Dudududududu!

Ghislain, wielding his spear, tore through the flame-soaked battlefield like a storm.

Kwaaaaaang!

Wherever Ghislain passed, soldiers’ bodies burst apart and scattered in all directions. The Imperial army was relying solely on the recovery effect of the divine power spread wide across the field. Because it was not concentrated blessing, their defenses were not that solid. If he tore them apart completely before their bodies could recover, the divine power was useless.

Kwaang! Kwaang! Kwaaaang!

Along the path of Ghislain’s movements, flames whirled, and his shadow swallowed the soldiers’ sight. He drove into the enemy like a tempest—though it was a single man’s charge, no one who tried to block him survived.

Ghislain quickly scanned the surroundings. Everyone was fighting well enough, but there were still too many enemies.

“Shall I put in a little more effort?”

He unleashed mana in every direction.

Jiiiing—!

Hundreds of weapons lying across the battlefield soared into the air. It would have been easier to create weapons out of mana, but that would consume too much energy, so he simply “recycled” the abandoned ones.

Whoooosh!

The weapons shot out in all directions like lightning. They tore through armor without mercy, smashed bones, and burst flesh.

Kwaang! Kwaang! Kwaaaaaang!

“Uaaaagh!”

“B-block him! Hurry, stop him!”

“Throw yourselves at him if you must!”

Knights and soldiers tried anything to stop Ghislain, but they couldn’t even get close—only to be killed by the freely moving weapons.

They simply couldn’t stop him. The Imperial soldiers grew more and more terrified, scattering aside whenever he moved.

“M-monster!”

“Get away! He’s not someone we can handle!”

“A superhuman has to come and stop him!”

Fear spread across the battlefield in an instant. Even the elite troops trained for fighting the Demonic Realm were nothing but scarecrows before Ghislain’s overwhelming power.

Ghislain massacred the frightened Imperial soldiers. With even Marquis Pherington having been taken down, the Imperial army was in disarray, unsure of what to do.

From the rear, the commanders shouted hoarsely at the sight of his rampage.

“M-mages! Focus all your attacks on that man!”

“If we just kill him, we can regroup the troops!”

“Pour every bit of mana you have into it!”

They urged the mages over and over, but even the mages couldn’t easily attack Ghislain.

“We can’t! We’re holding the spirits in check right now!”

“If we disengage, the spirits will rampage again! We have to find and kill the spirit mage first!”

One of the rear commanders shouted in frustration at that.

“Not all of you are holding off the spirits!”

“The rest are maintaining the magic barrier!”

The mages could no longer move—stuck in a situation where they could do neither one nor the other. Ereneth was handling the spirits so cleverly that they couldn’t be released.

With the barrier-keeping mages already taken out by Ghislain’s magic, the remaining mages had to redeploy the barrier.

But to Ghislain, their actions looked clumsy.

“If you’re going to do it, do it right.”

With a grin, he drew up his mana.

“Frozen Tempest.”

Kwaaaaaaaaaaa!

With the incantation, a storm of frost spread outward from Ghislain. The Imperial soldiers nearby froze solid without even managing a single attempt at resistance.

Some of the Imperial mages hastily reinforced the barrier, but it was nowhere near enough to fully block an 8th-Circle spell. The magic’s power and area of effect had been greatly reduced, but Ghislain hadn’t been going all-out to begin with. This was more than enough to freeze the soldiers.

Ghislain spun his spear once, then slammed it down into the ground.

Jjeoong—!

With a sharp, tearing sound, hundreds of frozen Imperial soldiers shattered into pieces.

The Imperial forces were stunned into silence by the sheer, awe-inspiring display of strength.

It wasn’t only Ghislain wreaking havoc in the center of their formation—the Imperial troops fighting on the front lines were just as hard-pressed.

“T-they won’t die!”

“Their wounds are healing too fast!”

“It’s the divine power!”

The Julien Mercenary Corps, swinging their weapons with mad abandon, were the very cause of it.

The Death Knights had been weakened by the divine power, but not the Julien Mercenary Corps. Thanks to Deneb’s divine blessing, the mercenaries possessed overwhelming recovery and defense. On top of that, the Imperial army had also spread divine power widely across the battlefield.

