General Alvaren's eyes momentarily shook as thousands of soldiers moved out of the city. The ground rumbled as horses neighed and armor clanked.
The Magic Knights and the Blackstone Knights were still in a deadlock, but the living suits of armor were slowly gaining the upper hand.
The General glared at Lark. "Shitty brat."
With an earth-shattering force, he struck Lark once again with the glaive. But to General Alvaren's dismay, Lark's sword didn't shatter. The unstructured magic remained unfazed despite the maginus' influence.
"You wouldn't say this is unfair, right…" Lark grinned, "…old man?"
Mounted archers from the Marcus Army also joined the fray. While riding their horses, they nocked their arrows and started shooting at the Magic Knights from a distance. Although the strength of their arrows was far inferior compared to those from the Archers of Gahelpa, it was enough to momentarily distract the Magic Knights, giving the Blackstone Knights the opportunity to deliver fatal strikes. Mounted spearmen started speeding up and headed straight to where the General was located. At this rate, it was only a matter of time before the Alvaren Army was surrounded by thousands of enemy soldiers.
Lark was quickly getting used to maintaining his unstructured magic. He boldly applied more mana into his sword and the translucent shell of mana enclosing his entire body.
"You weren't lying when you said that glaive's a mere replica," said Lark. "A real maginus would have shattered this sword of mine in an instant."
Lark's figure disappeared then reappeared right above his target.
General Alvaren instinctively moved his glaive up and blocked the sword strike from above. Lark immediately followed with a kick to the abdomen and the General evaded by simply taking a step back.
"What?"
General Alvaren's eyes widened upon seeing five daggers made of unstructured magic appear next to Lark. The moment Lark landed on the ground, the five daggers shot toward the General, their speed comparable to a ballista.
The General managed to block four of them, but the last arrow he dodged swerved back and struck him in the back, making blood spurt out.
Lark did not miss this chance as he shot toward General Alvaren, his sword aimed at the General's neck.
The General's eyes glinted dangerously. The moment Lark appeared right in front of him, the maginus sucked in the surrounding air and momentarily stopped Lark in his tracks. It was only for a split second, but it was more than enough for the war veteran of the Empire. He grabbed Lark's face, gripped it tight, then smashed it into the ground. Dust and rocks flew about as Lark's face, along with half his torso, dug deep into the ground from impact. Despite the mana shell enclosing Lark mitigating most of the damage, pain still coursed through his entire body and his ears started ringing. He lost concentration and the mana shell enclosing his body shattered and his sword dissipated.
General Alvaren pointed his glaive downward and stabbed at Lark's body, but the young man rolled to the side and avoided being skewered to death by the General.
Lark quickly scrambled to his feet and ducked, evading another attack from the General. He quickly enclosed his body with raw mana and leapt back, creating distance between the two of them. The General charged toward him, and Lark quickly created another sword made of unstructured magic. Lark blocked the glaive of the General using the sword, then summoned two moving, whip-like spells made of unstructured mana and willed them to wrap around the General's feet and body. ?sing brute force, the General quickly shattered the whips. Lark tried to stab the old man and General Alvaren leapt back to avoid the attack, but to his surprise, Lark's sword suddenly increased in length. The General twisted his body at the last moment but Lark's sword still struck his left shoulder.
General Alvaren did not mind the pain. He was used to these things.
He grabbed the sword, pulled it out of his shoulder, then yanked it, pulling Lark along with it. This unexpected move by the old man caught Lark by surprise. He immediately let go of the mana sword and sidestepped, evading the glaive of General Alvaren from above by a hair's breadth. A kick from the old man struck Lark right in the abdomen, sending him flying and rolling on the ground several times.
Lark stood up slowly. The unstructured mana enclosing his body wasn't perfect. His body still ached all over.
General Alvaren looked around the battlefield. Hundreds of mounted spearmen from the Marcus Army would reach this place in a matter of minutes. And those damnable archers kept releasing volleys of arrows even while mounted.
"Damn it." The General clicked his tongue. He glared at Lark.
Seconds later, he sighed. "Consider this your lucky day, brat."
General Alvaren breathed in a gust of air and roared, "Alvaren Army!" His voice reverberated despite not amplifying it with a magic tool.
"Retreat!"
In unison, the Magic Knights disengaged in battle and moved toward General Alvaren. One of them brought the General his mount.
As expected of a war veteran, he made the decision to retreat the moment the reinforcements were close to reaching his army.
Without sparing another glance at Lark, General Alvaren slapped the reign of his mount and led the retreat of his army. The Blackstone Knights tried blocking their path of retreat, but with General Alvaren at the lead, the Alvaren Army managed to force their way through.
Lark frowned. Killing General Alvaren and his Magic Knights would be exponentially harder once they escaped to Yorkshaire City.
?ow that the he was out of the range of the maginus, Lark immediately started casting Grand Scale Magic. The air around him trembled as a magic formation spanning thirty meters manifested itself underneath Lark's feet. The azure runes started sucking Lark's remaining mana, leaving just enough for him to keep standing.
He knew that General Alvaren would probably not die from this spell, but the same could not be said for his Magic Knights. Even if General Alvaren managed to escape to Yorkshaire, as long as he managed to kill a large portion of his Magic Knights, Lark would consider this his victory.
