Awakening the Great Bloodline Chapter 145

Chapter 145 – The Price of Blood

A place sowhat removed from the battlefield against Kohtan. Those clad in silver robes ride on horseback at full gallop. Their eyes were soaked with exhaustion, yet their feet had long grown accustod to the sll of earth and blood.

"Hah……."

Yelayen steadied his breathing and gazed into the air. Until just a few days ago, these people had been fugitives. Yet the mage's appearance had changed everything.

After persuading Duke Akron, he had headed northeast of the continent. In the ruins of Elvra, reduced to ash and cinders, he had encountered the survivors of the Kriya Order and opened a path to survival for them.

The middle-aged man beside him seed to know that well.

"Yelayen, the starlight is fading. The emperor of the Niboria Empire coveted glory, but everything born of his greed is being snapped and broken. Can we…… arrive in ti?"

Sier Lagrin spoke with concern. Once the teacher of Ella and a cleric who had held the title of Doctrinal Chancellor, he had beco the highest-ranking figure with the passing of the Pope.

At that, Yelayen raised his head. The night sky was blanketed in dark clouds, and from a distance, the cries of monsters echoed.

As he had said, the Niboria Empire too was like a candle fla before the wind. But the mage pushed aside the approaching despair and instead smiled faintly.

"That is precisely why we have set out to prove otherwise. Miracles co only when one acts upon them oneself."

A brief silence fell among the priests. The young ones clenched their teeth and gripped their weapons. As combatants, there were swords and spears, but also censers and holy chalices, chains and rosaries.

And all of their gazes were fixed on the sa place.

The south—the battlefield where Kohtan was running rampant.

Soon, Sier replied slowly.

"……Light may hide sowhere, but it does not disappear. I can only hope that the path you have seen is the right one."

He gripped the reins and fixed his gaze southward. The aura of darkness lay thick, and within it, humans and monsters were locked in a desperate struggle.

"Let us hurry before it is too late."

Soone muttered low, and the group simultaneously spurred their pace. Roughly two thousand silver robes billowed in the night wind.

The shadows seethed endlessly, but they still had faith remaining. That no matter how thick the veil, a single ray of light would surely find a gap and seep through.

They pressed forward to the battlefield in order to prove that very truth.

* * *

At that very mont when the Kriya Order survivors were picking up speed, the allied forces were already crumbling beyond any point of return.

The ground lurched and caved, and a massive pit tore open. The spine of an earthworm monster burst upward, splitting the earth. Armored soldiers scread as they were swallowed whole, and the wave of monsters that followed tore through the defensive formation and poured in.

"Hold them! Hold your positions-!"

A commander scread, but his cry was swiftly cut short as his throat was ripped out.

'Where did it all go wrong?'

Volga looked back at the allied soldiers scattering in every direction. It had seed to be going according to plan—right up until they had completed the encirclent.

But at so point, the noble troops had fled without even looking back. The banners were buried in the mud, and the cavalry that had charged from the flank were trampled before they could even thrust their spears.

The Mountain Rabbits were holding the line, for the most part, but reality was rciless. The rear had collapsed in a single instant.

"It's over…… They've broken through the line……."

A sense of defeat spread faster than words. The corpses strewn across the hillside had crushed the allied forces' spirit, and those who survived turned their backs without exception.

Volga's hands and feet trembled finely. The Mountain Rabbits too had to make a decision.

He looked toward the outer edge of the battlefield. There was a wide open plain where one could flee from the monsters. It was the road to survival.

He turned his head again and looked toward the center of the battlefield. The ground was riddled with small cracks, and a muddy quagmire soaked with blood awaited. Soldiers who had been running were dropping one by one, and the condition of the vanguard did not look particularly good either.

And yet—

'My comrades are there.'

Volga did not hesitate in his choice.

"Everyone, move inward!"

And he did not call it a retreat.

"……We push forward—inside!!"

"There is no way back!"

"Let's go, to the very end!"

First of all, Zahira followed behind Volga. As monsters surged in, Romance barely shook off the enemy and joined them. Kotchap swung his sword to save a fellow elf, then charged toward sothing that shot skyward above his head.

The Mountain Rabbits rallied around a single banner.

The footsteps that had been scattering gradually took shape. They converged on the center, spreading out into a concave formation shaped like a jar. In every gap, the Silver Shield Legion locked shields together, and soon held the wave of monsters firm. Even the corpses sprawled across the ground beca walls, and the survivors stood upon them and endured.

