Chapter 101: Chapter 101
Who was it that said good times always come to an end so quickly?
The battle against the paladins, which had been thrilling enough to scorch his brain, concluded somewhat absurdly.
The moment he cleaved his opponent’s shield with his sword, Shan realized for some reason that he felt almost no resistance.
When he parried the sword of the order’s commander who rushed at him next, unlike a moment ago, the enemy’s blade was pushed back helplessly.
‘Aha······.’
A knight using Fighting Spirit was an act that consumed spiritual strength along with physical stamina.
Normally, there was no need to worry much about the latter.
Even for a knight with relatively weak Fighting Spirit, physical stamina was what drained first during combat, and receiving the Blessing of Vitality to overcome that was limited to battles against magic beasts.
Furthermore, fights against brainless and reckless magic beasts usually ended quickly before Fighting Spirit was exhausted.
But here and now, thanks to all of them receiving the Blessing of Vitality, they had recklessly spammed Fighting Spirit without physical constraints.
In particular, unlike Shan, who precisely consumed Fighting Spirit only as much as needed at the exact required moment, the paladins consumed an inefficiently large amount of power.
Not only was their fundamental proficiency in handling Fighting Spirit lower, but their composure had also been shattered by fear of the monster before their eyes.
As a result, the paladins ended up exhausting all the spiritual strength required to wring out Fighting Spirit.
Naturally, a knight without Fighting Spirit was merely an ordinary person who fought very well.
Even if they could move faster and swing harder with the help of the blessing, the overwhelming difference in offense and defense provided by Fighting Spirit could not possibly be overcome.
Just as Shan in his childhood, despite possessing exceptional agility, could not easily hunt a troll.
“Kugh······.”
“Just how, how!?”
Unlike them, the paladins were horrified at the sight of Shan still wielding his sword imbued with sharp, finely honed Fighting Spirit.
In a seven-on-one battle, they could not understand how Shan, who must have consumed far more Fighting Spirit than they did, was raging around completely unscathed.
Instead of bothering to open his mouth and clear up their doubts, Shan killed the enemies one by one based on his overwhelming superiority.
If he were to fight in a more entertaining way, he should refrain from using Fighting Spirit himself, but he could not do such a thing in the middle of a war, not a duel.
“Kaaaaah!”
Hearing the scream of a paladin whose stomach was pierced by his sword, Shan recalled his master, Sir Darkal.
‘Thank you, Master.’
Later, upon realizing that other knights did not hone their Fighting Spirit as severely as he did, he had once resented why he had been trained so harshly.
Because back when he trained until his body felt shattered once every three days, it had been truly agonizing.
But today, the ascetic hardship of that time finally saw the light of day.
Thanks to attaining in a short span of half a year the Fighting Spirit that other knights took years of leisurely training to awaken, Shan’s soul gushed forth power incomparably more steadfast than other knights.
“Demon, fall to hell······.”
After striking down the head of the commander who spouted curses until the very end, Shan turned his head to quickly gauge the state of the battlefield he had been unable to pay attention to.
‘Is that the Flames of Purification? The Flesh Flowers were used too. Sir Ravana is fighting decently well, and Sir Lug is······ ah.’
He saw one of Lug’s arms sliced off as he fought fiercely against the man presumed to be Marquis Abel.
An arm longer than the height of a typical young child tumbled onto the ground.
Shan quickly dashed forward before Lug’s breath could run out.
Sensing the approach of an incoming enemy, he too turned his gaze toward Shan instead of finishing off his defeated foe.
“Sir Shan······.”
“You worked hard. Grab your arm and fall back quickly.”
Since Asha was among the priests, reattaching a severed arm should take no time, unless it was about creating a completely new arm from scratch.
Lug, who had been sitting slumped on the spot, picked up his arm and stood up as he spoke.
“Please take care of my share as well.”
“Of course.”
Thinking that he now had one more reason he could not lose (not that he intended to anyway) Shan bowed his head slightly in gratitude to the opponent who had waited through their conversation.
Seeing this, Marquis Abel spoke in a low voice.
“I had an intuition from the moment I first saw you. That a day like this would come eventually.”
“Me too. It’s just a shame that neither of us is in perfect condition.”
No matter how strong Shan was, he could not be completely fine after fighting seven paladins who displayed physical capabilities similar to his own.
Even though he had moved as rationally as possible, his joints, overworked by power bordering on human limits, screamed in protest, and pain throbbed from wounds stabbed, slashed, and battered all over his body.
