"Maintain formation! If the front line breaks, we're done for!"
With the supreme commander's shout, the subjugation battle began.
The Great Beasts were far more vicious and enormous than anything seen from the front lines.
Their hides were as tough as metal, and a single roar made the soldiers clap their hands over their ears.
Soldiers and thousands of Great Beasts clashed head-on.
Monsters without even the form of beasts tangled with humans, blood and flesh spraying everywhere.
Spearmen held the front line as they charged, while knight orders actively harried and sliced down the Great Beasts.
Swords and spears, Aura Energy and demonic power collided.
Blood and screams clung to the ice.
"Right flank! Another Great Beast! Providing support!"
Ershu, vice-captain of the Belfern Ducal knights, led the charge and tore into the Great Beast.
The Aura Energy of the most promising future Aura user shone brilliantly, cleaving the charging Great Beast like tofu.
They maintained the front line as best they could, aggressively slaying any Great Beasts that slipped through the spearmen.
"Beast-type Great Beast! Kal, Millia, Ritz, stick to the left flank! Maintain the front line as best you c—"
Ershu, who had been commanding the knights, suddenly sprayed a fountain of blood from his throat.
In that instant, something cannonball-like tore through the battlefield.
Dozens of spearmen guarding the front line were instantly ripped apart, their entrails scattering everywhere.
From amid the blood-soaked soldiers, a certain being revealed itself.
Crimson eyes clearly visible even through the snow.
A grotesquely elongated black silhouette.
A form that suggested it might once have been human.
In the grip of the colossal Great Beast's hand—its forearms embedded with thick blades like implants—dangled Ershu's severed head.
"Fuck, Ershu!!"
"Vice-captain...!!"
Ershu's headless corpse collapsed.
His comrades, witnessing his death, howled and charged, but they couldn't even exchange a single blow before their heads rolled across the ground one after another.
With that, the one-sided massacre began.
The front line crumbled in an instant.
"Don't break! We can hold! Don't fall b—?!"
The on-site commander's shout was shredded amid the swirling snow.
A long spear protruded from the screaming officer's solar plexus, his throat raw from bellowing.
Blood gushed like a fountain.
Terror twisted into madness, screams into death rattles echoing across the snowfield.
The moment other colossal Great Beasts began massacring the frontline soldiers and the line started to collapse,
a crimson slash flew through the air, slicing open the colossal Great Beast's flank.
A cold handsome man with half his face covered in tattoos walked through the crumbling front line.
Franz Eldin stared impassively at Ershu's severed head.
"Ershu. I owe you from my time in the south."
He tossed the colossal Great Beast's head to the ground.
"Vengeance repaid."
Franz surged forward like a slippery shadow, clashing with the colossal Great Beast.
His red hair whipped about, black tattoos flashed, and sparks erupted in the air.
The blades on its arms and his greatsword crossed dozens of times.
He used even the recoil from metal clashing against metal as part of his swordsmanship, pressing the colossal Great Beast.
His greatsword, wreathed in flames, cleaved through the blizzard and struck down the beast's arm.
"Don't run! Killing them is the only way we survive—!"
Irena's frost spear swept through the Great Beasts like a whirlwind, massacring them,
and behind her, the holders of platinum Iron-Blood Valor Medals beheaded more.
The Empire's hidden powerhouses now stood to block the colossal Great Beasts.
I raced across the battlefield, buried amid the chorus of death rattles.
I issued orders to the strike team keeping pace beside me.
"Leven, Helz, and the other three—support the Belfern knights."
"Tov, Pianel, Svern, Rie—follow me."
To win this subjugation battle, simply buying time wouldn't cut it.
The most crucial condition for our gamble to succeed was not just killing the visible Great Beasts, but subjugating the colossal ones as quickly as possible.
Only then could we preserve as many troops as possible to begin the assault on Erebeon.
Leading four squad members, I charged toward the colossal Great Beast massacring the frontline soldiers.
I drew up both Aura Energy and Waves simultaneously, swinging my sword.
