Bear School Astartes

”Don’t think about going down, my lord.”

Darkley threw Adal onto the cart platform amidst his disbelief, anger, and fear.

”Your ankle is broken, going down will only get you trampled to death. It’s better to stay here, at least you can live a few more minutes, right?”

”No, you can take me with you! You absolutely can, Darkley!”

Adal could see Darkley was serious, this lowlife really intended to leave him here, letting the Demon Hunter vent his wrath.

Adal suddenly felt a sense of absurdity; after all, he was a Duke of the Niflgaard Empire!

But quickly, the heat of the wildfire, along with the battling and fleeing troops, brought him back to his senses and reality.

”I can disguise like you! There are corpses everywhere here! Just do me a favor, when I return alive to Golden Pagoda City, I swear by the Great Sun you’ll become powerful! Noble!”

”As long as you help me change clothes, we can leave together! You can achieve wealth and prestige!”

Adal grabbed Darkley’s ankle, looking at him earnestly.

A gamble could yield enough capital for a few lifetimes; it certainly sounded appealing.

”But right now, I don’t want to gamble, my lord.”

The duke’s eyes widened in panic.

”People like us, working is a gamble. But because of that, once we’ve done enough jobs, we can pretty much tell if we’ll win the gamble.”

Darkley smiled as he crouched down, prying open the duke’s fingers one by one.

”You’ve seen how terrifying that Demon Hunter is... I don’t want to take any risks in front of him.”

With that, Darkley nimbly jumped off the platform and merged into the thousands of soldiers who had already scattered in collapse.

”No... don’t leave me...”

Only Duke Adal was left on the platform, twitching his broken leg and wailing mournfully.

”Darkley! The commander has blended into the crowd! The commander is in the crowd, Demon Hunter! Don’t let him go! Don’t let him go!”

The mix of resentment, fear, and anger made the voice sound like the wail of a Demon Spirit.

Darkley, already mingling with countless scattered soldiers, pressed down his helmet and smiled.

Scream all you want, duke. That’s all you can do at the end.

Laughter-inducing resentment.

Darkley swung his wrist, driving the longsword through the chin of a bloodlust-frenzied soldier.

Then he continued running toward the edge of the mountain pass.

The Spiritual Master was now focusing on the thought waves of the mass of soldiers; such observation wasn’t detailed, so it wasn’t very taxing.

But the Spiritual Master could find the positions of those lucky enough to escape the wildfire gaps among these waves.

That was the path to survival they were seeking.

And from a distance, Darkley carefully glanced over.

The heat of the wildfire made the ashes float upward, then disappear into the fiery backdrop.

That enormous figure, silently standing with a sword on a small hill, seemed merely to watch the collapse, chaos, and infighting of over two thousand Niflgaard Legion, regaining its strength...

This was good.

Darkley thought to himself.

The Demon Hunter needed rest too, and he couldn’t possibly find him in the chaotic mass of thousands.

He might not even know he exists, right?

The temperature grew hotter, and sweat was about to drip into Darkley’s eyes from his forehead.

He couldn’t help but squeeze his eyelids hard.

But after blinking a few times, his actions suddenly froze!

Wait... where did the Demon Hunter go!?

In the distance on that small hill, amidst the fiery backdrop... nothing!

”Clang!”

And that unique, cathedral bell-like impact sound suddenly appeared behind Darkley!

The feeling of flesh and blood splattering on the back of his armor was so distinctive.

It made Darkley almost instinctively raise his left hand to block behind him!

At the moment he turned around, all he could see was that the frenzied and chaotic Niflgaard soldiers behind him had suddenly been cleared out!

Blood red filled everything!

Then, the gauntlet on his left hand erupted with fiery sparks from impact, the force transmitting from the gauntlet to his body, throwing him like a horse-drawn carriage crashing into him.

Rolling several times in the mud soaked with blood, his armor’s protrusions and seams filled with blood mud, flesh pulp, and fragmented body tissues, Darkley finally rolled to a stop, staggering back two steps before steadying himself.

On his gauntlet, the runes for Chaos Magic Power glimmered faintly.

Only now did he understand what it felt like to be struck by that big sword, by the Demon Hunter... though he might have just barely been glanced just now.

”Goddamn plague and infection... even enchanted gauntlets can’t hold up!?”

Darkley trembled as he shakily hid his left hand behind him.

And his gaze remained fixed, unmoving, on the Demon Hunter standing not far away.

”You made your decision a bit faster than I expected, which means your decision-making is rather decisive.”

The giant sword was resting on the Demon Hunter’s shoulder, still dripping thick blood.

In the dim fiery backdrop, those glowing cat eyes quietly watched Darkley.

”No, have mercy, my lord! I just want to return alive, I’m just a soldier, I have family at home...”

”At this point, pretending any further would be pointless, Commander, wouldn’t it?”

Lann tilted his head slightly.

”Or as the duke called you, should I say Darkley?”

So, after a brief silence, Darkley’s previously trembling stance stopped shaking and shifted into a poised and ready crouch.

His expression under the helmet was quite dire.

”You just said ’faster than you expected’... what does that mean?”

”What else could it mean? Do you really think I plan to cut you down one by one? That’s inefficient and slow, and the reliability of the wildfire isn’t that high. Just like now, aren’t you already trying to find a way out through the burning area’s gaps?”

Lann countered calmly, as if puzzled how he could ask such an inane question.

”Of course, it’s for you to kill each other.”

”I can kill a few hundred, and the wildfire can kill a thousand. But inside this arena made of flames... you yourselves can eliminate the vast majority of the rest.”

”I only need to intimidate you enough that you forget why you need to slaughter your comrades. After all, in a state of fear and tension, humanity’s fragile minds can naturally do many illogical things... I only need someone among you to start, then everything can begin logically and smoothly.”

”And as I said... you made your decision sooner than I expected, which really saved me some stamina.”