Similarly, Marquis Abel’s desperate fight against Lug had clearly not been easy either, as places all over his armor were cracked.
Yet the gaze looking at Shan from behind his visor remained as calm as a lake.
“When one starves, strength drains, and when full, one grows dull. Humans are constantly changing beings anyway. One need only do their best under the given circumstances.”
“Indeed.”
Certainly, among the warriors he had met so far, his mindset was the most exemplary to follow.
*
The two warriors, with the visors of their helmets raised, quietly stared at each other before stepping forward simultaneously.
Their bodies, separated by five or six meters, clashed in the blink of an eye.
With the first clash, Shan instinctively felt that his opponent was truly formidable.
Marquis Abel did not possess the overwhelming physical capability like that of the paladins Shan had just faced.
He was merely an ordinary knight who had honed himself to the absolute limit, blessed with a couple of divine blessings, and clad in magic armor presumed to be an Altoan relic.
Shan, who was naturally strong to begin with, had absorbed the spirit of an ogre, and was empowered by both his armor’s enhancement magic and blessings, possessed a clear advantage in physical strength.
However, Marquis Abel offset this difference to a degree with tremendous technique.
The impact transmitted as their swords collided flowed through the blade, hilt, and wrist into his forearm, before being absorbed as if seeping into his whole body.
If Shan were to fight someone stronger and technically superior to himself, he felt he would use that exact method.
The ensuing attack was equally worthy of admiration.
A sharp strike that was hard to perceive even with reflexes that made ordinary knights’ swords look sluggish, and sharp enough for the Necklace of Vigilance to issue a warning, narrowly sliced through the air.
While skilled knights generally honed one or two moves to ‘perfection’ after pushing themselves to the extreme, he had almost no waste of energy in his movements even during the chaotic, ever-shifting situation of exchanging sword blows.
A pair of swords clashing, intertwining, and spewing sparks.
In a short moment, pushing and being pushed back by a few steps, the two exchanged over a dozen attacks and counterattacks.
The marquis’s reflexes were not exceptional enough to visually confirm and react to every one of Shan’s attacks like the paladins before him.
Instead, he predicted and responded to incoming movements based solely on subtle signs preceding them.
Of course, this was an essential quality any warrior should naturally possess, but the marquis’s ability was on a completely different dimension from ordinary people.
Even when Shan mixed in feints several times to trick him, he did not even pretend to fall for them.
On the contrary, taking inefficient movements only put Shan at a slight disadvantage.
An anticipatory ability bordering on foresight, forged through over decades of real combat and training.
Shan could not help but feel inward admiration at this.
‘Indeed, so this is why he’s called the strongest in Pendia.’
He recalled the grumbling of an old knight who had expressed frustration against him in the past.
Did he not literally say it was a sword granted by the Goddess?
It certainly felt that way for ordinary knights.
A knight who perfectly read every movement and executed offense and defense with the most flawless motions!
What Shan was born with naturally, that middle-aged knight had achieved through relentless effort.
It was the product of madness achieved by someone born with genius talent who, without arrogance, trained for several decades.
Now he even wondered how on earth Lug had managed to endure for quite a long time against such a man.
Perhaps it was thanks to using his superior physique to keep his distance and buy time, or because the marquis had gone somewhat easy on him.
As the duel between Shan and Marquis Abel continued, several of the knights fighting fiercely nearby unconsciously turned their eyes toward them.
For those who possessed an eye for martial arts, the duel between the two knights was something they simply could not tear their eyes away from.
“Is he even human?”
The mutter of an unknown knight spoke for the minds of everyone watching.
Even while exchanging blows that ordinary knights could barely perceive with the naked eye, no fatal wounds appeared on the bodies of the two knights.
It was because each time an opponent’s attack landed, they properly deflected it using the contours of their armor.
The Fighting Spirit mobilized for offense and defense was kept strictly to the most efficient level.
If their emotions surged even slightly, excess force would be loaded, making the next attack difficult, but both knights completely controlled their power down to microscopic units even amidst intense battle.
Sword meeting sword, and sword meeting armor, a dance of steel unfolded, interlocking without a millimeter of error.
The sparks flying in all directions mesmerized those watching.
The tense confrontation began to tilt around the time their swords clashed fifty-odd times.
Shan gradually analyzed his opponent’s movements and drove Marquis Abel into a corner.
He pushed using physical strength superior to his opponent’s, and seized advantageous moves by employing the swordsmanship learned from Sir Darkal.
