“Gotcha!!!!”
When you’re focused on survival, you lose track of time.
For soldiers on the battlefield, it’s even more extreme. They move in a strange time where everything happens faster than expected, yet every battle feels slower.
The arrows and spears flying at you seem painfully slow. Meanwhile, the siege tower, approaching leisurely, somehow gets close to the city wall in the blink of an eye, already hooking its grappling hooks.
Imperial soldiers climb up the Sacred Vessel, screaming, shouting, and bursting with the desire to survive.
Like a tidal wave. As if the dam that had been holding back finally gave way all at once.
“Take control of the wall!! Open the gates! The battering ram! Is it ready yet?”
“The battering ram has reached the gate! Starting the impact!”
Crossing the narrow path over the moat, the battering ram, surrounded by soldiers in ironclad defense, approached the massive wooden gate.
The ram, carved with a sheep’s head, was pushed back tightly, then, with a spring-like force, slammed into the gate.
-BOOOOOM!
“Break it! Break iiiit!”
“Pull! Pull! Now, release!”
Even as their throats tore and they spat blood, the soldiers didn’t stop shouting at the top of their lungs.
Impact, another impact. Like a wave, the battering ram struck the gate. Cracks began to spread from the impact point of the ram.
“Surprisingly fast and easy.”
Everard laughed as he watched the frontline cling to the city wall.
Duke Erbe had taken the gallery a bit earlier, but his legion wouldn’t be able to march straight to the royal castle after securing the wall.
In the first place, this difference was nothing. His front was the farthest from Lavirata’s palace, and due to the narrow contact area, the number of troops he could deploy at once was limited.
“Well, it’s not that surprising. Just think about how those idiots have been fighting so far.”
A knight chuckled as he spoke. Everard, feeling relieved as his worries vanished, laughed heartily.
Yeah, the war had been that easy so far. The reason they hadn’t lost a single battle on any front—
‘It’s not because the Duke is exceptional. It’s because the enemies are weak.’
If you think about it that way, it makes sense.
The Imperial Army isn’t incompetent. And neither are the tactical meetings of himself and the war nobles. That, more than anything, filled Everard with pride.
“The first soldier to enter the city wall will be rewarded with gold!”
Everard, caught up in the excitement, swung his sword and shouted.
All the bastions on the Sacred Vessel had been occupied, and no more cannonballs were raining down. The arrow rain that had once darkened the sky was now silent.
In terms of individual prowess, those skeletons from the Legion of Wraiths could never be a match for humans. They’re weak, light, and stiff. The skeletons made clattering noises as they desperately swung their spears and swords, but the elite soldiers, seasoned in battle, easily deflected their blows and shattered their skulls.
The moment they lost the advantage of terrain and weaponry, the moment the Sacred Vessel was taken, their defeat was all but certain. As more siege towers hooked onto the gallery, Everard’s smile grew wider.
-KWAAAAAAANG!
“The gate!! It’s breached!”
Amid a cloud of dust, the massive gate crumbled. Now. Everard roared.
“Imperial Cavalry!”
“Yes!”
“For the glory of His Majesty the Emperor!!”
“May the Divine Leviathan Empire live forever!”
-THUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUD!
With Everard’s shout, the cavalry, mounted and waiting for this very moment, began their charge. The knights directly under the Imperial Central Command. The elite cavalry of the center, who had trained their martial skills solely for promotion and greater honor, charged as one, like a wedge driving into the enemy’s heart.
Toward the wide-open, dust-filled interior of the city!
“That’s enough pushing.”
Fernandez spoke as he watched the hawk floating in the sky. Though it couldn’t be heard, somehow, the hawk’s movements seemed to be speaking to him.
The hawk flapped its wings, flying around.
At first glance, its movements seemed meaningless, but the intricate flow of magic created by its wings suggested that this hawk was no ordinary creature.
“Are you going to wait longer, Lavirata?”
All the outer walls had been occupied, and even Duke Erbe, who had climbed the wall first, was approaching the city area with his troops.
Imperial flags, symbolizing the Imperial Army, were rising all over the city walls.
The cannons drooped powerlessly, and the wraiths who had been drawing arrows on the walls became lifeless corpses, swept down to the ground.
The battle for the outer walls was coming to an end.
Too easily. Far more easily than anyone had expected.
-SCREEECH!
The hawk cried out from beyond the sky. And at the same time, the heads of the mages preparing the Great Magic Circle toward the palace exploded one after another.
Without any warning, without any screams. Human heads exploded like watermelons.
The Imperial Combat Mages all fell simultaneously.
The headless corpses collapsed one by one on the magical formation that was supposed to enhance their magic circuits.
The scene was so surreal that the knights and soldiers guarding the mages could only stare in shock, unable to even think of raising an alarm.
“What… what is this…?”
Even the bravest veteran soldier…
