Chapter 213 - The Final Push IV

Edward looked at the massive cannon, taking in its majestic silver-colored body, glowing runes, and ten-foot-wide mouth ready to spew death. Then he watched Frosthallow’s formation shift.

The soldiers in the fourth and fifth lines rearranged themselves, widening the gaps in the formation.

Only then did he understand why Frosthallow was using this type of formation.

It was not only effective against core bombs, but it also allowed them to quickly change their positions and use mana cannons when needed without hitting their own soldiers.

Edward himself was currently safe, as the mana cannon was aimed at the center of Avalon’s formation.

It was an effective strategy, as destroying the middle would split Avalon’s soldiers into two groups and allow Frosthallow’s soldiers to trap them in the same kind of pincer attack that Avalon was currently attempting.

And with Frosthallow outnumbering Avalon five to one, the battle would be over after just one attack.

Fear spread through the ranks.

The soldiers in the central portion of the formation, where the cannon was aimed, started spreading outward, trying to move away from the path of the cannon’s blast.

This time, even the lieutenant’s orders to remain in formation were ignored.

Just as the formation was about to break, oppressive mana spread through the soldiers.

Somehow, it felt as though it were coming from the ground.

The soldiers who had been about to move froze in place as the shadows beneath their feet darkened.

Then they heard the familiar voice of Lieutenant Gaius.

“Abandon your position, and I will execute you for treason. Focus on your job. Leave the cannon to me.”

The combination of the fear of execution and the assurance that someone stronger was protecting them did its job.

But before the formation could tighten again, a massive ball of chaotic fire mana caused everyone present to freeze.

Even Frosthallow’s soldiers.

Before the massive ball of chaotic mana could strike the formation, a familiar wall of silver liquid took shape in front of them.

Then black shadows reinforced the silver wall as Lieutenant Gaius took shape in front of it and placed his hand against the wall.

The appearance of Lieutenant Gaius broke the inaction.

The frontline’s push resumed with renewed urgency, as did the reinforcements’ advance.

As soon as the fifth line was broken, the spearhead stopped moving forward. Then the formation started changing shape.

The edges of the spearhead advanced. Edward and the other soldiers formed a second line behind it, while the rest of the formation moved forward and sideways, forming a hollow rectangle with enough space for the reinforcements to join them.

At the same time, the injured were brought inside the formation and placed on the gurneys carried by the reinforcement battalion.

But this change in formation had come at a huge cost in mana and stamina.

Forcing a path through this many enemy soldiers was not an easy task.

Every soldier standing at the front breathed raggedly, and their armor was covered in dents.

And they were not the only ones engaged in battle.

As soon as Lieutenant Gaius appeared on the battlefield, a flying figure approached him.

A Tier-4 mage from Frosthallow attacked him with a wind blade, while another wind mage flew toward the walls of Velkar, attempting to attack Senior Lieutenant Caeso.

Lieutenant Gaius defended himself by drawing a black sword, a weapon specially forged by the smiths of his house. It allowed him greater control over his shadows and extended the range of his shadow techniques.

He cut through the wind blade with his sword.

Then, with a fluid motion, he thrust the blade toward the flying wind mage.

With lightning speed, the sword extended.

The wind mage dodged by changing direction and flying upward.

Gaius twisted his arm, extended the sword even farther, and swept it toward the mage.

This time, he caught the mage by surprise, leaving a large cut running from the middle of his chest to his left shoulder.

Just as Gaius was preparing to finish his opponent, one of the mana cannons started glowing again.

He prepared his shadows, ready to destroy the cannon once and for all, but then he received a message that made him smirk.

Focus on your opponent.

It was from Captain Petrae.

A moment later, a house-sized obsidian rock flew from the western side of the battlefield toward the mana cannon.

At the same time, a concentrated blade of wind followed it and tore through the obsidian rock, splitting it in half and altering the trajectories of both pieces enough to prevent a direct hit on the cannon.

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But one half suddenly changed direction, as though it were being controlled from afar, and struck the cannon’s supporting structure, bringing down part of it and embedding the cannon’s mouth in the dirt.

Seeing the shift in the battle, even the Frosthallow soldiers closer to the western gate started moving toward the southern gate.

The soldiers near the northern gate did the same, while Frosthallow’s Tier-4s tried to disengage from their opponents.

This increased the pressure on the line held by Garran, Varric, and Kael even further.

To support his teammates and protect the carriages brought by the reinforcements, Edward stopped focusing exclusively on sensing and started supporting the soldiers more directly with mana spells.

Just as Edward was protecting Garran from an opponent’s spear, he sensed familiar spears flying toward the soldiers guarding the carriages. Some were even aimed at the carriages themselves.

They were the disintegrating spears that created fiery shards upon breaking apart.

“Soldiers! Shields up!” Edward shouted to that specific section using [Battlefield Command (UC)] as he created a mana shield to protect one of the carriages.

In times like these, every drop of mana was important, so he could not protect all the soldiers as well. He knew how these spears worked and that, if the soldiers defended themselves properly, their injuries would be minimal.

While Edward maintained the mana shield with his left hand, he thrust his spear toward the spear throwers with his right, sending spear-shaped mana arcs at them.

But their heavy armor absorbed most of the damage from the arcs.

The only thing Edward’s attacks accomplished was drawing the spear throwers’ attention toward him.

Thankfully, before fatigue or the overwhelming number of enemies could kill Edward or his squadmates, Avalon’s least exhausted soldiers—the rearguard of the reinforcement battalion—arrived and formed an outer layer around the formation.

