The battle continued.
They had fought for so long that it was impossible to tell how much time had passed.
Corpses were strewn everywhere, regardless of friend or foe.
Yuri, once Yoheim's situation had stabilized, found areas still at risk and lent further aid before returning to Briol.
The Allied Army had made a great showing.
Despite being outnumbered, they hadn't crumbled. The sacrifices were great, but more orcs had died.
Everyone, friend or foe, was exhausted.
It was a war of attrition with no end.
The orcs didn't give up and kept charging, and the Allied Army held out until the end.
"It's mealtime already..."
Yuri grumbled.
Occasionally, an orc would slip into the Allied Army's frontlines. However, the orcs no longer had enough troops left to mount a proper breakthrough.
Orcs left alone deep in enemy lines ended up skewered by the Allied spears and swords, dying like porcupines.
The blood on the ground had dried into a crust.
Yuri lifted his eyes.
Far off in the distance, Okua was still standing still.
And on the other side, at the heart of the Allied Army, Moyong Chan was standing tall atop the tent, glaring at Okua.
It was as if the two were locked in a staring contest.
"Whoever looks away first loses?"
Muttering nonsense, Yuri trudged forward.
The Allied frontlines were thinner than before. The orc attacks had also weakened. Their respective territories were gradually overlapping.
If the enemy stood, they fought.
If an ally fell, they helped.
It was a ceaseless repetition of this process.
While Yuri was dealing with an orc, he spotted a knight in the distance coughing up blood, having been stabbed in the abdomen by a halberd.
Yuri killed the orc and hurried toward him.
He was already too late.
There was no saving him.
Yuri approached the fallen knight and tore off the family crest hanging from his neck.
"I will bear witness to your valor."
"I, I, I..."
Blood frothed from the knight's mouth, cutting off his words.
Yuri whispered again.
"I'll avenge you."
That was all he could promise.
The knight looked at Yuri with cloudy eyes and gave a faint nod. Then he died with his eyes open.
Yuri closed the knight's eyelids.
When he stood back up, an Orcbal with a halberd was waiting.
"Grrr..."
The creature was gnawing on a severed human arm, who knows taken from whom.
Its eyes met Yuri's.
It threw the arm away.
As Yuri dodged it, the Orcbal charged in with its halberd swinging.
Suddenly, blood from the severed arm splashed into Yuri's eye.
The hot sensation of blood on his cornea was vivid.
Yuri didn't blink.
Through a crimson haze, he saw the twisted face of the Orcbal.
His body was tired.
He was low on mana.
But the instincts carved into his body through prolonged combat remained sharp.
Yuri's movements held no wasted effort.
He naturally deflected the halberd, then slit the orc's throat with just enough force to tear through its hide.
One Orcbal fell.
Taking a life was that easy.
"Simple, efficient."
The senses of the ancient orc hunter he had acquired in the ruins were gradually becoming one with him.
Slaughtering orcs had become a mechanical task. And he was the veteran who had mastered the method.
The longer the battle dragged on and the more his stamina was depleted, the more efficient Yuri became.
No matter his state, he could carry out the slaughter. As the difficulty of each task decreased, his efficiency sharply rose.
With minimal effort, he cut down orc after orc.
And in the process, he ran into Jared.
"Been holding up?"
His face was covered in blood. Jared spotted Yuri, wiped his cheek, and gave a weak smile.
"You're alive."
"Yeah."
"So many have died."
Was he referring to the orcs, or the humans?
It was likely both.
Yuri simply nodded.
"I know."
"Yes."
Even during their brief exchange, several orcs charged in.
But the orcs weren't as reckless as before. Though Okua's madness drove them forward, their bodies were already at their limits.
One of them stumbled over its own feet and fell before Yuri.
It was a pitiful display, but Yuri, as if waiting for it, drove Guilty down.
Blood sprayed up to his waist.
"Kuahhh…!"
Even the orc horde was too exhausted to shout a proper war cry.
They merely rasped out hoarse voices, pushed on by madness.
"Your Highness, be careful."
Jared whispered like a sigh.
Unlike Yuri, he lacked those honed senses, and had weakened just as the orcs had.
"Goddamn bastards..."
The orc swung its weapon in a staggering arc, and Jared reeled backward, then swept his sword upward.
The orc's jaw split halfway open.
"Guweegh!"
The orc brought its weapon down again.
Jared rolled across the ground to dodge and climbed to his feet.
"Your Highness, are you all righ—"
He stopped mid-sentence, mouth agape.
While he had been handling one, the rest of the orcs had already been felled and were lying on the ground.
Yuri stood catching his breath, resting Guilty on his shoulder.
"I'm fine."
Then, like a machine with a pre-programmed command, he walked toward the orc facing Jared.
"That one's mine…"
Yuri walked past him.
With faltering steps, he slipped through the orc's attack, barely dodging it, and stabbed with Guilty.
The orc collapsed.
To the untrained eye, it seemed the orc had foolishly thrust its chest into a weakly thrown sword.
But Jared could see the precision in Yuri's movements.
As if he could predict or manipulate the enemy's intent.
At the very least, it was a level approaching that kind of mastery.
"Wait, he's getting stronger during the war…"
"You've got enough energy to talk, I see."
"You planning to fight with words?"
"If your arms fail, bite down on your sword and swing it."
"If that worked, I'd be practicing Tri-Sword Style."
Joking as they were, they resumed searching for more orcs.
Battles were still raging all around.
Yuri spotted a knight who stood out among them and called out.
"Laurent!"
"Your Highness!"
Yuri, helping a nearby soldier, called out.
"You tired?"
"No, sir!"
As Yuri's voice rang out, morale began to rise again in the Briol forces.
"Think of the comrades who went before you!"
