Hearing Hugh's furious accusations, Darius merely smiled with amusement.
"I was never a knight to begin with. Besides, in my country, 'bandit' isn't really an insult. If you're trying to get under my skin with that kinda stuff, you're wasting your breath."
Right after saying that, Darius's expression turned serious.
"Anyway, this fight's already over. You've lost."
"Even if you're Mitte's strongest knight, staying undefeated after being challenged by a hundred Sword Masters, you still can't change how this battle ends."
"Hand her over."
"I know you've got her hidden somewhere, don't ya?"
"..."
Hugh did not answer Darius's question. Instead, his expression merely darkened, a faint shadow passing over his face as his eyes turned increasingly grim.
Just as he had expected, these despicable bandits had come for that person all along.
Was this the will of the alliance of smaller nations?
Or were his country's own 'rebels' pulling the strings behind the scenes?
Regardless of which it was, Hugh had no intention of letting them get what they wanted. Even if refusing meant the city behind him would suffer hundreds of thousands of casualties and countless tragedies, he still could not agree.
Because he was Hugh Faulkner, Theresis's most loyal knight.
"Not talking, huh?"
Darius's face immediately darkened when Hugh remained silent, and then he sneered.
"Well, that's fine. We'll just search the ruins of Mitte for that person after we kill every last one of you. Makes no difference to me."
As he spoke, Darius raised his hand.
"Attack."
Hearing his command, the surrounding soldiers immediately grinned viciously as they raised their weapons and aimed them at Hugh. Their savage expressions made them look nothing like knights who had fought through countless battles, but far more like a pack of ruthless bandits.
Hugh silently raised the sword in his hand while mentally preparing himself for death.
He knew the outcome had already been decided, as there was no turning the tide with his strength alone. Since that was the case, he only hoped to fight until his last breath and take one or two more enemies with him for the sake of the victims of Mitte.
He did not fear death.
What he feared most was that person's safety.
He only hoped that, after making such an enormous sacrifice, that person would successfully escape from Mitte. No matter how slim the chances might have been, he prayed that person would make it out unharmed. Otherwise, this country might truly have had no hope left.
"Come!"
With his resolve laid bare, Hugh let out a thunderous roar and prepared for one final battle.
However, just as Hugh was about to fight to his death, he suddenly realized something was wrong.
"..."
An indescribable silence suddenly spread across the entire battlefield.
It was a silence that should never have existed on a battlefield at a time like this.
Just a second earlier, the battlefield had been filled with the screams and battle cries of warriors, while the blaring of horns and the clash of weapons had never ceased. Most of all, the bombardments caused by the magic cast by Lukais's magicians in the rear had echoed without interruption ever since the war had begun.
Yet suddenly, every sound vanished.
Even though the wind still howled, no one shouted or cried out anymore. Snow continued to fall, yet the sounds of bombardment and explosions had disappeared. Even the distant sounds of fighting that had been coming from the breached city behind him were gone.
In front of Hugh, Darius, and every swordsman and magician from Lukais trembled uncontrollably.
No, it was not just them.
Only then did Hugh realize that the hand gripping his sword was trembling as well.
Along with that indescribable silence, an invisible and unknown pressure had spread across the battlefield. Under that overwhelming pressure, whether it was Hugh, Darius, or every living being still standing on the battlefield, all of them seemed frozen in place, utterly unable to move.
*Tap-Tap-Tap—*
Just then, the sound of footsteps echoed from behind Hugh.
Noticing that, with incredible difficulty—truly incredible difficulty—Hugh finally managed to turn his head, and then he saw her.
He saw a curvaceous, alluring, tall woman slowly walking toward them.
She was an exceptionally beautiful and seductive woman, overflowing with feminine charm. She had long crimson hair, golden eyes, and an exquisitely beautiful face. Black markings were etched across the left side of her face, yet rather than diminishing her beauty, they added a wild, captivating charm.
She wore a form-fitting suit of crimson armor that perfectly accentuated her graceful curves and generous chest, enough to make one's heart race. It gave her the appearance of a swordsman, yet she carried no sword.
Without that overwhelming pressure surrounding her, the appearance of such a seductive beauty on the battlefield would undoubtedly have stirred the bloodlust-driven desires of countless men, tempting them to drag her aside and swarm over her, indulging themselves with her breathtaking body.
