The High Pontiff laughed.
Naurillia did not know. It did not know how many troublesome things he had to deal with just to get here.
Should he call them hardships? No. It wasn't even on that level.
They called those who ruled the Demon Realm devils, but Rihinstetten and the High Pontiff called them the lords of the Demon Realm.
'If they govern parts of the Demon Realm, they're lords, all right.'
Among those who split the Demon Realm up and ruled it, three lords who didn't like him had been obstructing him until now.
If you even take that into account, there were two big reasons the south was only now making up its mind and moving.
One was thanks to Balrog's absence, and the other was because only now had all the lords of the Demon Realm stopped keeping him in check.
When you look at the result, you know the cause. The High Pontiff did not ignore the shift in posture the lords of the Demon Realm had shown.
Why were they suddenly acting like that?
Even the High Pontiff could not know everything that happened in the world. In other words, he could not know it all. But one thing was certain.
'Someone managed to be hated by all the lords.'
That alone was enough.
That was why all six lords of the Demon Realm had stopped the hands that had been restraining him. They enjoyed borrowing someone else's hands to get things done. It was a habit worthy of being called devilish.
The High Pontiff read the expectations the six of them subtly revealed. Leave the continent, achieve what you want, and while you're at it, sweep away everything unnecessary and cumbersome.
He would do as they wished. He would do as they desired.
For now, he would.
'Once the continent is under my feet, you're next.'
He would join hands with another lord and eat them one by one. The High Pontiff's dream was big.
And the High Pontiff was not even surprised that a few enemy knights had come in. They would be dealt with on their own.
What mattered now was not the hand holding the sword, but the head holding it up. What needed to be shattered was the hub, the core.
"Advance."
He did not want the vanguard that had gone ahead to retreat uselessly. His will reached the ones who had stepped forward as the vanguard.
There was no retreat for Rihinstetten's vanguard. In this single clash, even if Naurillia's army did not hand over their king, they would still have to spill out their knightly strength.
'Let the knight order put on a show for me.'
That wish would be granted.
If that was the will of a king who had unified the continent's south and lived grinding against the Demon Realm, then it could.
***
Lawford at the front knew, even before the enemy took the drug, that they would not simply withdraw.
'They aren't pulling back.'
If they had any sense of atmosphere, momentum, or instinct, they should have hesitated, but there was nothing like that. They simply pushed in.
And that was right after they had taken real damage.
When Rem and Dunbakel run wild, the aftershock is tremendous. And that was after his prophecy had come true thanks to Ragna.
And they still came?
'The commander's judgment is a blind charge.'
The soldiers under him followed that faithfully. Unless they had some hidden move, there was no reason to do that.
He didn't know what that move was, but it wasn't hard to predict. It meant they still had a means to push in like that.
That was why Lawford wasn't surprised even after he saw them change from taking the drug.
'The means is the drug.'
He simply condensed his thinking to a conclusion and responded faster than anyone else.
"Spear infantry forward! Swap the vanguard positions!"
The wall formation he assembled in an instant placed spear- and sword-bearing soldiers together.
In this process, Lawford kept many things in mind. First, he acknowledged that complicated orders were hard to react to. These were not soldiers he had handled like his own limbs. For that reason, the commands were simple and intuitive.
"Swap! Change out, get out!"
Spear infantry stepped to the front.
'The ones charging there are cavalry.'
That was the conclusion he drew from their swollen bodies and the speed of their rush. In truth, it wasn't a charge with the full breakthrough force of real cavalry. There was no need to assume that much.
'Instead, they'll stick and cling harder.'
And once they stuck, the fight would be fiercer.
Cavalry breaks through and passes on, but those ones would stop here and tangle.
He didn't know the drug's effect, but couldn't you feel it just by looking?
A vicious fight was about to begin. Everyone knew it.
Lawford's eyes swept left and right. His thoughts chained without stopping, and he drew another conclusion.
"Arrows!"
The moment the enemy charge entered bow range, the prepared archers released their strings.
They didn't have many arrows after dealing with those griffon bastards, but this was not the time to conserve them.
Black shafts flew in arcs and rained down over the enemy. It was rare for them to pierce straight through the charging ones' heads. Helmets shaped like cones, sharper toward the top, protected their skulls. Arrows stuck in arms, shoulders, legs, and the like lacked stopping power. Swollen muscle sometimes even flicked the arrows away.