In times of mutual exhaustion, morale made all the difference.
Yuri kept mechanically cutting down orcs while continuing to raise his voice.
"Don't die! Wealth and glory await! Don't worry about our fallen comrades! I'll take responsibility! Briol never forgets!"
As Yuri shouted, another Orcbal charged at him.
Yuri, as if expecting it, leaned back and counter-slashed.
The Orcbal's body was split open.
With just two movements—dodge and slash—Yuri had killed the Orcbal.
A level of mastery that was once beyond him.
"For Briol!"
Yuri raised Guilty and shouted. In response, the exhausted soldiers echoed him. The dying embers reignited once more.
Centered around Briol, the fighting spirit of the Allied Army began to flare up again.
They were clearly winning.
And then, something unbelievable happened.
A strange cry rang out. It sounded like sobbing, yet also like the howling of a beast.
The orcs began turning their backs.
"What the hell?"
They were retreating.
The orcs, who had seemed like they would never fall back, were running away.
Even with Okua, their ruler, standing firm behind them, they no longer showed any will to fight.
"Is it over…"
"Did we win?"
The Allied soldiers lowered their weapons. Some planted their swords in the ground and leaned on them, dry-heaving.
Yuri gathered his mana.
"Don't let them get away!"
His roar thundered across the battlefield.
On a front where the heat of war had already faded, Yuri alone was shouting for the pursuit of the enemy.
"Think of what those bastards have done! Chase them down, strike their backs!"
Then, he charged forward with Guilty in hand.
He stabbed it into an orc's nape, leapt off its back, and slashed another's waist. When it didn't fall, he struck again, aiming for the legs.
As the orc collapsed with its ankle severed, he stomped its head and moved on.
"What are you doing!"
Yuri knew.
This wasn't over.
Until Okua was killed, the war would not end. And right now was the best opportunity to reduce the number of orcs.
If they let them go now, the orcs would regroup and return to kill more of the Allied Army.
Killing one orc now was like saving the life of a comrade who would otherwise die later.
"It's not over yet!"
Yuri, rarely angry, urged the troops forward.
As he surged ahead, Laurent and Jared followed, striking at the fleeing orcs' backs.
Then, the knights of Briol raised hoarse voices and began their pursuit of the enemy.
"Follow His Highness!"
"Kill the orcs!"
"Don't let them get away!"
The rear orcs fell.
The orcs kept running.
"Pursue them!"
Yuri, having just taken an Orcbal's life, suddenly looked up.
Their eyes met.
Far in the distance, Okua's blood-red eyes were watching him.
Just that gaze alone brought on a wave of dizziness.
His breath came ragged.
A sharp ringing rose from the depths of his senses.
"Briol!"
Yuri shouted, slashing the air with Guilty toward Okua.
The pressure eased slightly.
"Hit them from behind!"
As Briol pressed the pursuit hard, the entire Allied Army was stirred. One by one, those who had been resting in exhaustion began to move again.
They instinctively knew—they had to reduce the enemy's numbers now. It was only their physical limits that had held them back.
But seeing Briol's desperate assault spurred them on. They squeezed out every last bit of strength.
Gradually, the orcs' losses piled up.
Then, Okua let out a thunderous roar again.
"...!"
It didn't sound like something from a living creature, but more like a tremendous rumble born of nature itself.
Those with lower cultivation covered their ears in pain.
Yuri shouted sharply.
"Get it together!"
From the orcs in the rear, just as they were about to be struck down, red heat haze began to rise.
The ones who had been fleeing suddenly turned around and attacked like mad, throwing the lines into chaos.
The orcs, now in a frenzy, no longer seemed tired.
"That's…"
Yuri clenched his teeth as he saw the orcs who had been running ahead grow more distant.
This too was Okua's doing.
As the Allied Army chased after the orc forces to wipe them out, he had triggered a frenzy among some of the rearmost orcs to block their pursuit.
A fire from who-knows-where was making them berserk.
They charged like a herd of cattle with flames licking at their tails.
"Haah…"
Yuri turned around.
Far in the distance, Moyong Chan was still engaged in his staring contest.
Shouldn't he be doing something now that Okua was making his move? Even if he was keeping Okua in check, the situation was deteriorating.
But Moyong Chan, with a hardened expression, continued to glare at Okua.
"Damn it."
The orcs in the rear had tangled up with the Allied Army. The pursuers stopped in place and clashed with them.
Meanwhile, the rest of the orcs kept getting farther away.
Yuri glared at Okua.
"That bastard."
As if he'd been waiting for it, Okua stared back at Yuri, then turned his body.
Only when Okua's blood-red eyes turned away did the air feel lighter.
He moved again with that same sluggish, swaying gait. The orc army that had stood around him followed.
They hadn't moved even during the heat of the battle.
Now it was clear.
Okua used the orcs like extensions of his own limbs.
Judging by how he turned the rear forces back, perhaps he even had a way of mentally controlling them.
By the time the frenzied orcs had all been killed, the main orc army was already far off.
They could no longer pursue.
The Allied Army's steps halted.
"Ahh…"
In any case, the Allied Army had won.
The soldiers raised their weapons and rejoiced.
The entire army was stirred.
"Okua has fled!"
"We won!"
"Long live the Allied Army!"
It felt like the end of this war was finally in sight.
Yuri, glaring at the backs of the retreating orcs, spoke.
"We need to attack immediately."
He had that feeling.
Now that the enemy had retreated, they had to capitalize on this momentum. If they waited too long, they might lose their advantage.
Okua.
As long as that grotesque creature remained, they couldn't afford to relax.
[T/L: Read more chapters on Ko-fi page "RevengerScans" : https://ko-fi.com/revengerscans ]