The battlefield now beca a scene like a single painting—black waves and a silver wall clashing against one another.

Splat, splat!

"You fools, who do you think you are coming here!!"

As if answering in kind, Basim burst out from the vanguard's side. The dwarf braced a falling comrade against his shoulder.

"……Master!"

"Reclaim the defensive line first!"

His words were rough, but his movents were precise.

Basim shoved Volga's chest back, then blocked the monster's claw that was falling toward his own head with his twin-handed axes. The impact was great enough to ripple a small shockwave through the muddy water, but he paid it no mind. Even as his right wrist was bent and swollen, he gripped with his other hand and hurled himself forward.

"Let not a single one through!"

Royce followed behind, raising his sword blade. Even as he spat out small clots of blood from the corner of his mouth, he held his ground firm.

Because he knew what mattered.

Crash!!

Even in the midst of all this, two n were locked in a desperate battle.

At the center of the battlefield, forces of an entirely different order were colliding. When Kohtan's sword tip cleaved the earth, chunks of mud erupted with a thunderous roar. In the instant Calix blocked that shockwave, Imran's sword radiance crossed through to barely restore the balance.

The fighting at the outer edge and the decisive battle within unfolded simultaneously, threatening each other's survival like two ends of a single connected thread.

'If I throw myself in, it won't make much of a difference. Rather……holding the line for ti is the right call.'

Without sothing extraordinary, he could not even serve as a hindrance to Kohtan. That was why Royce willingly chose to beco a 'wall'.

"Don't fall back! That's how we survive!"

Vice-captain Marik had already been drenched in blood by then. There was heavy bleeding from his thigh and forearm, but instead of retreating, he kept his eyes forward.

Elves and dwarves each charged forward carrying their own resolve. Spears were thrust into the teeth of monsters, and soone else, while trying to help a fallen comrade up, had their nape torn out. Their nas would soon be forgotten. But in that mont, the sacrifices of the Mountain Rabbits beca the pillars holding the battlefield together.

The light was faint, but it still remained.

'This is not a fight for alone.'

Calix felt that truth deep in his bones. Comrades were dying in vain. Among them were both new and veteran Mountain Rabbits, along with old soldiers of the Silver Shield Legion. A battlefield that could not be sustained by a single hero alone. In order to bear the weight of fate, their sacrifices were absolutely necessary.

They were all bearing that burden together.

* * *

Calix squared his shoulders. The blade of the masterwork sword Srna trembled low, as if crying out. His entire body was soaked in muddy water and blood, and the back of his hand was cracked finely from skin to bone. It was the aftermath of exerting excessive force.

Even so, he could not stop.

"Kgh!"

The Mountain Rabbits were falling one by one as they fought the monsters. So enemies were reviving, but the greater cause was that they had entered within Kohtan's domain.

'End this quickly.'

Crackle!!

The sword blades locked together once more and a shockwave burst forth. The danger to his comrades was one problem, but Master Imran's complexion was very poor.

The color Calix saw in his field of vision turned doubt into certainty. Like the waters of a lake drying up in a drought, the pure white mana was rapidly losing its luminance.

Now there was no choice left.

And then, the neural accelerator's warning sound rang out.

[Combat Acceleration additionally rising, currently 4.1x]

[Overload warning, may cause damage to the user's body.]

In an instant, a foreign force wrapped around his entire body. Faint divinity and abundant darkness, and even the chaos born from their union. Like warped gears forced into sh, it ground out with a sound of friction and radiated outward. The blade flashed, and with a crack- sound, a single hairline fracture ford.

Imran noticed this and furrowed his brow.

"Mmm……."

He seed to want to stop him, but it was already too late.

Tz-tz-tz-tzzt-

From the sword's tip, radiance and shadow intertwined together. On the surface it was brilliant, but in truth it brought a pain that gnawed at the user's flesh and bone. Blood dripped steadily from the cracks on the back of his hand. The more the sword trembled, the greater the burden placed on the body.

In an instant, Calix hurled himself straight forward.

'Rather than crumble like this, I'd rather—'

Both eyes shone with a cold, eerie light. In that mont, Kohtan's sword tip swung around, tearing through space. The grain of ti warped, and every movent flowed at one level slower.

Yet Calix and Imran, the two of them alone, saw the truth hidden within the falsehood.

