Chapter 197 |
Carnius felt the winds of victory. The flow of the battlefield was stretching out straight. A positive energy pushed the imperial army forward.
The general, tasting the victory, breathed shallowly as he issued his next command.
"Sir Dillen, take your men, retrieve our battle horses, and organize a pursuit squad."
Carnius moved the left wing of the main force. They were going to break off the encirclement and retrieve the horses.
‘This will give me a good ground to stand on when I oppose His Imperial Majesty's overambitious colonial ventures for a while.’
Emperor Yanchinus was undertaking two colonial exploration projects at the same time. Even for an empire in its golden age, the expenditures were almost too significant.
‘We’re spending a vast amount of money every year to support the over-the-sea expedition of Porcana. This recent venture into the west with Yailrud was just as rash.’
Yanchinus squeezed the pockets of the nobility to invest in these colonial ventures. And the nobility, in turn, squeezed even more out of their people.
"Investment for the future... Maybe I'm just an old relic getting in the way of a new era."
"Father, I too will lead from the forefront."
Leo couldn’t sit still, itching to move. He wanted to lead the soldiers and go after the barbarians right away.
"It’s not a bad idea to gain some experience."
Carnius permitted Leo’s deployment. Such real-world experience opportunities were rare. Carnius had brought Leo out to show him a war of such a large scale.
Leo advanced, leading the troops. He stood in front of the imperial infantry on his horse.
"Haha, look at them, all busy scurrying for their lives."
Leo confidently deployed the troops forward.
‘You vile creatures. I won’t take any of you alive.'
Leo had witnessed the atrocities in Langkegart. The slaughter and plundering done by the barbarians were hard to believe as the work of humans.
The barbarians didn’t feel like fellow humans to Leo. To him, they were no different from wild animals.
"We will cut down the barbarians to protect the sons and daughters of Lou! May the blessing of the Sun be with our soldiers!"
"For the Sun!"
Leo chased the fleeing barbarians, slashing at their necks.
Schring!
It had been a while since he had killed. An unpleasant sensation lingered at Leo’s fingertips.
'These bastards are not humans.'
Leo tried hard to rationalize the killing. Generations born after the stabilization of the empire were not accustomed to war and killing. Even Leo, who was trained as a knight, was not much different. He wasn't like his father's generation, who were pushed to the battlefields as soon as they opened their eyes every morning.
"Huup."
Leo stabbed a fleeing barbarian in the back with his spear on his horse. The barbarian threw his axe even as he was falling.
"No chance!"
The barbarian's axe bounced off Leo’s shoulder plate. Soldiers around Leo helped him by stabbing the barbarian in the chest.
"Grrrgh."
The barbarian died, foaming blood.
'Truly barbarians. They're fiercer than anything I’ve ever faced.'
Leo raised his head to look for the next group of barbarians.
"Hah, there are more running away over there..."
But Leo stopped mid-sentence. He saw a group of barbarians through the pouring rain. But they were not running away.
'Are they charging this way?'
It was an unexpected situation. Some of the barbarians had formed a wedge formation and were charging toward the imperial army's main force in the front.
Leo’s unit was also in the path of the barbarian charge. Leo immediately called his soldiers to form a defensive line.
‘Why are they coming this way?’
The strategy of his father, Carnius, was perfect.
‘Did they decide that our main force in the front was weaker than the encircling forces in the rear? How did they make such a judgment?’
Leo gulped. It was an absurd decision that made no logical sense. It was common sense in warfare that the central main force was the strongest.
‘My father laid that common sense as a trap and sent the elite troops to the barbarians' rear.’
The imperial army’s main force obviously had its strong main troops. Because this common sense was planted, Carnius’ strategy worked.
However, sometimes on the battlefield, there were those who acted and decided as if they were possessed by something, or to put it nicely, as if they had divine inspiration. At the edge of life and death, they did not leave their fate to logical judgment but to intuition and instinct. There were those who risked their lives in places that seemed less logical rather than the more probable ones.
A warrior sometimes had to run toward death to find the door to life.
“Ooooooooooh!”
There was vigor in the barbarians' roars. Even in overwhelmingly unfavorable circumstances, they did not lose their morale.
‘This makes no sense.’
It wasn’t just the imperial army that thought this.
The warriors following Urich were also doubtful. They were charging toward the enemy’s main force in an encircled situation. It was a charge that was practically suicide.
“Urich is the man leading us from the front!” Vald shouted.
Urich was the reason the warriors could move forward. Urich was leading at the very front of the wedge formation.
‘I’ve already drawn my sword. The time to doubt and hesitate has passed. The only thing left for me to do is fight.’
A red madness filled Urich’s mind.
“Hooooooh!”
Urich, at the forefront, collided with Leo’s defensive formation.
Blood, flesh, and steel intertwined. Terrified screams and bloodthirsty shouts crossed over and piled on top of each other.
Leo’s guards were his family's private elite soldiers of significantly superior quality. However, the soldiers supporting them were conscripts with lesser equipment and skills.
“Kaaaagh!”
Urich’s wedge formation shattered Leo’s defense. They were quickly surrounded and devoured.
“Protect the young master!”
The remaining of Leo’s guards formed a circle, confronting the barbarians, but they fell one by one.
‘Am I dying here? Me?’
Leo couldn’t believe the situation. Barbarians were all around him. More than half of his guards had already fallen.
The only practical experience Leo had was chasing down a bunch of bandits. He had always fought in superior situations and never felt his life being threatened.