A blade Wave exploded like lightning, piercing the blizzard.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
How much time had passed since the battle began?
Every breath filled my lungs with the stench of blood.
My body had long reached its limit.
Blood from wounds I didn't even remember taking had frozen solid, necrotizing the flesh.
I'd swung my sword until my sense of time wore away completely.
I pulled the pitch-black sword from the colossal Great Beast's corpse.
I'd thought I'd trained quite a bit, but facing more than six colossal Great Beasts in a single day was beyond specs, no matter how you sliced it.
Before I knew it, only two remained at my side.
Tov and Svern, who had guarded me and fought to the end, were already buried in the snow far off.
Rie rose slowly, heaving heavy breaths.
Her body was far from unscathed.
Half her left hand was gone; she'd wrapped cloth around her remaining hand and sword, forcing it to swing.
But even that was nearing its end.
Franz severed the neck of the last colossal Great Beast.
The head of the swordmaster with the Empire's flag broken and embedded in his shoulder fell to the ground.
At last, all the colossal Great Beasts were dealt with.
Erebeon, silent since the battle began, finally reacted.
As if it had forgotten, the colossal being slowly unfolded its knees.
The giant in armor nearly three meters tall twisted its joints across its body as it rose.
Its black plate armor creaked, and the greatsword on its back cast a shadow over the snow.
The nearly four-meter giant slung a greatsword larger than its own body over its shoulder.
Its red eyes slowly lifted its head, gazing at the survivors.
In response, Franz Eldin swept his greatsword horizontally.
His left arm broken, thigh pierced, face pale from blood loss.
Franz squeezed out his last Aura.
His complexion paled further, and an immense heat erupted around him.
"...It ends here."
Irena and the others followed behind him.
The remaining forces naturally gathered one by one.
No shouts, no cheers, no emotions.
With even the rage to whip their unmoving bodies gone, the only driving force left was duty.
The resolve to end it here propelled their bodies.
The moment the blizzard abruptly stopped, Erebeon moved.
Its heavy footsteps shook the frozen earth, its greatsword slowly dropping from its shoulder.
Its trajectory alone scattered the snowflakes around it, warping the air pressure.
Swordmaster Franz charged first.
Gliding across the snow like a skid.
A red afterimage traced his blade's tip across the snow as sword met greatsword.
Clang!
The sound of metal exploding.
A beat later, the shockwave swept the snowfield.
The survivors madly thrust their weapons at Erebeon from point-blank range.
Erebeon's pitch-black demonic power erupted like an explosion, sweeping everything.
The storm of demonic power turned into frigid blades, charging indiscriminately.
Regardless of direction or position, at blinding speed it flayed flesh and shattered bones.
Erebeon's greatsword rampaged freely, batting away the onslaught and crushing weapons.
Intelligence Agency Director Edelgart Selnia was bisected by the crossed small swords over her head.
Mercenary Alliance Leader Kalbrad's upper body evaporated along with his broken halberd.
Franz's sword snapped in two as Erebeon's greatsword plunged deep into his clavicle.
With a noise like armor-clad human flesh being crushed, Franz's form was flung backward.
He slammed into a sheer cliff, buried under a pile of rocks.
Even as their top three fighters fell in an instant, they didn't falter.
Irena stomped down like she was crushing it, launching her frost spear.
Ice formed around her stamping foot, sliding outward, and an Aura blade shaped like an awl formed at the spear's tip.
A knight's Lance Charge, Aura refined to its limit.
From behind Erebeon, Pianel and Rie unleashed Waves.
Amid the dark-red Aura Energy enveloping their bodies, blue Waves flickered like lightning.
The realm of manifesting Waves into substance and loading them onto weapons.
A decisive blow that could kill even high-rank Great Beasts in one hit struck down onto Erebeon's armor.
That was when Erebeon first employed proper swordsmanship.
It twisted its greatsword back to minimize the Lance Charge's impact.
One foot pulled back, the other pivoted in rotation, reversing the flow of the assault.