However, beneath that terrifying pressure, no one dared entertain such thoughts, especially because behind the beautiful woman lay an even more horrifying sight.
Hugh almost thought his eyes were deceiving him.
Behind the dazzling beauty, countless figures lay sprawled in pools of blood, their fates unknown.
More importantly, every one of them was actually a soldier of Lukais who had been storming the city only moments earlier.
Whether they had been fighting fiercely outside the walls or had already broken into the city, every one of those soldiers now lay in pools of their own blood. Some had already lost the aura of life, while others clung to it with barely a breath left, their deaths only moments away.
"You..."
Hugh tried to speak, only to realize how hoarse his voice had become.
"Who... Who are you?!"
Darius finally managed to force out a terrified shout while enduring the invisible pressure.
As the commander leading the army, Darius possessed considerable strength, standing on roughly equal footing with Hugh.
Darius might have been slightly weaker, but not by much, since he was a Sword Master who had held the Sword Master Medal for many years, and ordinary Sword Masters were no match for him.
Yet even someone like him found it incredibly difficult to speak beneath that invisible pressure.
He tried to raise his sword, only to discover that the hand holding it no longer had any strength.
He wanted to stop the woman from approaching, yet realized he no longer even had the courage to shout those words.
It was not merely because the pressure she radiated was overwhelming, but because the way she looked at them was simply too cold, too emotionless.
In their eyes, she was not looking at fellow human beings, but at insects, clowns, food, and prey.
Despite his despicable character, Darius was still a veteran Sword Master, so in that instant he understood that this woman was an existence he could never defeat, an executioner against whom even begging for mercy would be meaningless.
If he cried, wailed, screamed, or cursed at her in rage, she would probably just enjoy it.
Even though he could not see the horns concealed by illusion, nor the black sclera surrounding those golden eyes, Darius somehow knew that the impossibly beautiful woman before him was a demon.
And that was indeed the truth.
*Pu-chi!*
Suddenly, a tearing sound like cloth being ripped apart rang out beside Darius.
One of the soldiers standing next to him had been split cleanly in half by a sudden flash of icy claw light.
As the frigid claw light appeared, the enchanting woman seemed to teleport directly into their midst, and with a casual swipe of one hand, countless streaks of claw light erupted into existence.
*Pu-chi!* *Pu-chi!* *Pu-chi!* *Pu-chi!*
As streaks of claw light danced through the air, one soldier after another was effortlessly torn to pieces before any of them could even react.
Darius only felt a storm of slashes erupt around him, the razor-sharp wind stinging every inch of his skin.
By the time he came to his senses, everyone around him had already collapsed into pools of blood, and not a single body remained intact. Every one of them had been shredded apart in the cruelest way imaginable, beyond any chance of survival.
Meanwhile, resting in the palm of the alluring woman's gently raised hand was a bloody, still-warm heart.
"Such a fragile heart. Looks like they're all low-quality products."
Wearing a look of disgust, the woman casually tossed the heart aside. Although she stood right beside Darius, her eyes never once landed on him.
"I thought at least one of them would have a heart worth eating, but... I guess I shouldn't have expected anything from people who came from a nation of bandits..."
Hearing her words, anger immediately surged within Darius.
"Hey, I'm talking to you!"
Driven by his fury, Darius finally managed to speak properly.
"Answer my damn question! Who the hell are you?!"
He roared at the woman, yet her reaction caught him completely by surprise.
"Oh?"
Finally, the woman turned to look at him, her voice carrying both surprise and amusement.
"So you can still talk? Looks like my technique was pretty good. I'm impressed you still haven't noticed it."
Upon hearing that, Darius froze.
'What did she mean?'
Seeing the confusion written across Darius's face, the woman looked at him with a teasing smile, the amusement in her eyes becoming even more obvious.
Just moments ago, Darius had been looking at Hugh with that very same expression, but now, every dog has its day.
Now, it was finally his turn to be looked at that way, forced to experience the exact same bewilderment he had been enjoying at someone else's expense.
In the very next moment...
"Since you're so slow, I'll give this back to you."
With a kind-looking smile, the woman casually kicked the heart she had tossed aside earlier toward Darius's feet.
"What's wrong? Pick it up. It's still warm. If you put it back into your chest, it might still work."
Gazing at Darius with an amused smile, the woman spoke cheerfully.
Only then did Darius finally understand.
