Awakening the Great Bloodline Chapter 130

Chapter 130 — Against the Current

The morning air was still biting cold.

Three days into the march toward the capital. The rcenaries and the Silver Shield Legion moved in the sa direction, yet their hearts had not grown any closer. Even during brief rest periods, they split into two groups and refused to mingle.

The veteran soldiers' blunt behavior was the problem.

"You—you rebel bastards!"

"Aren't we rebels ourselves now?"

"Oh, right!"

"……."

Talking nonsense at the rcenaries was the least of it.

They helped themselves freely to goods from the supply wagons, and co alti, they threw all order out the window and charged in like brutes. With food scraps clinging from their beards down to the fronts of their coats, everyone around them could only furrow their brows.

Put charitably, they were eccentric; put bluntly, they were senseless. And so, those already accustod to such behavior stepped forward to diate.

Dwarf Basim was the first to stick his nose in.

"A true warrior never soils his trousers!"

"……."

"……Well, if it's already done, then there's nothing to be done about it!"

"Ooh!"

Though he failed to achieve the desired result, veteran Mountain Rabbits like Volga and Romance and others drew near to help as well.

They sorted out those with minor wounds, restored order to the food distribution system, and through the nights, sat around the fire and listened attentively to the veterans' war stories.

And in return, the Mountain Rabbits received combat experience.

"When the march wears you down, put a pebble under your tongue and walk with it. Keeps you sharp."

"Arms can be lost. As long as the legs are attached, you can still move. Do you know how to carry a wounded man on your shoulder? Without using your hands, I an."

"rcenaries, you say? Then you ought to share the Neural Accelerators. Since the output's unstable, if you rotate the front line and distribute usage ti accordingly……."

Soon after, the mid-ranked soldiers who had been watching from a distance drew closer. As elves and dwarves naturally filled in the gaps, the rcenaries couldn't suppress their curiosity and began stealing glances.

The distance between the two groups narrowed, little by little.

Calix stood back and observed the scene. Gregor, standing beside him, murmured with a quiet smile.

"Sotis, ti resolves everything."

"Yes, it seems so."

But personal sentint and a commander's perspective were bound to differ.

A week into the march, Captain Royce convened a eting of key personnel in the dead of night. It was a large-scale gathering that included not only the Mountain Rabbits but also the Silver Shield Legion and the core rcenary captains.

Hadiya opened with the first words.

"Rumor has it that Western Count Lugar has raised a great army. They say the mage personally persuaded him."

"……The Pointing One?"

"Yes, it would be Yelayen. Last word was that he had headed north."

While Royce and Hadiya exchanged words, Calix silently gazed down at the table. The oil lamp's light illuminated the map.

Each ti the quill drew lines across Niboria's territory, the front lines, supply routes, and positions of key fortresses rearranged themselves in his mind.

"Ashapel, Lugar, and the Mountain Rabbits combined—that's at minimum forty thousand troops gathered in one place."

"If Duke Akron of the north moves as well……."

"Right. Then we'd have at least a minimum headcount. To face the dark ones, we'd need at least this much."

But it still wasn't enough.

Silver Shield Legion Commander Erdman Falter pointed this out at once.

"Gathering in one place does not make them one. Neither the emperor nor the nobles will trust one another. Rember that justification is both the most powerful and the most fragile of things—they prize the direction of power over a warrior's honor."

Calix exhaled quietly. Erdman's warning was precisely his own concern.

‘Mage Yelayen has only arranged the shape of the battlefield. Connecting this to an outco rests entirely on my ability.’

Of course, he trusted Yelayen. It had been only a single eting, yet he had felt the thread of fate between them. Surely, at a decisive mont, the mage would appear again and point the way forward.

But that doesn't an I can simply wait.

He had to predict the movents of both enemy and ally, and lay the board in advance. He needed to use them without being used.

"In other words, they are people who could turn their backs at any mont. Calix—could you persuade every last one of them?"

"No. That's impossible."

"……."

At the blunt answer, their gazes locked. Rather than betraying emotion, Erdman studied his counterpart with calm eyes.

Had this been their first eting, he might have felt differently. But he had felt Calix's ability firsthand on the battlefield before—his personal martial prowess, the people who stood with him, the rcenaries who followed.

So it was not that there was no path. Only that the current direction was not the right one.

A brief silence.

Then the man in question gave his answer.

"I am the illegitimate son of Marquis Ashapel. To the nobility, this is a grave blemish. Even if a coalition army is ford, no one will acknowledge my authority."

A candid and unvarnished confession. The lantern light stretched long into the corners of the eting tent. Soone quietly cleared their throat, and outside, cold wind rattled the tent flap.

"Even in the face of the worst crisis?"

Priestess Ella's rebuttal was aningless.

