The air was filled with bitter or defiant words, almost all shouted so loudly that were it not for the privacy enchantments around the forest clearing, the entire army might’ve been able to listen in. The Lords of Imak’s Kingdom expressed every opinion under the sun when Daryun thought that the matter at hand was quite straightforward with a binary choice—they had won a battle at significant cost; do they now sue for peace while using the threat of their continued resistance to gain favorable terms, or do they continue to resist and possibly suffer greatly for it.

Daryun himself didn’t think it was that hard of a choice—to live in chains or die on one’s feet—but he supposed the pampered Lords who hadn’t spent their lives resisting Sylphian invasions had other ideas.

“Being brought to heel now would only engender mistrust and cost us the very privileges that we’ve fought for!” he heard one well-dressed sixth-tier noble call out. “We’re ahead, we’ve shown our mettle! Let us now show our virtue by seeking peace!”

“You mean for us to give up our independence?!” another man shouted, his dress and power similar to the first nobleman. “Why don’t you come to my castle? I could use a slave if you’re so willing to be placed in irons!”

The shouting continued, and Daryun couldn’t help but start to tune them out. The council had started well as Imak’s officers reported the state of the army and ark fleet, as well as the gains they had made. Beating the enemy while suffering five times as many casualties as they did was not encouraging, and Daryun suspected that knowledge caused more than a few nobles to lose their nerves.

‘Soft men,’ he scoffed. ‘They do not respect what they have. If they bow to a foreign King, they will soon come to regret it.’

“Our foes, though strong, are but motes of dust in the wind compared to the gods!” shouted Jesger, an aged priest of Yrati. “Yrati stands with us, his shield bolstering our line, his spear spilling the blood of the unbelievers! With him, and the Sky King Piraeion, on our side, what have we to fear from our faithless foe? King Imak, let us fight!”

Daryun smiled. The gods were fickle, but having their blessings guaranteed their victory. However, when he glanced at King Imak, he saw his King sitting in the place of highest honor utterly impassive, his face inscrutable, his mind unknowable. The arguments at least thus far didn’t seem to have moved him one way or another.

“I say we fight, too!” High Luminary Quiplin declared, his armor gleaming like it had been freshly forged and hadn’t seen the dirt and blood of battle yet—which it likely hadn’t—and his gauntleted hand resting upon the pommel of the sword at his waist. “This is our land! And if the enemy comes, then we will destroy them, no matter the cost!”

“You propose to kill them yourself?!” an incredulous voice responded. “You, who know nothing of war?! You, who hides in the back lines like a coward?!”

“Who dares to question my courage?!” Quiplin shouted as he spun around, looking for the source of the voice, paling slightly when Artesh, military governor of the Ishkaran province, presented himself. Artesh was an unassuming man, neither particularly short nor tall, though he possessed a strong seventh-tier aura, bordering on the eighth-tier, and the scars on his face and the gray in his hair spoke of a life devoted to the rigors of war.

“Your cavalry didn’t charge until the battle was won, Your Luminance,” Artesh growled. “You know nothing of war and have lost nothing to it. Why don’t you head down to the healer’s tents and see the cost that we have borne so far?”

Quiplin visibly gulped in nervousness, but after a glance around at the dozens of commanders and nobles present, he responded, “You call me coward, yet it sounds to me like you’re advocating for surrender!”

Artesh glared at him like he was something foul that the general had accidentally stepped in, then turned to Imak. “My King, have I ever done anything that would throw my loyalty into question?”

For the first time since the meeting began, Imak spoke, though it was but a single word. “Never.”

“Many long centuries I have served you and your father, may the gods grant noble King Hekaj rest. I understand our capabilities, and what kind of situation we face. Though yesterday we won a battle, the enemy still occupies our most valuable and populous territories in the west. We have the mountains and the valleys, but we lack the farms to sustain us in the long term, and the soldiers that fight for us… how long will they do so when their families are threatened and their pay is deferred? My King, I am no coward… but I simply can’t see a way for us to win, not when the enemy has been pushed back at an unsustainable cost.

