Chapter 346: River of Blood, Mountain of Screams (9)

What Rajis had blocked was indeed an arrow, but something was different.

It’s not aura or mana. What kind of power is this?

It wasn’t an arrow physically made of some material. It was an arrow made of energy, something unfamiliar even to Rajis. He was left confused since he didn’t know the power was Ein, a perfect power that combined only the strengths of aura and mana.

There was no time to analyze or to grieve over the dead strategist. The arrows started pouring even more fiercely as if the barrage had just begun.

“

Aaaagh!

”

“W-where are they?! Where is the enemy?!"

“Block them using amantir shields! Steel shields aren’t enough to stop them!”

Perhaps the target of the arrows hadn’t only been Rajis, as screams could be heard from outside as people collapsed one after another.

As a Prime, Rajis quickly adapted to the arrows and blocked them. Then he stepped out of the tent and soon witnessed hell unfolding in front of him. Those who had been healthy just an hour ago and filled with fighting spirit were now corpses lying all across the ground. The blood they shed pooled into puddles. There were more dead than living. The ones still alive trampled through the pools of blood as they ran, trying to avoid the arrows pouring from the sky.

The sound of blood being splashed echoed around Rajis’s ears. For a moment, he felt as if he might lose his sanity. If it weren’t for the voice of the aide calling beside him, Rajis would have been pierced by an arrow.

“Commander, Commander!”

Snapping back to his senses, Rajis deflected the arrow and looked to the side. The aide, a five-star Master, was covered in wounds from head to toe.

“Please give us orders, Commander!”

The aide was terrified. Yet he forced it down and shouted for Rajis to issue commands.

Orders? Me?

This was the kind of position a commander held. Rajis had prepared himself for this, but now that he had entered a real battle, he was at a loss for words. However, he couldn’t remain silent forever.

He barely managed to say, “I’ll block the arrows. Find the direction they’re coming from. The enemies must be there.”

Sefira had launched an ambush. Rajis didn’t know how they had slipped past the eyes of the alliance and approached this close, but the best option for now was to fight back. Only then could they save more allies. It was a fairly wise judgment, and the aide, who agreed, looked up at the sky.

After only a few seconds, the aide’s voice, filled with despair, echoed.

“C-Commander. The arrows are falling from the sky! Like rain...!”

Rajis was also aware that the arrows had fallen from the sky, but how could arrows fall straight down from the sky? Even if he didn’t know much about archery, he knew it was impossible to shoot arrows like that. If fired from afar, they would have to be shot in an arc.

“That’s impossible. Are you saying Sefira is shooting arrows from above the clouds?!”

“It’s not just here! It’s raining arrows across the entire camp!”

Perhaps the aide had lost his mind as well, as he seemed to have forgotten to maintain his composure.

Rajis felt the same way. They had only exchanged a brief conversation, yet the number of corpses had more than doubled. It felt as if hundreds were dying every second.

“Damn it!”

The place where the alliance had set up camp was a plain. Even the nearest hill was five hundred meters away. The terrain shouldn’t have allowed Sefira to launch a surprise attack in the first place. An ambush required somewhere to hide, and the alliance wasn’t foolish enough to have no guards on duty.

They’re endlessly firing arrows with this kind of power from over five hundred meters away? Is that even possible?

Rajis couldn’t come to a decision, so for now, he ran to protect the people. As a Prime, Rajis could guard a wide area on his own, and the survivors hurriedly gathered around him. There were only about fifty at most. Far more died in vain before they could be saved. Above all, Rajis couldn’t guarantee how long he could keep blocking this rain of arrows.

What if this rain of arrows is infinite?

He knew it made no sense, but this entire situation already made no sense.

At that moment, a booming voice rang throughout the entire camp. It was the voice of Daul, the supreme commander of the alliance.

“All forces!”

Those who had fallen into despair listened to the commander’s shout.

“Charge toward Sefira!”

Daul’s next words were shocking. Charge toward Sefira in this situation? However, the commander's orders were absolute. Surely he had some plan to issue such a command. At least, that was what the soldiers wanted to believe.

