Chapter 213: When Men Fall
The battlefield had been fought the same way for three days now. Banners had fallen many times over. Yet hardly any were raised back up.
"Fall back to the rear!"
"Transport the wounded! Leave the dead!"
These were cries heard yesterday, and the day before. The soldiers didn't even look back to see whose mouth the words came from. Somewhere, someone would fall, and the row behind would simply fill the gap.
What had once been a plain had long since lost its original shape.
Catapults hurled boulders skyward, only for them to be caught in the grip of giants and shattered into fragments. Broken spears and sword blades jutted from the earth. The corpses of men and monsters had merged into indistinguishable masses, soaking in fresh blood from above.
"When do we…… Get to pull back?"
A new recruit asked in a hoarse voice. Through the endless fighting, his neural accelerator had overloaded, and his stamina had long since bottomed out.
And yet the lines drawn across the battlefield held unchanged.
The red and blue lines rippled like gentle waves, but there was no decisive breakthrough or retreat in any of them. They simply bent ever so slightly, back and forth, over the same ground.
"Status?"
"The same as yesterday."
The alliance command was repeating themselves.
"Which means……"
"Ah, the same as the day before as well. No notable changes."
The knights who had returned from the field fell silent. Bloodstained gauntlets crumpled inward without a word. Beside the map, thin slips of paper had accumulated in a stack. One more was added with each passing day.
[Astria Spearmen Battalion, combat-incapable. Remaining strength: 40%]
[Niboria Cavalry, half of mounted strength lost. Transitioned to ground combat.]
[Silver Shield Legion losses accumulating. Commander Erdman Falter, critically wounded.]
The alliance's numbers were gradually dwindling. The scale of the forces meant it wasn't immediately obvious, but the trimming was steady and certain.
"If we hold like this…… Can we actually win?"
No one answered the question.
And yet the reason they held on was clear. The Latia captains, the elves and dwarves of Viale—they looked toward the center of the battlefield.
It could be seen from afar.
The giants still refused to retreat. Even as dozens had already fallen, they continued to march steadily after their legion commander, The Great Gromchi. The domain of the monsters remained intact, and within it, the sight of two Masters keeping the creature at bay was equally unchanged.
The sky churned with a tangle of light and darkness, and across the ground, soldiers raised their shields once more. Then, the Corrupted flung themselves into the defensive line.
A fierce and relentless struggle repeated itself without end.
Then, once again, the gaze of many turned toward a single point.
Sevi Belgrado, Niboria's Master, disengaged from Gromchi and withdrew. A man who had taken his rest stepped in to fill the gap.
"It's Belmar."
"Even if one has reached a supreme realm, he must surely be exhausted…… to think such a hero existed within Latia, and I'm only learning of it now."
Then, beyond Gromchi's shoulder, two streaks of light swept past. Even within the domain where rifts and darkness churned, they were clearly visible.
The battlefield, as if finally catching its breath, fell briefly quiet.
"Is Master Serin…… still holding up?"
Someone's murmur drifted past.
Even amid the fighting that stretched into its third day, people continued to trace those two figures' movements. Everyone knew who it was that decided the tide of the battle.
The line drawn on the map remained the same, but the names holding it up were fixed.
***
Dirt and dust erupted once more. As the giant's arm swept across the ground, Belmar absorbed the trailing force of that power. Without mana—through sheer brute strength alone, he held firm. The earth beneath him caved in, yet the man launched himself half a step back.
"Left!"
Serin's warning grazed past his ear.
He was already moving. Ahead of Belmar, he climbed up Gromchi's right shoulder. In the next instant, a single flash of light struck the monster's nape.
‘Too shallow!’
But this time, the opponent's response was different.
The thick neck tilted to the opposite side, and the blow did no more than peel the surface of the hide. More than that—the giant's arm, which until now had swung in mindless abandon, followed Serin's movement with precision.
He launched himself into the air and twisted his waist. The giant's grip just barely grazed the underside of his chin. The strands of hair caught in the aftermath were sliced apart and scattered across the air.
At that, Belmar lunged at the monster's flank.
Grrrrrr……!
Gromchi flinched and wrenched its body sideways. With its lower half embedded in the ground, it swung only its upper body and rendered Belmar's attack useless. It looked almost as though it had memorized human attack patterns.
"……It's adapting."
Serin's breathing grew ragged. Some of it was the shock—but in truth, it was exhaustion. The pulse of his mana wavered in fine tremors. The movements were the same as always, but the afterimages stretched unevenly.
Belmar was no different.
He too had slowed, subtly. The speed of his sword swings held, but his reactions lagged by half a beat. Gromchi did not miss that opening.
As the giant's backhand swept across the ground in succession, Belmar hardened his brow and retreated dozens of steps. For the first time, he felt a burden simply in standing his ground head-on.
Serin saw that small wavering, and bit down hard.
‘At this rate, we won't last long.’
Then, aid reached them from outside. It was Rohart—the vice-captain of Astria's royal knight order, leading the alliance knights.
"Scatter! Draw the creature's gaze!"
Swordsmen who had trained under Masters leapt in with no regard for their lives. Gromchi's domain was a space only the qualified could enter. They had no warhorses to charge on—only a single sword each as they rushed the giant.
In that moment, Gromchi slammed both hands into the ground.
Kraaaaang—!!
The impact spread across the entire battlefield in an instant. The ground, which had barely held together, fractured, and sinkholes opened in every direction.
Rohart grabbed a subordinate falling into the depths. His comrades mattered just as much as Master Belmar. To haul the man back up, he planted one foot firmly in place.
And that single choice divided life from death.