With the divine power overlapping, even when knights swung mana-infused swords at them, the most they managed was a shallow scratch—and even that healed instantly.

By contrast, the Imperial army’s own recovery was not enough to withstand the mercenaries’ attacks. No matter how much divine power they had, once a head was cut off or the body was pierced through, they couldn’t recover.

Imperial soldiers began falling quickly under the mercenaries’ blows.

“Wahahaha! These guys are weak!”

“Push a little harder! We can kill them all—it’ll just take time!”

“The man Osvald! Today will write a new page in the history of revolution!”

Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!

The Imperial forces could not kill the mercenaries, but the mercenaries could kill the Imperial forces.

Faced with this absurd difference in combat efficiency, the Imperial army began losing their will to fight.

The knights tried to kill the mercenaries somehow, but each time they did, the Death Knights blocked their way. The Death Knights, who could not be killed, had decided to serve purely as shields. The Julien Mercenary Corps simply hid behind them and swung their weapons.

The remaining Imperial superhumans were tied up by Julien and Kyle, unable to assist their comrades.

The 10,000-strong Imperial army’s defeat was becoming more and more certain.

A catastrophe was unfolding—an unprecedented disaster in which barely thirty mercenaries might defeat them.

Kwaang! Kwaang! Kwaaaang!

The longer the battle dragged on, the more the Imperial army crumbled.

They realized now they had gravely underestimated the Julien Mercenary Corps. These were ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) monsters, armed with counters to every situation and the power to carry them out.

And at the center of it all was Ghislain, with the magic of the 8th Circle and strength surpassing a superhuman.

“Demon…”

Someone muttered as they looked at Ghislain.

What kind of army was this?

This was the Pope’s army, carrying out a holy mission.

And yet this holy army… was being ravaged by a demon.

By that demon who had plunged alone into their center, drenched in blood, laughing.

Kwaaaaaang!

Blasting away dozens of soldiers in a single strike, Ghislain suddenly turned and raised his spear.

Kaaang!

Blocking someone’s attack, he grinned.

“Looks like you can still move?”

“You bastard…”

The one who appeared was Marquis Pherington, half of his face collapsed.

Chiiiiik……

Although divine power was surging around him, his face still hadn’t fully healed. The wound was too deep, and Ghislain’s mana remained in it. But he had not died—thanks to the overflowing vitality of a superhuman and the constant influx of divine power.

Marquis Pherington ground his teeth as he looked at Ghislain.

'It’s a complete failure.'

To face them, he should have brought more superhumans, more mages, and more priests. At the very least, if they had kept formation and pushed forward, they wouldn’t have been beaten so one-sidedly. If they had, even if it meant annihilation, they might have succeeded in wiping out the Julien Mercenary Corps.

'If not for this damned man…'

Being thrown off by the enemy’s absurd actions had been his greatest blunder. He should have sent only a portion to look for the Sacred Stone, gathered the entire army, and crushed them outright.

Now there was only one option left.

'At the very least, this man…'

Before his thought could even finish, Ghislain spoke.

“You think it’ll be over if you just take me down?”

“……”

“When things get to this point, everyone always seems to think that.”

“…You arrogant bastard. I will kill you without fail.”

“They all say that.”

Pouring mana into his spear, Ghislain gave a vicious smile.

“And I’ve never left alive anyone who’s said that to me.”

“Shut up!”

Kwaaaaaang!

Marquis Pherington’s sword went first, aiming for the horse’s neck. The intention was to kill the horse and throw Ghislain off balance.

But Ghislain’s spear lightly caught Pherington’s sword and, riding along the blade, shot forward.

Skeak!

Pherington barely dodged the spearhead, then tried to swing again—

Pook!

Ghislain’s spear pierced Pherington’s shoulder.

The Marquis swallowed a groan and tried to close the distance, but Ghislain had already pulled back with his horse, widening the gap. His spear flashed again, drawing a red line across Pherington’s neck.

“Khk!”

Pherington barely pulled back in time to avoid having his throat cut. He was in shock.

'H-how can he move like that while on horseback…'

A horse could not keep up with a superhuman’s movements. No matter how much you enhanced it with ki, there were limits. Yet the opponent was moving as if he were one with the horse. It was horsemanship of an astonishing level.

