The 9Th Class Swordmaster: Blade Of Truth [EN]: Chapter 256

179. Yoman Battle (3)

“The Great Wall has been breached!”

With the commander’s cry, the soldiers’ morale, despite being on the coldest battlefield in the North, burned hotter than any other battlefield in the entire civil war.

“Everyone, put all your strength into crossing the wall!”

Waaahhhhh―――!!

Waaahhh―――!!

The sound of weapons clashing echoed loudly.

“Don’t let the enemy cross the wall, no matter what!”

“Shieldbearers, move immediately!”

“Archery unit! Prepare to fire!”

Seeing the enemies rushing in, the Yoman defense commanders shouted urgently. Although the Great Wall they had trusted had fallen, the well-trained soldiers quickly recovered from the shock and began to block the enemy’s attack.

“Kugh!”

“Keeeugh……!”

However, they could no longer take advantage of the wall’s height.

“Fight!”

“Push the enemy back!”

The soldiers were forced to concentrate on the collapsed part of the wall. The battle became a melee at the point of entry, dispersing troops, and the battlefield became so narrow that the difference in troop numbers became meaningless.

“…….”

Ganes swung his magic-infused halberd horizontally with all his might.

Kwaaaang―――!!!

His lightning-charged strike flashed, cutting in half the soldiers trying to enter through the collapsed wall.

Chwaaak!! Chwajak……!!

The blood spurting from the bodies of the soldiers, split in two from head to waist and legs, splattered around the walls of Yoman.

“Ugh…… ugh.”

“Indeed……. Sword Master…….”

Although there was only one man standing in the broken gap, that place had more casualties from a single strike than any other battlefield.

In an instant, dozens, no, hundreds of soldiers died.

The puddle filled with the soldiers’ blood seemed to still be hot, with white steam rising from it before it soaked into the accumulated snow and froze.

Overwhelmed by Ganes’s might, the soldiers hesitated and unconsciously took a step back.

“You’ve done something ridiculous—to bring down the Great Wall. No strategist could have conceived of such a thing. I’ve never seen anyone like you in the Duchy… What is your identity?”

However, Ganes didn’t seem interested in the soldiers, no longer looking at them and focusing only on one person as he moved.

“Praising the enemy? You seem very confident. My identity is none of your concern, is it? You don’t wage war while considering the circumstances of others, either.”

Serika Loren, where his gaze rested, answered confidently.

When the civil war first broke out, the house she lived in was burned down by shelling.

Her voice was sincere.

Because she, too, was just another victim back then.

‘He’s a monster… He feels different from Karil or Miliana.’

Although her expression didn’t show it, when Ganes, whom she had only seen from afar, came so close, she could feel his energy with her whole body.

It felt like the hairs on her body were standing on end.

‘Can I win?’

That was the first thought that came to her mind, even though she was always confident.

“The numbers are even. Even if the Great Wall has fallen, Yoman will not fall. Capturing you is the priority.”

“Likewise.”

Ganes looked at her with curiosity, impressed that she wasn’t intimidated by his presence as a Sword Master and remained so confident.

“I have a reason to capture you.”

“Indeed.”

The corners of his lips quirked up curiously.

After rising to the rank of one of the five Sword Masters on the continent, he had encountered even more people seeking challenges and guidance.

But in any form, their goal was ultimately to seek help from Ganes to test and surpass their limits.

“It’s been a while.”

Ganes chuckled.

How long has it been?

Since he faced an enemy who risked their life like this, regardless of their strength.

“Let’s see if your skills match your words.”

“I’ve heard you have the nickname ‘Halberd’… Why don’t you throw it away? It doesn’t seem like you can use the weapon properly.”

“What?”

“Just hand it over to me.”

Serika rotated her long staff behind her waist. Seeing this, he frowned slightly.

“Tahat!”

With a sharp cry, her staff froze over.

Her spear, based on the Elven magic seal Hailstone, was certainly a unique item, but it was another aspect that piqued Ganes’s interest.

‘That stance…’

Ganes, who had been looking at her with a slightly surprised expression, chuckled and shook his head.

Crackling……!!

