Chapter 237 — 윈즈 변경주
Chapter 237
Wyns March
But that flash never reached Augustine.
Chaaang!
Just before the blade could kiss his nape, something else burst in and cut the flash off.
“Elric… Mervinger.”
The master of that flash knew at once who had blocked him.
“Been a while, hasn’t it?”
Elric lifted his left hand in an easy little wave, as if greeting an old acquaintance.
In the pitch-black pupils behind the wooden mask the “Ghost” wore, Elric’s face gleamed like a mirror.
He was the very same bastard who’d come to the border garrison to assassinate the Fourth Prince, Kromhel—and failed.
Fwaa—
Elric’s eyes were keener than ever.
“This time, I’m not letting you slip.”
“If you can.”
They traded the briefest of words—
Fwaaa!
KABOOM—rumble!
—then turned into streaks of different light and slammed together.
Elric drove forward; the Ghost—the man in the wooden mask—slipped back.
The Ghost’s forte was superior concealment and nimble footwork. Once his trail was blown, of course he’d break contact and look to strike again.
Elric, meanwhile, was dead set on taking him down.
“Seize.”
Shra-shrak!
The Sigil of Winter flared; from the ground everywhere sprang Pitiless Chains, lashing for the Ghost.
Whip—
But the Ghost spring-kicked off the ground, somersaulted through the air, slipping every chain; the ones knifing in from his blind spots he flicked aside with his sword.
Clang!
In that beat, Elric cinched the gap tight and drove his ice spear hard.
Strong-Body Arts.
Charging Tiger—Force (Jin).
Boramae’s Bearing.
Secret Beak.
As the two sets of techniques braided together, white light fountained off the tip of the ice spear like sparks.
He packed mana with the Strong-Body Arts, added spin to harden the point, fixed his intent on the Ghost, and thrust—the strike landed with more bite than ever.
And Elric’s body, steeped in dragonblood, was already wound tight with power.
No more needed saying about the force behind it.
Where the spearpoint ripped the air, you could see the shockwave ripple out in concentric rings.
KRAAAASH!
Even the Ghost judged he couldn’t just slip past this one; he drove his sword forward with everything he had.
The swordwork that had earned him the title of “King” back home.
His signature skill, said to fell a marked foe in a single exchange.
Only one person in the Empire had ever stopped it.
Andre Wyns.
The Red Lion—his closest friend and rival.
Their bond had begun the day he blocked the Ghost’s killing stroke meant to assassinate him.
The two offensives smashed together, kicking up a harsh dust cloud. The shockwave twisted into a whirlwind, rearing up like a long column.
In the meantime—
Augustine and the Senate had already started their bombardment.
“Commence.”
With that single, casually tossed word, the magic circles blooming all across the sky lit as one.
Fire fell like rain; blizzards came down in sheets.
Each spell was a masterpiece beyond easy description.
Things once deemed strategic threats to the Empire were now being poured out just to crack a single fortress, a sight to leave any onlooker speechless.
“Raise the wards!”
“Barrier Three is down!”
“Reinforce! Move!”
“But we’ve already lost the core—!”
“If the core’s shot, then plug it with your bodies if you have to!”
The wards encasing the keep were, quite literally, melting.
Shields that hadn’t so much as quivered under the mountain tribes’ fiercest assaults.
The Senate, it seemed, couldn’t care less—they meant to strip them away by hand.
This is insane…!
Even as he barked at his subordinates, Tedan was screaming inside.
Even if House Neresta’s Senate was packed with notorious old monsters, this was far, far beyond the pale…!
These people are several times stronger than anyone thinks!
Only then did Tedan understand.
Compared to House Neresta’s true pride, the might of their Senate, what the world knew was a mere drop in the bucket.
People mocked it as a wrinkled old-men’s club, said House Neresta loved to dress up rumors.
In truth, this was after they’d hidden as much as they could!
But the bigger problem was—
The White Night hasn’t even moved.
Augustine had merely spread the white curtain—showing no real move yet.
That was what gnawed his gut raw.
Rrrrrr—
After several rounds of breaking and reforming, overheating and finally collapsing, the wards blew out in a thunderclap.
“The wards have fallen!”
“Everyone hold your posts!”
“Hold your posts!”
“If we fall back, we all die! Stop them somehow! Mage corps, form up!”
Tedan and the officers ran hard, trying to stiffen the troops.
“If we stay like this…!”
“We’ll all die.”
“The keep’s going to bury us whole!”
But despite Tedan’s intent, morale was cratering fast.
