through the curtain of rain, the place they stood was no longer the rear.

It was the heart of the battlefield.

"Calix!"

Soone's cry rang out, but he did not hear it.

Falling Fire.

The flas detonated.

Craaaaack!

The mana expelled from the tip of the sword, with a fierce searing roar, caved in the enemy's armor. The sparks flared deeper and denser than before. The stray embers that had scattered at random began, at least in part, to take on the full shape of flower petals.

"……Huu."

Calix exhaled a long, slow breath.

Once, twice—he unleashed Falling Fire in continuous succession. How thoroughly had he torn through the enemy lines? The Core backed him with an enormous surge of mana, yet the limits of flesh were clear. Gradually, his arm muscles trembled.

It was the cost of fighting at full strength for quite a long stretch of ti.

'This isn't about winning. I need to hold the enemy's attention and buy ti.'

But this much was still not enough.

He did not stop swinging his sword as he gazed out beyond the curtain of rain. A vast light he had never experienced before caught his eye. Sothing beyond his ability to handle was drawing near. That was no doubt why the Imperial soldiers had regained their fighting spirit.

'A little more, just a little more.'

If he tid it right, escape was entirely possible. The people flee, and he slips away before the unknown enemy makes his appearance. That was the plan.

Shiiing!

Then suddenly—with a shattering sound, the sword bent.

"……It's overheated."

At that very mont, an enemy spear tip ca flying straight for his heart. Calix reflexively twisted his body and sliced through the shaft. In the sa motion, he seized the falling spear tip in midair—and drove it into the enemy's throat.

Thud! Thud!

Enemies on every side, so he finished it with two thrusts. Blood spattered across his face, but the heavy rain washed the evidence away.

"Gh, ghk……."

As the soldier's body crumpled, Calix snatched up the man's sword. His weapon had swapped for a fresh one in an instant. Not pausing for even a mont, he flowed naturally into the next motion.

Shhk!

He rotated his wrist smoothly and swept upward—and another fell with the follow-through.

"Raaaaaah!"

"Kill hiiiim!"

Lips pressed shut, he thrust, deflected, and cut again. Along the way, as though wringing out lingering heat, he swapped his lting swords three tis. Even so, the swarms of enemies surged on without end.

The things that needed to be burned…… Were terribly many.

And then—

"Calix!"

A thunderous shout bored into his ear.

"Most of the people have gotten out! Now it's our turn!"

Volga.

His face was a ss of mud and blood, and he had one arm supporting an injured man on his shoulder. The Antelopes, too, had fought no less desperate a struggle.

"We're punching through! Follow !"

Before the words were even finished he launched himself forward. The man whose body was a weapon charged straight ahead and tore through the encirclent. He crushed a shield, swung his cudgel, and sent three soldiers flying at once.

"Reverse toward the river! Anyone still breathing, follow !"

Right behind him, the Antelopes added their strength.

Hadiya dodged a sword slash with nimble footwork, then sliced into the enemy's side with her dagger. Zahira hooked the enemy's ankle to trip them, then brought the sword hilt down on their head. Gregor had long since reached his limit and could not draw out Falling Fire, but with his practiced swordsmanship alone he subdued his opponents.

Not one of them changed their expression.

And so the Imperial vanguard crumbled.

The remaining wanderers began slipping through the gap one by one. In that brief mont, Calix exhaled slowly and swept his gaze around to check whether anyone had been left behind.

"……Just a little more."

One more imperfect flower was still blooming.

***

The plain had already lost all resemblance to itself. Driving rain pounding the mire, blurred outlines. People, horses, flas—even the corpses scattered across the ground were impossible to tell apart.

The Antelopes were nowhere to be seen. There was no way of knowing who had slipped out where, or how. Perhaps they had vanished long since.

Calix drew ragged breaths. His heart beat erratically. He still held his sword, yet his arm muscles trembled faintly.

'Any more is pointless. Most of them…… Have escaped.'

