Chapter 279: How to Protect What is Precious (3)

Nether, the empire’s Solver, had said that a Solver had to face problems, observe them, and know how to look at them from different perspectives. Then, there would be nothing in this world that couldn’t be solved.

“That includes you, Keter. You’re no exception.”

Nether faced Keter. He spent the whole day watching only Keter and thinking about him. Then he acted like Keter. If he were Keter, what would he do in the Family War? He thought about the answer hundreds of times.

Nether muttered, “I’m Keter. I’m facing the Family War soon. Should I cooperate with Sefira and fight together? No. That doesn’t suit me. I’ll fight alone. The formula for victory used by those with absolute power is to crush the weaker enemies one by one first. That’s the most ideal approach. But I won’t do that. Why? Because I’m Keter. I enjoy attention and fun. So I’ll aim for the main force where the enemy’s family head is.”

On a strategic map that depicted the battlefield, Nether moved Keter’s piece to Bydent’s main encampment. Then, like a child playing with toys, he swept the main force with it.

“There are two Grandmasters in Bydent’s main force as well, but they aren’t my opponents. If I went all out, I might even be able to kill them easily. But I won’t. That would be boring. I’ll make them feel enough fear and despair first. However—”

Nether moved the pieces representing the Grandmasters of the left and right wings, which had been far from the main encampment. Keter’s piece was instantly surrounded.

“I never thought there would be six Grandmasters! And the Sword Dragon, Rajis, is a proper Grandmaster. No matter how strong I am, facing six of them at once is difficult. Then what should I do? I can just run away.”

Nether picked up the piece symbolizing Keter and hesitated for a moment.

“Where will I run? South, where Sefira is? West, where there are forests and mountains? Neither. I don’t just run away in any direction. North. I’ll head to Bydent’s rear encampment.”

Keter’s piece swept through the rear encampment. This time, Nether placed his own piece nearby.

“After sweeping through them once, I’ll be convinced that there’s no one here who can stop me.”

Nether’s eyes suddenly widened, as he remembered that Keter had used the Agile Footwork technique at the Sword of the South Tournament.

“Right. I don’t care how many Grandmasters Bydent has. Knights of the Lillian Kingdom don’t learn the Agile Footwork technique. And even among knights, speed varies, which means a distance will inevitably form. If I exploit those gaps and defeat them one by one, I can face six Grandmasters alone. And if they give up chasing me? Then I’ll just target Bydent’s soldiers.”

This explained everything. Why Sefira insisted on defending, and why Keter went out alone.

“Were you really planning to win the war all by yourself, Keter?”

Nether shuddered. Keter’s plan would have been perfectly executed if it weren’t for him.

“Can you do what I do? If you’re truly a Solver, you should be able to predict that I analyzed you and dug a trap for you.”

Nether had two choices. One was to believe his own judgment and set traps according to it. The other was to believe that Keter, conscious of him, would engage in the war in a conventional manner and prepare for that.

“No, I don’t care what Nether does. He isn’t even a Grandmaster. At most, he’s at the Master level. How could someone like that pose any threat to me?”

Nether struck Keter’s piece with his own, knocking it over.

“I am above you, Keter.”

With that, Nether currently succeeded in stabbing Keter in the chest. He had spent a significant amount of money to reach this result. He had used as many as three 6-circle scrolls, each costing hundreds of thousands of gold. The top-tier concealment magic, Perfect Reflective Camouflage. Lightning Pillar, which rained lightning within a fifty-meter radius. And Hydro Pump, which caused water pillars to erupt from dry and frozen ground.

Moreover, Keter wasn’t the only target. The allied Grandmasters entangled in combat with him were swept away as well. Without doing so, Nether couldn’t land his spells properly. And that wasn’t all. He had one more hidden weapon.

Boom, boom, boom, boom!

The ground suddenly exploded. The bomb that Volus had obtained to use on the Path of Glory had been retrieved by Nether and planted in the rear encampment. Allied casualties were inevitable, but Nether considered them as necessary sacrifices.

The seventh law of a Solver. You can never gain anything if you fear losses.

By throwing Keter’s senses into complete confusion, Nether was finally able to stab Keter in the chest. The sword he used wasn’t just any ordinary one. It was a poisoned sword crafted from a basilisk’s fang. Anyone stabbed by it became paralyzed instantly, and even a Superhuman with resistance to poison would suffer cardiac arrest and die within five seconds.