Clang!
Leo raised his sword, fending off a barbarian's attack.
‘I’m going to die at this rate.’
Pride and honor completely vanished. Leo had a humiliating thought. He was going to propose his own ransom.
“I-I am a noble! The eldest son of the Carnius family! Spare… me…”
The blade of a barbarian flashed.
Leo clutched his throat. He couldn’t finish his words. Blood poured from the slit windpipe, and only the sound of bubbling blood was heard.
Soon, the warriors trampled over Leo’s lifeless body as they passed. They had no time to waste.
Crack!
Urich extended his arm and swung his axe, decapitating a soldier. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes wide.
“Roar, my brothers! Make the enemies fear! We are still alive!”
Urich’s shout was also a reminder to himself. His body and mind were oddly misaligned.
‘I feel sluggish. My body and mind are not moving together. None of this feels real, and I don’t even feel the threat of death.’
It was not a good situation at all. The sensation of death breathing down his neck was important for a warrior. The crisis and tension that one might die tightened all senses. When his senses were at their peak, Urich could even dodge arrows coming from his blind spots.
‘Right now, even looking at iron lumps in front of me makes me dizzy, never mind arrows.’
Urich straightened his waist and squared his shoulders. He could see the main force of the imperial army in front of him.
Urich’s unit maintained their wedge formation and charged toward the imperial army's main force. The imperial main force also spotted Urich's unit and prepared their archers.
“Fire!”
A volley of arrows erupted from the main force.
Urich rolled on the ground, picking up and lifting a dead imperial soldier’s shield.
Tatatatat!
The barrage of arrows swept over Urich’s unit. The warriors without shields simply entrusted their lives to luck and continued their run forward.
“Come on, take up your weapons and charge! They are afraid of us!”
Vald, throwing away the arrow-stuck shield, shouted until his throat seemed to tear.
“Woaaaaaaah!”
The wedge formation struck one side of the imperial encirclement hard.
‘We can do this!’
Urich pushed away an imperial soldier's shield with a body slam. Several imperial soldiers stumbled and fell due to Urich's force.
Crunch!
Urich relentlessly trampled an imperial soldier’s head with his foot and split another approaching soldier’s arm with his axe like chopping wood.
‘This force’s equipment and combat skills are inferior.’
Urich twisted the corner of his mouth as he wiped the blood sticking to his face. It wasn’t just him feeling that way. The other warriors also easily knocked down the soldiers. As they felt the enemy was weak, the warriors’ blades gleamed even more fiercely.
“E-eeek!”
Terrified soldiers hesitated and shoved each other in the way, breaking their own formation. Even with the officers' encouragement, the soldiers only hesitated.
‘Why did the barbarians come this way?’
Most of the imperial army’s heavy infantry and knights, which were their biggest strength, were missing from the main force.
‘There is no way these barbarians saw through General Carnius’ strategy.’
Even the commanding officer looked grim upon seeing the barbarians surge forward.
Urich’s unit's sudden behavior also came as a shock to Carnius.
‘Did the barbarians read my strategy?’
Carnius shook his head.
‘If they did, then they would have rallied all of the barbarians and attacked us head-on from the beginning. It must have been a spontaneous decision.’
The barbarians' breakthrough force was terrifying. They instantly cut a path through the imperial camp. The defense lines, mostly made up of conscripts, couldn’t stop the barbarians.
“Oooooooooh!”
The warriors who opened the gap shouted as they swung their weapons left and right.
“Uuuuuuurich!”
The warriors called out Urich's name. Urich had led them to life. The air of life breathed after sinking to the brink of death was sweeter than anything they had ever tasted.
Urich’s unit suffered far fewer casualties and successfully breached the encirclement than other alliance army units. Moreover, they were far away from the imperial army’s main forces in terms of distance. The method that seemed most dangerous turned out to be the right answer.
‘Urich, how did you figure this out? How did you know going that way would be easier?’
Even Vald, who had been stuck right next to Urich, found it hard to believe. The decision to charge straight into the front of the imperial army in a situation like that was astonishing. If any other chief had suggested it, no one would have followed.
The imperial army filled the gap Urich’s unit had broken through. Rather than pursuing the barbarians who had already managed to break free, they focused on annihilating those who had not yet escaped the encirclement.
Carnius turned around to look at the group of barbarians who made the bold decision.
“Should we go after them?”
“No, let them go for now. Pursuing them now will only increase our losses. We might even risk breaking the encirclement.”
Carnius gave the order calmly. Regardless of how far the barbarians fled, the imperial army had won the battle. There was no need to be anxious to increase the tally of their victory.
‘Which of the barbarians made the decision to break through head-on?’
It wasn’t a level of judgment that was expected from the strategic thinking of barbarians. Carnius’ trap was something only a veteran who had rolled through several battlefields of civilization could have sniffed out.
Carnius watched the fleeing barbarians. He planned to reorganize his forces immediately after annihilating the remaining barbarians and then pursue them. Various strategies crossed his mind.
Someone interrupted Carnius’ thoughts.
“General Carnius.”
An adjutant spoke to Carnius. He took off his helmet and bowed his head.
Click, clack.
A cart stopped in front of Carnius. On it lay a body, hands neatly folded.
Carnius’ gaze lingered on the cart. All the knights and adjutants around fell silent.
“Leo…”
Carnius faced his son's corpse. Words failed to come out anymore. His thoughts halted.