Clang-clang-clang!!

The first gambit was Imran's to cast. He boldly glanced off the flat of his opponent's blade, then drove his left shoulder inward. Simultaneously, his right foot slid in behind the calf. He had sealed the enemy's movent.

Where skin t skin, a hiss- of black smoke rose alongside pain, but in exchange he had bought a hair-thin sliver of ti.

Fwish.

In that instant, the masterwork sword Srna glided smoothly through the air and advanced. Because Kohtan resisted forcefully, the blades soon collided against one another. The bones in Calix's wrist rang out as though they might shatter, yet he maintained the trajectory of the blade to the very end.

[Warning, high concentration mana release detected!]

[Core imbalance worsening…….]

He did not look at the ssages floating before his eyes. Like a diver, he simply pierced through Kohtan's energy and rose upward. He felt the opponent's grain, found the opening, and stepped through, cleaving the veil of darkness apart.

"Kuh-lk-"

Half-congealed blood spilled from his lips. His vision distorted, and nausea surged as though his organs were being twisted.

Thud.

But he had reached it at last.

Everyone on the battlefield witnessed that scene. The Mountain Rabbits, the knights, the old soldiers—all drew in a sharp breath at once. Calix's sword tip plunged into the crimson knight's chest.

With a precise strike, the surface of the armor warped as if curling inward. Imdiately after, an eerie scream rang out through the air.

Shrieeee-eeeeek!!

Fissures spread with a bursting sound, and howls erupted in succession. The monsters' confusion ca before the humans' cheers.

"Has…… Has he fallen?"

A shallow hope spread. However, it was just that—a wishful thought. It was too much to believe the victory had been decided in a single blow; Kohtan's demonstrated abilities could not be ignored.

And sure enough, a heavy shockwave erupted from the center of the battlefield. Calix and Imran were instantly driven back ten-odd paces, and within that gap, the shadows churned violently.

Young rcenaries let go of their sword hilts, and behind their shields they caught their breath as if sobbing.

Calix quietly clenched his teeth.

'I couldn't drive the sword all the way through.'

He had felt the sensation of sothing catching in his grip, yet he had failed to break through it and advance. Given the location, it had undoubtedly been Kohtan's core.

[Impressive. For a fleeting mont, you touched the origin of power.]

Smoke seeped out and filled the wound. Black droplets gathered from all directions, aiding in the restoration, and from within the veil a new body quickly surged forth.

His voice reverberated through the space.

[But I have said it. If you wish for my death, you must pay a rightful price.]

Calix rose with Gregor's support and realized he had missed sothing. That was not a simple declaration. It was a law set by Kohtan himself, a rule governing this very mont.

'Pay a rightful price……?'

The shadows no longer overflowed. Rather, the crimson lines that had until now been confined within the gap of his visor reached outward. They flowed down the surface of the armor like rivulets of blood, soaking the ground and forming small puddles.

Their size was insignificant, but they bore the most horrific color of anything he had witnessed thus far.

Unlike before, he had beco a reverse-flow that devoured all order.

[I am Kohtan. One who has risen again from within the blood.]

Clank-thud!

The helt shattered into multiple fragnts and fell to the ground. It clearly resembled the form of a human, yet countless sword scars had erased his eyes, nose, and mouth. Even the flesh attached to his face amounted to very little.

The being that had once been human had accepted a malevolent power and beco a legion commander.

[As this body has done, stake your life.]

Not just the helt—sections of the armor fell away in pieces. The sight was undignified, yet no one looked upon it with contempt. The faces of the knight commanders hardened, and the Mountain Rabbits looked back and forth between the front and rear in confusion.

Thud.

Then, heavy footsteps rang out. When Calix raised his head, before him stood Imran Akran.

"……."

His back was turned, and he said not a single word. He simply paused for a mont as if lost in thought, and then slowly stepped forward.

Imran recalled what Adrian had said not long ago.

'In any case, if things go on like this, we're going to die. Very miserably. So do sothing about it. Oh—even with an upset stomach, a Master is still a Master, isn't he.'

He had long known that Ranita's bloodline pointed the way ahead.

Then what was his own role? What was the reason he had co back—to the opponent who had once handed him defeat, in a body that was far from whole?

No matter how many tis he denied it, no matter how many tis he made excuses, there was only one answer.

Far in the distance, as a silver tide grazed the horizon—

Fate was beckoning Imran forward.