"Because their own territories remain intact. They have no reason to protect the emperor or the capital. Rather, they would prefer to yield what must be yielded, and then fight the decisive battle afterward. Without being swayed by an outside force—naly, the Mountain Rabbits."

"……Blithering idiots."

Basim let out a fierce snort, and low curses rippled through the rcenary captains as well. But in the end, one by one, they fell silent and stared at Calix's face.

Then what were they to do?

"We need to draw in a new figure. Soone who possesses authority powerful enough to overwhelm even the high-ranking nobility."

"But Emperor Caracal is……."

"No. His authority has already crumbled."

Calix called to mind a certain man.

The man who had first given him the taste of despair, yet had shown unexpected magnanimity and spared his life. He who is called the Sword of Mankind—

"Imran Akran."

"……!"

"We must summon Niboria Empire's Master."

Inside the eting tent, eyes flared one by one. Not only Zahira and Ella, but Silver Shield Legion Commander Erdman Falter nodded in agreent.

"Indeed. If it is Sir Imran Akran, even the high nobility would not dare run rampant. An excellent plan."

Praise was brief, but objections were long.

"However, Calix—things will not unfold according to your thinking. He is a beast of a man from the start. Precisely because he acts freely, he is more dangerous than anyone."

"Yes. I'm aware."

"No. Knowing it and experiencing it firsthand are different. Do not try to use him. He is not the kind of man who grows weak from injury."

Within the quiet warning, concern lay hidden.

"This is a plea. We clasped the hands you extended to us. Whether we beco traitors or saviors now rests entirely in your hands."

"……Yes."

In those final words, a faint trace of fear of Imran Akran showed through. Even Gregor was silent—it seed as though he, too, had crossed paths with the man once before.

Were they enemies when they t?

Calix understood the emotion. None other than the Master's na had been spoken aloud. And so, the task of persuading the 'Sword of the Empire' also had to be entrusted to soone who bore a fitting qualification for it.

Without a mont's hesitation, he chose one man.

"Vice-captain."

"I'll go gladly."

Within those calm eyes, a firm and unwavering conviction was intertwined.

***

One week later.

After Marik set off with the letter, Calix led the Mountain Rabbits and continued the march. The closer they drew to the imperial capital, the more the army's cohesion settled into place.

With the Silver Shield Legion at the core, it was mainly the tactical movents of the rcenaries that were being refined. In the anti, Hadiya brought in intelligence on the great nobles.

"Count Lugar is crossing through the west as we speak. His forces number twenty-three thousand, but it seems there are almost no elite troops among them. Word is he married a woman of the imperial family—rumors say he's soone who'd do anything for his own gain."

"Marquis Ashapel, on the other hand, has close to twenty thousand. The Astria expeditionary force is still intact, so the quality of his soldiers should be fairly high."

"Duke Akron will arrive the latest. His forces barely reach ten thousand, it seems. But they're a unit composed mainly of northern hunters. Veterans who've survived in harsh lands—they can't be dismissed. Apparently he has a nickna, the 'Old Bear', fitting for soone said to be quite stubborn."

Troop numbers, the composition of unit types, the situation of each noble house, and even the individual personality traits of each head of house. Calix chewed over the information Hadiya had passed along.

He filed it all away neatly in his mind, yet that sa volu of information weighed just as heavily on his heart.

‘Their individual ambitions are vivid. Uniting their will into one won't be easy.’

On top of everything, as the march continued, ominous stories seeped into the camp from outside.

"Did you hear? The river's turned black and is flowing backward. Apparently the people near the capital don't even have water to drink."

"……The veterans said it themselves. They said the dead things rose again, endlessly."

It sounded like fiction, but it was fact. Above all, the Mountain Rabbits were feeling the change in their own skin. Volga furrowed his brow and wiped the sweat from the back of his neck.

"What in the world is wrong with this weather? Cold during the day, hot at night."

It wasn't re disgruntled complaining. He knew it wasn't a natural shift. Otherworldly phenona born of darkness. At that, Gregor nodded gravely.

"It's an anomaly. I've heard that Kohtan reverses all flows. It is a fundantally different power from 'Midra Who Takes Away'. Volgi, you mustn't let your guard down either."

"Yes, yes, old man. All fine and good, but—could you put so clothes on while you say that? At least cover the lower half. My eyes are going to rot."

"I am a Mountain Rabbit! Freer than anyone!"

"So am I, but I don't want to be that free!"

The hollow laugh that broke out didn't last long.

Calix exchanged words with Royce late into the night before finally closing his eyes as dawn drew near. Under normal circumstances, he would have sunk into deep sleep without delay.

But he lay caught between dream and waking, tossing and turning for so ti.

Thud.

