Chapter 240
Chapter 240: Deception, Encirclement, and Annihilation (4)
I imbued my axe with a lot of mana. Even though I struck the intended target accurately, the blade didn’t sink in deeply.
Ghislaine, flabbergasted, reached out and tried to bind Kushtu’s body with threads of mana.
“Uwaaaah!”
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Feeling something restraining him, Kushtu let out a monstrous roar, and the bindings instantly snapped. He was more monster-like than I had anticipated.
“This… he’s similar to Viktor, right? No, his body is even better!”
Viktor, who aimed for the North’s Greatest Sword. Although he was killed by Ghislaine in the Perdium ambush, his strength was undeniably formidable.
Kushtu may have lacked technique compared to him, but his strength and resilience surpassed Viktor’s.
His enormous physical abilities compensated for his lack of skill.
“Die! Die already!”
In the meantime, Kushtu, whose eyes had turned wild, was wildly swinging his axe in every direction like a barbarian warrior. No matter how smart he was compared to other barbarians, his primal nature couldn’t be hidden.
If it had been someone else, they would have already been swept away by his overwhelming strength and speed, but Ghislaine, having perfected her swordsmanship, was completely unfazed.
Of course, Ghislaine couldn’t approach recklessly either. Just one solid hit from that axe could shatter her body in an instant.
Boom! Boom!
The ground was continuously being torn up. With his poor technique and frenzied excitement, Kushtu’s attacks weren’t landing on Ghislaine at all.
“Eeek! Why! Why!”
Kushtu thought there would be no match for him in the North. Yet, his opponent was slipping away like an eel.
He had known he was monstrous since he slaughtered the warriors, but facing him directly proved to be even more surprising.
“Uwaaaah!”
Kushtu roared and swung his axe with all his might.
He only needed to land a single hit. If he did, his opponent would never recover.
Boom!
His full-force attack missed again. Because he exerted too much force, Kushtu’s shoulder was left open, and his vulnerability was glaring.
Ghislaine seized the opportunity, tossing aside her axe and wrapping one arm around Kushtu’s neck, hanging on from behind.
Not dying in one blow meant that the attack lacked power. If lacking in power?
“Then I just need to stab until you die.”
Ghislaine grinned as she lifted her axe.
“You bastard!”
Kushtu, furious, tried to grab Ghislaine. But Ghislaine’s axe moved toward his head faster than he could reach her.
Whack!
“Cough!”
Kushtu instinctively gathered all his mana around his head in response to the tremendous pain.
Whack! Whack! Whack!
Ghislaine, pulling up her mana, relentlessly struck Kushtu’s head. Even so, it didn’t break easily.
Ghislaine was taken aback by the abnormal hardness that wouldn’t cave in beyond a certain depth. If he were a normal person, getting struck this way by an axe should have meant certain death.
“This one is completely a monster. Is he gifted with divine power?”
There are those who are born with divine power, extremely rare. They exhibit remarkable physical abilities without studying mana or training.
Their muscles and bones have different densities, hardness, and structures compared to commoners.
Kushtu seemed to possess such a physicality.
Thus, Ghislaine pondered.
‘Why couldn’t this guy unite his tribe in his past life? Surely someone else did unite them.’
If it were this monster, he would have swept through and endured the attacks of ordinary warriors.
Even now. If Kushtu had charged forward directly instead of staying in the rear to protect his warriors, the defense line might have already been breached.
‘Is he surprisingly thoughtful and protective of himself? Or is it the pride of a tribe chief?’
Ghislaine’s thoughts didn’t linger long. Kushtu discarded his weapon and tried to grab her with both hands.
The warriors fighting nearby also seized the moment to attack Ghislaine.
“Whoa!”
Ghislaine jumped off Kushtu’s body and swiftly killed two approaching warriors with lightning speed.
In that moment, Kushtu picked up his weapon again and charged at Ghislaine.
“Ugh, this bastard is way too tough!”
Ghislaine muttered as she dodged the attacks. It seemed typical attacks weren’t working.
Looking around, she noticed that the number of warriors had significantly decreased. Victory was already within grasp. Thanks to perfectly executed encirclement and surprise attacks, there had been virtually no casualties among her allies.
