86 — 9 (6)

Mihoff did not have long to cling to that line of thought. The force surging in from both sides wiped the smile clean off his face. The mana was powerful—of course it was—but more than that, he instantly sensed with uncanny precision that the ones charging him from his flanks were opponents he could not ignore. Both figures were sprinting toward him through the rain, soaked in blood so heavily that even Mihoff’s own appearance paled in comparison.

And it was no wonder. Though only a few minutes had passed, Kaiser and Anok—who had pushed deeper than anyone else into the massed heavy infantry—had slaughtered roughly thirty men. Their focus had narrowed down to a single target: Mihoff. Anok sought vengeance, and Kaiser, unleashed, was driven by an instinctive certainty that he had to kill Mihoff. Only seconds had passed, yet the three warriors were already clashing in a tangle.

‘So it’s come to this again…?’

Marquis Gangpireu ground his teeth as he saw the heavy cavalry tearing through his lines with his own eyes. To be honest, it chilled him to the bone. If this were explained like a duel, it was as if he had relaxed, thinking his guard was secure, only to be stabbed straight in the solar plexus. The variable of the wizard—he had never imagined that Louis would possess a wizard, much less hide one inside the heavy cavalry.

“Marquis Gangpireu! Please give the command!”

Just moments earlier he had been preparing his next move, but now fear had frozen his mind. With rain pouring down, his front and rear blocked, and dense forest hemming in both sides, even mounted escape was impossible. The word death flickered through Marquis Gangpireu’s mind. He was going to die. The thought that he would end up like the corpses he had seen not long ago was horrifying.

When armies clashed, the outcome was determined by the flow of the battle. What he had believed might reverse the situation depended entirely on whether they could stop the heavy cavalry. But the wizard had thrown an ice spell into the tightly packed square formation, and the rain amplified its effect tremendously. With moisture saturating the field on all sides, and with Marquis Gangpireu’s tactics relying on a densely packed heavy-infantry block, the result had exploded far more catastrophically than anticipated.

The heavy infantry fought with equipment weighing roughly 25–30 kg and densely braced 2.5-meter spears forming the square. But because the spell had struck perfectly, the soldiers who should have reinforced the rear ranks of the formation panicked instinctively. The already disrupted square could not withstand the heavy cavalry charge.

And the ones who first opened the breach were not ordinary heavy cavalry—they were Anok, a Sword Expert, and Kaiser, who was nearly his equal. With their mana-enhanced lance charges, there was nothing a formation could do to withstand them.

Ordinarily, such a square required a commander capable of countering warriors like them. But Marquis Gangpireu had lost his front-line officers in the battle against Fred.

Moreover, Louis had not only inserted Anok and Kaiser into the cavalry—he had also placed Boromir there, whose specialty lay in close combat. The number of elite warriors alone was far beyond what Mihoff could handle by himself, and Mihoff was not the type to serve as a holding line in the first place.

In the end, even though they had held Mihoff in reserve, their passive posture could not stop the cavalry incursion, making the failure absolute. And because of that shockwave, the morale of the front line had hit rock bottom and was being carved apart by Louis.

‘…It’s over.’

It was not because Marquis Gangpireu lacked experience that he could not judge the situation—rather, those with much experience in war often recognized with terrifying clarity the exact moment they had lost several moves ahead. If this were chess, one could simply fold the pieces and start again—
but this was reality.

Defeat meant death. And even if he survived, losing this many soldiers meant there was no hope. Marquis Gangpireu knew House Pontina very well. They had something inside them that could not be restrained. Once they gained momentum, they would sweep in, take his city, and kill his family.

‘There is… no one who can stop them. Not unless the God of War himself descends.’

Since this was a territorial war, he would not be massacred outright or erased from existence, but all the wealth and resources accumulated by two or three generations would surely be seized by Louis. There was no humiliation greater than this. It was not merely a stain on the family—it was the family’s destruction. Marquis Gangpireu knew this, and the despair tightened around his throat.

“Marquis Gangpireu! Your orders!!!”

A soldier, unable to bear it, shouted again—but Marquis Gangpireu’s army was already collapsing, soldiers fleeing visibly, and more accurately, the screams mixing with the rain drowned out the chiliarch’s cry entirely. Only one of the Marquis’s ears still worked, after all.

Louis showed no sign of fatigue as he continued cutting down soldiers. Now, many soldiers had given up even trying to charge him; some turned and fled outright. But where would they run? Louis finished the thought briefly and turned his gaze. The battle status window.

He could see retreating soldiers with his naked eyes—meaning the status window showed an even worse collapse. Unsurprisingly, the red indicators were plummeting. Especially on the flank held by Kalbang and on Louis’s own axis of advance, the breakthrough had gone so deep that they were nearly at Marquis Gangpireu’s rear.