Nether looked up at Keter and smiled. It was a victorious expression that signified his victory and Keter’s defeat.

Keter’s mouth opened. Nether waited like someone about to receive a gift, wondering what he was going to say.

“I was wondering when you were going to come.”

It wasn’t an insult, nor a statement of acknowledgment. Keter said it as if he had been eagerly waiting for this moment.

Nether sensed something was wrong. He hadn’t stabbed just anywhere, he had pierced near the heart. Keter should have died of cardiac arrest in one second, not even five. However, Keter was perfectly fine. When Nether examined him more closely, he saw none of the symptoms typical of basilisk poison.

Keter, who shouldn’t have been able to move at all, raised his right hand. Nether smelled the heavy stench of death.

***

Jordic doubted his eyes. The great Keter had his chest pierced by Nether. He didn’t mean to belittle Nether, but Nether was barely at the level of Master. Thinking it might be an illusion, he rubbed his eyes and looked again, but the sword had clearly penetrated the chest. Moreover, it had struck near the most vital part of the body, the heart. The chaotic encampment was no longer visible to him. The result mattered more than the process.

Keter spat out a mouthful of blood. It was thin but clotted. It wasn’t from his mouth, but from his organs.

Keter is defeated by Nether?

He couldn’t believe it, yet it was reality. Jordic felt conflicted. He was glad, yet something felt unsettling.

I imagined killing him myself with my spear after a fierce battle and sacrifices.

Jordic felt a sense of futility at Keter’s apparent end.

No, this is right. Keter was arrogant. He must have underestimated Nether and gotten caught.

Anyone could die in vain, just like his brother and father. Keter was human as well, so there was no reason he would be an exception.

“Nether! Cut off Keter’s head!”

Jordic was the one who once created a hole in Keter’s stomach. Although any human should have died from such an injury, Keter had recovered. Therefore, cutting off his head was the only way to be sure he would truly die. However, it was already too late.

Before Nether could pull out his sword, Keter kicked him away and staggered.

Nether rolled across the ground and urgently shouted to Jordic. “Lord! Keter has been struck by basilisk poison!”

Jordic knew well what basilisk poison was. It was an extremely strong paralytic toxin. Yet, Keter was moving as if nothing were wrong.

“Cowards...” Keter muttered.

Then, Keter began to run away again. This time, however, his speed was noticeably slower.

Jordic hesitated for a moment. Could this be another trap? But he quickly dismissed the thought. That wasn’t likely. The sword had clearly been lodged in his chest. On top of that, he had been poisoned by basilisk poison. He was bound to collapse soon.

“Everyone, go after him! We cannot let Keter escape!” Jordic ordered the Grandmasters.

The Grandmasters at the scene were in miserable condition, but not so injured that they couldn’t move. Jordic threw them the elixirs he had prepared in advance and began chasing after Keter first. The commander of the Grand Corps quickly followed, and the leading pursuers took a brief moment to catch their breath.

Then, Tesla, the Grandmaster of another family, asked for Rajis’s advice. “Sir Rajis, what should we do?”

Zion naturally waited for Rajis’ answer as well. It wasn’t simply because Rajis had saved both their lives multiple times when they fought Keter. Rather, they had acknowledged that Rajis was the only one here capable of making the correct decision right now.

Rajis gripped his forehead as he watched the direction Keter was fleeing.

“Keter has suffered a fatal wound and has been poisoned. If left alone, he is destined to die. Now that two fully recovered Grandmasters are joining the chase, they will be more than capable of finishing him off. We three should settle this chaos and keep an eye on the Sefira family. That would be the proper course of action, but...”

Rajis let his words trail off. Sefira might send forces to rescue Keter. Of course, they wouldn’t be particularly threatening.

“If we were to let Keter, who is fatally wounded and poisoned, slip away... I have a feeling he will come back alive someday. Even if it were decades from now.”

“That’s rather chilling.”

“I must see Keter’s corpse with my own eyes.”

Keter had fought nearly on equal footing with six Grandmasters. Who could predict what might happen after ten years, or even just a single year? Furthermore, driven into a corner while fighting alone this time, Keter wouldn’t choose to fight alone again next time.

“We must join the pursuit.”

The opponent was Keter. That alone meant they had to finish him with certainty.

At Rajis’ statement, the other two nodded without a moment’s hesitation.

***

While five Grandmasters were chasing Keter, the soldiers of the Bydent family surrounding Sefira were gradually letting their guards down.

