Chapter 256: Without Any Cost (20)

Fire swept across the field, burning dozens at a time. White frost froze the soldier's breath mid-air. Regardless, wiping out hundreds or thousands wasn't easy even for the mages. Their magic of ice and fire was met with resistance. The soldiers regained their composure, pushing past their comrades' deaths to attempt a counterattack.

Breaking through these meddling mages would ensure the imperial capital's ruin, bringing the war to an end. That possibility drove them to shed their fear and charge ahead in a frenzy. Some soldiers even recognized me, raising their voices in excitement.

Although the first strike had been completely one-sided, we held overwhelming numbers. The exchange in lives was horrifically skewed. Overall, the battlefield had devolved into chaos, exactly where I belonged.

Sprint.

Of course, I no longer felt anything in particular for this battle. Everything was simply inertia. The inertia of killing. The inertia of absorbing. Like a dog running until it collapsed from exhaustion, I let myself be carried by the current, indifferent to whether it was righteous or heretical.

I wanted to forget everything. The empty battles I'd fought until now. The way Isaac had deceived me, hook, line, and sinker. It'd be a problem if the mages focused their attention on me, but luckily, the battlefield was wide enough that I hadn't drawn too much notice.

The next target... I saw familiars circling in the sky, hawks connected to the mages. Creatures that had lost themselves—born without collars or reins—now forced to share their vision with humans. They flew unsteadily through the sky, their natural paths twisted by their masters' control.

"Fire!"

The archers nearby, likely well-trained, all turned their bows on the familiars. Arrows tore through the air and struck the birds mid-flight. One hawk, flying erratically under psychic domination, took several arrows and spiraled downward. Had it been flying on its own, it could probably avoid them entirely. In its final moment, its eyes flickered, as if it had briefly escaped its master's control.

Thud.

The familiar's corpse, riddled with arrows, hit the ground. When a familiar died, its master also suffered a minor shock. I wasted no time closing in on a presence coughing in the shadows near the riverbank. A mage in a purple robe silently extended his hand.

Shing!

Like it had been preloaded, ten sharp ice spears shot from his staff, flying toward me. The thin, barely visible spears punched through several points in my dwarven armor. Most passed harmlessly between bones.

"Wh... what...?"

Even with five ice spears embedded around my abdomen—likely the mage's personal favorite target area—my innards hadn't frozen. He seemed horrified. Trembling, he backed up against a tree. I lunged forward and severed his neck along with the pine behind him. The pine tipped sideways, its sharp green needles drenched in his blood.

"..."

A delayed chill spread from the two spears that had struck bone. I could feel several birds, freed from their collars, flying away into the distant sky.

[You have absorbed Frost Lv. 3!]

[You have absorbed Wind Blast Lv. 3!]

Right as I absorbed his essence, a fiery wind spread toward me. It seemed another pair of mages—one commanding fire, the other wind—had formed a team.

Their flames expanded quickly and engulfed the soldiers nearby. The spear battalion at the center, packed tightly with no mage defense, was burning alive. They rolled on the ground, pouring canteens over one another, but to no avail. I charged straight into the rising inferno.

The two mages grimaced, exchanging murmurs at the sight of me.

"He's insane."

"We went easy on them and this is how he repays us...?"

Even as they scoffed, I could sense the fear beneath their words. The wind stopped.

Whooooosh!

Two fireballs, each the size of a human head, flew toward me. Smaller than the waves of fire that had scorched hundreds, yet tightly condensed. If I took a direct hit, even steel would melt and explode.

"Out of the way."

I grabbed a nearby shield, big enough to cover almost my entire self. Charred black, but still usable.

[Skill: Force Shield Lv. 4 activated.]

The mage Alohis' skill—providing far greater defense when cast over a physical form like a shield than a raw conjured barrier. Another technique Isaac had taught me.

Magic softens the mediums that compose the world, then molds them.

Abstract the world, then re-concretize it to your liking.

But very few possess both an Arcane Heart and imagination. That's why most fall back on typical forms, fireballs, ice missiles, and so on.

You especially lack imagination. Don't try to invent anything. Just overlay something that already exists.

I found it absurd that I was remembering him now. Maybe, it wasn't fair to say he'd taken me for a ride without giving anything in return.

