Shadowed Gaze: The Highserk War Saga - Chapter 13

On the plains outside the capital of the Duchy of Mayard, Aidenberg, a battle critical to the nation’s survival was about to begin.

Contrary to the high command’s expectations, Felius-Mayard had formed two main groups for their position. One was the 14,000 strong Felius national army sent from the Felius Kingdom, and the other comprised 4,000 regular troops and 7,000 militiamen from the Duchy of Mayard.

Although the two groups had separate positions, they were located in a way that allowed mutual support, occupying two slightly elevated hills on the plain that provided a tactical advantage.

Moreover, the position was defended by horse barriers, making it difficult to strike the enemy commanders with a single blow and cause confusion in the chain of command.

Attacking the valley between the hills was risky due to the threat of a pincer movement, and the bottom was strongly defended by two battalion-sized enemy units, forming a solid line of communication.

In contrast, the Highserk Empire had set up its position hidden on the side of the hill held by the Mayard troops.

Of its nine battalions, four were spread out in a line formation, with three battalions behind them, and further back were the Jeyf Cavalry Battalion and Walm’s Reglia Battalion.

According to the information Walm had received, the plan was for the four leading battalions to attack the hill, the three in reserve to hold off Felius’s offensive, and then to annihilate Mayard first.

The Reglia light infantry and cavalry would strike Mayard down in one blow after the vanguard had broken through obstacles like the horse barriers. Walm felt gloomy imagining the significant role and hardship of his battalion.

Suddenly, full-scale combat began. The sounds of explosions and the screams of men and horses carried by the wind reached Walm’s position. Even the formidable Highserk troops found it extremely difficult to attack the hill with their small numbers.

While Walm continued to wait as his comrades fought fiercely at the front, he felt a mix of frustration at not being able to join the fight, relief at not being sent into mortal danger, and a growing tension.

In this nerve-wracking atmosphere, the squad leader spoke up.

“It’s taking way too long.”

“The defense line might have been stronger than expected.”

For Highserk, with its reduced numbers, speed was crucial. The formation should have been for mobile warfare, aiming for the defeat of smaller enemy units.

The noise from the battlefield seemed too low for four battalions attacking. The momentum was fierce, but the defense line did not collapse. Walm also felt something was off.

“There’s too many on the sides.”

Walm shared his thoughts on seeing the placement. If they took too long defeating the Mayard army, they would have to buy time against Felius attacking from the sides or rear. Currently, three battalions were covering the flanks. With Felius inactive, these three battalions were effectively idle.

“Indeed, two battalions on the flanks might’ve been enough to buy time,” Jose agreed with Walm’s opinion.

“Even so, it’s puzzling why neither the cavalry nor the light infantry have been deployed yet.”

Light infantry often played a versatile role. If breakthroughs became difficult, they would be deployed to create paths for the cavalry.

Space and distance are critical in battle, and Walm understood the logic of keeping light infantry in reserve to maintain depth, but it was pointless if the main objective couldn’t be achieved.

“It’s hard to believe that Commander Berger would misread the situation…”

Walm recalled the speech in the city of Saria. The commander had inspired so many soldiers and ended the border battles quickly. It seemed unlikely he had become senile.

Then, from the left side of the hill, a new battle cry reached Walm’s ears.

“Damn, it’s the main force of the Felius army.”

Walm could see at least four battalions. Two battalions in the middle of the left side responded. Even so, the enemy was nearly twice their number and would be a handful to buy time.

“We haven’t received any orders yet?”

Barrit asked in a flustered manner.

“This is bad…”

Nohl, the least experienced in the squad, voiced her anxiety.

“The reserve unit from Mayard is coming from the right side of the hill. Damn, there’s at least a battalion’s worth of them.”

Walm’s bad hunch was confirmed as the only reserve unit from Mayard started to join from the right side of the hill.

“A new Felius battalion is visible from the far left. They’re planning to surround us.”

Walm realized they needed to break a part of the forming encirclement and regroup. Amidst various comments from the soldiers, only the squad leader seemed to be lost in thought.

“Squad Leader Duwey?”

Jose called out the squad leader’s name, noticing the delay.

“It’s a critical situation… but the front-line units haven’t suffered significant losses. The units sent to hold back Felius’s main force are just buying time. There’s something going on.”

It was about the time the enemy battalion of Mayard started descending the hill. Messengers began running around the Reglia Battalion’s position. Walm braced himself for what was to come.

Covering his face with his hands, he exhaled. He felt the warm air pushed back against his palms and flowing through the gaps. This was a habit Walm had before battles.

It seemed that the order from Commander Berger had been received through a messenger. Immediately, the voice of the Reglia Battalion commander echoed.

“Deploy! Our target is the Felius main camp. We’ll break through the right side of the hill at full speed and overthrow the Felius main camp. The cavalry is starting to move. Prepare yourselves!”

