Chapter 24

Chapter 24.

Rian glanced indifferently once at the arrowhead lodged in the barracks wall. It was the one that had brushed past his cheek a moment ago. His gaze was emotionless, like he was chasing away an annoying flying insect.

He immediately turned around.

It was not toward the western wall, where most of the soldiers had run out screaming. His footsteps were headed in the exact opposite direction, toward a small hill with a gentle slope behind the base.

Amid the battlefield noise where chaos and screams tangled together, his movement was strangely silent. Like a black pebble holding its place without moving, even in a flowing river. As if the destination had been decided from the very beginning, there was not a trace of hesitation in his steps.

Soon, he reached the top of the hill. Low shrubs were scattered everywhere, making it a good place to conceal himself. Standing there, he could see the inside of the base at a glance, now a scene of chaos where the imperial army’s red military flags and Kaien’s blue military flags were mixed together. Flames surged upward, and the sound of metal and screams tore through the curtain of night.

Rian silently dropped to one knee. Once he lowered his body, his silhouette melted perfectly into the darkness.

Rustle.

He drew an arrow from the worn leather quiver. Its feathers had fallen away, and the arrowhead looked dull, but his touch was as careful as an artisan handling a decades-old masterpiece. When he set the arrow against the string of the old longbow, a familiar sensation spread through his entire body.

Elias’s senses.

The moment they awakened, the noise of the world faded away. The desperate screams of his allies, the savage shouts of the enemy, everything grew distant and faint in his ears. Instead, he felt the subtle flow of wind cutting through the night air on his cheek. The footsteps of enemies moving far away were transmitted to him through the vibrations in the ground. Every movement in the world became caught in his five senses like a vast net.

His gaze swept over the battlefield as if looking down at a chessboard.

Imperial army soldiers swinging their swords blindly in confusion. Allied conscripts huddled behind shields in terror. And at the center of all that chaos, those driving the soldiers on like sheepdogs herding a flock.

Rian’s eyes narrowed. Instinct, no, Elias’s senses, whispered to him. There. The one wearing the helmet with the flamboyant feathers and shouting at the top of his lungs was the head directing this attack. And the one that had to be dealt with first was that viper-like bastard up on the high watchtower, cutting off his allies’ lives one by one.

Rian quietly raised his bow. His first target was the archer on the watchtower. The hunt had begun.

Hoo.

As he took in a long, slow breath, his wildly pounding heartbeat slowed as if it had been a lie. In the silence where the world seemed to have stopped, only the sensation at the fingertips holding the bow remained alive.

Distance, roughly one hundred and fifty meters.

The wind was blowing from left to right, weak enough to barely shake the leaves.

Rian’s fingers moved so slightly that the human eye could not distinguish it. An instinctive ballistic correction was made.

He no longer saw the human archer. Only the small target of the nape of the neck appeared enlarged before him.

There was no hesitation. The tautly drawn string left his fingers.

Ping!

With a sharp sound tearing through the stillness of night, a streak of an arrow traced a black arc and vanished into the darkness.

***

At the top of the watchtower, the imperial army archer was sneering with the corners of his mouth raised. The one-sided massacre unfolding below was a fine spectacle to him. Kaien’s greenhorns were no different from a flock of sheep floundering in terror.

“Which one should I shoot next?”

He searched for a new target and tried to draw his bowstring again. It was at that very moment.

Thunk!

Along with a dull sound, a powerful shock struck his neck. The sensation of something hot and sharp piercing through his flesh and bone.

His eyes slowly turned downward. An arrow shaft was lodged in his neck. He had not even realized where it had flown from.

Disbelieving shock flashed through his eyes. From this distance, in this darkness, it had pierced his neck precisely?

“Kuh-hurk......”

The archer could not let out even a single scream. The bow fell from his hand, and his body tilted limply before plunging into the darkness below the watchtower.

Rian, on the hill, did not check the sight. His hand was already setting the next arrow on the string. The first hunt was over.

***

Meanwhile, near the western wall of the base, it was truly a living hell.

Clang! Clang!

“We’re being pushed back! Keep the shield wall up! Damn it, don’t let it collapse!”

Den screamed at the top of his lungs. But his shout was buried under the roar of the surging imperial army. Through the gaps between shield and shield, the enemy blades dug in mercilessly.

Squelch!

Den pierced the stomach of an imperial soldier blocking his path with his spear. Hot blood splashed onto his face, but he had no time to wipe it away.

“Ghh!”

The sword of another soldier charging in from right beside him grazed deeply across his shoulder. A burning pain spread out. Den’s face twisted with pain and urgency.

“Damn it, there’s no end to them! You insect bastards!”

Then he saw an imperial army officer wearing a feathered helmet gesturing and shouting.

“Take care of those bastards clustered over there first! Their flank is open! Circle around!”

The moment the order fell, imperial soldiers began digging into Squad Three’s flank like a pack of wolves. The defensive line that had barely been holding together crumbled helplessly like a sandcastle.

“Aaaargh!”

A squad member beside him screamed and collapsed. An enemy sword was buried in his chest.

Den’s eyes filled with bloodshot veins. He heard the sound of his reason snapping.