“

Aaaaah!

”

“Charge!”

If officers didn’t lead by example, the terrified soldiers wouldn’t follow the command. Knowing this well, the Master-rank knights, who could at least block the arrows, charged toward the direction where Sefira was first.

“Incantors! Deploy the barrier!”

Daul hadn’t issued the command recklessly, also ordering the surviving incantors to deploy the barrier they had prepared in advance. Soon, a net-like barrier began forming high in the sky.

“

Ooooooh!

”

“The arrows are being stopped!”

As the soldiers saw the arrows falling from the sky blocked by the net, their eyes filled with hope.

The generals seized the moment and gave the order.

“Charge!”

At the same time, those who had been hiding underground also began advancing toward Sefira through the tunnels.

Rajis moved according to orders for now, but his unease got ahead of him.

Doing nothing isn’t good either, but will this kind of reckless attack be worth it?

Thousands had already lost their lives in the barrage of arrows. Even the survivors, though they didn’t show it, had lost their fighting spirit. Those underground had mostly survived, but the originally planned fog was absent.

Even so, war was something that had to be fought. Once a war began, it wouldn’t end unless one side was utterly defeated.

***

Daul was, of course, taken aback at the barrage of arrows falling from the sky, but as supreme commander, he calmly analyzed the situation.

The area around the camp is flat. There is no rough terrain nearby. Moreover, we’ve been monitoring Sefira’s movements twenty-four hours a day. Being ambushed is absurd, but arrows keep falling above our heads. Logically, this is a phenomenon that is impossible to understand.

A deflected arrow brushed past Daul’s shoulder by bad luck. A chunk of his flesh was torn apart, yet Daul didn’t stop thinking.

Scattering the army in all directions to find the source of the ambush is exactly what Sefira wants. They would take us out piece by piece. They got us. Either retreat or charge. Neither option favors us.

He didn’t even need to see it. He could tell by the sounds that thousands of soldiers had died. If they retreated, thousands more would die. What was more troubling than the countless casualties was the fact that once morale fell, it couldn’t be raised again. The soldiers would tremble in fear. They would be haunted by the anxiety of not knowing when those arrows that suddenly fell out of nowhere might fall again.

There’s no other choice but to charge.

They were starting at a disadvantage, but they hadn’t lost yet. The alliance still had an overwhelming advantage in the number of Primes, and the soldiers in the tunnels were safe as well.

We’ve only lost the chance for an overwhelming victory. We haven’t been defeated.

It was regrettable that thousands of soldiers had died, but the Master-level knights were still intact. Daul felt it was still doable, and that was why he had issued the attack order.

However, he hadn’t anticipated the fact that Sefira hadn’t launched an ambush. The alliance came to see that Sefira’s army had never left Sefira. They had simply fired their arrows from Sefira. It was five kilometers away from the alliance camp. Who could have predicted that the arrows shot from Sefira would reach all the way here and fall from the sky?

Keter had been watching all of it unfold.

“As expected, they’re attacking.”

Standing atop a massive wall made of dirt that hadn’t existed before in Sefira, Keter stopped shooting his arrows.

Daat, standing beside him, lightly tapped Keter’s hand.

“Big Brother, is your hand okay? It’s smoking.”

As if it were hot, Daat quickly pulled his hand back.

“Ein Sof really is hard to handle. I wouldn’t have been able to use it at all if it weren’t for Eslow’s arm.” Keter turned and stretched his wrist.

Keter had just used Ein Sof for the very first time. It was the higher form of Ein that he had been waiting to use. Its nature was simple yet complex.

Turn Ein inside out, and it becomes Ein Sof.

It sounded easy, but actually doing it was nearly impossible. How could one even define the inside and outside of energy that had no physical form? Even Keter, called a genius among geniuses, couldn’t grasp it. Yet, it became possible because he had absorbed a dragon heart and obtained the prosthetic arm of Eslow, who had experience using Ein Sof.

“It wasn’t bad considering I wasn’t supposed to be able to use it, right?”

“Yeah. It’s a relief you’re not the enemy,” Daat commented.