They were already terrified by Augustine’s impossible spectacle, and now the bombardment hammered down without pause—how could they not be overwhelmed?
Seeing the Host of Stars still not budge only fanned the fear wider.
It was a sign they weren’t up yet.
That the bombardment wouldn’t stop here…
And sure enough—
Rrrrr—
Bombardment poured into the gaps where the wards had fallen. No—greater spells than before came roaring down in sequence.
A mage seemed to press his palm to the earth, and a quake rattled the whole curtain wall; elsewhere, massive vines burst up and wound the ramparts tight.
Bud-blossoms opened on those vines, gaping like the jaws of beasts hungry for flesh. You could see the paving stones hiss and corrode where their drooling “spit” fell.
The soldiers couldn’t even think to raise their heads above the wall; they hugged the stones as low as they could.
The strange thing was, while there were a few casualties, every strike was pounding the walls rather than where the soldiers clustered.
Pillars tumbled, watchtowers fell. Whole sections of the high curtain wall collapsed into ideal breaches for an enemy to pour through.
The air stank of burnt stone.
But there was little sign of mass loss of life anywhere.
As if the strikes were deliberately steering clear of the men.
“D-doesn’t this feel wrong…?”
“Why isn’t it coming down on us up here?”
At first they wondered if the aim was terrible despite the power, but looking at the enemy’s skill, that wasn’t it.
They were aiming for something else…
N-no way!
Only then did Tedan grasp the Senate’s design, and he screamed inside.
They’re trying to force a surrender…!
Hardly had he formed the thought when—
“Surrender.”
Augustine’s voice boomed again.
Tedan’s head snapped toward him.
Augustine was smiling coldly.
“Honestly, it’d be much easier for us to bury you all alive. Some loudmouths would squawk, sure, but we can just ignore them.”
The soldiers had to straighten their backs.
It was easy to tell there wasn’t a shred of bluff in those words.
Just look.
Half the keep is already shattered.
And—
Tsssss!
White mist began to pool at the soldiers’ feet.
Mist the same color as the White Night veiling the sky.
And the rippling white light within it looked like hands.
Hands that might seize them by the collar any instant and drag them down into the bottomless pit where the casters stood—more terrifying for it.
No one could fail to realize this was Augustine’s magic.
“But we won’t do that—yet. Your mistake is only that you chose the wrong side. Surrender. Those who surrender will live. Not just you, but your families, kin, comrades… all of them.”
So this… this was the aim…!
Tedan went deathly pale.
Now he truly understood the Host of Stars’ design.
They meant to swallow them whole. Not just the fortress—but the entire domain.
The whole of Wyns March, which the Red Lion, the House of Wyns, had spent decades pioneering and settling!
If the Red Castle fought to the end, even if the Host of Stars seized Wyns March, governing it would be a nightmare. Every soldier fallen in the defense was family and friend to the people of the March.
But if they could force a surrender without mass casualties? Naturally, resistance in the March would drop.
So, for the sake of their liege on the Imperial heartland, the “right” choice was to resist to the last. Even if every man here died, they had to stop them. Then the March would remain the Red Lion’s ally.
But—
We can’t…!
That would cost too much. Not just the soldiers—the people of the March as well. What if they provoked the enemy into a massacre?
It is all too common for a victor to “blow off steam” by looting a domain—turning it into a field of corpses.
What right did he have to gamble with their lives? The promise carried the name of Mervinger; if they surrendered, that vow to spare them all would not be a lie.
So Tedan had to waver. His liege, Andre Wyns, had ordered the Red Castle held at any cost—but he was also the one who had always said the lives of the border folk came first.
If it were Andre Wyns—
If it were the Red Lion—how would he act here?
“Surrender.”
The entreaty came again.
Knowing this would be the last—
“….”
Tedan squeezed his eyes shut without realizing it.
* * *
“They’ve raised the white flag!”
“…It really worked.”
At his man’s report, Augustine let out a laugh despite himself.
Indeed, high above the half-ruined keep, a great white flag had been hoisted.
The sign of surrender.
He’d done as Elric asked—terrify them, then offer terms—but truth be told, when they first discussed it, Augustine and the Senate elders alike were skeptical.
They were, after all, the main host of a rebellion. The Red Lion’s den, whose pride reached the heavens. Surely there would be no surrender.
No. They’ll raise the white flag. The Red Lion we’ve seen and heard from outside was that sort of man.
Elric’s certainty struck like a prophecy.
So.
Not just the Red Lion’s lands—but the man himself. I intend to make them all mine.
The Mage Who Devoured Talent