With the greatsword behind its back, it added irregular spins to its wrist and fingertips.
The demonic power-wreathed greatsword clashed head-on with Pianel and Rie's Wave blades.
After taut tension, Pianel's Wave buckled first under the greatsword.
Upper arm, ribs, spleen, femur, kneecap, iliac bone—
Her body, pierced by the greatsword, crumbled like pressed clay, bursting and vanishing.
Pianel died instantly without even a scream.
Rie's extended sword arm was impaled, her arm splitting vertically, and Irena's body was kicked flying.
Irena shuddered as she tried to rise, but collapsed again.
The previous blow had pulverized every bone in her body.
"I... an..."
Before her words could finish, I charged at Erebeon.
The pitch-black sword in my hand pulsed, dripping blood vitality.
While the others bought time, I'd been feeding blood to Radia's Rigid Body Armament.
With even Franz and Irena retired, this was the best—and only—move I could make.
"Here I go."
The instant my toes gouged the snowfield, I was upon Erebeon.
I twisted my front and back foot centerlines, pivoting my lower body, shifting my upper body horizontally as I unleashed consecutive sword strikes.
One spin, one thrust, one upward cut.
The three strikes with different rotation axes amplified each other's shockwaves in a chain reaction.
Erebeon drew up its demonic power in response.
A fluid yet erratic counterclockwise arc from its greatsword batted away the triad strike.
Ankle and hip rotation.
Subtle twist between shoulder blade and ribs.
The greatsword, flowing like silk, suddenly sprang upward like a snap.
A sudden strike ripping through my armor-wrapped body, piercing flesh.
Drenched in vast demonic power, it became instant death on a graze—an unreasonable force.
Not by conscious thought, but raw instinct from the realm beyond, I shifted my weight to my left foot.
The primal intuition honed crossing dozens, hundreds of death lines forcibly corrected my stance and body.
I tilted my upper axis slightly right, turning the blade.
I generated twin Waves, circulating them along the edge.
The instant-death strike was forcibly reduced to a manageable one and deflected.
The imperfect deflection wrenched both my arms in opposite directions in a flash, then back.
I strained my muscles near rupture, ligaments fraying to hold on.
The swords clashed for 0.3 seconds.
Erebeon didn't lock its wrist or elbow.
The moment the strike connected, it flowed the opponent's recoil into a counter.
From that instant, the sword ceased being a wall and became a mirror.
The mirror reflected the opponent's trajectory back, then slammed down with the rebound.
I matched it.
I too became a mirror, reflecting the trajectory back, slamming down with the rebound.
I was pushed back.
Aura Energy paled against demonic power; human flesh was laughably frail compared to a Great Beast's.
Even consuming Rigid Body Armament's blood vitality for regeneration and Aura boost yielded the same.
Thus, I focused on Waves.
On that which belonged to nothing else—truly akin to humanity's power—I staked everything.
Moment by moment, in desperate flailing to survive even a bit longer, the Waves grew ever clearer.
Amid surging demonic power and emanating Aura Energy, red and blue Waves flashed like lightning.
Dozens of times emitting eye-searing light.
The moment even Waves blurred from my sight, the vibrations resounding in my body faded away.
Suddenly, enlightenment struck.
A resonance is proof you're still conscious of the exterior.
True harmony arrives only in the silence devoid of even a handful of vibrations.
I assimilated myself endlessly into the external flows.
In that instant, I began existing as the Wave itself.
Beyond it, waves of colors that could never intertwine stretched out, now visible as clearly as if graspable.
Normally, I'd be scrambling to follow those flows, but now was different.
I could interfere with those flows directly.
Extreme colors that shouldn't touch converged to a single point.
Dozens of hues twisted into spirals, unraveling and intertwining, blending into one.
I thrust my sword.
No complex principles, no techniques, no know-how.
Just a child poking with a stick—a monotonous act.
The pitch-black sword wrapped in waves shattered Erebeon's greatsword, piercing the armor beyond.
Erebeon, stripped of its upper body, toppled limply backward.
The sky was rent open.