Regressor of the Fallen Family

Until the moment Jerome witnessed the enemy lord’s sword burst with a Forceblade, he still had the fighting spirit.

However, facing the unknown golden strike, he couldn’t muster any spirit at all.

The outward momentum felt on par with his own, but…

“That can’t be right.”

Despair and helplessness rose in the place where his fighting spirit had vanished.

And that only worsened the already dire situation.

Finally.

Whush!

“Keuk, keuhk.”

‘My lord, I failed to complete the mission…’

He tried to apologize to his lord in his heart, but he wasn’t even afforded the time to do so.

Slash!

For Padric had lifted his head high into the air with a stroke of his Forceblade.

“We’ve captured the enemy commander!”

Padric’s voice echoed across the entire battlefield from atop the walls.

During the war, one side’s entire command had been annihilated.

In a normal battle, it was time for the disadvantaged forces to throw away their weapons and surrender.

But the knights of Bifrost were different.

“I will take command! Fight to the end! Reinforcements are on their way!”

Below the walls, a bloodied knight came running, spouting nonsense.

‘Those damn dogs…’

Logan couldn’t help but feel exasperated at the sight.

If reinforcements were coming, they should already be visible to those on top of the walls.

But whether the shouting knight held a position of note, his maniacal cry imbued the remaining forces with false courage.

Their retreating steps suddenly halted.

“Reinforcements are coming!”

“Fight!”

Poor soldiers deluded by their own side reignited their will to fight.

And watching this made Logan’s heart burn as well.

In this increasingly troublesome situation, there was only one answer left.

“I’ll kill them all!”

Logan plunged into the center of the unnecessary bloodshed created by a knight’s single remark.

Knowing the overwhelming enemy forces would charge the castle, Jarek, who was leading the ambush squad, resigned to sacrifice as he forcefully broke through the encirclement and dashed towards the castle.

Though it left only 15 of the original 22 ambush knights, he believed this was sufficient to aid the defensive forces.

Ignoring the rain of quarrels pouring onto the back of his head, he raced toward the walls.

But the enemy was stronger than expected.

– We’ve captured the commander!

The voice he heard upon reaching the bottom of the walls.

“Brother!”

The bloodied head held by the knight above was a face all too familiar to him.

Rage and fury surged from deep within, clouding his reason.

“They’re ordering us to fight on! Reinforcements are coming!”

Nonsensical utterances induced their comrades to resist.

He knew it would only lead to unnecessary sacrifice.

But he wished to inflict even the slightest more damage on the ones who had killed his brother.

“Jarek! It’s too late! We should join the main force!”

Though his comrade Gael assessed the situation and protested, Jarek ignored him.

“You go. I’ll see the end of it here!”

“Jarek!”

As a clash ensued amongst the commanding knights, those following them were also thrown into confusion.

“Fire!”

Bang, bang, bang!

As if refusing to give them a moment to decide, the pursuers bombarded them with the tiresome rain of quarrels once more.

“Go! Only I will remain here!”

As the knights faced danger, Jarek roared with the last of his reason resounding.

Then.

“Who’s going to leave!”

Accompanied by a shout from above, someone leapt down from the wall like an arrow.

The golden light enveloping the sword was an unusual sight, but Jarek didn’t notice.

All he could see were the man’s red eyes and red hair.

The same person who had earlier lifted his brother’s head, a symbol of the Maclaine bloodline.

At that sight, the last bit of reason in Jarek vanished in an instant.

‘That bastard!’

The rain of quarrels from their troops, the dozens of knights leaping down in pursuit of the red-haired one.

Everything else faded from his vision.

“I’ll kill them all! Maclaine!”

He had already given up on survival.

Madness took over completely, and he invested all his remaining strength into his sword.

A searing red Force blazed more intensely than any other moment in his life, adding to his wild nature.

But.

“You’re the one who’s going to die.”

Swish.

Like compressing space, the ghostly movement appeared before him.

At a moment’s glance into the cold red eyes.

Jarek’s consciousness faded away.

Snap.

Possibly provoked by the lunatic’s last defiance, resistance from the remaining troops of Tomodo persisted to the end.

But the moment Heinzel lowered the gates to let in the crossbow cavalry including the foot soldiers of Maclaine, the overwhelmingly outnumbered situation became glaringly apparent, and they were forced to cease resistance.

However, by then only about four Bifrost knights and 50 soldiers remained.

In contrast, Maclaine’s casualties accounted for only 14 knights on the walls and about 30 soldiers killed by stray arrows.

It was a landslide victory.

* * *

“We’ve won!”

“Hooray!”

“Long live Maclaine!”

The battle that began in the morning ended before the sunset.

Considering there hadn’t been a proper clash even by lunchtime, it was a swift resolution.

And it ended in an overwhelming victory, so it was no wonder the soldiers cheered so.

But after several hours of clearing the battlefield, the grim expressions of the leaders gathered in the makeshift headquarters within the castle were hardly bright.

Although some faces were flushed with the excitement of battle and victory, there were none who were simply smiling—a strange scene.

The reason for this came with the first words spoken at the conference that began after the sun had set and the moon and stars rose.

“We’ve gotten through one crisis, but now the army from Bifrost’s capital will come. What’s the next plan, Logan?”