“All I need to do is kill this bastard quickly.”
If this monster keeps rampaging, the casualties among the allies will surely rise.
Ghislaine began to gather mana into her axe.
Zing!
As an enormous amount of mana converged, the axe began to tremble. Ghislaine continued to gather and compress her mana while dodging Kushtu’s attacks.
Being alone in the middle of the battlefield, she couldn’t gather it for long like when she shattered the castle gate of Cabaldy. But thanks to her relentless training, she was able to gather enough to unleash.
Fwoosh!
Red mana gathered in one spot, shimmering. Ideally, she would need to gather more mana and refine it further in this state, but there was no time for calm concentration.
Boom!
“Die, die already!”
As Ghislaine hesitated for a moment to gather mana, Kushtu’s enormous axe came crashing down on her. This moment felt like the last chance; Kushtu truly put all his power into the strike.
As the axe came down, seemingly ready to slice her in half, Ghislaine gripped her own axe tightly with both hands and swung it forcefully.
Boom!
With a cataclysmic explosion sound, Kushtu’s massive axe was shattered in an instant.
And with that sound, all those fighting in the vicinity halted their movements.
What entered their sight was Ghislaine, grinning as she swung her axe toward Kushtu’s head, emitting red smoke.
Whack!
The power was enough to shatter a massive steel axe, but only half of the blade sank into Kushtu’s head.
What dreadful physical capability he possessed.
But no matter how strong a person was, if half their head gets cleaved by an axe, survival was out of the question.
Ghislaine let go of the axe and leapt down to the ground.
“Ugh… this bastard…”
Kushtu, bleeding from his forehead and eyes, tried to grab her. But his trembling hands ultimately failed to catch Ghislaine.
“You… you…”
Kushtu mumbled the same word several times, and the light slowly faded from his eyes as his body collapsed to the ground.
Boom!
The barbarians, fighting a little farther away, were too busy battling the knights and soldiers in front of them to notice that Kushtu had fallen.
Standing on top of Kushtu’s corpse, Ghislaine shouted loudly.
“Tribe Chief Kushtu is dead!”
The barbarian warriors gasped at the sound. Kushtu was the strongest among all warriors gathered here and ranked among the greatest warriors of the North.
“Kushtu is… dead?”
“To lose even with this many gathered…”
“Against Perdium…”
The warriors lost all remaining will to fight.
Some of the warriors struggled defiantly to the end, but it was all in vain.
They were already surrounded, and numerous warriors had fallen. More were still going down.
Crack! Crack!
“Uwaaaah!”
Boom! Boom!
All around echoed the sounds of weapons clashing, corpses falling, and the screams of warriors.
Boom! Boom!
Boom…
At some point, the battlefield fell silent. Only the heavy breaths of the survivors could be heard.
A resounding victory.
Not a single barbarian survived to flee.
“Finally, it’s over…”
A knight murmured. His words seemed to signal everyone, one by one, tossing aside their helmets and weapons.
The interior of the encampment was awash in blood, but no one paid it any mind.
Thud.
Skoban simply lay on the blood-soaked ground. He was so exhausted he didn’t even have the strength to stand.
After catching his breath for a while, he suddenly started to chuckle.
‘Can it be?’
To annihilate thousands of barbarian allies so overwhelmingly. And with less than half the enemy’s forces.
Had such a thing ever happened in Perdium? Never. At least not since he became a knight.
Always cooped up inside fortresses, he had only chased down a few wandering raiders and killed them.
He had never had such an open clash on the battlefield with a major victory.
It felt refreshing. It had been like this since Ghislaine came, but this time was on a different level. He couldn’t even express how this feeling resonated within him.
So, he simply screamed with all his might and laughed.
“Bwahahahaha! We won! We killed all those bastards! We did it! Damn! Long live the Grand Duke! Bwahahahaha!”
That laughter was a signal. All the knights and soldiers raised their arms and shouted in unison.
“Waaah! We won!”
“We achieved victory!”
“We finally killed them all!”