What made it even more infuriating was that it was his own horse. The fact that the man could move like that on a mount unfamiliar to him only fueled Pherington’s rage.

'I have to close in somehow!'

Pherington drew up his mana without sparing any. In a fight between superhumans, weapons meant little, but the opponent’s technique was far too good. With the length of the spear, he was at a disadvantage.

Kaang! Kaang! Kaang!

Pherington recklessly pressed the attack, trying to close the distance. But Ghislain blocked every strike with ease from horseback.

“Hm, is that all? Not bad, but… it’s not satisfying. Still, you’re a little better than Kyle.”

“Uwaaaaaaaah!”

Pherington let out a roar of rage and swung his sword wildly. He was among the top five fighters in the Empire, yet he couldn’t even graze the man’s clothing. Humiliation and despair wrapped around his entire body.

Kaang! Kaang! Kaaaang!

Even as Ghislain fought Pherington, the weapons he had set in motion continued to butcher the Imperial troops.

'No, this can’t go on. I have to…'

The more frantic he became, the more desperate his heart grew. He had to finish Ghislain quickly to salvage the shattered situation.

In contrast, Ghislain attacked Pherington calmly.

Pook! Pook! Pook!

Holes began to open all over Pherington’s body. The surging divine power tried to heal him, but the wounds multiplied faster than they could be closed.

Chiiiiik……

At some point, the healing itself stopped working properly. Ghislain’s mana was burrowing deeper and deeper, persistently eroding Pherington’s body from within.

Pherington was undeniably strong. With the help of divine power and using his full strength, even Ghislain couldn’t kill him in an instant. But an opponent like that could be hunted down slowly.

Paak!

Ghislain was killing Marquis Pherington bit by bit. Each time he landed a wound, his mana seeped into it. The Marquis’s injuries didn’t heal; instead, they rotted from the inside.

As he drove Pherington back, Ghislain murmured,

“If we’d met before my training, I think it might’ve been fun.”

It was true—had they fought when he was weaker, he might have been able to work up a good sweat. But now was different.

Upon reaching the 8th Circle, Ghislain had grasped greater truths of the world. With his willpower now even stronger, Marquis Pherington could no longer be his match.

Ghislain’s calm voice continued.

“You should have considered the possibility that we might get stronger.”

“Khk…!”

Pherington exhaled roughly. He had prepared for the fact they were superhumans, yet he had still failed. In reality, the Julien Mercenary Corps was stronger and bolder than expected.

And he had been dragged along in every situation. There was nothing to say—it was their complete defeat.

Still, Marquis Pherington did have one thing to throw back. He glared at Ghislain.

“If you… if you hadn’t done that insane thing of throwing away the Sacred Stone…”

If they’d fought properly, they wouldn’t have been crushed this badly—Pherington truly believed that.

Ghislain nodded slightly at the words.

“Yeah, we probably would’ve taken quite a bit of damage too.”

Judging by the forces currently fighting, Pherington’s thought was correct. If they had revealed all their strength and clashed head-on, things wouldn’t have gone so smoothly.

But there was something Pherington didn’t know. Ghislain smiled and suddenly withdrew his spear.

“But we didn’t throw away the Sacred Stone.”

At the sudden words, Pherington faltered.

“…What?”

“Exactly what I said. We didn’t throw it away.”

“T-then that was…”

“Of course it was fake. Pretty convincing, wasn’t it? The Dragon Lord made it for us. I asked for it to use in a dangerous moment. The divine power was just something Deneb put out.”

“Y-you…”

Pherington’s face turned pale. The item was too important, and the situation too urgent, for him to think it through. From the Julien Mercenary Corps’ position, throwing away the Sacred Stone wouldn’t have mattered. But for it all to be fake—for it all to have been an act!

'Could it be…'

The Julien Mercenary Corps had been prepared to fight the Empire from the very beginning. Even the situation he’d believed to be a perfect encirclement had in fact been within the enemy’s expectations.

“You bastard!”

Unable to contain his rage, Pherington raised his sword high. His mind was filled only with the humiliation of being played by Ghislain.

He swung down—but already having lost his composure and carrying many wounds, his stance was completely broken.

And in that moment—

Pook!

The tip of Ghislain’s spear pierced straight through Marquis Pherington’s heart.