The snow piled up under Serika’s feet froze over, and she twisted her staff as she leaped forward.

Charrrr……!!

With her palms facing each other, she pushed the handle of the staff as if rubbing it, causing the blade to spin sharply.

Paang!! Pababang――!!

The tip of the Hailstone glowed, and sharp ice blades were created and flew towards Ganes.

“Hmph!”

Ganes stopped breathing.

He gripped the halberd, putting strength into his hand, and pushed the blade diagonally from below, shattering the pouring ice blades with a loud noise.

Without keeping his distance, Ganes instead charged into Serika as she rushed towards him.

“……?!”

Generally, a halberd has a piercing spearhead, an axe blade for swinging, and a hook-like claw on the opposite side of the axe blade for hooking and pulling.

The advantage of a halberd is that all three attacks are possible, but Ganes’s was different.

Clang―!!

The halberd’s blade aimed for Serika’s back.

Instead of an axe blade, it had a massive sword-like blade, so it was mainly used for hooking and pulling enemies like a scythe.

Therefore, there had to be a distance equal to the length of the halberd’s shaft between the user and the opponent.

…That was the attack method Serika judged Ganes’s halberd to have.

‘A counterattack…!’

Serika bit her lip, seemingly flustered by Ganes’s unexpected charge.

There was nowhere to escape.

Behind her was Ganes’s halberd blade, and if she moved carelessly, her neck would be cut off.

A completely different combat method from what she had expected.

Ganes was using his halberd not as a means of attack, but as a way to block the enemy’s movements.

“Damn it!”

She cursed and lowered her head to avoid the halberd’s blade.

But Ganes’s palm, approaching her lowered face, instantly obscured her vision.

Thwack……!!

The impact was so great that she felt her mind go blank with just one blow.

Thwack!!! Thwack thwack――!!!

But Ganes’s attack didn’t stop, and even letting go of the hand holding the halberd, he punched her dozens of times in the few seconds that the spear was floating in the air.

“Cough……!”

Serika’s head shook back and forth, and the moment his fist landed on her stomach, ribs, and finally her chin, her head snapped back.

“…….”

At that moment, as if waiting for it, Ganes grabbed the shaft of the halberd he had left floating in the air and pulled it with all his might.

Whooong……!!

The halberd’s blade fell towards her neck.

Screeching!!

In that brief moment, Serika twisted her body and raised her staff to block the blade.

“Frost Hand!”

As she chanted the spell, the staff froze over, and even the halberd’s blade that was in contact with it was covered in white frost.

Crack……!! Paang!!

The two weapons froze over. Serika shouted as she pulled her staff away.

“Ice Field……!”

A large ice sheet was created under Ganes’s feet. In that fleeting moment, his movements twitched and stopped.

“Haaaah!”

With a disheveled face, she aimed for Ganes’s vitals.

Twin Halberds.

The head of the spear swung greatly, and Serika’s blade aimed for Ganes with a strange spear technique as if it had become two.

‘She’s the first mage I’ve seen using magic like this. Swordsmen’s magic manipulation is ultimately just condensing magic into their weapons…’

She wasn’t combining magic and swordsmanship, but rather using each technique harmoniously in combat, with magic as magic and swordsmanship as swordsmanship.

It was as if she was doing two things at once with one body.

Her ever-changing appearance was so fast that she couldn’t be considered a mage.

‘Black Severing Seven Forms [a powerful spear technique]? No, it’s a little different.’

Ganes blocked her attack and widened his eyes in surprise.

The reason he was surprised a moment ago wasn’t because of her strength, but because the stance she took was similar to the Spear King’s spear technique.

Ganes also focused his magic, and the ice that had been attached to the axe blade disappeared as if snow was melting.

‘But it’s slow.’

Serika’s movements were certainly fast. But that was only relatively fast when viewed from the perspective of a mage; to Ganes, a Sword Master, it was infinitely slow.

Clang!! Clang clang clang―――!!

With a sharp thrust, Serika pushed her body to its limits.

But Ganes easily parried her flashy attacks.