And so a monster unit that did not know pain came charging in.
The eyes of the one who reached them first were blood-red. The veins in his eyeballs had burst, and he came forward streaming bloody tears.
At the very front of the allied line was Lawford. On purpose, he stood slightly ahead of the stopping line his allies had made—the wall formation.
From there, he stepped half a pace forward and swung diagonally, and his sword struck the neck of a man holding two longswords in both hands.
Thump!
The sound of cutting a neck was crisp.
"Trying to act like you're the only one impressive?"
It was Pel shouting. Lawford stopped while calculating the distance to his allies in his head.
"I can't go farther forward."
He muttered, gripping his sword. It was only the beginning.
This was a scene the Border Guard standing army would have faced, if Esther had not blocked them with swamp and fog back at Border Guard.
Because the ones charging now and the force that had departed Border Guard were all from the same side.
In any case, it wasn't something the people fighting here needed to consider.
Before the fighting began, Lawford had also used well the time Ragna and Rem had bought. Now was the moment to see whether that time had been spent properly.
To Lawford's left and right, spearpoints suddenly shot out. Allied support. Like spears skewering a mounted charge, the spearpoints pinned the bodies of those spreading out to either side of Lawford.
At the same time, shouts exploded.
"Drop the spears!"
"Let go of the spears!"
Before the fight began, Lawford had given every officer the same order.
"In the first engagement, there is no hesitation. Even if you have to throw away your weapons, you create distance from the enemy."
The wall formation Lawford demanded had many gaps. If someone built a real fortress wall like this, you could grab the architect by the collar and call it shoddy without shame.
Those gaps became space for allied soldiers to thrust spears and pull back. What would have been impossible in a dense formation happened easily. Shield-bearers filled the spaces where spearmen withdrew.
Tudududung! Crash! Clang! Boom!
All kinds of noise hammered the area.
"Kiyoo-hat!"
A few natives who lived only in the south let out bizarre cries.
They were men whose bodies were covered in tattoos. After taking Carny Festa, the veins all over their bodies swelled, making them look even more grotesque.
And beyond them, the southern army that had lost reason surged countless times. They did not stop. Even if an entire forearm flew off, they did not hesitate. If you told even a seasoned veteran soldier to watch and face that, their knees would go weak and their spine would go cold, but the Naurillia army held well.
There was only one reason.
They weren't choosing a fight where they met them and won. They chose a fight where they pressed shoulders together and endured.
"Three more steps!"
Lawford shouted, and he himself retreated three steps more. Creating space and buying time.
He was the center of the wall, and the ones who actually cut, carve, and kill the enemy were other swordsmen. That was the core of the strategy he had in mind.
"Crazy bastards."
At the center of the allied position, Pel drew the usurper-slayer. He hated complicated things and preferred simple things. That was just his nature.
And Lawford's request of Pel was simple.
As he drew his sword, Pel recalled what he had to do.
'Sense danger.'
And then swing the sword there. He understood the basic framework. The rest, he would read and add on his own.
'You can't stay in one place too long.'
So—
'You don't swing more than once.'
Pel kicked off the ground. Mobilizing not only the five senses but even instinct, he found and plugged the first gap.
Thump!
His afterimage blew an enemy soldier's head off. The allied formation was a roughly woven net, but from above it looked a little different.
It wasn't simply a formation full of holes; groups of five or six had clustered shoulder-to-shoulder with their backs together. If you viewed each small group as one unit, there were no gaps. The gaps existed only between groups.
Between those nets, a hunter rampaged. Pel ran, stopped, and snapped his sword out. It was a repetition of simple motions. It was a waste of time even to measure the enemy's skill. He struck from behind without hesitation and used blind spots.
No matter how drugged they were, the gap in force was clear. How could someone distracted like that block an attack they couldn't block head-on?
Pel fought Lawford often and knew his habits and tendencies. This formation was familiar to him as well.
He knew where to run and where to head to open a path.
It was the result of chewing over, worrying at, and studying everything he had learned and grasped from clashing with Lawford all this time, again and again. The reward of effort, you might say.
"Shit—hey, I got stabbed!"
"Inside! Inside!"
"Hey, press in!"
The core of this formation was that the soldier groups were walls—limited to blocking. The point was to endure while fighting.
