Chapter 218: Beginning and End
The Mountain Rabbits charged.
There was no hesitation. Ungcap, a veteran mercenary who had lost his comrade Hagen, lunged forward with his bear-like frame. The dwarf Nuri Sarui and the elf Daren Yoamang fell into step beside him.
And at the center of it all, was Royce.
He had already finished every calculation he was capable of making. Where the Mountain Rabbits would pull back to, how to get Calix out. Knowing he couldn't hold De Generitum for long, he pushed forward regardless.
Not to cut down the enemy—but to buy time, he threw his body into the fray.
There was no battle cry, no signal. Just a single straight line cutting across the battlefield. The crash of armor and the stamp of boots rang out at the same moment. In Royce's field of vision, only one being existed.
De Generitum.
He did not dodge.
Even as the Mountain Rabbits closed in, his posture hadn't changed from the very beginning. Like a man who already knew the outcome, he betrayed neither impatience nor tension.
Paradoxically, that bearing looked almost like Calix.
Then, just before Royce's blade could connect, the air shifted. An invisible membrane spread thin and intercepted the steel. The tip of the blade shuddered, unable to cross that point.
Royce pressed harder.
He drew the recoil up through his arms, shoulders, and waist, driving the sword forward. His neural accelerator sounded repeated warnings. Even so, he did not stop. ‘They’ did not stop.
Because they knew that this one step forward was what would make someone else's escape possible.
[Die-e!!]
[……So that is the resolve.]
From the midst of axes and blades, De Generitum's voice rang out. It was low, and without feeling. Neither mockery nor interest. He was observing the Mountain Rabbits.
Royce did not answer. There was no reason to.
He twisted his sword and changed its trajectory. Not the front, but the flank—an angle where the defense would inevitably thin. The mana backlash made his gut churn.
‘Just a little more.’
As a result, the blade grazed the enemy's side as it passed. It was far too shallow to be called a cut, yet a faint sensation climbed up to his fingertips. The flame Royce had kindled clung on, if only just.
In that instant, De Generitum's gaze turned toward him.
"That is enough."
The moment the words left his lips, his sword moved.
He did not swing wide. There was no hint of force behind it. He simply turned his wrist, warping the path along which Royce's blade would travel. The steel cleaved through empty air, and the recoil threw Royce's sense of balance into disarray.
A single beat.
The shortest, most lethal gap on a battlefield.
Blood droplets scattered. In the blink of an eye, Ungcap's head was gone. The dwarf Nuri Sarui lost his forearm. The elf Yoamang was cleaved clean through the torso.
Royce scraped together what remained of his mana and poured it into the neural accelerator. The output spiked temporarily—but it was already too late. De Generitum's movements had long since outpaced his perception.
Thud.
The enemy's other hand found Royce's abdomen. It did not push, did not crush downward. It simply pierced straight through.
Royce came to a dead stop.
His body refused to obey. His legs would no longer carry him forward, and the strength drained out of his arms. He managed to hold onto his sword, but could not move it.
He sank, falling to his knees.
De Generitum spoke in a flat tone.
[No matter how you struggle, you cannot change the outcome.]
The Corrupted Lord knew that the captain of the Mountain Rabbits would not rise again. His body was already broken beyond repair.
"That is what fate is."
He had merely placed the full stop at the end.
Immediately after, De Generitum made to step forward. To pursue and bring reckoning upon those who were fleeing in the distance.
Crunch.
Then, without warning, he felt resistance at his ankle.
It was Royce.
His body was in ruins. Blood poured from his mouth, and beneath it, crimson tears streaked his face. His neural network was on the verge of collapse, and the neural accelerator's light flickered dangerously.
Even so, he moved.
To fulfill his duty as captain of the Mountain Rabbits, he wrapped both arms around the enemy's ankle, clinging to it as if to embrace it. A flicker of something shifted in De Generitum's eyes.
Silence, brief.
He quietly parted his lips.
[Humans……Their will alone is infinite.]
His voice carried something that sounded, somehow, like bitterness. In that one moment, he seemed to stand not as the Corrupted Lord, but under the name Ashapel Raimund.
Yet death could not be escaped.
At the final moment—
Royce did not look back. He did not check whether Calix had made it out safely, or whether Marik was carrying out his responsibilities as Vice-captain.
Instead, he looked back at the past.
In his mind appeared the image of Minebris, the mage who had guarded the Viale Mountain Range.
'You shine brightly, yet you are precarious. Your mind is clear, but your body grows frail. We may advance together, but you will not reach the end.'
She had been right. He hadn't understood then, but he had come to know it, slowly.
That was why he had prepared for the end.
He had anticipated defeat in battle, and left his wishes with Marik, Gregor, and the key members of the Mountain Rabbits.
‘They had to survive.’
Even if it meant using underhanded means. Even if it meant bearing humiliation at times.
Then Royce felt his vision begin to blur. As the strength left his hands, he gripped De Generitum's ankle all the harder.
It was then.
The one who had once been the most precious thing in his world—his son—came walking toward him, smiling brightly. It was clearly a hallucination. Even so, Royce could not ignore his child's call.
"……Ramond."
"Father."
Ramond no longer gasped for breath with a punctured lung. He came forward in a whole and healthy body, and gently patted his shoulder.
