Chapter 240: Deception, Siege, and Annihilation (4)
I stuffed a ton of Mana into the axe. Even though I struck exactly where I aimed, the blade didn’t sink in deep enough.
Ghislaine, perplexed, reached out and tried to bind Kushtu’s body with threads of Mana.
“UAAAAAAAH!”
Thud thud thud thud!
Feeling something binding him, Kushtu let out a beastly roar, causing the restraints to snap immediately. He was even more of a monster-like guy than I thought.
“This… isn’t this just like Viktor? No, he’s even beyond that physically?”
Kushtu had been targeting the Northern Sword King, Viktor. Although Ghislaine had killed him during the Perdium Workshop Battle, his power was no joke.
While Kushtu’s technique might be lacking compared to Viktor’s, his strength and endurance surpassed Viktor’s.
His immense physical capabilities were compensating for his inferior skills.
“Die! Just die!”
In the meantime, a crazed Kushtu was wildly swinging his axe like a true barbarian warrior. No matter how smart he was compared to other barbarians, his roots were still showing.
Had he been up against someone else, he would have been dead by now from that brutal strength and speed, but Ghislaine, whose swordsmanship had reached its peak, was completely unfazed.
Of course, Ghislaine couldn’t approach carelessly either. One good hit from that axe would smash her to bits in an instant.
Crash! Crash!
The ground was continuously smashed up. With his lack of technique made worse by his excitement, Kushtu’s attacks completely missed Ghislaine.
“Whaaaat! Why! Why!”
Kushtu, who thought he’d have no rivals in the North, was baffled. Here was this slippery opponent, evading every attack like a fish in water.
He’d known that Ghislaine was a monster since he slaughtered warriors left and right, but facing her directly was beyond his expectations.
“UAAAAAAAH!”
Kushtu screamed and swung his axe with all his might.
Just one hit! That’s all it would take. Then his opponent would be nothing but a pile of bones.
Crash!
Another desperate attack went wide. Overexerting himself had left Kushtu’s shoulder open, exposing a glaring gap.
Seizing that opportunity, Ghislaine threw away her axe and wrapped one arm around Kushtu’s neck, clinging onto his back.
If he didn’t kill in one blow, it meant he lacked power. And if he lacked power…
“Then I just have to keep stabbing until you die.”
With a sly grin, Ghislaine lifted the axe.
“You pest!”
Kushtu, enraged, tried to grab Ghislaine. But Ghislaine’s axe was already moving toward his head faster.
Thud!
“Cough!”
Kushtu instinctively gathered all his Mana to shield his head against the tremendous pain.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Ghislaine relentlessly smashed down on Kushtu’s head, drawing upon her Mana. Still, his head didn’t break easily.
With that remarkable toughness, Ghislaine couldn’t help but click her tongue. A person should die from having an axe struck into their head like that.
Even Ghislaine was taken aback by the hardness. If a person had an axe buried in their head like that, they’d normally be dead.
“This guy is completely like a monster. Was he born with divine powers?”
Very rarely, there are those who are born with divine powers. They boast immense physical abilities without even needing to train or learn mana.
Such beings have a density and structure of muscles and bones that are completely different from commoners.
No matter how you look at it, Kushtu seemed to have been born with a body similar to theirs.
So, Ghislaine was puzzled.
“Why couldn’t this guy unite the tribes in his past life? Surely, someone else must have done it.”
If this monster-like guy had faced any ordinary warrior’s attacks, he would have just tanked them and swept the floor.
Even now. If Kushtu hadn’t held back in the rear to protect his warriors and had charged directly forward, the defense lines might have already been breached.
“Seems like a surprisingly thoughtful guy, or maybe it’s the pride of a tribe chief?”
Ghislaine’s thoughts didn’t linger long. Kushtu was attempting to drop his weapon and grab him with both hands.
The warriors fighting beside him took this opportunity to attack Ghislaine.
“Ugh!”
Ghislaine leaped off Kushtu’s body and took out two approaching warriors at lightning speed.
In the meantime, Kushtu grabbed his weapon again and charged at Ghislaine.
“Oh, this guy is way too tough!”
Ghislaine muttered while dodging the attack. Apparently,普通攻擊 weren’t working on him.