His brain, activated to the absolute limit while waging a bloody battle against the paladins until just moments ago, informed him of a new method… a method to kill the enemy.
Predicting three moves ahead each time swords crossed increased to five, and then to ten.
That meant the options the opponent could choose were diminishing by that much.
The marquis’s eyes, which had been serene like a lake, began to waver as he sensed his impending ruin.
As it became difficult to control his physical stamina, despite the Blessing of Vitality, his breathing grew progressively harsher, and the pouring sweat heated the inside of his helmet.
At the moment of decisive outcome, Shan recalled the optimal counterattack method as he watched the marquis’s sword striking down from above.
A secret technique Sir Darkal had demonstrated as an example back when he first learned swordsmanship.
Was it coincidence, or something akin to fate, that the perfect moment to use it arrived right now?
Just as Sir Darkal had shown, Shan raised his sword horizontally to parry the opponent’s downward strike.
Then, from that position, he twisted his sword once and thrust.
“Keuk······.”
The sword, aided by Fighting Spirit, tore through the armor that had already been severely damaged and pierced his chest.
The instant he was certain of victory, his tension snapped, and the noise of the battlefield flooded into the quiet surroundings.
Catching his heavy breathing for a moment, Shan looked down at Marquis Abel, who had collapsed helplessly.
‘He’s going to die, this one.’
Whether his internal organs were damaged by the sword thrust, blood trickled continuously from Marquis Abel’s mouth.
If taken to a skilled priest right this second, he could be saved, but that could not be allowed.
In the midst of war, their power was insufficient even when used for allies who were dying right now.
“Any last words······ No, it must be hard for you to speak.”
How could anyone speak while blood continuously backflowed up their throat?
Trembling violently from sudden blood loss, Marquis Abel pointed to his own neck.
Even while distorted in agony, a satisfied smile hung upon his face.
Understanding the meaning, Shan pierced his neck with his sword so that the opponent’s suffering would not be prolonged.
The man who was once the strongest in Pendia closed his eyes.
*
“Marquis Abel is dead! The Marquis is dead!”
While the voice started by someone spread in all directions, Shan dragged his creaking body and set out to help his fellow knights.
Apart from vigor surging thanks to the blessing, his body felt heavy, perhaps because mental fatigue had accumulated.
Fortunately, he was not the only one exhausted.
The knights of Palles and Shedil, as well as the knights of the western region following Conrad and those of the Kingdom of Ajun, were all entirely limp in their movements compared to the beginning.
Leaping in among them, Shan reduced the enemy numbers one by one.
“It’s the Altoan Demon! Surround him!”
“No! Fall back!”
Was it because he had faced the Paladin Order and Marquis Abel just moments ago?
The movements of the knights rushing at him from around felt endlessly slow and crude.
Shan lightly stabbed and slashed the knights charging at him, eliminating them one by one.
Among them, there was someone who rushed in with a fairly impressive momentum, perhaps having saved his strength.
“Die, Altoan bastard!”
The blade of the axe held by a giant man presumed to be an Ajun knight gleamed blue-grey.
As the master of Thousand Shapes, Shan could tell that it was made of True Silver material.
It seemed to be a weapon crafted from what had been obtained during the True Silver War in the distant past.
Of course, even if a weapon was good, it was ultimately useless if the user’s skill was mediocre.
After lightly slashing to death the charging knight, Shan snatched the two-handed axe he had been using and hurled it toward the allied lines.
After that, he encountered two more guys who had True Silver plated on their greatswords and shields.
As over a dozen knights collapsed in an instant, the battle between knights, in which Cheryn’s side had been somewhat at a disadvantage right up until Marquis Abel died, broke completely out of balance.
Knights scattering in all directions to avoid him.
Tired of chasing down and killing each of them, Shan turned his gaze toward the infantry units standing below.
As he strode forward with long strides, terrified soldiers stepped backward, tripped on the mountain slope, and tumbled down.
“H-He’s coming!”
“Uaaaargh!”
“Save me!”
Swish… as Shan leaped in and swung his sword, three heads flew off at once.
They too tried to resist in their own way, but ordinary spears and blades could not even scratch the exterior of his armor.
In contrast, a single light kick delivered by him crushed the soldiers’ internal organs, killing them.
Killing, and killing again.
Entirely different from the high-level fight until moments ago, an extremely visceral and primal pleasure captured Shan.
Just like when dealing with mercenaries or villagers in the past, the pleasure felt while wielding strength against helpless weaklings······.
Like a young child pouring water into an anthill, Shan crushed the helpless infantry.
