Chapter 195: Slaughter [ 1 ]

Valeria didn’t respond right away. For a brief moment, the battlefield seemed to hang in a breathless pause, the kind of silence that precedes something irreparable shattering.

Riven’s words hung heavily in the air, suffocating yet not provoking fear, hesitation, or even rage.

Valeria stepped forward, her blade angled low as she positioned herself shoulder to shoulder with Gregor and Vanthrice. Instinctively, they formed a line, backs aligned and eyes locked on the encroaching figures. The black-clad men began to close in with synchronized precision, their formation tightening with each step as boots crunched softly over shattered obsidian and scorched earth.

There was no shouting or bravado; only an oppressive pressure, a slow squeeze meant to break the spirit before the body.

Valeria’s voice pierced through the tension. “Can you guys still fight?”

She didn’t glance at them; her gaze remained fixed on the approaching circle. Gregor exhaled slowly, steadying himself as he assessed the ache coursing through his limbs and checked his mana flow.

The earlier battle had drained him nearly to his limit, but time, however fleeting, had granted him just enough recovery.

“I’m at about seventy percent,” he replied, his voice steady despite blood crusted along his jaw and cracks spiderwebbing across his armor. “It’s not perfect… but it’ll do.”

Vanthrice rolled her shoulder with a faint wince before forcing it down. Golden mana flickered weakly along her halberd’s edge as she tested her grip.

“I’m not at full strength,” she admitted quietly, narrowing her eyes at the tightening ring of enemies. “But I can still fight.”

Valeria nodded and quickly scanned their formation. Her gaze was sharp and calculating not lingering on faces but assessing stances, postures, mana densities, breathing patterns, reading them like a hunter reads terrain.

“There are fifty 4-Star Master Knights,” Valeria continued calmly. “The rest are 3-Star Expert Knights.”

Gregor tightened his grip while Vanthrice’s expression hardened.

Without wasting time, Valeria issued orders: “You two take care of the 3-Stars. I’ll handle the rest.”

Gregor shot her a concerned glance.

“That’s…”

“Just do it,” Valeria interjected firmly.

Her tone left no room for debate. “And move the battle away from the Lion,” she added in a lowered voice. “The head and heart are still intact. If we damage them… we lose everything.”

Gregor instinctively followed her gaze toward the massive corpse lying behind them, the severed head with a faint glow pulsing within its core cavity.

“…Wait,” he said slowly. “If this whole thing was set up… if it was Riven’s scheme to draw us out… then this mission technically doesn’t even exist, does it?”

Valeria shook her head slowly. “I know Riven,” she said, her voice laced with an unsettling darkness as she spoke his name.

“He might have used Aldric to lead us here,” she continued, “but the mission itself is real. The Lion was always going to be here; he just took advantage of Aldric’s predicament.”

In the distance, Riven stood quietly, hands clasped behind his back, eyes gleaming with that same unnerving calm as he observed their exchange like a strategist studying pieces on a chessboard.

Then he moved, a simple flick of his fingers.

The black-clad formation shifted instantly.

“Attack,” he commanded.

Valeria sprang into action at the same moment.

“Now!” she shouted.

Her body shot forward, crimson mana erupting around her like a detonating star as she charged toward the tightening ring of Master Knights. Her blade carved a fiery arc through the air before anyone could react.

Gregor didn’t hesitate either. Wind roared around him as he launched forward, green mana spiraling violently along his sword, his form blurring into motion.

Vanthrice followed closely behind. Golden lightning burst beneath her boots as she surged ahead, halberd swinging wide just as the first line of Expert Knights closed in.

The battlefield erupted in chaos. Steel clashed against steel with a scream that tore through the air. Shockwaves rippled outward as the initial clash shattered the ground beneath them, sending ash and stone exploding upward in violent bursts.

The formation broke apart instantly, black-clad figures surging forward like a tidal wave.

Valeria vanished among them. Gregor crashed into the right flank while Vanthrice plunged straight into the mass of Expert Knights.

—

For Vanthrice, everything narrowed down to instinct and movement. The first knight lunged from her blind side, blade cutting low toward her thigh. She pivoted instinctively; her halberd swept down in a brutal arc that caught his weapon mid-swing and tore it from his grip before continuing through his torso.

The impact split armor like paper, bone cracked as her blade punched through his chest and out his back in a spray of dark red that splattered across her arm.

She tore it free without hesitation, spinning to face the next attacker as two more charged in from opposite sides. Her halberd whistled through the air, and the first assailant lost his head. It lifted clean off his shoulders, spinning upward while blood erupted from the severed neck in a violent fountain that painted the ash behind him.