Looking around, he saw that the number of warriors had significantly decreased. He had already gained the upper hand. Thanks to the perfect ambush and flanking, their allies suffered almost no damage.
“This guy just needs to die quickly.”
With this monster running around, the casualties among his allies could only increase.
Ghislaine began gathering mana into his axe.
Ziiiiiing!
As immense mana gathered, the axe started to tremble. While avoiding Kushtu’s attacks, Ghislaine kept gathering and compressing mana.
Being alone in the middle of the battlefield, he couldn’t take as long as when he broke down the gates of Cabaldy Castle. However, due to his constant training, he was able to gather enough to use.
Whoosh!
Red mana surged together, quivering. Normally, he would have needed to gather, compress, and refine the mana further, but there was no time to calmly focus.
Brrrrr!
“Dieeeeee!”
As Ghislaine hesitated for a moment to gather mana, Kushtu’s massive axe came crashing down toward him. It was as if this moment was his last chance; Kushtu truly gave it his all.
With a sweeping motion, Ghislaine gripped his axe tightly with both hands and swung it forcefully at the descending blow.
BOOOOOOM!
With an immense explosion, Kushtu’s giant axe was instantly shattered.
And at that sound, everyone in the vicinity stopped moving.
What caught their eyes was Ghislaine, surrounded by red smoke, thrusting his axe toward Kushtu’s head.
WHOOOOOSH!
The power was enough to crush even a massive steel axe, but only half of the blade penetrated Kushtu’s skull.
Truly terrifying physical prowess.
But no matter how strong a person is, if half their head is embedded in an axe, they can’t survive.
Ghislaine dropped the axe and leapt to the ground.
“Guuu… This guy…”
Kushtu, bleeding from his forehead and eyes, tried to grab him. Yet, his trembling hands ultimately failed to catch Ghislaine.
“You… You…”
Muttering the same word repeatedly, the light faded from Kushtu’s eyes as his body slowly collapsed to the ground.
KWHAM!
The nearby barbarians, too busy fighting the knights and soldiers in front of them, didn’t even realize Kushtu had fallen.
Kushtu didn’t even notice he had fallen since he was too busy fighting the soldiers.
Ghislaine stood on Kushtu’s corpse and shouted loudly.
“Grand Tribe Chief Kushtu is dead!”
The Barbarian Warriors were stunned, their eyes wide with shock. Kushtu was the strongest among all the warriors gathered there, a Great Warrior known throughout the North.
“Kushtu… is dead?”
“Even with all of us gathered, we lost…”
“A loser like Perdium…”
The warriors lost their last shred of fighting spirit.
Some warriors still struggled defiantly, but it was nothing more than a meaningless display.
They were already surrounded, and countless warriors had fallen. And they continued to fall.
Crack! Crack!
“Ughhhhh!”
Boom! Boom!
The air was filled with the sounds of clashing weapons, corpses collapsing, and the screams of warriors echoing endlessly.
Boom! Boom!
Boom…
At some point, the battlefield fell silent. Only the ragged breaths of the survivors could be heard.
It was a resounding victory.
Not a single Barbarian managed to escape alive.
“It’s finally over…”
A knight mumbled. As if his words were a signal, one by one, everyone started tossing their helmets aside and dropping their weapons.
The inside of the siege was so flooded with blood it could be called a lake, but no one paid it any mind.
Thud.
Skoban simply lay down in the pool of blood. He was too exhausted to even rise.
As he caught his breath, he suddenly started to chuckle.
‘Can this really be happening?’
To annihilate thousands of Barbarian allies so overwhelmingly, with less than half the enemy’s forces, no less.
Had there ever been such a thing in Perdium? No. At least not since he became a knight.
He’d always just defended within the fortress and killed off a few raiders who attempted to outflank them.
There had never been a time when they went out to face the enemy head-on and achieved such a grand victory.
It felt refreshing. It had always been like this since Ghislaine arrived, but this time was on a completely different level. He had no idea how to express this feeling.
So he just shouted with all his might and laughed.
“Hahaha! We won! We killed those bastards! We did it! Hell yeah! Long live the Grand Duke! Hahahaha!”
That laughter was the signal. All the knights and soldiers raised their arms high and shouted.
“Wooooo! We won!”