“Huh?”

Upon receiving the order, most of the soldiers were dumbfounded, unable to comprehend the situation. Walm too began to process his thoughts.

In this disadvantaged situation, out of the nine battalions, two were being sent to charge at the enemy’s main camp.

Even though the adjacent hills were close, there was still 4 to 5 kilometers to go. A trained soldier without equipment could easily cover this distance, but they had to run with their gear and fight the enemy along the way and at the destination.

Moreover, the hills occupied by Mayard were in front, and one of Mayard’s battalions had already started descending the hill.

To Walm, the situation seemed insane, but he remembered the state of the friendly forces that had been unable to launch an effective attack.

“Could it be… a deception…?”

Walm’s murmur was met with a nod from the squad leader.

“Intentionally stall the attack to draw out the enemy. Moreover, Mayard’s frontline troops are leaning forward and are constrained. It’s right after they deployed their last reserve troops from the hill towards our main camp. The sudden change in orders wouldn’t have reached the lower ranks yet.”

“Even so, there’s still one battalion remaining in the Felius enemy main camp. And a part of the six battalions aiming to encircle from the left might turn back towards their main camp,” Jose countered pessimistically.

To this, Walm shared his observation from the battlefield.

“No, the enemy units that could’ve easily returned for reinforcement have already been engaged in battle.”

Felius’s six battalions, attempting to complete the encirclement, were spreading widely over the left side of the Highserk main force. The outer edges, aimed at forming the encirclement, were farthest from the Felius main camp on the hill. Immediate communication to these units was difficult, and returning would take time. From what Walm saw, friendly units aimed at restraining were primarily distributed against the enemy battalions on the inner edge that could have returned fastest to the main camp.

“Whether we crush their main camp first or not will determine a major victory or a crushing defeat.”

Walm hoped his prediction would be wrong as he considered the path ahead, but he couldn’t think of any other possibility.

“Ehh, such a gamble-like strategy…”

Nohl was at a loss for words, but Walm, as a soldier, had no time to ponder.

“Commander Berger must have some kind of winning strategy. Get ready. If you don’t focus, you’ll die.”

Everyone fell silent. Walm waited for the moment.

There was no drum or trumpet to signal the deployment. The units were tightly packed, initially close together in platoons and companies, but gaps gradually widened as they started running.

The two battalions quietly, yet with full force, began to run. Walm kicked the ground desperately as he ran.

The leading cavalry, like arrows, smashed through the head of the enemy unit descending the hill.

When Walm arrived a few minutes later, the enemy was still in chaos. It was a perfect opportunity to overrun them in formation, but the priority was to pass through.

“Don’t stop, run! Run!”

The plump Platoon Leader Cozul shouted frantically, his breath heavy. Walm wondered where he found the energy, but he focused on the enemy ahead.

While running, Walm swung his halberd down on an enemy soldier blocking his path, chopping through the shoulder and collarbone. He struck the next soldier with a horizontal slash, cutting through the upper body and armor.

Both wounds were not fatal if treated quickly, but Walm decided not to finish them off, as the following units would surely do so. The enemy battalion shattered by the cavalry’s charge was fragile and disorganized.

Some, however, were trying to regroup quickly. Walm clicked his tongue, recognizing their capable non-commissioned officers and soldiers. A considerable number of enemies were waiting ahead, probably around a hundred.

“Wilart, Walm!”

The squad leader called out to Wilart and then Walm. The enemy was less than 50 meters away, forming a spear wall that would cause significant casualties if confronted head-on.

Guessing the squad leader’s intention, Walm started to infuse magic into his attack while running. Wilart had already launched his magic. Five or six soldiers in the front row were injured, creating a gap in the enemy line.

What Walm conjured was the same fireball as Wilart. The enemy battalion, which had barely held on despite the damage in the front row, now had a significant hole in the center due to the fireball hitting an adjacent spot.

“Chargeee!”

The squad leader Duwey and the seasoned Highserk soldiers, who didn’t miss the weakness, broke through in a wedge formation.

Tearing through blood and iron, Walm followed the squad leader, bringing down his halberd.

The blade, following the principle of a helmet-splitting strike, penetrated the right rear of the skull, breaking through and incapacitating the enemy with one blow. Another enemy who tried to stop Walm was quickly pierced through the shoulder and thigh by the short spears of Barrit and Nohl waiting nearby and fell to the ground.

The soldier trying to rise was greeted by the feet of numerous Highserk soldiers. His death throes were brief.

The Highserk soldiers surged towards the completely disarrayed enemy. In terms of numbers, they were evenly matched, and they were a rare unit that had quickly recovered from the cavalry charge. However, they had caught the attention of the enemy’s competence and were swiftly overrun.