“I led the charge against the Mephanites six hundred years ago that won us the Three Southern Provinces! Ninety-two rebellions have been crushed by my hand! I fought against a thousand enemies of this Kingdom, including the Sylphians! Let no man here question my honor! And let it be known that I advocate for negotiation! With our strength proven, let us now meet with these off-plane conquerors and come to a peaceful and mutually beneficial accord!”

Of all of Imak’s commanders, Daryun knew that Artesh was easily the most prestigious, even if he wasn’t technically the most highly ranked—that honor was reserved for Imak’s elder kinsman Imadi, an eighth-tier mage who wasn’t present at this meeting, busy as he was doing everything he could to sustain their mobilized forces from more civilized regions. With Artesh speaking his mind, sentiment among many swayed in his direction.

Daryun barely held back a scowl as he took a step forward, intending to challenge Artesh’s position. However, before he could give voice to his thoughts, horns began sounding throughout the valley, raising the alarm. Daryun’s heart instantly accelerated as he projected his magic senses, expecting to see some massive enemy fleet suddenly upon them despite knowing that was almost impossible. Instead, he saw storm clouds rushing through the valley in the wake of an enormous white raptor with a crest of blue feathers trailing behind it.

It had an aura deeper than any Daryun had sensed before, and an ocean of killing intent spilled from it. This massive eagle possessed power unlike anything that Daryun had sensed before. If Yrati himself had manifested in the physical world, Daryun could’ve believed that this was the war god’s chosen avatar.

In the moments before the bird was upon them, half of the remaining arks were in the air despite the damage they’d sustained, while the other half had landed in the forest and the plain for emergency repairs. The belief was that their enemy would regroup and launch another assault on their position within several days, so they had time to reorganize and repair, as well as evaluate their gains. In the latter case, several of the enemy vehicles had been captured reasonably intact, and salvagers were pulling interesting things from the crashed enemy arks practically by the minute. There was also all of the high-quality arms and armor taken from the enemy to sell or distribute.

Their prisoners, meanwhile, had been distributed throughout the prisons of the local underground fortresses. Daryun didn’t envy them, for the fortresses were dark, cramped, and unpleasant in general. Though the primary reason to hold their meeting in a large forest clearing had been to remain close to the army above ground—something hardly thought to be dangerous given how far away the gathering enemy arks were—Daryun thought that staying out of the bleak underground fortresses played a part in the decision about the meeting location.

He barely had time to process what he was seeing—the bird and the oncoming storm in its wake—before it was upon them. Thunder shook the ground and dozens of powerful silver-blue lightning bolts struck the hovering arks. In seconds, a quarter of the arks were raining to the ground, little more than bits of debris and molten metal.

Wind tore at the rest as thunder shook the earth. Lightning flashed amidst the trees, unerring and deadly. Men and beasts screamed in pain and terror as Imak shot to his feet and roared, “Take up arms! Defend the valley! Kill that beast!”

The strongest mages of their Kingdom drew their weapons, the debate over whether or not to surrender ended with this attack. Everyone knew that they had to defend themselves or die, and even the most cowardly among them at least played the part of rising to the challenge.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

The storm that crashed through the valley, however, rapidly wore away at their instinctive resistance as gale-force winds tore trees from the earth and battered the men within them. Stones and clods of dirt wound through the air thicker than rain even as many mages attempted to use their own power to stabilize the weather or their positions, but to little avail.

Artesh roared in exertion as he summoned an earthen wall to provide those in the meeting with some cover, aided by several other earth mages in attendance. Several flashes of lightning shattered an ark above them, and the explosion as its engine detonated hurled everyone, Daryun and Imak included, to the ground.

Another flash of lightning turned Artesh to ash, along with half a dozen other officers around him. The massive raptor cried out in wrathful triumph as it flew past, wind and thunder resounding with every wingbeat. It was so close now that Daryun’s heart felt squeezed in his chest, a reaction that he could tell was more than mental as dozens of weaker mages fell to the ground, their insides liquified by the mere presence of this terrible beast.