With absurd speed, runes manifested themselves one after another on the magic circle. Layer upon layer of spell overlapped, forming a complex hexagram. Lark activated his spell.
The ground around him quaked and formed cracks. Two colossal chunks of earth, which could be mistaken for hills at first glance, detached from the ground and flew up, partially covering the sky. Seeing the large shadows looming over them, General Alvaren looked up and was stunned to see the large chunks of earth floating in the sky. Even the approaching Kingdom's soldiers halted in their tracks seeing this, their jaws slack as they stared at Lark's magic in bewilderment.
And as though this wasn't enough, raging flames started enveloping them. Lightning crackled in the sky and licked them, creating two hill-sized meteors.
Grand Scale Magic. Roar of Fire God Ignis.
All of the soldiers who saw this trembled—more so the retreating Alvaren Army. They did not fear the Kingdom's soldiers, and they could fight on par with the living suits of armor. But the blazing inferno above them, how could they stop an attack strong enough to level a city to the ground?
General Alvaren knew he had to do something. Otherwise, his precious knights whom he'd trained for decades would perish here.
The old monster of the Empire poured all of his remaining mana into the glaive and moved toward the rear of the retreating army. He urged his Magic Knights to keep moving forward; he planned on single-handedly blocking the attack.
The Roar of Fire God Ignis descended toward the mortals.
General Alvaren momentarily regretted not killing Lark Marcus.
Had he known that he was capable of casting Grand Scale Magic on his own, he would have prioritized killing him before retreating to Yorkshaire.
He would have never allowed him to cast even a single spell. He would never have allowed him to leave the area his glaive had effect.
"I should have killed that brat," spat the General.
With a grim face, General Alvaren dismounted, clenched his teeth and steeled himself for the impact. He gripped his glaive with his two hands. The runes of the maginus spun violently, its runes activated to its utmost limit. General Alvaren, with the entire might of his body, slashed at the descending meteors. A translucent blade shot toward the meteor and tore through the flames and lightning, cleaving the meteor in half. General Alvaren did not stop with the first strike. He released one translucent blade after another, alternating between the two meteors, not stopping even when he was on the verge of exhaustion.
"Damn it!" snarled the General. The ashen-haired General who'd protected the borders of the Empire for decades continued with his strikes.
He finally managed to cleave both meteors in half, but pulverizing them into nothing but harmless rocks and pebbles was proving impossible at this rate. Boulder-sized remnants continued falling through the sky, trampling the fleeing Alvaren Army, crushing his precious Magic Knights into paste in an instant, and those who were lucky enough to avoid getting hit were engulfed by its raging flames.
General Alvaren wobbled, his body finally reached its limit. He used his glaive to remain standing.
"General!"
Seeing this, several of his knights immediately came back, placed him on top of their mount and retreated. They skillfully maneuvered their mounts through the falling boulders and the now burning grassland.
Lark and the rest of the Kingdom's army simply watched as the Alvaren Army retreated. The area where the cleaved meteor fell had turned into a blazing inferno. If they chased after them now, they would suffer great casualties.
Just like General Alvaren, Lark was also on the verge of collapsing.
One of the Blackstone Knights moved to support his master. The Blackstone Knight hunched his body, gently lifted Lark and placed him on top of his shoulder.
"Thanks," Lark said to the living suit of armor.
The Blackstone Knight groaned, evidently pleased upon hearing his master's words. The other Blackstone Knights grumbled, jealous of their comrade.
"Brother!" Lui arrived and hurriedly moved toward where Lark was.
Lui was filled with sweat, his eyes no longer as calm as he used to be. He anxiously looked at his little brother and upon seeing the cuts, bruises, and pallid skin of Lark, he trembled.
"A-Are you alright?" Lui's stuttered. Those who knew the Silver War God would have been bewildered to see him this flustered. "I shouldn't have listened to that Baron! He kept blocking the gate, insisting that we should wait for the red flare! And look at what happened! You almost di—" "—The Baron did the right thing," Lark slowly shook his head. He looked at the still burning grassland. At the scattered corpses. "And you know it too, brother."
"But…" Lui drooped his head. He knew that the Baron was right, but he could not help but tremble in rage as he watched Lark being pummeled by General Alvaren. He wanted to jump into the battle and help him, but doing so would compromise the opportunity to destroy the Alvaren Army. If he'd went out earlier, the Alvaren Army—still far from exhaustion—might have immediately turned tail and escaped unscathed.
"Two hundred."
"Huh?" Lui looked at him quizzically.
"Over two hundred Magic Knights have died. Brother, this battle is definitely the Kingdom's victory."
The Magic Knights of the Empire were their trump card in this war, and almost half of that elite unit had perished in this battle. Lark knew that this loss would become apparent later on in battle. He initially planned a defensive battle for three weeks before launching an all-out attack against Yorkshaire, but with this sudden turn in events, maybe that would no longer be necessary. He planned on revising his plans and discussing it with the military officers later.
General Alvaren, that monstrous Magic Slayer was wounded.
Almost half of his army perished and the rest were injured, and some even had missing limbs.
?ow, all that was left was to find a way to deal with General Rizel.