This effect spread to the surrounding units that had scattered. The fact that the Mayard had lost regular soldiers at the border and mobilized a large number of militiamen was now well known, including to Walm.

Witnessing the one-sided destruction of the predominantly regular army units by Walm and his comrades, the militia rushed towards the hills with determination.

“Don’t run! Buy time, and if we hold them here, we win――argh, aaahhh!”

The soldiers trying to reorganize stood out too much. Walm knew that the Highserk soldiers wouldn’t let an opportunity to attack from behind pass, even if ordered to rush through.

The veteran soldiers and the quick-witted ones were impaled right before the eyes of the militiamen, who then collapsed entirely.

“Don’t bother with the small fry. Run to the hills!”

The squad leader urged, and the surrounding squads followed suit.

The platoon leader was barely raising his voice amidst running and fighting. Yet, Walm was surprised to see him cut the throats of two Mayard soldiers with unexpected sharp swordsmanship despite his plump figure.

Dust rose, and the sound of clashing armor echoed around. Soldiers started to fall behind due to injuries or exhaustion, but the majority kept running.

The hill loomed large before Walm’s eyes. The cavalry had charged and cleared the enemies from around the hill. What remained was a battalion-sized unit on the hill and the elite defending the enemy’s main camp.

The difference in height of the sprawling hill seemed only 20 to 30 meters to Walm. To his exhausted legs, it felt like climbing a mountain. The enemy tried to stop the Highserk soldiers rushing in with arrows, stones, and magic.

Walm’s legs felt heavy as stones, but the fervor of battle spread through the entire unit.

Prioritizing movement speed, there were no shields like bucklers or bundles of bamboo to protect from long-range attacks. Soldiers hit by enemy fireballs screamed and rolled down the hill, aflame.

A soldier hit by an arrow in the knee crawled on the ground, wailing. In a normal battle, such a scene would have severely demoralized the troops.

“Keep moving!”

However, fatigue and pain had eroded the unit’s rationality, turning them into a single, focused killing machine. The Felius main army, positioned higher up and having makeshift horse barriers, seemed frightened to Walm.

“Knock them down, clear the path for the cavalry! There’s no turning back!”

The squad leader’s words, inspiring the troops and intimidating the enemy, held a truth. If they faltered here, the main force would suffer a critical blow, and the Reglia Battalion would be annihilated without a survivor.

To survive, they had no choice but to seize the hill and take down the enemy commander.

“Retreat!”

“Aaaaaaah!”

As Jose jumped on the horse barrier and yelled, Barrit and Nohl’s voices followed. The ground-embedded barrier resisted valiantly, but one by one, soldiers joined in knocking it down.

Of course, the Felius soldiers didn’t stay silent. They thrust spears and shot arrows at the Highserk soldiers trying to remove their protective obstacles.

Walm pulled down the grid-like horse barrier with all his strength and weight.

Amidst this, an arrow shot by an archer aimed for Walm’s face. He instinctively ducked, and a sharp pain shot through his helmet.

“Wait, I’ll be right there!”

Anger from the pain fueled Walm’s actions, and the archer, disturbed, missed his second shot by a wide margin.

“I’ve knocked it down. Make way!”

The breaking point came quickly. Once one part gave way, nearby horse barriers were successively pulled out.

The order came from the platoon leader. Covered in blood and sweat, he gasped for breath.

The charging soldiers, hearing the approaching roar and battle cries from behind, realized what was coming.

“It’s the Jeyf Cavalry! Anyone who doesn’t want to be trampled, run!”

Jose’s words parted the soldiers like Moses parting the Red Sea.

Among blood, corpses, screams, and shouts, the battle-hardened cavalry, known as berserkers, charged straight through the breach.

Felius soldiers trying to stop them with a spear wall were broken by the magic-wielding cavalry and shattered by the charge.

The archer who had shot at Walm also fell to a lance charge, his armor and abdomen pierced, becoming one more corpse scattered on the ground.

The final cavalry charge plunged the enemy lines into a cauldron of chaos. Soldiers knocked down the remaining horse barriers, creating successive breaches.

“Don’t let the enemy commander escape, finish him off here!”

In this world where military organization was not well-developed, a disrupted chain of command was not easily restored. By killing the enemy’s head, the commander, the whole would become dysfunctional.

On the other hand, letting the commander escape would give them a chance to recover. Breaking into the main camp, Walm kept swinging his weapon and was soon confronted by a new force.

It was a group clearly different from the regular soldiers, probably the personal guards from the main camp.

“Move aside, or become corpses in a foreign land!”

As Walm taunted them, the guards yelled back fiercely.

“Shut up!”

An enemy soldier wielding a longsword in both hands slashed at Walm. Contrary to his tone, his movements were fast and his strikes sharp. Walm responded with his halberd from below to the enemy’s high stance.