The forest, which had been their shield, their shroud during the ambush the night before, had, in but a minute, become a mausoleum as hundreds of men and the arks around them were slaughtered and obliterated.

Explosions tore through the trees and rent the earth as the grounded arks exploded before they were able to take off. Death filled the air as the army stationed throughout the forest was torn asunder.

“Recover!” Imak roared, the ninth-tier mage barely audible over the howling gale. “Get in formation!”

The high-ranking officers and noblemen remaining attempted to follow his order, but another pass of the great raptor above their position rendered almost half of them into ash as lightning rained from its feathers. Strangely, it was the weakest among them that were killed, though Daryun wasn’t sure if that was a coincidence or not.

“My King!” one officer shouted. “We have to get you to the nearest fortress!”

“What good will hiding in a hole do against that monster?!” Imak shouted back. “Get whatever weapons we have and kill that thing!”

Daryun’s heart hammered his ribs like a drum. Imak’s order was optimistic; escape was their only real option. He raced forward, his skill in wind magic the only thing keeping his feet planted on solid ground, and he grabbed his King. “You have to leave!” he shouted. “We’ll find a shroud and you can escape unseen!”

“I’m not leaving!” Imak insisted, but he didn’t put up much resistance as Daryun and several others started dragging him away.

Daryun wasn’t sure where they were going, but he did notice that lightning was already falling less frequently than it had. He could tell with his magic senses that this wasn’t a good thing, however; the raptor was destroying the rest of their fleet and at least a quarter of the army that remained on the surface had already been slaughtered. It had only been a matter of minutes, but they were already running out of time.

Keeping his head on a swivel, Daryun tracked the raptor as it tore through the sky, while using his magic senses he tried to find any shrouds that could see the King safely away from this disaster. However, any hope within him died as another ark exploded, briefly illuminating the night sky. They were down to a dozen left, and their Lances were utterly unsuited to dealing with so powerful and nimble a creature as this raptor.

“Halt!” Imak ordered, his authoritative voice forcing them to obey. “No one even knows where we’re going!”

“The nearest ark should have a shroud…” one of the weaker mages in the group suggested.

“All of the arks on the ground have either been destroyed or barely managed to take off,” Daryun stated, his words punctuated by another ark falling into the forest and erupting in a great fireball. He closed his eyes and ignored that it had fallen directly into one of the denser camps in the forest. Hundreds of soldiers were likely consumed in that fireball without even counting the ark’s crew.

“Then we retreat under the mountains!” Quiplin shouted, his armor finally tarnished by dirt, ash, and blood, his face contorted in sheer terror. “This way!” The man attempted to lead the way to the closest mountain, he and several others separating themselves from the group in the process.

Magic in the air spiked as killing intent focused on them. Daryun’s hair stood on end as he sensed the gathering magic, but it spiked so quickly he couldn’t even shout a warning. Silver-blue flashes scorched his retinas as thunder struck him like Yrati’s hammer.

Quiplin and his band didn’t even scream; their armor clattered to the ground, blackened and broken, as the ashen bodies that filled them scattered to the wind.

“It’s playing with us!” an officer shouted, and Daryun had to agree. He and Imak were the only ninth-tier mages in the entire army; aside from the arks—which the monster seemed to be having no trouble with—he and the King were the only possible threats to it, depending on just how strong it was. Daryun certainly thought it was stronger than the tenth-tier given what it was doing, but its aura, great though it was, was utterly impenetrable to him.

“Then we dig in here and prepare to meet it when it comes around!” Imak shouted. “Ready yourselves!”

Almost as soon as he finished, lightning rained down upon them, and this time, no one was spared. Pain unlike anything he’d ever experienced lanced through Daryun as his armor broke around him and his flesh cooked. All thought left his mind, replaced with nothing but the sensation of approaching the Gates of the Unnamed God where his life would be judged.

When he regained his senses, Daryun found himself lying facedown in the dirt, surrounded by the ashen corpses of everyone else in the group save for Imak, who lay a dozen feet away in a similar state as Daryun. Fighting through the pain, Daryun struggled to his feet, the remains of his armor falling away.