Then, as though to say ‘you have worked hard’, he took his father into his arms.
The Mountain Rabbits.
The one and only absolute thing that had remained to him.
Now it was not.
And so Royce brought his duties as captain to their close.
* * *
"We pull out!"
The first cry was Marik's, but it spread immediately through a chorus of voices.
They all shared one truth. The sacrifices of their comrades must not be made meaningless. There was no one among them who did not know it.
Calix pretended not to have heard.
His gaze remained fixed on the far end of the battlefield. The place where Royce had fallen. Now, no trace of color remained there.
"Calix!"
Volga seized his arm and pulled. There was force in that grip. The will not to let go came through plainly. He turned reflexively, trying to shake off the hand that held him.
"Let go."
His voice was low, but absolute.
"If you go now—"
The sentence didn't finish. Another hand seized his shoulder, and then he was shoved up into the saddle of the warhorse Lunos. Half the Mountain Rabbits moved to envelop him at the center. This was not protection—he was being forced into retreat.
Calix gritted his teeth.
He had not lost his reason. His vision had not gone dim. He understood with perfect clarity what was happening before him. That was precisely why he resisted all the harder. He pushed back with his elbows, lowered his body, and tried to force his way forward.
"It's not over yet."
He believed it was not stubbornness, but cold-headed judgment. The opening Royce had made was meant for escape—yet he wanted to bring that man back alive.
If it was now, perhaps there was still—
"It's over."
Then, Gregor's voice reached his ear. A quiet voice. The veteran mercenary looked at him with clear eyes.
Only then did Calix stop struggling. It was none other than Gregor who had spoken. If he said it was over, it was over.
He turned his head. His gaze met De Generitum's. The enemy still stood in the same place—he had neither stepped over Royce nor given chase to the Mountain Rabbits.
From here, the choice was Calix's. If he rode back into the battlefield, this place would no longer be a fight but a slaughter.
That truth was what stopped his feet.
"Calix, we have to go!"
Adrian said it low. It was close to an ultimatum. Calix did not turn his head. He could not tear his gaze away. From the place where Royce had vanished, he had not yet managed to pull himself free.
Yet his body was already being dragged back.
Hooves struck the earth. His vision shook. The noise of the battlefield grew denser, not quieter. The clash of steel as the Corrupted pressed forward, screams, the crack of mana detonating—all of it layered over itself, one stratum at a time.
That sound came flying like a blade and buried itself in his chest.
Calix realized it, too late.
That he had not possessed the right to remain.
Royce had stayed behind, and he had gotten out. What had produced that outcome was not only the enemy's strength.
‘……I was not enough.’
That thought grazed through his mind. No emotion followed in its wake. No rage, no tears. Only a cold fact settled in its place.
‘If he had been stronger.If he had been faster.If he had managed to hold even ground against De Generitum, even briefly.’
Royce would not have had to meet his death.
By now, the horses kept running. The surviving Mountain Rabbits did not look back. They did not hang their heads, did not weep. They focused solely on cutting through the Corrupted and breaking free of the battlefield.
It was their first defeat.
* * *
The fact that Calix had been driven from the battlefield spread without a word—yet swiftly. The soldiers instinctively knew the center had broken.
"The enemy……Is pushing through!"
A shout burst out from the front lines. Another overlapped immediately after.
"The rear is collapsing!"
"Hold formation!"
But the voices of the veteran soldiers scattered uselessly into the air. The moment they glanced back of their own accord, the Corrupted drove into that small opening as though they had been waiting for it all along.
Calix watched that scene from horseback.
From the place where he had withdrawn, the front line was caving inward. Soldiers with interlocked shields and swords fell back one step at a time, and that one step became ten. Men fell, and the Corrupted trampled over them.
‘……If it collapses like this—’
There would be nothing behind them.
It was precisely then.
Dust rose from the hill on the plain.
At first, fear stirred at the thought that another host of the Corrupted had appeared—but soon the sound of hoofbeats sharpened into clarity.
A heavy, steady rhythm.
Human cavalry.
Banners snapped in the wind. The crest of Kalahim. Thousands of mounted soldiers crossed the plain without leaving a moment's room to breathe.
Ranakk, son of Great Chief Yoman, had returned.
"Allied cavalry!"
"It's Kalahim!"
A sound close to relief burst from them.
Those who should rightfully have been driving in the final stake of victory came charging instead under the banner of salvation. Kalahim's cavalry chose the most desperate point and drove straight into it. The weight of the horses pushed back the Corrupted, and for a moment, brought a fragile balance to the teetering line.
That was enough.
The Alliance Forces did not let that opening go to waste. Shields locked back into place, and the commanders' voices translated into action. The line that had nearly broken managed, barely, to catch its breath.
Only then could Calix look down at his own condition.
He had not won. But it was not over, either.
With the cavalry's support at their backs, the allied forces cleared the plain before evening fell. When they finally reached safety as the sun tipped toward the horizon—they stopped at last.
The Mountain Rabbits did not tally the casualties. Instead they moved in silence, confirming one remaining face at a time, and bowed their heads.
Today, they had lost. But the Alliance Forces had not been broken. That single fact alone was enough to carry them through the rest of today.
Nothing had ended.
‘Not yet.’