Chapter 477: The Man Who Turned the Tide (1)
Shizkclar Bay...
The place that witnessed the first round of the War of Darkness .. those cursed waters that became the grave for countless wretched souls.
A battlefield of misfortune where the Empire had lost much. Whether in the past, when Maekar launched his assault on the Ultras and was utterly defeated by Beatrice...
Or now, as war began anew and the Imperial forces found themselves trapped in a masterfully laid ambush set by the Lord of the Ultras, Gavid Lindman.
But unlike the previous time... this battle did not end in a complete defeat for the Empire.
Because by the end of it, the entire world witnessed an overwhelming display of raw power .. when Frey Starlight split the entire bay in half with a single strike.
Allies and enemies alike could hardly comprehend what they had just seen.
After bringing down Gavid Lindman and his allies, Frey Starlight immediately returned to the Empire’s fleet using his teleportation.
Standing among the crumbling soldiers of the Empire, he passed through them one by one, channeling his power to transfer aura to each of them.
Thanks to his SSS-rank aura reserves, Frey possessed more than enough strength to support them all.
With every touch, a gentle violet glow flowed calmly, refreshing those who had been moments away from death.
That violet glow was strange. Though it carried an ominous, cold, and deadly nature...
It brought a completely different effect to the Imperial forces.
He wasn’t just transferring aura .. he was giving them much more.
With each pulse of that strange energy, the soldiers of the Empire began to understand him...
They began to understand the young man who had declared his name to the world before his devastating attack—Frey Starlight.
Unlike those monstrous warlords who fought blindly, treating the soldiers as cannon fodder... as worthless lives ..
He saw them. He acknowledged their existence. He gave meaning to their lives.
He was a mystery. Once known as the filthy Lord Starlight, the disgrace who should’ve died long ago...
The odd champion of the Victoriad, who was blamed for countless deaths the very day after his victory... the man who publicly insulted Emperor Maekar Valerion during his trial.
One of the vanguard squad’s fighters .. Frey Starlight.
Until now, he was nothing more than a monster in their eyes... a small monster with far too much potential.
A criminal who should have perished, but was kept alive by the Empire’s rulers, to exploit his power... to act as a shield .. and die when the time came.
Every single Imperial soldier present had their own negative view of him.
But strangely enough... all of it vanished in mere seconds.
The hatred, the resentment, the disdain—it all transformed into something entirely different.
With teary eyes .. some bleeding tears ..
The soldiers of the Empire stood one by one, their bodies lifted by the sheer force of Frey Starlight’s aura.
Even if their limbs had been torn off... their guts spilled... even if they were burned alive...
Even if the pain was so unbearable it made them long for death...
They forced themselves to stand ..and followed him.
Through wreckage and ruin, they could not look away from him... as if bewitched by some unknown magic.
Even Selene was among them, trying to stay with them until the very end, even though she could no longer walk.
All she could do was push herself forward using her wind aura, dragging her body along the ground without a care for how she looked.
If that’s what it took to stay near him .. then that much, she was more than willing to endure.
Out of 10,000 Imperial warriors, after the grueling battle they had fought against both the Nightmare Beasts and the Ultras ..
Only 4,000 barely remained.
Out of the 121 ships that formed their war fleet, 64 were lost.
Some were dragged under by nightmare creatures, others destroyed by enemy artillery.
The surviving vessels were in no better shape, and the waters they now sailed were no longer the cursed sea...
But had turned deep crimson from the horrifying amount of blood spilled by both allies and enemies alike.
Among corpses and devastation, the Imperial forces stood .. all behind Frey Starlight, following him blindly, entranced by a kind of sorcery none of them could understand.
Frey had his back to them... but then he suddenly turned around, his black eyes still glowing with that terrifying violet light.
"Soldiers of the Empire, the war is still raging. It is far from over."
Gripping his swords, Frey pointed Dark Sister to the right... and Balerion to the left.
Surrounding what remained of the Imperial forces .. the enemy was still there.
Frey’s attack had only wiped out the forces positioned in front of them. He hadn’t touched those to the left and right.
In other words, even though he had annihilated 15,000 enemies...
The Ultras still had 20,000 troops lying in wait.
10,000 to the right... and 10,000 to the left.
In short, the enemy still had twice the forces of the Empire.
Not to mention, the Empire had already lost 6,000 men...
The Ultras had merely stopped attacking for the moment .. likely because they hadn’t yet recovered from the shock of what just happened.
They had witnessed it with their own eyes ..
A moment in history so awe-inspiring, it would one day be passed down not in reports or books, but in legends.
Only a rare few in this world could annihilate 15,000 enemies with a single strike.
And unfortunately for the Ultras...
one of them stood with the Empire.
A monster of the same caliber as Abraham Starlight himself once was.
Standing at the front, the man seemed capable of marching forward for eternity.
"Soldiers of the Empire,"
"I stand before you now as someone who’s endured the same hell each and every one of you has faced."
"The enemy outnumbers us.
They are more savage than us.
More ruthless than us.
They’ve slaughtered countless of our brothers and sisters."
"Standing here, looking into your faces ..
I see despair. I see sorrow. I see fury... and I see regret."
"I’ve seen it all.
I have witnessed the struggle of every last one of you."
"I may not know your names.
But I know something far deeper."
"I am a witness to the story of fierce men, and unbreakable women ..
Warriors who chose to die standing on their feet, Not kneeling on their knees."
"Behind us is a homeland. Wives and husbands. Brothers Sisters waiting.
And before us .. an enemy who thinks he can steal away everything we lived for."
"Let this day be remembered.
In my name .. Frey Starlight, son of Abraham Starlight ..
Let the sky rain down hell upon them!"
"They outnumber us?
Then so be it!"
"Here and now .. I’ll prove to you that a single one of you... is worth a thousand of them!"
"You are not mere soldiers.
You are the stars in the night sky of this world.
And we .. we are the ones who will write history."
"Follow me now .. not toward victory,
But toward immortality."
"Let the earth quake beneath your march,
And let our enemies learn...
The meaning of fear."
With his thunderous speech concluded, Frey Starlight raised his black sword—Dark Sister .. to the sky.
And once again, the world witnessed a breathtaking scene...
In the midst of the night,
upon a battlefield drowned in fire, blood, and death...
Frey’s sword blazed like a beacon of light,
guiding the way through the darkness.
"Ten Thousand Steps of Shadow."
Everything slowed down.
Each word Frey spoke carved itself into their memories.
"Frey Starlight’s Style: Nameless Judgement."
It was the same technique.
The same world-splitting move that had cleaved Shizklar Bay in half.
Now .. he was showing it again.
Proving to all that his words were not empty boasts, but a promise fulfilled.
With a single swing of Dark Sister,
the very fabric of reality shook.
And once more, the world turned upside down.
His attack had not weakened.
It had become even stronger.
As if the very gates of hell had burst open in the face of the Ultras stationed to the right ..
Faces frozen in horror.
Frozen by the death that now loomed above them...
a death they could neither sense nor flee from.
Once more, Shizklar Bay was split apart.
And 10,000 more Ultras warriors were erased from existence.