Looking down at the heart that had rolled to his feet, he suddenly felt a burning pain spread through his chest. Almost immediately afterward, that burning sensation transformed into unbearable agony, forcing him to lower his head blankly.
In that instant, he saw that a bloody hole had somehow appeared in the middle of his chest, and the organ that should have been there—his heart—had long since vanished.
At that moment, Darius finally understood the meaning behind the woman's words.
Unfortunately, because he understood everything, he also understood that the heart lying on the ground actually belonged to him, and the demon-like woman standing before him had already torn it out.
"Y-You..."
Darius's eyes widened, and his lips trembled as he tried to say something, but no words came out.
Not long afterward, as an icy chill spread throughout his body, Darius slowly collapsed onto the ground.
*Thud!*
As soon as he collapsed to the ground, blood flowed beneath him, staining the snow crimson.
"!!!"
Watching the scene unfold, Hugh unconsciously took a step backward as his face turned deathly pale, cold sweat beading across his forehead.
For the first time, genuine horror appeared on his face as he looked at Lilith as though she were a merciless beast devoid of all humanity.
Around him, every soldier who had surrounded him was dead, while the soldiers attacking the city behind him had also been slaughtered. Even the magicians stationed in the rear had somehow been killed, torn apart by the demon-like woman's relentless barrage of claw lights.
Across the entire battlefield, aside from Mitte's guards, whose armor differed from that of the Lukais army and who were still groaning in pain from their injuries, everyone else had been completely wiped out.
And the one responsible for all of it was none other than the woman standing before him.
A single woman, all by herself, had slaughtered an entire army!
A Sword Saint!
No matter how he looked at it, she was unmistakably a Sword Saint, and one who did not belong to Theresis!
Since Theresis had only one female Sword Saint, Hugh immediately recognized that she was definitely not one of theirs.
'Who is she...?'
Gazing at the woman in terror, that single question filled Hugh's mind.
As uncertainty and fear overwhelmed him, the woman suddenly turned her head toward him.
"You human over there."
Addressing Hugh, the playful attitude the woman had shown toward Darius vanished, replaced by the same cold indifference she had displayed when she had first appeared.
"Let me ask you one question. You're from that city, aren't you?"
As she spoke, the woman, who was none other than Lilith, pointed toward Mitte, the city that had fallen not long ago.
"I-I am..."
Hugh swallowed hard and forced himself to answer while suppressing the overwhelming urge to run, as his instincts as an expert Sword Master told him that if he answered no, he would most likely end up just like Darius.
"Good."
Lilith withdrew the suffocating pressure that had blanketed the battlefield without changing her expression.
"My master wants to see you. Come with me."
Hearing those words, Hugh's heart skipped a beat.
'Master?'
'A Sword Saint like her has a master?'
'Is she someone's attendant?'
'How is that possible?'
Unfortunately, Lilith paid no attention to the storm of emotions raging inside Hugh. After leaving those words behind, she simply turned around and calmly walked away.
Hugh's expression shifted repeatedly before he finally chose to follow.
He had no choice.
Anyone with a working brain knew that the woman before him was clearly not someone he could afford to provoke. If he refused, there was no guarantee that she would not suddenly kill him the very next second and reduce him to yet another pile of flesh scattered across the ground.
As a result, despite his shock and disbelief, Hugh could only grit his teeth and follow behind Lilith toward the other side of the battlefield.
Fortunately, the snowstorm had already stopped by then, greatly improving visibility, so it did not take long before Hugh spotted a group of five people ahead.
Seeing that they were dressed in clothing clearly different from Theresis's attire, they were obviously not locals. Surprisingly, for some reason, every one of them looked remarkably young, especially the women, who stood out the most. Some looked no older than fifteen or sixteen, while others appeared to be beautiful young women in their twenties.
In Hugh's eyes, every one of them possessed stunning, refined beauty, together forming a breathtaking sight unlike anything he had ever seen.
As soon as he caught sight of them, Hugh could no longer conceal the astonishment spreading across his face.
"W-Who are you all...?"
Hugh asked the question almost instinctively, his voice betraying the shock and wariness he was trying to suppress.
In response, the young man standing at the front took a calm step forward before speaking in an even, reassuring tone.
"Relax. We're not your enemies."
At least, not for now.
===
[A bonus chapter for reaching 300 Power Stones]
[Support and get early access to upcoming chapters at: patreon.com/VALRRR]