“We triumphed!”
“Finally wiped them all out!”
Everyone was overjoyed, not knowing what to do with themselves. And they all knew who was responsible for such a resounding victory.
The cheers and shouts of the people soon focused on one person.
The one laughing in the midst of the battlefield, drenched in blood.
“The Grand Duke did it again!”
*
Zvalter shook his head as he watched Ghislaine laughing with the soldiers.
‘Every time I see him, I’m amazed.’
This battle had made it clear. The revamp of the Mana Circulation Method wasn’t just some reckless stunt.
Ghislaine already possessed skills superior to anyone in Perdium.
But what was even more surprising was something else altogether.
‘Where does such boldness even come from?’
Zvalter felt a composure from Ghislaine that even he, a veteran of many battles, could not understand. There was hardly any excitement from the victory apparent in his expression or actions.
He only seemed to convey that this was simply the expected result.
Zvalter felt something similar during the Perdium skirmish, but dismissed it as just a feeling back then. Ghislaine had rushed to seize Digald immediately after, leaving no time to confirm anything.
Though Zvalter hadn’t been able to pay much attention to his son, having been absent during his childhood, he distinctly remembered Ghislaine never having such a character.
He was definitely not that kind of character.
What in the world could have changed his son like that?
“Now that I think about it, his strategic tactics are impressive. How could they fit so perfectly?”
I was surprised when he came running alone just like he promised, but in any case, the result came out as planned.
He predicted all the movements of the barbarians. I could only say it was truly remarkable.
“Did he say he created that with someone named Claude?”
To lead the flow of battle as desired, obtaining information is most important. Through that information, predicting the enemy’s movements allows for the most effective strategy to be devised.
According to Ghislaine, that guy Claude collected information and established strategies together.
“If that’s true, that’s really something…”
“Oh my! Our Lord has won again! So, how many wins is this now? Let’s just count the big ones and say it’s 3 out of 3? Should we include the last one and make it 4 out of 4?”
At that moment, Claude appeared, trailing Wendy behind him, and spoke to Ghislaine in a syrupy voice. He bent at the waist and rubbed his hands together like a little rat.
Zvalter watched this with a moment of disbelief.
“No matter how you look at it, that guy is a schemer. He definitely looks like someone who accepts bribes well.”
He moved with such a wobble, lacking center, that it seemed impossible for someone to be this light.
For someone like him to gather information and devise strategies? I just couldn’t trust it.
Claude ignored Zvalter’s suspicious gaze as he spoke to Ghislaine.
“We’ve secured thousands of additional horses from this battle. Should we start heading back? I want to go home now.”
Having swept away several small tribes, they had gathered quite a number of horses. If they finished cleaning up the remaining villages of the invaders, it would be enough.
But Ghislaine shook her head.
“Since we’re here, we should take more.”
“We’ve been away from our post for too long. We don’t know when Count Desmond might pull a stunt again, so we need to head back quickly. By now, information about our absence has probably circulated.”
Claude was right. It had already been two months since they had been there. Since they weren’t far from Desmond Territory geographically, lingering for too long wouldn’t turn out well.
“Okay, I’ll start wrapping things up, so don’t worry. By the way, did you make sure the prisoners got a good view of the fight?”
“Yes, as you requested, a few have been made to watch from start to finish.”
“Let’s put them on horseback and let them roam around a bit. Let the rumors spread wide.”
“Understood. It will be a bit easier to deal with those guys now.”
“Exactly. After this beating, they shouldn’t look down on us.”
Zvalter, who had been listening to the conversation, cleared his throat and chimed in.
“Ahem, good work. Once again, you’ve done really well.”
“You too, father. As expected from the Perdium Army. You moved perfectly according to the plan.”
“Of course! Who trained them?”
Zvalter puffed out his chest with a proud expression.
The Perdium Army was poor and small in number, but he was confident that their combat experience and training were on par with anyone else.
Once again, Ghislaine had executed a strategy that was close to perfection.
After a few internal praises, Zvalter asked the question that had been bothering him.
“But is it really okay to release the prisoners on purpose? What if they end up joining forces again?”
With a grin, Ghislaine replied to Zvalter’s worried question.
“Don’t worry. For now, there should be at least one guy who doesn’t want to fight.”
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