If the opponent had been at the level of a Sword Expert, they wouldn’t have been able to block the swordsmanship that pierced through the gaps created by her magic.

Crack―!!

Ganes raised his halberd and rotated it like a windmill, and Serika’s staff, which had been thrusting sharply, got caught in it and broke with a snap―! sound.

“……!!!”

Ganes struck Serika’s shoulder with the shaft of the halberd.

“Cough!!”

With a dull sound, her body was buried in the snow.

“Your swordsmanship is similar to the Spear King’s, but also different. Are you related to him?”

As he pressed down on the shaft, her shoulder trembled as if it would break at any moment.

“Ugh, ugh!! ……No. I don’t even know who the Spear King is. I’ve never seen him. I just came up with it after reading the books of Antium that he supposedly saw.”

Serika answered in a painful voice on the ground.

Ganes looked at her with an even more interested expression at her answer.

“……You created swordsmanship you’ve never seen through self-study?”

“I don’t know what the basics are, but you can tell to some extent just by looking at the books that were used as references for creating the swordsmanship.”

‘Swordsmanship created through self-study is almost identical to the Spear King’s Black Severing Seven Forms…’

Ganes was dumbfounded.

“Are you a swordsman?”

He asked.

“No.”

“Then how long have you been learning the spear?”

“……I haven’t even properly held it for a year.”

Serika frowned as if wondering why he was asking such trivial things.

‘She has incredible talent that’s too good to kill.’

He was so fascinated by Serika that he forgot that he was on the battlefield and stared at her for a while.

“It’s definitely my defeat.”

She said, raising both hands and throwing away the broken staff. She licked her lips as she looked at the halberd stuck in her shoulder.

“The saying that you’re the strongest in the Duchy isn’t wrong. If I had just one year, no, even half a year, things would have been different.”

Ganes was dumbfounded by Serika’s words, which she spoke so naturally.

She looked to be only in her teens.

Ganes was just stunned that her conclusion after exchanging blows with him, a Sword Master, was that there was only a gap of less than a year.

“That confidence isn’t bad either. It’s just a shame to meet you as an enemy. It’s a waste to kill someone with your talent. The civil war will end soon. You will be defeated. Why don’t you come under me instead?”

“Who said we’re going to be defeated?”

Serika scoffed at Ganes’s words.

“……What?”

He asked back, dumbfounded by her audacious answer.

“I lost the duel, but I’ll win the war.”

Serika said, still lying on the ground. But her gaze wasn’t on Ganes.

It was directed towards the sky behind him.

Waaaaaa―――!!

Waa――!!

It was then.

Cheers were heard from below the collapsed wall.

“……!!!”

Ganes hurriedly raised his head.

Whoaaaaaak……!!

At that moment,

There were huge wings flying up behind the collapsed Yoman wall. A drake [a type of dragon], folding its wings that had been blocking the sun and circling in the sky, slowly landed on the ground.

Wagdeuk― Wagdeuk―

The drake had the half-cut corpse of a soldier still bleeding in its mouth, and it was chewing on the corpse as if it wasn’t satisfied.

‘That rein…’

Ganes’s face hardened.

The massive drake, with crimson red mane-like scales growing on both sides of its jaw, was certainly more noticeable than any other drake.

It was a wyvern [a two-legged dragon] that any knight of the Duchy would recognize.

‘Isn’t that Terix’s drake, the leader of the 1st Wyvern Unit? Has the 1st Unit been dispatched? But why here…’

At that moment,

As a matter of course, the person descending from the drake’s head was not Terix, but a young boy.

“Good job, Serika. Your duel with Ganes was quite a sight. I think it was a good experience.”

“……You came on purpose, didn’t you?”

She recalled the wings of the drake she had seen when she first fell to the ground from Ganes’s attack and answered, twitching her lips.

Gulp―

Ganes swallowed hard, his face tense, without even realizing it.

He couldn’t help but be surprised once again at the fact that he, a Sword Master, was instinctively wary.

“The Great Wall has fallen.”

Before he knew it, the blizzard had stopped, and Karil’s voice echoed through the battlefield, piercing the clear air.

“The Battle of Yoman is our victory.”