Across the grassland swallowed by darkness, beings that could neither die nor live crawled forward in writhing masses.
At a glance, their numbers were around a thousand.
Meanwhile, the Imperial Army, spreading both flanks and tightening its formation, numbered close to eight thousand.
“1st Magic Corps!”
As the commander slowly raised his hand and shouted, the mages in the rear each began chanting their spells.
About ten seconds later, a thunderous order rang out.
“Fire!”
Fwoooosh! KWA-BOOOOM!
The spells fired by the mages of each Magic Tower traced arcs through the air before crashing down onto the grassland.
Over a hundred of the monsters that had been diligently crawling forward became cold corpses.
“Oh, so this is why they call mages the flowers of the battlefield.”
Tesila nodded in small admiration.
She had explored all kinds of dungeons and mysterious ruins, but she was completely ignorant when it came to war.
“But... there are still way too many left?”
“It looks fine. There’s a follow-up attack.”
Just as Oscar said, the commander continued speaking without a trace of impatience.
“2nd Magic Corps! Prepare concentrated fire! Fire!”
The monsters once again died like flies beneath the falling magic.
Even so, nearly seven hundred still remained, but the knights stepped forward while drawing their swords.
“Cut down every last one of them!”
“They’re creatures without any special abilities!”
The grassland was lined only with torches placed throughout the area.
The swords in the knights’ hands shone in brilliant colors as they mercilessly cut down the approaching monsters.
“What? This is nothing special.”
Watching the army suffer not a single casualty, Tesila muttered awkwardly.
Oscar checked the time before replying.
“The real battle probably hasn’t even started yet.”
“How does Oscar know that?”
“Varkan deliberately concealed himself from the battlefield. Then he carried out a diversionary tactic to make them believe he had infiltrated Imperial territory.”
“Ah~ I get it now. In other words, those things haven’t received Varkan’s demonic energy.”
“That’s right.”
This was something that applied to nearly all summoners.
Even the Black Tower necromancers of the past, once called the embodiment of terror, produced pitifully weak undead if they summoned them without infusing them with mana afterward.
“Then this state will probably continue for quite a while?”
“Yes. Most likely until dawn.”
The demon who massacred the village had appeared at 2:32 AM.
Unless Varkan was an idiot, he would only begin moving around a similar time.
“Until then, it’ll just be a one-sided slaughter by the Imperial Army.”
“Oh, all the monsters are dead.”
“They’ll just come again anyway.”
Before Oscar’s indifferent remark had even fully ended, darkness rippled across the dark grassland.
Once it entered the area illuminated by torchlight, its identity was finally revealed.
The same monsters as before.
Only now, their numbers had risen to around fifteen hundred.
“...I’m not exactly an expert on war, but this doesn’t seem like a good situation.”
“No. This is a textbook exhaustion tactic.”
Oscar quickly scanned the Imperial Army formation.
Excluding ordinary soldiers, there was one knight corps led by a Level 7 knight.
Against such worthless monsters, it was a force that was more than sufficient—almost wasteful, even.
‘But if Varkan seriously intervenes in this battlefield, they wouldn’t last even an hour.’
At that moment, irritated voices rose from nearby.
“Tch, they just keep coming endlessly.”
“Every single day. Don’t they ever get tired of this?”
“It seems they’re really determined to break through here today.”
“Those pathetic corpses lose most of their power once the sun rises! Hold out until dawn, and starting tomorrow, the White Tower’s elite mages will guard the battlefield!”
Fortunately, thanks to the commander’s encouragement, the soldiers’ morale was not entirely terrible.
They were exhausted, but since their lives were not immediately in danger, they were somehow enduring.
‘But only up to this point.’
Oscar glanced subtly at his watch.
2:07 AM.
If his prediction was correct, Varkan should soon begin moving.
“Oscar. Won’t demons appear in the village soon too?”
“Yes. But we need to know the exact time Varkan starts acting.”
That way, even if they failed this time, they could plan the route of action for the next attempt.
“Hah, here they come again.”
“Persistent bastards.”
“You’d think they’d realize by now that they can’t break through with things like this...”
“At least this time there are fewer of them.”
The moment the knights and mages looked irritably toward the five hundred or so approaching monsters—
The speed of the creatures crawling toward them suddenly increased drastically.
At the same time, a pungent smell began spreading across the battlefield.
“T-this smell...”
“Don’t tell me... Varkan?”
“Everyone, cover your nose and mouth with the supplied equipment!”
The morale of the soldiers rapidly collapsed as they realized Varkan had returned.
After surveying the atmosphere at a glance, Oscar muttered.
“This is bad.”
“Is it? There are only five hundred of them. The Imperial Army outnumbers them sixteen to one.”
“At times like this, you must examine the trees, not the forest.”
Wasn’t it usually the other way around?
Tilting her head in confusion as she observed the soldiers, Tesila suddenly exclaimed.
“Ah! I get it.”
Squirm. Squirm.
The monsters strengthened by Varkan’s demonic energy appeared completely devoid of fear.
Even when they fell into trenches dug everywhere by their comrades and had their bodies pierced by spears and blades, they ignored it all and continued crawling fiercely toward the humans.
Not only their momentum, but their grotesque appearance itself inspired terror.
Moreover, Varkan’s demonic energy already blanketed the battlefield.
Because of that, the soldiers’ faces had turned pale white, and the weapons in their hands trembled continuously.
“Do not retreat!”