Feeling the exhaustion that perated every inch of him, he recognized that his own ti to leave had co. The only sound was from the Imperial troops.

Fortunately, the rain hamring the battlefield and the dense fog offered their help.

Right. Now was the ti to pull back.

Calix turned his back and lifted his foot. He was going to climb over the bodies of wanderers and soldiers alike and chase after his comrades.

It was exactly that mont.

A wet cry rose out from within the muddy water. A desperate plea to be saved. A scream so small and helpless he almost doubted his ears.

Squelch.

His footsteps stopped.

Without deliberating, he turned around and moved in the direction of the sound. His body moved of its own accord, but he did not ask why.

Squirm.

Inside a pit of mud, sothing stirred among the countless bodies. Beneath the arm of a woman who had perished, a tiny palm—no wider than two fingers—was visible.

Calix dropped to his knees, reached out, and pulled back a scrap of cloth.

"……."

Inside lay a baby, barely able to open its eyes. The crying had worn thin almost to nothing, and the small face was covered in blood and mud.

A silence passed briefly.

He wordlessly scooped the baby up. The warmth through the thin cloth was faint, yet it was beating fiercely.

Whiiiish—

He returned his sword to his hip and blew a whistle. His loyal warhorse, answering its master's call, ca through the fog toward him.

Calix swung himself up onto the horse in a single motion. One hand held the reins, the other cradled the baby against his chest.

"Let's go back."

But sothing was off.

He had certainly heard the horse's hoofbeats—yet no one reacted. In fact, through the pale and hazy field of view, the silhouettes of enemy soldiers were visible, but they did not take a single step.

The Imperial soldiers who had been surging like a flood had stopped completely.

Within that ominous silence, Calix grasped it by instinct.

The Imperial troops had fulfilled the mission given to them.

What ca after was not their concern.

***

Calix gripped the reins and cut across the fog. The path leading to the western riverside. The ground grew muddier by the mont, and the baby's body heat was slowly fading.

He had to hurry.

But then, cold sweat ran down his spine.

Sothing was blocking the road. Beyond the curtain of rain, a formless radiance spread outward. Around a core of pure white aura, threads of light circled through the air.

The reason the Imperial troops had stopped.

Calix spurred his warhorse. The hooves quickly found strength, yet inwardly he already knew.

'There is no escape.'

What followed behind him was neither a knight nor a soldier. It was an absolute will that could not be resisted—a being that put all living things to the test.

And indeed, both his Sixth Sense and his neural accelerator were telling him the sa thing.

[Warning, Combat Alert]

[A top-tier entity is approaching in the vicinity]

[Evade imdiately]

This was no gentle suggestion. It was a firm warning to flee.

Yet to compound matters, the horse misjudged its step and staggered. He desperately kept his balance and avoided being thrown, but the harsh reality remained unchanged.

'The distance is closing.'

He had tried his utmost to avoid it, but the opponent had already read his position.

In the end, his feet stopped.

He had accepted that escape was no longer possible.

"……You've worked hard running."

And then—

He appeared.

Tack, tack.

A man cloaked in light head to toe approached on horseback. He did not spur his mount, wore no heavy armor, and had not drawn his sword.

Yet at so point, Calix had hunched forward and placed his hand on his scabbard. With the sensation that ti itself had co to a standstill, the instinct for survival raised its head.

Still, he did not flee.

Wheeze, wheeze—

Within his arms, the baby breathed quietly. The heartbeat was slow but beating with unmistakable clarity. Calix felt this, and turned it over in his mind again.

'Even in the face of death, I cannot retreat. This is exactly one of those monts.'

If escape was impossible, he had to stand and face it. For the baby's sake—and for his own.

At that mont, their eyes t. Cutting through the deep grey fog, the other's pupils pierced straight through Calix. This was not the gaze of soone alive.

There was no emotion, no anger, no sense of purpose. Within those expressionless pupils, only an absolute and overwhelming presence resided. By the sheer fact of existing, this being was cleaving the boundary between life and death.

And it was on that boundary that Calix stood.