"Hold on just a little—"
Crack!!
From between the collapsing rock, a massive finger thrust upward.
"Vice-captain!!"
Rohart raised his shield immediately, but Gromchi's grip crushed everything in its path. The armor crumpled and tore, and the shield split in two, unable to bear the pressure.
What remained was only the blood trickling down the giant's fist.
The knights lost their voices for a brief moment.
But even a moment of mourning was not afforded. Someone among them had to continue filling the gap.
Again, Serin's blade flashed. Belmar's breathing shuddered roughly. The battlefield was unchanged. But the people within it were vanishing one by one.
***
Serin swallowed hard.
Rohart's body slipped limply from the giant's grip. He stifled a short, muffled sound and steadied himself.
But Belmar's reaction was different.
It was only for an instant.
In the blink of an eye, the noise of the battlefield vanished from his consciousness. The mocking laughter of the giant, the anguish of the soldiers, Serin's cries—none of it reached him.
Only one thing remained: he turned over, again and again, the last moment his eyes had met Rohart's.
‘I leave what follows to you.’
The shape those lips had left behind raked through Belmar's heart like claws.
"……You."
Belmar's voice resonated low.
The instant Serin hesitated, mana detonated from beneath his feet.
Crack!
The earth sank in deeply—a recoil so violent it could have sent molten rock flying. Belmar's body launched upward, leaving no afterimage behind. Then, in a single straight line, he carved through Gromchi's forearm.
This time, it was not shallow.
In one stroke, the skin peeled away, the dark red flesh split apart, and bone was exposed. At that, the knights around him surged in their resolve and rushed in with renewed aggression.
"No!"
The elf, Serin, let out a voice filled with dread.
‘He's pushing himself.’
Belmar was fighting at full capacity. One step faster than before—yet one step more dangerous.
It was a momentary rampage born of emotion.
Of course, it was effective.
With Serin covering his back, and the knights scrambling Gromchi's senses, Belmar carved out the giant's right eye. Not stopping there, he conjured a foothold from mana, and drove his sword into the monster's cervical vertebrae.
In that moment, a roar erupted from the alliance's ranks.
"Master Belmar cut it!"
"That monster isn't invincible either!"
"We're winning! We're actually winning!"
It was the first voice of hope to emerge in dozens of hours.
Belmar felt that too. His lips trembled slightly.
"Rohart…… I will not let your death be in vain."
He drew mana out to its very limit. The neural accelerator at the back of his neck vibrated harshly, and the grain of the world came to a standstill.
He intended to end it with the next strike.
That was when it happened.
Within that frozen world, Serin felt the surge of mana. Belmar had wrung out the strength of his entire body and launched into his final leap.
And in that moment—
Gromchi's left eye turned to point at Belmar.
The elven man's face went white.
"Get away!!"
It was already too late.
The battle between the strong was also a contest of domains. The balance had held until now, but the instant Belmar broke it by his own choice—darkness mana coalesced in the air.
It then took the form of a massive grip, and thrust straight at Belmar who had leapt into the sky.
The Great Gromchi.
The being born as king of giants wielded even its own mana in the same manner.
Thuwomp—!!
Belmar's body was bent in midair. A fist made of dark particles crushed his entire frame where it stood. The sound of his ribs shattering—three separate times—rang out with vivid clarity.
No breath. No scream.
He was sent hurtling, raising a cloud of dust as he crashed into the ground.
For a time after that, no sound came from anyone. It was the silence of the moment humans comprehend fear. Serin rushed to him without a word and seized his body as though pulling him close.
One side of his chest had caved in badly, and his breathing was so faint it seemed it might cut off at any moment. A droplet of blood seeped slowly from the corner of his lips.
That small trembling of emotion, that single drop of blood he had shed…… Had toppled the balance of the battlefield.
"M…… Master……"
"Belmar has fallen?"
The air shifted.
Only the knights standing before the giant cried out.
"Master Serin, we entrust Belmar to you!"
The knights' voices trembled—yet at the same time, were resolute. Even knowing what would befall them, Serin pulled Belmar back toward the rear.
With that, the battlefield froze. The spark of hope was extinguished in an instant. And at that very same moment, far in the distance—a terrible presence began to raise its head.
Something was approaching.
***
After Belmar was carried to the rear, a suffocating silence settled over the Alliance Forces. Until moments ago they had been busy making reports and offering opinions—but now, no one opened their mouths.
Calix stood in the middle of the battlefield and watched the stretcher pass for a brief moment. The senior priests of the Order had stepped forward, but how it would turn out remained uncertain.
He turned his gaze forward once more.
The plan had gone awry, but regardless, the balance of the battlefield had shifted. Rather than assigning blame, what needed to be done now was to give them a new objective.
"We'll have to push through from the left and right flanks."
His voice resonated low.
The knights from each nation turned to him in what seemed like surprise.
"The front line…… Retreats."
"You mean we're giving up the center?"
"Yes. We'll let it collapse."
Calix did not repeat himself. He simply raised his right hand and pointed to a single location on the battlefield. It was that very central axis where Gromchi's shadow stretched long.
He said no more and pulled the reins of his horse. Air thick with blood and dust entered his lungs.
It was time to step onto the battlefield.
‘Cut through Gromchi, and strike Marcaron.’
As Calix took his first step, the soldiers recognized his presence and parted the way.
Then, the air blanketing the battlefield trembled—ever so faintly.
From the distance, a darkness of a completely different magnitude than anything before began to push its head forward. One of his eyebrows twitched in fine tremors.
‘It needs to end quickly.’
Calix knew it too.
The final enemy was approaching.