I dismissed the faint regret. Despite being just a wooden core plated with metal, the shield effortlessly deflected the blazing, meter-wide fireball.

KA-BOOM!

The flame exploded mid-air. Had it struck the tightly packed spearmen, it would have killed fifty on the spot. Even the mages who had fired the spell stumbled back from the shockwave and sparks.

Boom!

I deflected another spell. In the rippling heat, I dashed forward and swung my blade at the mages.

"Y-you!"

A mage tried to unleash fire again, but my blade pierced through the flames, stabbing deep into his stomach. He dropped to his knees, convulsing as blood spilled out.

The other mage gritted his teeth and aimed his staff at me. "Gravity Surge."

Boom.

Suddenly, it felt like the weight of the world had slammed down on me. An invisible force gripped my feet, preventing me from moving. I tried to wrench myself free, but it didn't work immediately.

"Not bad."

Twisting my torso, I flung my sword with all my might at the other fleeing mage.

Whoooosh!

The gravity spell only affected my lower half. The sword shot through the fleeing mage's skull and kept going, whistling through the air. With a gaping hole in his head, his death was a foregone conclusion.

[You have absorbed Gravity Manipulation Lv. 1...]

I withdrew my hand from the light-drained corpse and glanced around. As the fire died down, I could feel the soldiers slowly regaining their composure.

"Shoot the mages from all directions!"

𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

The soldiers drew back their composite bows with practiced strength. The mere sight of two hundred soldiers aiming at a single person sent chills down the spine.

"Fire!"

A rain of fletched death flew toward one mage.

Swish! Swish!

Overwhelmed by the barrage, the mages quickly retreated again. They were humans who, by sheer chance, had been born with Arcane Hearts. Yet, they became nothing more than prey on the battlefield. The mechanized infantry, with far more combat experience, had begun their hunt.

Despite facing a mage, the veterans instinctively knew when and how to act. They moved without the need for orders. Even if they were burned, frozen, electrocuted, or collapsed, the iron man soldiers charged with unwavering determination.

"You're dead, mage!"

A severed arm threw a spear, striking a mage's thigh. A spiked, rotating flail ruthlessly smashed through his limbs before grinding his skull to paste. For the first time, a mage was killed by the allied forces.

Crunch!

Arrows overlapped with arrows. A mage, shot so many times he couldn't even twitch, died mid-step. Hundreds more arrows rained down on the same spot, making the blood-soaked ground waver.

The mages should've descended from their towers and fought alongside the army from the start...

Why don't the Wizards of Azure fight with the army? Even one per unit would make the whole force much more efficient.

Anyone born with an Arcane Heart tends to believe they're chosen. They could never accept being just a support role.

That voice. He surfaced again. I shook my head and forced myself to focus on the battle.

Two... four... six... I wasn't doing this to help the allied army. It was just that Azure's mages were more worthwhile to kill. Slaughtering ten thousand regular soldiers wouldn't yield even a flicker of light.

Fwoosh!

I walked through flames without a care, stepping over corpses. Deflecting spells with a weighted shield, I cut down eight mages on the right flank. Just as I hadn't noticed them when they suppressed their presence, they, too, failed to notice me as I did the same. Of the original twenty mages that appeared, all were dead. Roughly ten thousand of the allied army had been lost in the process.

Riddled with arrows and drained of mana, the iron man reached down and crushed a mage's skull in its massive grip. The wet, crunchy sound echoed, brain matter splattering in every direction.

One versus five hundred. A single mage had slaughtered five hundred soldiers. Since I had killed eight of them, the actual ratio was well over one to eight hundred. As if trying to forget that absurd exchange rate, the soldiers screamed in triumph atop the corpses of their comrades.

"This is it...! They're nothing! We won!"

"We beat the mages!"

"We beat the Wizards of Azure!!"

"

Waaaaaaah!

"

Regardless, we had just wiped out all of Azure's mages deployed to defend the capital. Did they overestimate their own power? Or did they just not believe the capital was worth defending? There could be more reinforcements later, but for now, we'd secured access to the capital.

Finally, I could dig through the imperial archives. I figured that I could at least enjoy the Lurium sitting right in front of me.

Fweeeee...

Just then, a refreshing breeze drifted down from the sky. Clean, soft, and so gentle that it made one instinctively look up without thinking. A breeze almost too serene for a battlefield.