His body, which normally would have grown exhausted after killing dozens to a hundred people, kept moving continuously due to the Blessing of Vitality.
Without needing to use his brain like when fighting knights, he simply surrendered his body to instinct, slaughtering like a beast while only judging whether what stood before him was enemy or ally.
Glass bottles filled with Flames of Purification that occasionally flew in to threaten him were blocked by grabbing and throwing a nearby soldier.
Most could not escape his eyes, and even during rare dangerous moments, the Necklace of Vigilance warned him of the threat.
How many times did blood and flesh, white flames and bones, popped eyeballs and entrails scatter before his eyes?
Before he knew it, having descended the mountain, the surroundings had turned into flat ground, and the golden armor was stained completely crimson.
Guardian of the East had lost its sharp edge due to layers of fat and flesh built up upon it.
Realizing there was nothing left to cut down ahead, Shan turned his head and noticed a knight approaching him.
Upon recognizing him as an ally, strength drained from the hand gripping the sword.
“W-We won, Young Master Shan······.”
The expression of the knight looking at him seemed to embody the word awe itself.
Like watching a pouring landslide, an exploding volcano, or a surging tsunami.
It was a gaze that feared, yet simultaneously worshipped, an irresistible, overwhelming force.
To this, Shan replied by lightly nodding his head instead.
The god of slaughter received the worship of his believer.
*
After the battle ended, Shan was led by nearby knights straight to the medical camp.
Inside dozens of tents set up in an open space deeper in the mountain.
The priests, exhausted from bestowing powerful blessings and activating the Flesh Flowers, were squeezing out what little strength they had left to treat the wounded.
Seeing this scene, Shan refused treatment.
“But Young Master, how could the person who achieved the greatest merit······!”
“Those in danger should be treated first. I just need to rest for a moment.”
Shan, having entered the medical camp, issued that command to those rushing over in a fuss, and then lay down on a makeshift bed in a small tent tucked in a corner.
His armor had been unequipped into cuirass form and cast aside next to him.
As he had just said, joints all over his body were creaking and he had several lacerations, but they were not injuries that would cause immediate death.
The capacity to heal him ought to be used for patients in more urgent need.
Fatigue washed over him, whether because the Blessing of Vitality was gradually wearing off or because he had overworked his body beyond what even it could bear.
Shan, who had fallen into a deep sleep, awoke upon feeling someone pour lukewarm water over his head.
Surprisingly, Cheryn herself was stirring his hair with her fingers to wash out the bloody water.
“Princess?”
“Are you awake?”
At her casual tone, Shan realized there was no one else around except himself and Cheryn.
Wiping the dried blood off his face with a wet towel, she let out a small hum, “Mmm.”
“It looks like it would be better to soak your body in a nearby stream. Or take a bath in hot water altogether.”
“I should do that.”
Standing up and shaking his wet hair, Shan realized that unlike a moment ago, his worn-down cartilage had recovered and his body moved smoothly.
Not only that, but the wounds that had formed across his body also seemed to have been healed.
“I told them not to heal me.”
“It’s fine. Everyone who could be saved has already been saved.”
Stated conversely, it also meant that everyone who was going to die had already died.
Shan realized that blood was splattered all over the armor of Cheryn, who answered like that.
Unbecoming of someone who had stayed at the command headquarters throughout the entire battle.
“How did you get blood on yourself?”
“Helping out with the treatment. The priests were too exhausted, and hands were short.”
Cheryn’s army actively utilized alchemy solutions that aided recovery alongside the miracles of priests.
Thus, as an outstanding mage herself, she had run around managing the compounding and administering of medicine on the spot.
Sometimes helping with a few surgical procedures as well.
Hearing the story, Shan looked at Cheryn and spoke.
“That’s a story people will like to hear.”
“······Well, I can’t say I had no such intention.”
A princess who went onto the battlefield to treat soldiers with her own hands… was it not a perfect story to wring out emotion?
By now, Shan was gradually coming to understand what kind of person Cheryn was in terms of how she thought and acted.
“What about Roden?”
“He’s busy organizing units to pursue the remnants of the enemy forces and managing prisoners.”
“If he’s still doing those tasks, I must not have slept for that long.”
“Roughly thirty minutes to an hour?”
That duration was closer to briefly passing out rather than falling asleep.
Shan, lightly bending and stretching his body to loosen up, asked what he had been curious about first.
“Did a lot of people die?”