“Hold! Keep facing the enemy!” voices rang out from the formation’s new rearguard, while the soldiers who had previously occupied the rear started turning around and becoming the new frontline.

“Move!”

The order rang out from the front.

The frontline of the formation started moving forward while the rear maintained its position, holding off the bulk of Frosthallow’s soldiers.

Once the frontline had advanced a few paces, it stopped.

Then the rear moved a few paces back.

In this way, the formation began a slow crawl toward Velkar’s gate.

As the number of enemies increased, so did the casualties along the outer layer of Avalon’s formation.

A constant stream of dead and injured soldiers was moved from the outer layer to the middle of the formation, then to the carriages so that they could be brought back to Velkar Town.

Soldiers from the center continuously replaced the casualties in the outer layer, allowing the formation to keep crawling toward Velkar despite its mounting losses.

By the time they had covered three-quarters of the way back, Edward and his squad were once again at the front, defending against a constant barrage of spears and hammers from Frosthallow’s soldiers.

It had been some time since Edward had minimized his use of mana shields. Now, he was relying primarily on the shield given to him by Lieutenant Cicero.

And while the struggle felt desperate to Edward, someone watching from afar would have seen his fighting style changing at a visible rate.

His bursts of speed.

His whole-body mana reinforcement.

The small mana shields he instinctively created whenever a vital member of his group was targeted.

The mana arcs he sent out as counters whenever one of Avalon’s soldiers was about to be fatally injured.

All of it was beginning to happen without conscious thought. Unlike before, he no longer had to think before creating the exact effect he wanted.

So while, from Edward’s perspective, he was desperately struggling and putting his life on the line, from his enemies’ perspective, they were truly facing a Black Butcher on the battlefield.

One mistake, and he would close the distance and deliver a quick stab with his glowing spear, striking with enough force to tear metal armor apart.

One second too slow in raising a shield, and a sharp blade of mana would tear open a throat.

And when elites capable of going toe-to-toe with him confronted him, the soldiers closest to Edward would support him. Throwing knives would fly in from nowhere, or hammer and spear strikes would crash in from the side.

Even if a soldier could counter all of that, a monstrous killing intent would fall upon them, breaking the flow of their battle.

The same type of battle was taking place just ahead of the formation and behind it, closer to the southern gate.

Lieutenant Gaius and Senior Lieutenant Caeso, both connected to some of the most powerful houses in Avalon, were each keeping two of Frosthallow’s Tier-4s at bay while protecting the formation from stray attacks by higher-level combatants.

Thankfully, both shadow magic and Caeso’s silver liquid were exceptionally well suited for battlefield control.

In the chaos, however, no one noticed what the earth mages around the damaged mana cannon were doing.

To the west of the formation, the mana cannon whose mouth had been forced downward when the obsidian rock destroyed its supporting structure was once again pointed toward Avalon’s retreating formation.

This time, it was raised above the ground and supported by crude columns of earth. It was positioned in such a way that firing it would cause minimal damage to Frosthallow’s own soldiers.

Only when it fired did everyone realize what had happened.

Gaius melted into the shadows, trying to reach the rearguard as quickly as he could, while Caeso tried to create a wall of silver liquid in front of them.

Yet neither arrived in time.

Edward sensed the ball of chaotic mana coming toward him.

Using all the mana in his reserves, he formed a mana sphere around himself. Then he extended it outward, covering as much of the surrounding area as he could.

Upon impact, Edward’s mana sphere broke like a thin sheet of paper.

But it also caused the chaotic mana to explode prematurely, at least ten feet away from Avalon’s rearguard.

The explosion still slammed into the formation.

The first and second lines of Avalon’s rearguard, along with two lines of Frosthallow attackers, were thrown to the ground, suffering varying degrees of injury.

Edward was on his knees.

His armor and helmet had been torn away or destroyed, and every visible part of his body was covered in blood.

Yet he was alive.

He remained faintly conscious.

Still on his knees and covered in blood, he stared ahead, almost as though he were waiting for an enemy spear to come at him.

Thankfully, when the ball of mana detonated prematurely, it also sent a tremendous amount of force toward the Frosthallow soldiers attacking Avalon.

Before Frosthallow’s soldiers could resume their attack, a wall of shadow appeared in front of the formation.

“Organize! Take the injured to the center!” Gaius ordered.

Soldiers rushed to fill the gaps that had been created, while others picked up Edward and his squadmates and carried them toward the center.

“There is no space for them on the carriage. Carry them on your backs or leave them behind. We can carry only so many injured soldiers on the carriages,” one of the carriage loaders shouted.

A moment later, to the loader’s surprise, killing intent surrounded him from all sides as though he were an enemy from Frosthallow.

One of the soldiers carrying a giant of a man looked at the loader and spoke with controlled anger.

“This is the Black Butcher squad, and Sergeant Edward is their leader. He has saved my life multiple times in this battle, and I assure you, I am not the only one.”

Then his voice turned colder.

“Let me tell you this. If even one of them dies because you did not give them a place, I, along with the soldiers he has saved and the militia still inside Velkar Town, will kill you. Even if doing so means dismissal from the army or execution.”

Perhaps it was the threat made in the heat of the moment, or perhaps some of the less severely injured soldiers lying inside the carriages agreed to move after hearing about the contributions made by Edward’s squad. Whatever the reason, space was made for Edward and his squad by extending boards from the carriages and transferring those soldiers onto gurneys so that they could be carried into town.

With Lieutenant Gaius now guarding the formation, they finally reached the town wall, and shouts that Frosthallow was retreating spread throughout Avalon’s army.

With that, Edward finally lost consciousness.