“Those Sefira bastards aren’t budging.”

“So they won’t even show a hair past the walls,

huh?

Cowards.”

To them, it seemed that Sefira had no intention of leaving the fortress gates. They were like turtles choosing only to defend. However, the belief that Sefira was doing nothing was Bydent’s misconception and arrogance. In fact, Sefira’s interior was extremely busy, processing intelligence reports coming in real time from scouts outside.

“Keter is moving toward the forest. Five Grandmasters are chasing after him.”

For simplification in times like this, formalities were omitted in the report.

Having received Myle’s report, Hissop immediately asked, “And the remaining one?”

“The commander of the Order of the Black Leopard, he’s currently standing by with the main force.”

“Deploy at once!”

Although Hissop suddenly issued the order to advance, neither Myle nor the elder panicked. If Keter drew attention, Sefira would advance. That had already been part of the plan.

Only the knights would march. A separate force of one hundred knights, composed of the Sacred Order of Sefira and the Order of the Galaxy, was summoned immediately.

Leading them was one of Sefira’s seven strongest archers, Pekda of the Seven Stars of the North. He was called in place of Anis and Taragon, who had been sent to the front. Appearance-wise, he seemed to be nothing more than an ordinary middle-aged knight.

Yet, he was the former commander of the Sacred Order of Sefira, the Order of the Star, and deputy commander of the Order of the Galaxy at the same time. In terms of experience, he was second only to Elder Panir, Sefira’s greatest genius in strategy and tactics. The special operations unit under his command left Sefira territory equipped with tremendous mobility and stealth, and Bydent was thrown into a state of alarm.

“Suspicious movement seen from Sefira!”

“Knights! Around a hundred of them! They’re all heading north!”

The intelligence agents diligently reported, but the person who should have received the report, Jordic, the family head of Bydent, was currently chasing Keter and couldn’t be reached.

When the family head was absent, the vice-head usually assumed command, but Bydent had no vice-head. In that case, authority fell to the elders. However, the elders of the Bydent family weren’t at the battlefield. They were relaxing in the safety of the Bydent estate, enjoying a leisurely bath while the soldiers fought or died outside.

Thus, the next person in line after Jordic was the commander of the Order of the Black Leopard. Using his injuries as an excuse, Commander Fuan had avoided joining the pursuit of Keter. While examining his face in a mirror, he was startled.

“Sefira is on the move? Why?!”

It was practically a scream of complaint about why something like that had to happen when he was the one holding final command authority. Still, he assumed it wouldn’t be difficult. Sefira had no Grandmasters, after all. At most, they had three Masters and perhaps one hundred knights. While the main encampment that Keter swept through had suffered considerable losses, the left and right wings had none.

“Send out the cavalry to pursue them, and have the infantry cut off their retreat. Focus on stopping their movement rather than attacking.”

Even rotten fish had bones. Fuan issued a proper textbook-example order. Then, he gripped his spear. Many Order of the Black Leopard knights had been among those Keter had killed. Thus, Fuan decided to enter the battlefield personally for vengeance.

“Summon three companies. I will lead them myself.”

Fuan gathered three hundred soldiers and was about to depart when...

“Commander Fuan! Urgent news!”

“Again?” Fuan frowned and gestured for the messenger to speak quickly.

“Our main estate is under attack! Sefira’s knights have occupied the buildings!”

“What?! How many Sefira knights are there?”

“Approximately fifty.”

“How many are stationed at the estate? Can we respond?”

“Well, we never expected Sefira to raid the main estate, so no knights were posted there. We must send reinforcements immediately!”

“Damn it...! How did a bunch of archers manage to infiltrate the estate?! And how did they evade our surveillance?!”

Sefira had no mages. That was a known, unmistakable fact. They did have a magic archer, Katherine, but strictly speaking, she wasn’t a mage.

However, Bydent wasn’t aware that magic archery wasn’t the only thing Katherine had learned from Keter. She had learned a new field of magic known as the embodiment system of magic, and with its concealment spell, she hid fifty knights while waiting for the perfect opportunity.

This wasn’t Sefira’s strategy; it was Keter’s. Katherine, acting as the commander, had assembled an infiltration unit of fifty Sacred Order of Sefira knights on his orders.

𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

“Commander Fuan! Please issue an order!”

Keter and Sefira’s diversionary operation placed Fuan in a situation where he had to decide immediately. The pressure made him feel like he was about to lose his mind.