“You sons of bitches!”

Without thinking of what came before or after, he thrust his spear madly at the enemy charging in. The enemy soldier fell with his chest pierced through, but at that instant, Den’s stance collapsed badly.

It was a fatal opening.

Not missing that gap, another soldier beside him smiled bitterly and thrust his sword toward Den’s exposed abdomen.

The cold blade entered his vision. Time seemed to flow slowly.

‘......Is this the end?’

Den’s vision turned pure white.

Whoosh! Thunk!

A sharp sound brushed past Den’s ear as he sensed death approaching.

The soldier who had been about to stab him stopped in place with a grunt. An arrow had lodged precisely into the narrow slit in his helmet, the opening made for his eyes.

Thud.

The soldier dropped the sword in his hand and pitched forward. He fell right in front of Den’s nose, kicking up dust.

Den stood there blankly with his eyes wide open. He looked back and forth between the blade that had been aimed at him just moments ago and the corpse now fallen before his eyes.

“What...... what the hell?”

On the hill, immediately after firing the second arrow, Rian was already setting the third arrow against the string. His gaze was now fixed on the center of the chaos, the imperial army officer wearing the feathered helmet.

The officer was visibly flustered by the sudden death of his subordinate.

“Archer! Where did that come from?! Damn it, find his position!”

Just as he looked around and shouted, Rian’s fingers released the string again.

Ping!

With an animal-like sense, the officer felt something flying toward him and instinctively lowered his head.

Whish!

The arrow grazed over his head, pierced through the feather decoration on his helmet, and buried itself deep into a wooden post behind him.

The officer’s face turned deathly pale. Cold sweat ran down his back.

At that sight, Rian slightly furrowed his brow on the hill. But there was no regret or anger. He was merely calculating the next move.

Without delay, he drew a fourth arrow. This time was different. He predicted the officer’s next movement. The first action a terrified human would take. Flight toward the place he believed was safest.

The resistance of the wind, the humidity of the air, the expected movement path of the target. Every variable was calculated in an instant.

Once more, the sound of the bowstring snapping rang through the night air.

It was the exact moment the terrified officer turned his back and ran to hide behind his subordinates.

Squelch!

As if it had been aimed there from the beginning, the arrow dug precisely into his back, into the narrow gap between one piece of armor and another.

“Kuh-hurk......!”

The officer staggered forward a few steps, then collapsed while vomiting red blood like a fountain.

His death was a signal. The movements of the imperial soldiers, now having lost their commander, slowed noticeably. A pack of wolves without control was nothing more than scattered dogs.

Bewilderment and fear of an unseen enemy spread across their faces.

“The captain......!”

“Where is he?! It’s a sniper! Where the hell is he shooting from?!”

But Rian did not stop.

Ping! Ping!

The fifth and sixth arrows spat fire in succession.

The arrows were not randomly targeting soldiers. A man who seemed to be a second-in-command, relaying orders beside the officer. A standard-bearer carrying the red flag that symbolized the unit. A signalman holding a horn used to announce retreat or advance.

The enemy’s command system and means of communication were destroyed one by one with surgical precision.

At last, the fierce offensive of the imperial army stopped completely. They no longer attacked. Terrified of death that could fly in from anywhere, they began hiding behind shields and looking around.

***

The flow of the battlefield had completely reversed in just a few minutes.

Den still stood rooted in place. He looked back and forth between the enemy soldier collapsed before him and his own body, which did not have a single wound.

Rather than relief that he was alive, an immense confusion about what had just happened dominated his mind.

A squad member beside him muttered in a trembling voice.

“Did you...... see that? That arrow...... where did it come from?”

At those words, Den came back to his senses. He raised his head and frantically searched in the direction from which the arrow might have flown. And it was not only him. As if by agreement, all the surviving allied soldiers were looking in the same place.

Their gazes gathered in one spot. A small hill behind the base.

Against the blue dawn light that was beginning to break, the silhouette of one person stood faintly. They saw the long object in that figure’s hand, the bow, slowly lowering.

Den narrowed his eyes. It was a somehow familiar silhouette.

‘No way...... No. There’s no way.’

He desperately denied it inwardly. But contrary to his wish, his eyes, now accustomed to the darkness, told him that the figure was pointing to the one person he knew.

Rian.

It was that very Rian whom they had been whispering about as a monster only a few hours earlier, the very Rian whose collar Den had grabbed while calling him a coward.

All the blood drained from Den’s face.

Fear, disbelief, shock. And a deep humiliation he could not possibly explain. All of it mixed inside him like nauseating poison.

Rian, on the hill, paid no mind to the commotion below.

He swept his gaze over the battlefield one last time. No more threatening targets were visible. The hunt was over.

Rian quietly turned around and began descending the hill, retracing the path he had come by.

There was no emotion in his back. No pride at having saved his comrades, no guilt at having killed enemies. Like an artisan who had silently finished the work entrusted to him, he was terribly calm.

Den could only stare blankly at his receding back, as though facing not a human being, but an incomprehensible, immense natural phenomenon.

The imperial army’s surprise attack was not over yet. But inside Den’s heart, another war far more chaotic than the battle just now was taking place.