At the same time, it had to be free for groups to attach and merge. That way, the wounded were kept inside the circle, and if they fell into danger due to a lack of hands, they immediately merged with the adjacent circle formation.
There were no difficult tactical maneuvers. Press shoulders together, form a circle, and do not leave your backs open. That was all. After that, you blocked with shields and endured, stabbing with spears and swords.
That was why they did not panic even while facing men with bloodshot eyes and blue veins standing out.
Unexpected danger was eliminated by the blade of a man who had appeared from somewhere, cutting and stabbing it away.
"Pel!"
Lawford shouted, veins bulging in his neck.
It was right after he had seen Pel lift his body until it was level with the ground, then thrust his sword and punch holes through the throats of three enemy soldiers.
And that wasn't even the end. Right after killing three, Pel kicked the ground. Boom! He kicked off and swept his sword. Along the path he moved, the throats of six enemy soldiers were cut.
These men kept coming even after losing limbs. You had to cut their necks or burst their hearts to kill them. There was no need to explain something like that. Pel simply did what needed doing.
With a bit of flashy skill, soldiers who should have died lived. Circle formations that should have broken endured.
Lawford's shout carried emotion. It carried encouragement for what Pel had done.
"Why!"
And Pel answered, thinking he was busy, so why was that bastard calling him?
'That tone-deaf bastard.'
Lawford's admiration cooled quickly. Right now, Pel was rampaging without even understanding what he was doing. Then you just let him be.
The High Pontiff's wish was broken. Just because it's a king's will, does it always come true?
"We!"
Lawford, having shattered half of the enemy vanguard unit, shouted. The shout of the allies who had been enduring followed.
"Endure!"
While Pel bounced around like a grasshopper, Lawford took every enemy charge head-on at the front with his own body. After the very first time, he did not retreat even once.
After the formation settled, he endured to the end. The core of this strategy was endurance. Pel's presence was huge, but what Lawford did was no small thing either.
Even a knight can die. In his own way, he had performed tricks similar to Pel's.
Of course, if you just watch that happen, you're an idiot. A Rihinstetten knight found an opening. He stabbed at the gap that appeared when Lawford tended to soldiers and blunted the charge.
Instead of dodging or blocking, Lawford endured. One cut grazed his side, and blood sprayed. He tightened his muscles. Was the wound deep? It wasn't shallow. Still, he twisted his waist, and it stopped there.
Later, he might have to thank Audin. He had learned that motion from him.
"You dodged that?"
Leaving behind those words, the enemy knight left three more cuts. Each one targeted moments that were hard for Lawford to avoid. He was a man who used his advantages.
Above all—
'Fast.'
Even counting the entire Madman Knights, Lawford had never seen speed like this.
'Even if I hadn't been in a bad position…'
Could I have blocked it easily?
The opponent held a thin, slender sword. It didn't bend and whip around, but just from the outside, it looked thin enough to snap with a finger.
"This is far enough."
He left five stab wounds in Lawford's body and turned away. If even one of those five had been off by just a little, Lawford would have been the first to meet the father Audin served.
Just when Lawford had roughly steeled himself to die, the opponent lightly retreated.
And so Lawford held his position. He had bled no small amount, but it was a moment he could be satisfied with in his own way. Standing before the knight order he had once wished to belong to, Lawford turned his back to all of them.
"We!"
It was after killing most of the enemy vanguard. Lawford shouted. As he raised his hand while shouting, blood seeped from his side in a steady stream. Of course, it wasn't easily visible on the outside.
"Hold!"
The chant erupted.
"Sir Lawford!"
A few officers shouted. They knew, too. No one in the Red Cloak Order of Knights could do the same thing. Neither Ingis nor Lien nor Cypress had this kind of feat.
They might be able to cut down ten enemies in an instant, but in this battle, even if dozens died like that, the enemy charge would not have stopped. As a result, allies would have died in heaps.
That was the kind of fight it was. He was the hero who had blocked it with minimal losses. It was the result of forming the formation, placing knights in the gaps, and making himself a dike at the very front.
His name spread across the battlefield.
"Madman Lawford!"
Naturally, his affiliation spread with it.
As that shout crossed, a thunderous roar exploded.
KWA-RUNG!
Ahead, lightning fell from a clear sky. The lightning that stretched like a trunk did not end in a single strike.
It was what had happened where Ragna was fighting.