In that mont, deep within his chest—his Core trembled faintly, releasing an irregular beat. Darkness bled outward. The sound of wind beyond the tent soon shifted and pierced his nose as the sll of blood.

Calix beca aware that he was dreaming.

And yet.

……Sothing is wrong.

Every sensation was far too vivid. The musty sll of mud rising from the ground, the cold air clawing at his skin, the weight of military boots and armor. When he turned his head, he could see broken palisades and banners bearing the Niboria Empire's symbol.

Bizarre was too mild a word for it.

Corpses of humans were strewn in every direction, yet flowers blood on the defensive logs driven into the earth. The dark beings refused death and heaved themselves upright, but one person alone they would not touch.

"Why—why……."

Calix saw the man crouched on the ground. The face, stripped of all focus, was painfully familiar.

……Dakar Raihe.

Forr Knight Commander of Blutspheer, and commander of the capital's defense forces. He sat gripping a broken sword, staring into empty air.

Before him stood the darkness.

Sss—.

Countless streams of blood surged up from the ground and flowed toward the sky. Yet the mont they touched the center, every flow bent.

As though blocked by an invisible wall of glass, the surrounding droplets of blood, dust, and even light all flowed around that 'empty space'. The droplets of blood and shadows ford an outline, yet within it, only void lurked.

The boundary between existence and non-existence was chillingly distinct.

Each ti it took a step, the color and texture of the background shattered apart and then reversed.

"Krgh—."

In that mont, Dakar Raihe looked down at his own hands and let out a groan. The wrinkles on his left hand deepened, and his skin grew dry and flaking. Yet on his right, the flesh grew taut and took on a sheen.

Ti was twisting in opposite directions.

Teeth fell out in clumps from one side, while new ones grew in on the other. Skin and muscle cycled between contraction and expansion, and soon Dakar's body was split in half—one half old, one half young.

And then at last, when that rupture reached its limit—

Crr-crack, PKK-CRACK!

With the sound of bone and muscle bursting, his body was torn apart while he still breathed. A knight who had reached the highest echelon t a pathetically hollow end.

Calix watched the horrific sight and understood it in his very instincts. A chill spread deep into his chest, and a crushing pressure squeezed at his insides as though wringing them out.

This is not a dream. This is……reality.

In that mont, their gazes t across the distance. It possessed no eyes to speak of, yet it was unmistakably looking into him.

The Reverse-Flowing Kohtan.

It cast no curse, no rage, no mockery. It only gazed without feeling at Calix's soul, and in an instant, it pierced through everything.

At the end of it, it spoke only to the essence of his being.

[Ca—lix.]

At a single calling, the Core at the heart of his chest reacted violently. Darkness and light, chaos—all three vibrated in unison, baring a fierce and frantic wariness.

Only then did the boundary between dream and reality collapse.

Fwoosh!

Calix kicked off from his sleeping place and shot upright. Even after waking from the dream, his ragged breathing would not settle.

‘……I'll have to pour out everything I have. And even that might not be enough.’

But before he could even gather his thoughts, the Neural Accelerator's alert tone rang out.

[Abnormal Core activity detected]

[Take care that Mana balance does not collapse.]

He focused not on the ssage itself, but on the 'anomaly' that had occurred in his imdiate surroundings.

The cold sweat on his brow disappeared in an instant. The blankets and the bed, the water cup down to the floor—everything centered on where his fingertips had touched had frozen solid.

It felt almost as if he had entered the field of influence of Legion Commander Midra.

‘……Did the darkness within run amok?’

Sure enough, a specific energy flowed endlessly from his heart. Light and darkness, and chaos. Three attributes were housed within his Core, yet one of them held an unusually large share.

‘The chaos could be consud in reverse. I need to balance it.’

It was precisely then.

"This is…… Actually quite refreshing? Perfect place to rest on a sweltering night."

Abruptly, the tent flap was swept aside, and a young man with brown hair stepped inside. Adrian Deconti, Prince of the Latia Republic.

He surveyed the interior at his leisure, then let out a low whistle.

"You wouldn't kick out soone who's just joined the Mountain Rabbits, would you?"

"That's not—"

"Good."

Calix was briefly thrown off, but Adrian grinned and approached and sat down without a care in the world.

"Care for a sip?"

In that instant, wariness and a subtle sense of relief tangled together. The man who had once lost his right arm and wandered had, at so point, reclaid his forr self.

‘I still cannot read what this person is truly thinking.’

A sharp gleam flashed within his casual manner. There was weight hidden beneath the lightness. Added to that, the ability his Neural Accelerator possessed—it was not sothing that could be carelessly dismissed.

"You poor soul, beloved by fate. So then—what business do you have, summoning here?"

Adrian Deconti asked, quietly—and yet with great weight.