“Imak!” he hoarsely croaked as he limped over, his magic senses projecting outward. He froze for a moment at what he beheld.

He must’ve been unconscious for a short time as the forest had been almost obliterated, along with almost everyone within it. Tens of thousands of men, almost all gone. The arks they had left were now scrap poking from the broken landscape. Here and there a few survivors cried out in pain or delirium, and a couple even staggered through the apocalyptic remains of the forest, but Daryun and Imak were functionally on their own.

His heart ached at the thought of his White Horn Riders, many of whom had been his retainers for the past century, for his oldest retainer Nimrak, and for his beloved steed Scarlet Star. His horse had been stabled out in the plain so there was a chance he was still alive, but Daryun couldn’t sense him. Nimrak and his White Horn Riders, however, had even less chance of surviving given they’d accompanied him into the forest for the meeting, though they hadn’t been close enough to assist.

“Imak, we have to leave,” Daryun wheezed, his lungs burning from the effort. All the magic in his body was expended and his reserves in his soul realm hadn’t yet filled his body, so for the moment, he figured he would have to live with the pain. He managed to struggle to Imak’s side, verifying that the King was still alive. A small comfort given everything else, but he’d take what he could get.

As he evaluated the King’s condition, his mind began working properly again, and he retrieved several healing potions from his soul realm. He quaffed one himself, feeling foolish for having forgotten about them as warmth spread from his stomach to the rest of his body, soothing his pains and aches somewhat. He then began pouring a few other potions into Imak’s many, many injuries, which Daryun could quite clearly see given Imak’s armor had been destroyed just as Daryun’s had been.

The potions began sealing the gashes and alleviating the burns, but Daryun wasn’t given much time to appreciate the efficacy before a figure landed several dozen feet behind him. Daryun spun around, keeping himself between the figure and the slowly healing Imak, while he conjured his lance from his soul realm. He glared at the figure, not letting his flagging will show on his face as he took in the sight.

The figure was armored extravagantly in smoky gray metal, the breastplate decorated with scenes of birds and humans, while his leg armor was covered in an unfamiliar runic script. His helmet was noteworthy for its lack of visor or any other identifiable physical features, resembling a much higher quality version of the armor that the enemy had been wearing.

The figure spoke, his voice coming as an almost thunderous rumble through his helmet, though Daryun didn’t recognize the words. Regardless, he could pick up on the meaning; the figure wanted him to surrender, or something along those lines.

“Take another step forward, and my lance will taste your blood,” Daryun vowed, the statement intended more to steady himself than present any kind of real threat against this armored monster. Given his towering aura, he made the easy connection that the figure was the raptor that had single-handedly destroyed Imak’s army.

Fully intending to resist to the end, until his lifeblood flowed into the broken ground, Daryun was surprised when the figure’s aura suddenly pressed itself down upon him with such weight that he was forced to his knees, then to all fours, and then into a prone position, face down in the ashy ground.

The figure slowly walked over, and Daryun’s breathing picked up. He wasn’t ready to die, not here, not when he was this young. He thought of his home, of Kaarahi Castle and the Alamati Valley; they would be left to defend themselves when he was gone. He thought of the girl with blue eyes who sometimes brought supplies to the castle from his port; if he lived, he vowed to return home and make her his wife. He thought of his King, who lay just behind him, now completely vulnerable to their assailant; for all his power, Daryun was utterly helpless to do anything at all to protect them.

But he didn’t close his eyes and wait for the end. He struggled mightily against the aura weighing down upon him but to no avail. He fought against these magical fetters with all of his strength, until the figure rested his hand upon Daryun’s head, and darkness magic tore its way through his head with all the subtly of a brick to the face. For a brief moment, Daryun’s head felt like it was splitting in half, until he finally succumbed to the sweet embrace of unconsciousness, quietly thankful that his struggle was likely at its end, and that when he opened his eyes, he would be standing before the Unnamed God ready to hear its judgment on how he’d lived his life.

Though he’d failed in the end, Daryun thought he’d done all right.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep