Episode 664 Thorns (1)
The fight turned into a three-way battle when they entered Surna.
Caroline Monarch, experienced in battle and skilled in mercenary arts.
Ambella Berghna, who has never allowed the enemy to enter the city of Surna.
Surna, who has centuries of experience in the strategic tactics of warfare.
Each of these men was a master in their respective fields.
Surna’s participation was like gasoline on a house on fire.
“Yes- well said, by the way- I heard the story- you were the one who sabotaged the World Tree project in the Imperial Capital five hundred years ago?”
Ambella glared at Surna, her one remaining eye glowing with life.
“The project was destroyed by a demon that appeared at that time, and you were the one who was working behind its back, weren’t you?”
The event that signaled the downfall of House Plante.
The Old Kingdom, the predecessor to the Empire, and the Plantes had partnered to grow the World Tree in an underground cavity.
If it weren’t for the demon Basara, they would have succeeded.
The cost of failure was too great and too painful.
Burke was banished from the House of the World Tree to the outskirts of the city to keep the outside world at bay, and Planthe disappeared entirely, leaving the elven kingdom to suffer for a time.
For Ambella, the failure to protect her friend Ella has always been a scar on her heart.
She was better now, but that didn’t take away the pain and sorrow of the past.
And now that the man responsible for it was right in front of her, she was glad her eyes hadn’t rolled back in her head.
Faced with Ambella’s strength, Surna spoke as if she were unconcerned.
“You seem to be trying to blame me for the failure of that job, which was going to fail anyway even if it wasn’t me-”
“You’re a good dresser of bullshit-”
“You don’t have to believe it if you don’t want to believe it- I just know that if I hadn’t stopped it back then, we’d never be in the situation we are today-”
“That’s why you plunged the world into chaos?”
“I thought I had finished that story when I was with Elder Dentis-”
Ambella clenched her fists at Surna’s words.
“You, the head of a family, should know- that sometimes you have to set aside morals and conscience to get things done-”
“—-”
“If that’s still on your mind, I’ll gladly accept your wrath when this is over- but you’ll have to wait a while- there’s a lot of people in line with numbered tags.”
Chief among them was The Citadel-
The party that had been forced to stand by and watch for hundreds of years as they grinded away at the flesh, helping to poison the world.
The one person in this room who wanted to kill her more than Ambella.
“Do you ever feel sorry for yourself?”
“Not that I don’t-”
Surna said in a regal tone-
“Apart from that, I did what I had to do-”
“If it hadn’t been for you, Plante would have survived-”
“But the world would have been enslaved to Lumensis-”
Surna looked back at Sedina-
“Sedina Rochen- no, Sedina Plante- you don’t have a heart of gold, you know- I have a stake in what happened to your mother- and besides, Bentmin of House Ripre, the man who brought about the downfall of House Plante, made a deal with me-”
Then Sedina entered the Black Dawn without knowing anything about it and rose to a position in the Second Order.
In a way, it was a strange fate indeed.
“I don’t care if you hate me- you have a right to- do you want to kill me like this too?”
“Maybe I would-”
Sedina admitted meekly-
but her answer was a little ambiguous.
“I might have?”
“If it was the old me- but it’s different now-”
Sedina could now resonate with the World Tree and read its will.
And she could be reunited with her mother, even if only her soul remained.
“If it hadn’t happened then, my mother would have stayed in the elven kingdom- she would have never met my father, and I would never have been born-”
Best of all, Ella Planté didn’t blame anyone when it all went wrong.
In fact, she was even glad to be out of the Plante family.
“I know it wasn’t such a good thing- but in a way, it was because of it that my mother and father met and I was born-”
“—I see-”
“I’m not going to say you did a good job- I’m not going to thank you- but on the other hand, I’m not going to hate you either- I’ve been wronged myself, but I’ve also been part of something unjust-”
Everyone listened to Sedina-
“We hate each other and we talk bad about each other- I don’t think I’m in a position to criticize that- I’m not perfect and I’ve done a lot of things wrong- but I’m trying to be better- no, I’m trying-”
Sedina cut her off, her clear eyes locked on Surna’s.
Not the Second Order and the Zero Order.
As Sedina Plante and Surna.
“So now we’re going to fight together- hate her or love her, whatever those feelings are, because it’s the right thing to do-”
Those words caused Ambella and Caroline, who had set their sights on Surna, to question themselves.
They felt a little ashamed of themselves for having allowed their pride to get the best of Sedina.
“Yeah- I guess it’s time for us to stick together, no matter what.”
Caroline shrugged.
“Well, you’re both older than me, so you’ll know what I don’t, so let’s try our best.”
“Chit- what can we do-”
Sedina looked at Rudger in confusion as the mood suddenly shifted to reconciliation.
Rudger nodded at her, telling her she did a good job.
He hadn’t meant to, but thanks to Sedina, the atmosphere that was about to get heavy had been lightened up a bit.
“Well, let’s put that in the past for a moment- we are a community of destiny, at least for now-”
Ludger stepped forward, taking center stage in the mediated situation.
“This is going to be a dangerous fight, as it has never been before and never will be again.”
Rudger looked at all the faces of those who had come to him.
Each one for a different reason.
Because they owed him a favor, for the greater good, just to help a friend.
But there was one thing they all had in common.
No one came here to die.