The second attacker tried to retreat, but he was too slow. Her weapon reversed mid-swing, the hooked edge catching his ankle and yanking him forward before she drove the spear tip straight through his throat.

The sound was wet and gurgling as he collapsed at her feet, choking on his own blood. But the assault didn’t stop.

Three.

Five.

Ten.

Enemies surged in from every direction, blades flashing, mana flaring. Instead of retreating, Vanthrice stepped forward to meet them. Her halberd became a storm, wide arcs, short thrusts, reverse grips. Every motion was calculated, efficient, and deadly.

A sword grazed her side; she ignored it. A spear pierced her shoulder; she snapped it in half and rammed the broken shaft through the wielder’s eye socket, finishing him with a downward cleave that shattered his skull.

Shockwaves rippled through the battlefield with each of her strikes, uprooting what little remained of trees and carving trenches into the ground.

She fought like a machine engineered for destruction. Bodies fell. Blood soaked the earth. Limbs were severed and sent flying. When a man rushed her from behind, she spun low, her halberd sweeping in a brutal arc that took his legs clean off at the knees before continuing upward to slice through another who charged from the front.

They collapsed together, screaming, drowning in their own blood. But Vanthrice didn’t hesitate. Her battle instincts guided every move. She constantly shifted her stance, using fallen bodies as shields and forcing attackers into one another’s paths, breaking their formations before they could stabilize.

A knight lunged high; she ducked, driving her shoulder into his chest. She hooked the halberd under his arm and wrenched upward.

With a sickening crack, his arm tore free. He screamed until she silenced him by slamming the blade through his jaw and pinning him to the ground. Blood sprayed across her face, warm and sticky.

Still, they came, dozens of them. Their numbers should have overwhelmed her, but they didn’t, because she refused to back down. She moved like a storm cutting through wheat, her weapon carving brutal paths through flesh and armor, leaving bodies in her wake.

A man leapt at her from above. She met him mid-air, the halberd spinning once, then twice, before slicing straight through his abdomen. As she landed, she dragged the blade free, spilling his insides across the ground.

She stepped over the fallen without a moment’s hesitation. Another thrust. Another kill. Another spray of red across the scorched earth.

Her breathing grew deeper, and her wounds reopened, blood trickling down her arm and dripping from her fingers. Yet, her momentum only intensified as the Expert Knights began to falter.

She lunged into the throng, her halberd crashing through armor, tearing apart bodies, and cutting through shields with brutal strength.

One soldier attempted to flee. She caught him easily. The blade sliced upward, splitting his spine and sending his body crumpling in half to the ground with a sickening thud.

A second attacker charged at her, screaming.

She sidestepped effortlessly, seized his collar, and drove his face into the edge of her halberd. The blade penetrated his skull. Yanking it free, she was drenched in blood, and the ground beneath her boots became slick with the crimson spill.

To her right, she heard the distinctive roar of Gregor’s wind mana and the crash of collapsing stone, he was holding his own

Corpses began to pile up.

As a final wave of attackers surged toward her, hoping to overwhelm her with sheer numbers, she didn’t retreat, she advanced.

Her halberd spun in a deadly dance, whirling once, twice, three times in rapid succession. Heads rolled from shoulders, and limbs were severed from bodies. Blood sprayed like fountains, erupting in violent arcs that soaked her armor, her face, her hair.

The clash of steel, flesh, and bone merged into a deafening symphony of chaos.

Vanthrice stood her ground, breathing heavily. Her halberd dripped with blood. All around her, there was silence. Bodies lay strewn in all directions, stacked upon one another, mangled, and lifeless.

The ground was a morbid canvas of red, blood pooling between shattered stones and trickling through the cracks. She lowered her weapon slowly.

A thunderous detonation echoed from the center of the fray, and a wave of crimson mana briefly painted the ash-filled sky. The ground trembled with a rhythm that was not Vanthrice’s.

Nearby, one figure twitched, still alive. He attempted to crawl away. Vanthrice approached him, and he looked up with wide, terrified eyes.

Without uttering a word, she knelt down, grasped his hair, and yanked his head free with a wet, ripping sound. Blood gushed from the severed neck in a final, brutal spray that drenched her from chest to boots.

Holding the head in her hand, her expression unreadable, she surveyed the quiet battlefield. Corpses lay at her feet, blood flowing freely across the ground.

And there she stood amidst it all, drenched, breathing slowly, her halberd resting at her side, like someone who had emerged from slaughter unscathed.

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