Volume 5, Chapter 16 – The Battle to Rescue Chi Tien (2)

◆ Shizuku POV ◆

“General Lu Fei—!! Wait for me!”

I spurred my borrowed horse forward, chasing after the General’s cavalry.

However, there seemed to be a significant gap in our riding skills, and the distance between us kept growing.

The General’s cavalry charged straight into the swarm of Undying Beasts that were pressing into the town.

There were roughly forty beasts.

It seemed they were all the same kind of wolves we had first fought in Fu Yie Village.

The soldiers tasked with the town’s defense were fighting back, but they appeared to be struggling considerably.

It was possible that many had already been wounded.

“Out of the wayyyyy!”

With a spirited roar from the General, the cavalry launched a flawless, synchronized charge. Moving as a single mass, the General’s unit tore through the flank of the wolf pack and swept right through them.

“Ohhh! It’s General Lu Fei! The Red Sky General has arrived!”

“Uoooooh!”

The morale of the defending soldiers soared.

While they cheered, I looked toward the wolves that the General had scattered.

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Just as I expected—or rather, it was obvious—wolves that should have breathed their last from fatal wounds sat up abruptly and immediately returned to an uninjured state.

“W-what!?”

“Damn it, even the General can’t do it!?”

The morale that had soared with the General’s arrival plummeted in an instant. No, it might have dropped below zero.

Fiene-sama’s instructions earlier were to call the General back.

That meant Fiene-sama should currently be granting Blessings to the soldiers’ weapons, and eventually, reinforcements armed with those weapons would arrive.

In that case, there was only one thing for me to do!

“I shall buy some time,” I muttered, guiding my horse behind the defending soldiers.

“Soldiers of Chi Tien! I am the sword of Saint Fiene Argentata-sama, Mieshiro Shizuku! Saint-sama has come here to save Chi Tien alongside General Lu Fei! Warriors who have received the Saint-sama’s Blessing will arrive shortly, so everyone, hold out until then!”

I shouted as loudly as I could and dismounted.

“Not just the General, but Saint-sama too? Did they make it in time!?”

“Are we saved!?”

“Can we actually win!?”

Seeing the soldiers’ morale rise slightly, I leaped toward the front line.

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Using the katana I had received from Fiene-sama, I cut down two nearby wolves.

White smoke hissed from their wounds, and the wolves died without getting back up.

Their corpses then turned to dust and vanished in the wind.

“What!? She… killed those beasts!? This is the Saint-sama’s… sword!”

“Uoooooh!”

“We can do it! We can actually do it!”

“We just have to hold out! Everyone, tighten the defense!”

I used an Iai strike to cut down two of the three leaping wolves in a single motion, then shifted my axis to dodge the third, using the momentum of my spin to deliver a killing blow to its back.

As expected, the wolves I cut down vanished into dust.

The remaining wolves, perhaps wary of me, kept their distance and growled. Their eyes held a level of madness and hatred that was unthinkable for wild beasts.

At that moment, the General launched his second cavalry charge.

Yelp! Yelp! Yelp!

The wolves screamed as they were trampled, but the result was the same.

“General Lu Fei! These beasts cannot be defeated with ordinary weapons! Please return to Fiene-sama quickly and receive a Blessing for your weapon!”

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“What? Hmph.”

Leaping from his galloping horse as if performing a circus act, the General landed right beside me.

The horse just kept running away—I wonder if that was alright?

“You lot! Go to the Saint!”

“Yes, sir!”

At the General’s command, the cavalry rode back toward Fiene-sama without a moment’s hesitation.

“And what will the General do?”

“Hmph, obviously. I’ll kill them!”

As the General braced himself, a tingling sensation rippled through the air, as if a shockwave had passed.

His presence was so overwhelming that I instinctively took a half-step back. Some of the defending soldiers behind me had even collapsed in terror.

Grrrrr…

However, the wolves seemed drawn to the General’s aura and charged toward him.

“Hmph, mere trash!”

With a shout, the General readied his spear-axe.

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Just as I leaped back to avoid being caught in the crossfire, he swung the spear-axe with blinding speed, cutting down the leaping wolves one after another.

When the General stopped swinging, a mountain of slaughtered wolves lay before him.

However, the wolves immediately sat up and charged at the General once more.

“Hmph, I see. So this is what it means to be ‘undying.’ In that case, this should work!”

Shouting this, the General struck a wolf with the side of his spear-axe with all his might.

There was a dull squelch , and the wolf was sent flying with tremendous force toward a massive boulder.

With a BOOM —a crash that sounded like an explosion—the wolf collided with the rock.

The boulder half-shattered from the impact, and the collapsing stone fell directly onto the wolf.

The revived wolf was crushed under the rock and rendered unable to move.

“T-this is completely absurd…”

While I stood there aghast at the impossible sight, the General barked at me.

“Don’t just stand there gaping! You can kill these pests by cutting them, right!? Get to it!”

“Y-yes, that is correct.”

Regaining my composure, I faced off against the wolves.