“You must hold this area until orders are given!”
“We overwhelmingly outnumber them! This is not an unfavorable battle!”
“Show those monsters what we can do!”
The commanders and knights shouted repeatedly, but morale, once shattered, refused to recover.
In a way, it was only natural.
This front line had, until recently, been occupied by the White Tower’s elite forces.
‘Back then, including me and Radan... even Magiro. There were three Level 8s here.’
And beneath them were numerous Level 7 and Level 6 mages.
Yet all of that power had vanished overnight in pursuit of Varkan, so anxiety was inevitable.
Then Varkan himself appeared, so panic was only natural.
“What are you going to do now?”
“We fight. I’m just trying to determine where we should help first.”
In battles involving thousands against thousands, one must observe the flow of the war.
No matter how strong someone was, fighting randomly often provided surprisingly little help.
‘War is ultimately a continuous chain of momentum.’
A tug-of-war called “flow” unfolded nonstop across the battlefield.
To seize victory, one had to grasp the largest current among them.
“There.”
Just before the two forces collided.
Oscar pointed to one side.
“The left wing is probably the most dangerous.”
“Hm? How can you tell?”
“The spacing between the soldiers there has become the loosest. That means some of them are stepping backward in fear.”
At that moment, commanders throughout the battlefield shouted.
“Shield-bearers!”
“Hold the line!”
Thud! Thud!
Massive rectangular shields large enough to cover an entire body slammed into the ground one after another, while soldiers braced them with their bodies.
Behind them, the other soldiers prepared to thrust their spears forward the moment the monsters were stopped by the shields.
“Brace for impact!”
The monsters charging across the grassland slammed themselves into the shields with such mindless force that the word “brutish” suited them perfectly.
The battle line swayed violently once, but the soldiers behind quickly stabilized the shield-bearers and restored formation.
“Staaab!”
The moment the commander screamed at the top of his lungs, spears shot forward and skewered the monsters.
“Oh....”
Tesila admired the army moving as though it were a single living body.
‘At this rate, maybe they really can hold them back without much trouble?’
The instant that thought crossed her mind—
The monsters, which should have been dead, slowly began rising once more.
Protected by Varkan’s demonic energy, they were beings incapable of dying even if they wished to.
“Going in.”
The moment Oscar kicked off the ground and shot into the sky—
The very thing he had feared occurred on the left wing.
“I-I don’t want to die!”
A soldier who had fallen into panic threw away his shield and began fleeing.
“Do not retreat!”
“Hold them back! If we collapse, your comrades die!”
“Who ordered you to abandon your position?! Get back here immediately!”
Only two soldiers had broken formation.
But the collapse of a great dam always begins from the smallest crack.
“Ghk!”
“They’re breaking through! We need support!”
“The other fronts aren’t any better! Hold no matter what!”
In an instant, the line collapsed and monsters flooded through.
At the exact moment the panic-stricken soldiers froze like statues—
『Sky Fall』
As though the night sky itself were collapsing—
The winds above compressed into a solid sphere before plummeting onto the battlefield.
The moment it struck its target area—
KWAAAAAAAAA!
A gigantic shockwave exploded outward.
Oscar, having joined the battlefield just in time, rapidly surveyed the surroundings.
The monsters directly struck by the shockwave had their very existence erased.
Even those farther away were blown back dozens of meters.
‘Honestly, it would be easier to use this properly if there weren’t people here.’
Because soldiers and monsters were tangled together everywhere, it was difficult to cleanly wipe them out.
“W-what was that?”
Unable to see Oscar himself, the soldiers stared skyward with bewildered expressions.
‘They still can’t perceive my existence even in this state?’
A clicking sound escaped his tongue without him realizing it.
Apparently, directly commanding the soldiers was impossible.
‘Unable to interfere with the chain of command... how am I supposed to turn this battlefield around through personal strength alone...?’
To accomplish something like that would require at least Level 8.
Oscar bit down hard on his lip.
The words “Give up,” which he had forcefully shaken away earlier, flickered before his eyes again.
‘For now, I’ll do what I can.’
Oscar checked the time.
-AM 02:29
There were still roughly three minutes before demons would appear in the village.
Until then, he needed to reduce the number of monsters as much as possible, then use the portal to move to the village and—
The very instant his thoughts reached that point—
KUUUUNG!
Something fell directly before his eyes.
It was the corpse of a knight whose chest and everything above it had been cleanly erased.
Recognizing the identity of the body from the armor it wore, Oscar slowly raised his head.
‘The knight... the commander already? Sir Southern, a Level 7, died this quickly?’
Since they had once defended the front lines together, Oscar knew well how skilled the man was.
A Level 7 upper-rank knight.
A traditional knight with no weaknesses even compared to master-class warriors.
‘Who in the world...?’
The instant that question flashed through his mind—
“Kuh—kgh!”
“Grrrk!”
Knights, mages, soldiers—every human nearby suddenly clutched their throats and collapsed.
Though all of them wore the supplied masks, they had been infected by Varkan’s plague and died.
Oscar’s eyes trembled faintly as he unconsciously turned his head.
The blood-red mist of demonic energy covering the battlefield split apart, and from within it, a figure emerged.
A demon resembling a human, yet possessing massive and majestic horns atop its head.
With every step he took, the grassland within that area rotted away.
“Hm. So there are still some breathing creatures left.”
AM 02:31.
With Varkan’s intervention, the battle ended.

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