"Who the hell are those people!?" Marlon scread, watching his soldiers being flung into the air. Every swing of a sword or spear sent his heavily armored troops flying like dandelion seeds.
"They're swatting fully-armored soldiers into the sky? This is insane!" Marlon's voice trailed off as his mind struggled to process the impossible sight before him.
A firm hand grabbed his shoulder, shaking him back to reality.
"Get a hold of yourself! This is no ti to freeze up!" Klaus shouted.
"C-Klaus…"
"Give the orders now! If we don't act, we'll be wiped out!"
Marlon snapped out of his stupor, his eyes darting around. His soldiers were in utter chaos, overwheld by the unexpected assault. Issuing commands in such disarray would be next to useless.
Biting his lip, Marlon made the only call he could.
"Retreat! Retreat imdiately!"
"Wait, Sir Marlon! If we retreat in this chaos—"
"I know! But we have no choice!" Marlon snapped.
Retreating in disarray often resulted in catastrophic losses, as soldiers exposed their backs to the enemy. But in this situation, staying to fight ant certain annihilation.
"If we get tangled up in close combat with those monsters, we'll be slaughtered! Better to save as many as we can and fall back!"
"...Understood," Klaus replied grimly, nodding as he acknowledged the grim reality.
Roughly half of their forces had yet to be swept away by Sylas's monstrous subordinates. Sacrificing the other half might just buy enough ti for the survivors to escape.
'If we can just make it back to the castle, we'll be safe. There's no way they'll chase us that far,' Marlon reasoned.
With the allied forces already stretched thin, he doubted Sylas's army would pursue too far, especially with the risk of an ambush near the castle.
But Marlon's reasoning was flawed.
"Sir! They're still chasing us!"
"Damn it! Why won't they stop?"
The red-haired knight and the spear-wielding warrior continued their relentless pursuit, showing no signs of slowing down.
By now, the allied forces were closer to their own castle than to Sylas's. Yet the two kept coming.
"Are they planning to chase us all the way to the castle? With just those forces?"
"It's not about their numbers!"
"But two people laying siege to a castle is absurd!"
"Well… siege… wait, a siege?"
Klaus muttered the word "siege," and his face turned pale.
"Sir Marlon! Do you rember how much progress was made on repairing the castle?"
"You saw it before we left, didn't you? At best, they've managed to put up a wooden gate…"
As Marlon spoke, his face drained of color. The only person capable of smashing through walls and gates with ease was Sylas, thanks to his artifact-tier weapon. Without such a weapon, not even those monsters could breach the castle's defenses.
But the castle's current state?
'We can't hold them off.'
The makeshift wooden gate and crumbling walls wouldn't withstand even ordinary attacks, let alone those of Sylas's subordinates. If the enemy breached the walls and entered the castle, their archers would lose their line of sight, and the ensuing chaos would render them defenseless.
"Damn it all!" Marlon cursed, realizing he had overlooked a critical flaw in his plan.
Instead of fleeing to safety, they were about to lead the monsters straight into their broken ho.
"What do we do now?" Klaus asked, his voice tense.
"What else? We ride straight for the castle!"
"Are you sure that's wise?"
"Not at all! But fighting them here changes nothing!"
Had the castle's location been unknown, turning to fight might have been an option. But the enemy knew exactly where the castle was.
"If we stop here, they'll kill us all and march straight to the castle. Better to regroup with the forces there and make a stand!"
Marlon's decision was calculated and rational—his only viable choice under the circumstances.
But a rational decision doesn't always lead to the best outco. This ti would be no exception.
As evidenced by Sylas's ability to strike three castles in a single day, the distance between Glixborg and the allied castles was not far.
Marlon and his forces were nearing Ebilene Castle within half a day. He glanced back over his shoulder, his jaw tightening.
"They've chased us all the way here. Damn them."
"It seems we'll have to fight them," Klaus said grimly, bracing for the inevitable.
The commotion above the castle walls suggested their allies had noticed the pursuit. Before they could call for aid, reinforcents spilled out of the castle and headed toward Marlon's position.
"Sir Marlon! Reinforcents are coming!"
"Good! Whoever made that call has… wait, what the hell!?"
Marlon's initial relief turned to horror. The reinforcents were far too few, barely matching the size of the forces he had brought. In other words, they were perfectly sized for a massacre.
The knight leading the reinforcents galloped forward, shouting confidently, "Quickly, head into the castle! We'll handle them!"
"Are you joking? With these numbers?" Marlon bellowed, his voice filled with disbelief.
"What?"
"Send a ssenger! Call for everyone! Bring all the troops here, or we'll be defeated pieceal!"
"What are you saying?"
The knight tried to argue, but there was no ti. Sylas's forces were already closing in.
"Damn it! Just hold them off until we can reposition!" Marlon shouted, spurring his horse forward.
As his troops attempted to regroup and reposition, Marlon was t with the sa horrific sights.
Thwack! Slash!
"Help!"
"They're monsters!"
Shattered bodies flew through the air as terrified screams echoed from every direction. Marlon bit his lip hard. Even if he called for reinforcents now, it would be too late—his forces would already be decimated. What would remain would be a broken castle and an insufficient number of soldiers.
'It's over,' Marlon realized.
In that mont, he understood. Sylas hadn't just destroyed the castles for show. He had done it to set a trap for this exact mont. The castles had been turned into massive nets, drawing in the enemy forces.
Recognizing his inevitable defeat, Marlon charged at the two knights leading the assault, hoping to delay the inevitable.
That day, Ebilene Castle was reduced to ruins.
Ebilene Castle wasn't the only casualty. The other two castles suffered the sa fate, with Sylas targeting one and Isaac and Halken the other.
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