Everyone was overjoyed, not knowing how to contain their excitement. And they all knew very well who was responsible for this grand victory.
The cheers and exclamations of the people quickly turned toward one individual.
The one smiling, drenched in blood, right in the center of the battlefield.
“The Grand Duke has done it again!”
*
Zvalter shook his head at the sight of Ghislaine laughing alongside the soldiers.
‘He’s something else every time I see him.’
This battle had confirmed it. Altering the mana circulation method was not just a reckless gamble.
Ghislaine already possessed the skills that far surpassed anyone in Perdium.
But what amazed him even more was something different.
‘Where does such boldness come from?’
He sensed a nonchalance in Ghislaine that even Zvalter, who had lived on the battlefield all his life, couldn’t see. There was hardly any visible excitement over their victory.
From his son’s expression and actions, it felt as if he was simply saying it was a natural outcome.
Zvalter had felt something similar during the Perdium ambush, but he had brushed it off as just his imagination since Ghislaine had immediately surged forward to take Digald.
Zvalter, having been absent from his son’s life since he was a child, hadn’t paid much attention, but as far as he remembered, Ghislaine was never this way.
What could have changed his son so drastically?
‘By the way, his tactical acumen is incredible. How can everything align so perfectly?’
He had been surprised that Ghislaine rushed in alone, but the results aligned precisely with the plan.
He had predicted all of the barbarians’ movements. There was nothing but admiration for him.
‘Did he say he collaborated with that fellow Claude?’
To lead the battlefield flow as desired, obtaining information was paramount. Through that information, predicting the enemy’s movements enabled the most effective strategies.
Ghislaine mentioned that Claude was in charge of gathering information and formulating strategies alongside him.
‘If that’s true, that’s amazing…’
“Aiee! Our Lord has won again! Oh, how many matches has it been? Shouldn’t we just count the significant ones and say it’s three for three? Including the last one, shall we call it four for four?”
At that moment, Claude, appearing with Wendy in tow, addressed Ghislaine in a sultry voice. He was bowing and rubbing his hands like a little rat.
Zvalter felt a moment of doubt at that sight.
‘No matter how you look at it, this guy seems like a conniving one. He looks like someone who takes bribes quite well.’
With each move, he swayed back and forth without any poise; he couldn’t be this light.
For someone like that to gather intelligence and devise strategies, Zvalter couldn’t quite trust it.
Claude, ignoring Zvalter’s skeptical gaze, spoke to Ghislaine.
“We’ve secured thousands of additional horses from this battle. It’s about time to head back, I want to go home.”
After sweeping away a small number of tribes, he had gathered a decent number of horses. If they cleaned up the enemies’ villages as well, it would be more than enough.
But Ghislaine shook his head.
“Since we’ve come this far, we should gather more.”
“Aren’t we staying too long? We never know when Count Desmond might pull some tricks again, so we should head back quickly. By now, news of our absence should have reached him.”
Claude’s words were valid. It had already been two months since they arrived. Given their proximity to Desmond’s territory, staying away for so long was unwise.
“Alright, I’ll start to wrap things up, so don’t worry. By the way, did you make sure to let the captives watch the battle?”
“Indeed, as you requested, a few were made to observe from beginning to end.”
“Let’s put them on horses and spread them everywhere. Let the rumors fly.”
“Understood. It should make dealing with those bastards a bit easier now.”
“Exactly. After taking a beating like this, they shouldn’t underestimate us anymore.”
Zvalter, who had been listening to the conversation, coughed lightly and interjected.
“Cough, well done. You really performed admirably this time too.”
“You worked hard too, Father. Truly, it’s the Perdium army. They moved precisely as planned.”
“Of course! Who trained them?”
Zvalter puffed out his chest in pride.
Though the Perdium army was poor and few in number, he was confident that their combat experience and training were unmatched.
Once again, Ghislaine carried out the strategy he devised perfectly.
After patting himself on the back several times inwardly, Zvalter asked the question that had been on his mind.
“However, is it alright to intentionally release the captives? They might just unite again.”
In response to Zvalter’s worried question, Ghislaine smiled.
“Don’t worry. For now, one of them won’t want to fight.”