“There’s only one thing I can tell you- don’t die- if you think you’re going to die, run away- there’s no shame in that- don’t try to give your life for someone else- live for yourself-”
“Hey sir- aren’t you asking too much- there’s no place to run from a battlefield-”
Ludger was stubborn even at Caroline’s words-
“Then stall for time as best you can- do whatever it takes- just hold on and I’ll take care of the rest-”
Ludger’s voice was full of conviction.
He didn’t say anything weak like, “I don’t see any chance of winning,” or anything like that.
We will win.
It was as if Ludger held the key to winning this war.
At those words, the little anxiety that remained in the hearts of those gathered was washed away as if by a single wash.
“They call this war a crusade against evil, but we are different-”
Rudger gazed in the direction of the enemy across the ocean and on the continent beyond-
“It is a struggle- nothing noble, nothing honorable, only a struggle for survival- that is our fight-”
* * *
The nearby shores of the Holy Nation of Bretus since the beginning of the Crusade-.
The airship units that had been moving across the sky were forced to retreat backward in the face of unprecedented turbulence.
“It is impossible to approach at this rate-”
The continental command was quite perplexed by the news.
With the enemy in possession of the Galaharad citadel, the air power that could most assuredly sweep them away had been so easily and futilely thwarted.
“What the hell happened?”
“No. Over two thousand airships immobilized because of turbulence, how is that possible?”
“They say it’s no ordinary turbulence- there’s almost typhoon-like winds blowing, which would have wiped out the entire airborne force if it hadn’t been for a mistake-”
“I’ve heard that the weather around Bretus’s kingdom can be fickle, but it wasn’t such that an airship couldn’t get through-”
“That’s right- and as for those moving by sea, they say they didn’t feel any gusts of wind- in fact, it was uncannily calm-”
“The devil must have done something!”
No matter how you looked at it, it was obvious that Heathcliff was up to some trick-
To cause such a strange storm in the holy land of Bretus-
The commanders were indignant at the demon’s trickery, but they could not allow themselves to be angry.
“We might as well give up on sending troops into the air-”
“No, are you giving up already, shouldn’t we try a few more times-”
“It’s a typhoon that the Demon King has decided to unleash- we don’t know how long it will last, and if we wait for it blindly, won’t the airborne troops be tied up-”
“Does that mean we should give the enemy what they want?”
“Probably they know they’ll lose if they fight it, so they’ve deliberately tied up the air force- seeing as how the sea is uncannily calm, unlike the sky, I’d say it’s a power that comes with a price-”
“I see- if it was a full-blown typhoon, the sea would be churning too, making it hard for the battleships to move, but that’s another story-”
I revised my plan on the fly and concocted a new maneuver-
It wasn’t really a plan at all.
The air force was blocked, but the difference in numbers was still overwhelming.
We’d just have to push in and hit them with firepower.
“It might be difficult to bombard it with artillery, though-”
“Hmph- It would be better to wipe out the citadel in one fell swoop, but the Emperor wouldn’t take too kindly to that-”
“So you’re saying we’ll have to adjust our firepower- that shouldn’t be a problem- we should be able to push through with our numbers-”
“The only thing I’m worried about is the waterways- it’s not convenient for a large squad to travel all at once, especially since there are several layers of moat-like waterways around the citadel-”
“That would be true if the squad consisted of only a few men- we just need to select the elite knights and send them out-”
“That shouldn’t be difficult- we have the best swords in the continent- if we have the support of the priests, we should be able to win-”
Even if the air route was blocked, they did not despair.
They were puzzled by this unexpected turn of events, but since they were dealing with a demon king, it was to be expected.
“First of all, I suppose you’re worried about whether we’ll be able to make the landing itself-”
“That’s right- if they weren’t idiots, they’d have built a barrier on the shore somehow-”
And to his surprise-
the worries of the commanders did not come to pass.
“What is this-”
The coastline of the Bretus Province-
The soldiers who had arrived at the harbor near the third checkpoint city were dumbfounded.
There was no sign of the enemy.
There was no surprise.
They were greeted by an empty harbor and the Third Checkpoint City.
When they were told that air support was not available, they were nervous that it was going to be an uphill battle, but what was this?
“Any traps?”
“None-”
“I don’t sense any other attractors either-”
“Nothing is caught by detection magic either- it’s literally empty-”
The third checkpoint city, devoid of people, resembled a ghost town.
Eyewitnesses claimed a black wave washed over them as if the world had ended, but there was no sign of it.
Were they hallucinating?
Was this another one of Demon Heathcliff’s abilities?
The troops who didn’t know much about it could only move slowly without relaxing their nerves.
After entering the third checkpoint city, they realized that there were no traps or surprises, and they felt their nerves relax.
“What- didn’t they escape?”
“Of course- the entire continent is gathered in one place, who cares about a demon king?”
“I guess that’s why it shouldn’t be a big deal-”
Some of them even joked as they relaxed.
The troop leaders, watching the scene, warned them.
“No chatter, everyone- we’re on the shoreline, but we’re still a ways from Galaharad Citadel- let’s not let our guard down-”
“Yes sir-”
“First, we’ll explore the surroundings- they said that the Third Checkpoint City is intact, but the Second Checkpoint City has completely collapsed, so we’ll see if that information is correct-”
The soldiers who had set up a simple camp in the third checkpoint city exited the third checkpoint city to head towards the second checkpoint city.
They stopped dead in their tracks when they saw the towering wall in front of them.
“What is this?”
A wall of sharp and huge thorny vines stood like a mountain in front of them- “What is this?