Keter had attacked enemies thousands of meters away. Not just one or two, but tens of thousands at once. The enemies had no choice but to take it. They were trapped in a hell-like dilemma with only two choices. Continue running toward the enemy stronghold, or run away.

“

Oh,

Big Brother. There are probably guys coming through tunnels too. Somewhere over there.” Daat pointed somewhere with his finger.

It looked like ordinary ground, but it was the entrance to a tunnel the alliance had made. The alliance thought Sefira hadn’t noticed, but that was only half right. Sefira hadn’t noticed, but Daat had. Because Sefira had to be fooled for the alliance to be deceived as well, Daat had deliberately kept the existence of the tunnels a secret even from Sefira.

“The ones coming through the tunnels can all just be buried alive.” Keter shrugged, then placed his palm on the ground.

The Terra Ring instantly began to shine. The massive wall they were standing on had also been created by Keter in the blink of an eye. A tunnel supported by nothing more than wood would never be able to withstand the power of the Terra Ring, one of the Five Element Relics.

The ground outside Sefira’s walls violently sank. The tunnels stretched long like snakes, connecting to the alliance camp. All 4,927 of those who had been charging toward Sefira through the tunnels were buried alive. Even the soldiers of the alliance advancing on the ground didn’t realize it. Who could have predicted that this roar was the sound of thousands of their own allies being buried alive?

After dealing with more than half the enemy without even facing them, Keter crossed his arms. His arm tingled a little from forcing it to use Ein Sof, but he could still endure it. Even so, the reason he stopped attacking was that he needed someone to spread the rumor.

“Who’s going to spread the word if we kill them all before they even reach Sefira?”

Thus, Keter waited. It was for good reason.

Soon, the alliance army finally advanced to where Sefira’s walls could be seen. Even without their commander’s order, they had to stop.

“

Uh-oh

...”

The archers of Sefira, densely lined atop the walls, greeted the army; Keter hadn’t attacked alone. Right before attacking, he had told everyone to prepare. The archers weren’t only on the walls, either, but there wasn’t enough space. Some had come outside the gates and stood across the plain in lines.

The knights at the very front hesitated. Even though they were covered in amantir armor and trained not to fear arrows, they became afraid once they saw Sefira’s archers. They knew that if they continued to charge, all those arrows would pierce them, leaving their corpses to look like porcupines. However, they also knew that charging forward was the only option to keep the troops coming behind them safe. Even though they were aware that war ultimately required sacrifice...

“Th-this won’t work.”

A proud and honorable knight was the first to step back. It wasn’t just one person suddenly taking action. Many turned their backs and began retreating, fearing they might already be within bow range.

“What are you doing?! Why are you coming back?”

“Stop!”

“Don’t do this!”

“Get lost!”

Those trying to go back and those trying to go forward became entangled. People fell and were trampled. Some even began fighting each other. Sefira hadn’t fired a single arrow, yet the alliance army was collapsing on their own.

Watching this, the commanders felt miserable, yet had no choice but to acknowledge it.

Where did it all go wrong?

Everything had certainly been going well. They had been watching Sefira’s movements all day, and they had been certain they would win if they launched a full attack using the fog tonight. Yet at some point, they could feel in their bones that defeat had drawn near. It was so clear that the alliance soldiers were panicking in despair at the sight of Sefira’s archers already waiting. Even Sefira, the enemy, found that pitiful.

Just then, four people quickly came charging from the alliance’s side.

“Everyone, fall back! From here on, we’ll take over!”

The Primes of the alliance had not yet admitted defeat.

Rajis, the Garcia family’s Sword Dragon. The knight commander, Magon. Dust, an elder of the Luban family who was also known as the Gale of Luban. Zerphi Luban, commander of the Luban family’s Storm Knights, and former Sword of the South.

Though their advantage in numbers was gone, they believed that they could defeat Sefira if they joined forces and attacked, since Sefira had no Primes.

However, the four of them simultaneously came to a stop as someone appeared before them.

“The guy you all hate has arrived.”

As if on cue, the four used their Authorities the moment they saw Keter.