Everyone’s gaze shifted towards Logan after Padric spoke.

However, Logan’s brief reply was enough to turn the expectations in their gaze into dismay.

“We hold.”

“…What?”

When Padric asked again on behalf of everyone.

“It’ll take at least a day or no more than a few days. If we just hold, Bifrost will retreat on their own.”

Logan’s continued words only magnified the perplexity.

Yet, Logan’s gaze remained fixed on the full moon beginning to rise in the night sky.

“Your Highness. What do you mean…?”

“We need an explanation, please.”

“Why would Bifrost back down?”

“…You’ll naturally find out later.”

Though he tried to speak as calmly as possible, the most anxious of all was Logan himself.

‘Please, let there be no variables!’

Desperately trying to hide his nervousness, he continued to act composed.

“Now, let’s prepare for the siege!”

* * *

– Prepare for the siege!

The soldiers who had been shouting victory cries were baffled by the sudden orders given during the moonlit night.

“A siege means defense?”

“What’s going on? Isn’t the war over?”

“We won, didn’t we?”

The simpler minds, only looking at the situation at face value, were puzzled.

“As expected… a war with the count’s family…”

“I knew we couldn’t be at ease.”

Those with a bit more insight lamented the looming future.

Of course, the most important thing for the soldiers was different.

“What’s this all about doing in the moonlight!”

“Ah, shucks! My body’s already aching.”

“Do we really have to do this now?!”

For them, it was the forced labor that came at the expense of their sleep.

As thousands of curses erupted, Tomodo Castle’s night became noisy.

“There’s no time. Quickly, quickly!”

As his master ordered, Griek hurried in a fluster.

In his and his fellow mages’ hands were dozens of Collapse Scrolls.

The precious items, each worth a thousand gold, were now being ridiculously installed on the ground.

‘If only we had more time, we could have saved these and tried to manage with magic instead.’

But there was no time now, as his master had said.

It was fortunate that there were leftover scrolls from the dam project, making this work possible.

Moreover, the Grand Prince’s command required a meticulous task: the precise calculation of the limits of the scrolls’ destructive range, something that couldn’t be entrusted to soldiers.

‘In the end, we have to do it.’

Griek sighed, preparing for the moonlit gymnastics, no, magic.

“Griek! Are you ready?!”

“Yes, Master!”

“Enan! Turs!”

“We’re prepared too!”

“Good! Three, two, one!”

Flash.

With Griek’s signal, the scrolls laid out at regular intervals on the ground right in front of the walls simultaneously emitted light.

And then…

Rummmble.

As though an earthquake had started, a tremendous rumble caused the ground to crack.

The soil swelled up as if it would burst.

The collapsed earth shoved the soil outward around the scrolls.

And the displaced dirt, following a pre-adjusted magic, moved to cover the gaps in the walls, smoothing out the uneven exterior.

Rumble.

The continued vibration resulted in a five-meter deep trench dug around the walls—a moat.

Deep enough to bury dozens of people, the trench stretched along the wall.

Even the removed earth automatically shifted to repair and fill the wall—an astonishing sight.

‘Feels like our school of magic is becoming more specialized in construction work.’

While instructing his golem to compact the ditch, Clayten felt a twinge of discomfort.

Of course, there was no time to dwell on such sentiments.

“Let’s move quickly. It needs to be completed before dawn!”

Noticing his disciples’ grim expressions as he shouted, Clayten felt less than pleased as well.

It appeared his initial goal to provide more training time for his apprentices had somehow gone awry.

‘Nah, it’s probably just me.’

With tens of millions in support from Maclaine every year, it was only right to do this much.

If Maclaine fell, the Golem Tower would fall as well.

They were practically one and the same.

‘Could it be he initially held us to do this… No, I proposed the tower. Paranoia, Clayten. You lack discipline.’

He brushed off the bitter feeling and hurried his disciples with a deliberately bright face.

* * *

By dawn, the soldiers, pushed by orders from above, climbed the walls and could only look around in amazement.

“Huh, was this wall always this high?”

“The wall’s completely smooth, too?”

“Magicians, after all. How did they do all this overnight…”

To the Maclaine soldiers, it seemed as if they had woken from a brief sleep to find the walls had suddenly become incredibly smooth and taller.

They were once again astonished by the power of magic.

However.

“Spread the prepared oil on the walls! Make sure it can flow down without any gaps! The decurions should check thoroughly!”

“Yes!”

They too had to contribute to this great endeavor, and their astonishment soon turned into complaints.

Regardless of their mood, their grumblings would be nothing compared to what the sleep-deprived mages from the Golem Tower who had to face Logan that night.

“We’ve made the moat, so are we to fill it with water now?”

Clayten’s face contorted at Logan’s absurd request.

“The plains and rivers are close, but it’s still a straight distance of at least 5 kilometers to the nearest branch of the Luter river!”

“If the enemy arrives today, as you said!”

“This is absolutely impossible, just impossible!”

“Didn’t we already dig through mountains and tirelessly dig canals? It’s just 5 km to the river, and we just need to connect the flow; is that too hard?”

“…”

In the end, their just and rational rebuttals were silenced by the oppressor’s power.

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