“Yeah. There are many who died normally during engagement, but even more burned to death in the Flames of Purification. The casualties alone definitely exceed five to six hundred.”
That amount of damage could be considered the largest scale of casualties since Palles began earnestly raising an army.
It could not be helped, because unlike attacks by spears and swords where one could be healed unless instantly killed, once the Flames of Purification clung to someone, it was completely over.
In terms of lethality, it was beyond comparison.
Having brought that up, Cheryn let out a sigh.
“And knight forces suffered heavy losses as well. As many as fifteen died. Baron of Lugen also fell in battle.”
“Ah.”
Baron of Lugen, Yurk Jul.
At the news of the death Count of Palles’s brother-in-law, who had once clashed with Shan before reconciling, Shan let out a soft groan.
Although he knew in his head that war was inherently something where even familiar faces could vanish in an instant, it was not easy to feel it firsthand.
Was he not even the most outstanding knight in Palles… though second to Ravana?
After remaining silent for a long moment in a sense of loss, Shan shook it off with a deep sigh.
“What about Sir Lug?”
“He’s not bad. It will take a while for his arm to heal together, though.”
She then went on to share news about the injured people as well.
Shan’s squires, Vico and Tavera, both ended up with minor injuries, while Ravana had three spears stuck in her body and had come close to death.
Sir Aran, who had attended Cheryn since Hasra, had also lost an eye······.
“There are more injured people than I thought.”
“It couldn’t be helped. If you hadn’t taken care of both the Paladin Order and Marquis Abel, everyone probably would have died.”
Hearing this, he realized once again how tight of a battle it had been.
Even so, was this not small compared to the damage the enemy suffered?
When he asked this, a faint smile returned to Cheryn’s hardened face.
“As for that side, well, it goes without saying. Wouldn’t at least three to four thousand have died? Though I haven’t counted properly.”
More than the Flames of Purification inflicting a critical strike on Cheryn’s camp, the Flesh Flowers they scattered also dealt massive damage to Conrad’s army.
After all, scattering from above toward below gave an advantage.
Furthermore, a single knight completely collapsing the enemy formation after the battle between knights ended played an especially massive role.
Was not the moment when the most casualties occurred on the battlefield usually during a rout?
“You probably personally killed around five to six hundred people.”
“That many?”
“I don’t know exactly. It’s not like someone was watching you continuously. But from above, it looked to be around that much.”
Recalling the memories of raging madly among the soldiers, it was difficult to know precisely how many he had killed.
Because his mental fatigue was so severe that he was rampaging while half-surrendered to instinct.
However, it was certain that such a feat would have been absolutely impossible without the Blessing of Vitality.
In a normal state, attempting such a thing would have left him collapsed in exhaustion after cutting down two or three hundred people at most.
“Anyway, thanks to that, you’ve firmly made a name for yourself as the strongest knight of the Arman Alliance. Slaying those notorious seven paladins plus Marquis Abel, and slaughtering hundreds of soldiers all by yourself. At this rate, even the Old Faith believers will find it hard to dispute the claim that you’re the second coming of Great Emperor Baren.”
Outside, all sorts of resplendent nicknames were already sprouting up about him, Cheryn spoke in a playful tone and chuckled.
Shan scratched his head with an embarrassed look, then wiped away the oozing bloody water against the hem of his pants.
His pants were already soaked in bloody water, so it was not a particularly meaningful action.
“Although the last one would have been difficult without the Blessing of Vitality.”
“Because of that, Elvin might propose applying the Holy Accord when fighting us. Since we showed what you can do once freed from physical limitations. We should have kept you saved as a secret weapon.”
Of course, as far as Cheryn was concerned, fighting under the Holy Accord was nothing bad.
Because her army was armed with powerful magic vessels exempt from the treaty’s restrictions.
Considering the cruelty possessed by attack means that applied miracles, such as the Flames of Purification, that side might actually be better.
“Come to think of it, we’ll have to fight Elvin soon too.”
“Right. Since we’ve effectively shattered the forces of Conrad and the Ajun Kingdom, our only choice is to focus on that side and somehow hold them off properly······.”
Mid-conversation, Cheryn turned her head at the sound of footsteps coming from outside.
She had told them she would tend to him herself and not to seek her out unless it was urgent, so what could be the matter?
The one who hastily threw open the tent flap was Roden.
Looking back and forth at Shan and Cheryn talking inside, he let out a small gasp, “Ah,” and spoke.
“Princess, I think you need to come quickly.”
“What is it?”
“The semi-horse archers out in pursuit have captured Conrad.”