‘Kalbang deserves a reward later.’

Turning his gaze toward the heavy cavalry, Louis saw that they had still not captured the King. Their numbers had thinned but not critically—and Louis instinctively understood that this was because of Mihoff.

‘What would it take to make him mine?’

Mihoff was the one who had dealt Fred a mortal wound. Though the Marquis had taken the blame, the connection between Mihoff and Fred was not something Louis could ignore—yet Louis still coveted him. He was not in a normal state of mind.

Beneath that desire lay a deep, unfiltered ambition—Louis wanted to rise above this world by any means necessary. No matter how he thought it through, he could not find an easy answer. What mattered was that the choices available would only appear if Mihoff were captured alive; in this whirlwind of blades, even if the situation was tilting in their favor, it was far too early to feel safe.

“I suppose I should go see Marquis Gangpireu’s face.”

Rain continued to crash down across Louis’s face as he murmured. In his field of vision, atop the hill, he caught sight of the banner marking the Marquis’s position. Louis immediately noticed that this banner looked different from the others he had destroyed so far.

It was the commander’s banner.

Louis rushed to the very front, cut down a soldier, and shouted:

“The commander is there! Anyone who brings me his head will receive a double promotion and a cash reward!!!”

The surrounding troops were already looking at Louis—their dependable lord—with admiration. But now, as he casually slew a soldier at the front and pointed up the hill with his blade, the promise of reward made their morale explode. A thunderous cheer surged, and they charged forward. Their already rapid advance accelerated even further, driven by awakened desire.

Louis watched their momentum with satisfaction, then moved to find his horse. His slave-attendant, who had been holding it during the melee, brought it to him quickly. The spare quiver was fully stocked, and a bow hung from the saddle. Louis washed the blood off his sword with the falling rain before sheathing it, then mounted his horse. His gaze fixed on one single target.

Since all the horses under him had been blocked earlier, Louis intended to hunt the King himself. And perhaps because he had offered such a reward, the troops nearby were killing the enemy with frightening ferocity and pushing forward rapidly. Louis spurred his horse onward.

All he had to do was catch the cornered prey. Surely the Marquis would simply try to flee—that was Louis’s assumption, but it proved to be wrong. When pushed to an extreme, humans generally displayed one of three reactions:

they became the mouse that bites the cat’s tail,

they attempted escape even knowing it meant certain death,

or they became helpless.

Marquis Gangpireu chose the third.

Louis surged up the slope in one breath. He had emptied an entire quiver by the time he reached the top. Through the vicious downpour, he finally saw Marquis Gangpireu. Astonishingly, though surrounded by masses of soldiers, the Marquis met Louis’s gaze directly.

“It’s time you paid for touching House Pontina.”

He probably couldn’t hear it, but Louis spoke anyway—and from the Marquis’s worsening expression, it almost looked like he had heard it. Louis nocked an arrow immediately and drew with force.

Giiiiing.

The bowstring wailed as if about to snap. Louis steadied his focus amid the hammering rain and instinctively held his breath. The distance was long enough that he needed complete concentration. Once he had poured enough mana into the arrow, his fingers twitched open.

PAAANG!

Like pent-up fury bursting forth, the arrow carved through the air with elegant force. The target was, of course, Marquis Gangpireu. The Marquis, who had been staring at Louis, collapsed the moment Louis fired.

But the one struck was not the Marquis—it was one of the bodyguards shielding him. A personal guard sworn to protect the commander. Louis had his own, and their role was simple: to die in the commander’s place in an emergency.

Seeing the soldier cough blood and collapse, Louis instantly nocked the next arrow with terrifying speed.

‘Let’s see how long you can dodge.’

Louis fired again. Humiliated beyond repair, Marquis Gangpireu tried to rise but screamed. He had dodged—but the arrow had sunk cleanly into his thigh.

Marquis Gangpireu cried out and gagged from the sharp pain surging up his leg. His eyes had lost all strength, his face was pale as bleached paper, and his hair even looked washed-out, as if loss of color were a symptom of stress. That was how much he had suffered in that brief moment.

‘I… I have to… run…’

Until now his officers had urged him to make a decision, but stunned into paralysis, he had simply stared at his dying soldiers. He had let everything pass him by, and now, even though this situation was nearly identical to before, seeing Louis approach froze him solid—
as if he had just met the reaper himself.

A wounded prey animal about to be devoured always froze when it had no avenue of escape.
That was the illusion Marquis Gangpireu experienced the instant he saw Louis:

For a brief moment, he mistook Louis for a lion.

That spell was shattered only when the arrow buried itself in his thigh.