The blades clashed, creating a high-pitched metallic sound. Walm’s blade, powered by the ‘Strong strike’, cut off one of the soldier’s hands.

“Uggghhhh!”

Surprisingly, unfazed by the bleeding and pain, the soldier continued to attack Walm with his remaining hand. Walm stepped back and thrust his halberd several times. The soldier parried the first two strikes, but the third slid into his throat, nearly severing his head.

Yet, the soldier did not immediately fall, but as he spewed foamy blood, he collapsed forward.

This was not the skill of an ordinary soldier. He was a well-trained combatant. Around them, there were more bodies of Highserk soldiers than before. Walm’s eyes scanned the area, knowing the target must be close.

“There’s a strange group at the back left!”

Jose noticed it first. While the surrounding enemy soldiers desperately pushed back or held their ground, that group alone was trying to escape to the plains from the opposite side of the hill.

“Duwey Squad, stop them!”

The exhausted Platoon Leader Cozul specifically named the squad.

“Oh, give me a break!”

The group trying to descend the hill was one of several. Most were likely decoys to distract from the fleeing commander, but the desperation of this group was different.

“Reinus, Tibard, Danfan!”

Although the Squad Leader Duwey called out to the three fools, the leader, Tibard, responded more seriously than ever.

“It’s impossible, we’re already fighting twice our number!”

The squad was already engaged in heavy fighting, with no spare energy, and the distance between Walm’s group and the enemy continued to grow.

“Damn it!”

Squad Leader Duwey cut down two soldiers at once with his battle axe, but that barely made a dent.

As small groups obstructed their path, Walm concentrated magic power in his hands. A simple fireball wouldn’t suffice. A group of undead in full armor approached, blocking the way.

He needed to spread the fire widely without losing power.

Walm envisioned a firestorm that had once burned the capital of his former world.

He recalled it strongly from books, the internet, and television. Clenching his teeth lightly, he manifested fire and wind magic in each hand.

Until now, he had only used one type of elemental magic at a time. Strangely, using them together seemed to be the best solution in this situation, Walm sensed.

A burning heat came over him. Countless winds swirled around him, as if enveloping him in a vortex.

It wasn’t enough yet. He still needed more.

Saliva was about drip from Walm’s half-open mouth. He was exhibiting an unprecedented level of concentration in his natural state.

He was objectively aware that he was vulnerable on the battlefield.

“Kill that guy!”

An enemy commander, noticing the anomaly, pointed at Walm and yelled.

“Not if I can help it!”

A few soldiers formed a suicide squad and charged at Walm, but Jose, along with Nohl and Barrit, blocked their way.

“Walm, do it!”

The normally unflappable Wilart shouted emotionally. Blue flames rose around Walm, scattering in the wind.

“Is he going rampage? No, but this is…”

Wilart voiced his confusion as he watched.

“What is that!?”

“My hair! It’s hot, Walm, you’re hitting your allies!”

“Get away or you’ll get caught in it!”

Voices of criticism from the surrounding soldiers quickly turned into cheers. Engulfed by fire and wind, five soldiers were set ablaze at once. Fire and wind were primitive fears for any living being.

The skin-searing flames, the heat that made you want to close your eyes, and the wind violently shaking the grass and hair.

Even the Felius soldiers, who had braved the Highserk cavalry and Squad Leader Suwey’s ‘Strong Strikes,’ showed fear for the first time. The ground Walm walked on seemed to be eroded by flames, kicking up dust.

The power was like constantly scattering fireballs around. The problem was the severe fatigue attacking Walm.

This unfamiliar magic, combined with the fatigue from before, was depleting Walm’s magical energy.

“Not yet…”

The enemy that had escaped the fire and wind was still not completely broken. Blurring his vision, Walm fixed his gaze on the enemy and raised his halberd with trembling arms. The blow he unleashed, imbued with all his strength and magic power, burned through the enemy troops as it scattered flames and wind, cutting them in two.

“Aah! The fire is clinging to me!”

“Gaaaah!”

“Put it out, put out the fire!”

Dozens of people were engulfed in flames and perished, a scene that could only be described as hellish. The smell of burning flesh lingered in Walm’s nostrils, and screams echoed in his ears.

It was as if the gates of hell had been opened, and the enemy’s will to fight finally broke.

The fire had even spread to the group that had been trying to escape. Among the enemy soldiers who continued to fight fires and resist, one person stood out with notably distinctive attire.

Clothes embroidered with gold, armor that seemed fitting for a ceremony, and a sword in hand with a unique sheen different from iron or silver. It was evident to Walm that it was made of mithril, magical silver.

“You’re the only one left…”

The intensity of the hellish flames and wind that Walm had created was rapidly diminishing.