The slaughter continued.
The Douglases, wreathed in fire, blood, and overflowing mana, pressed forward without yielding a single step.But it was not because they believed they could win.Nor because they wished to survive.
It was because they had accepted their fate the moment they saw Laurence fall.
They lived with their lord… or died with him.That was the ancient oath of the Duchy.An oath stronger than magic, stronger than politics, stronger than life itself.
And that day, not one of them thought to break it.
One after another, the Douglases continued to face dozens—hundreds—of imperial soldiers.Some, without legs, kept fighting on their knees.Others, their vision clouded by blood, struck guided by nothing but instinct.
Even the imperials—hardened by iron discipline—felt a primal terror take hold.
"They're… they're fighting with their guts hanging out!""That one should be dead!""Fall back, fall back, damn it!"
It was useless.
The Douglases did not retreat.They did not negotiate.They did not beg for mercy.They did not seek glory.
They sought to die beside their lord.
Because to them, the Duchy was a family, not an institution.Laurence was not merely a duke.He was their leader.Their blood.Their reason to exist.
An imperial captain, horrified, shouted:
"Stop! Stop—they're already dead! They're fighting like corpses!"
And indeed, many of them had gone beyond the limits of the human body.What moved them now was residual mana fueled by one final emotional impulse: absolute loyalty.
The battlefield became a living graveyard.
One by one, the Douglases fell…but each fall was accompanied by ten imperials dead, maimed, or burned.
And despite the carnage…
not a single Douglas retreated.Not one asked for aid.Not one tried to flee.
When at last the final Douglas collapsed, his sword still glowing with the last fragment of his mana, the battlefield fell silent.
A heavy silence.Almost sacred.
The imperial soldiers, gasping for breath, could scarcely believe it.
A general murmured, his voice broken:
"Not one returned…Not one…"
Another, trembling, added:
"Never… I have never seen anything like it…These men…These demons…They chose to die…"
And that truth spread through the imperial army like a shadow.
The Douglases had not lost.
They had fulfilled their oath.
They had died as they had lived:a wall of unbreakable wills, incapable of abandoning their lord even in the face of death.
That day, the Duchy of Douglas vanished from the battlefield…
But the Empire learned something it would never forget:
you cannot conquer a home that is willing to die whole to protect its name.
The final thunder of battle dissolved into an almost unnatural silence.
Only then did the imperial soldiers dare to look toward their Emperor.
The duel with Laurence Douglas had seemed brief to the common soldiers…but to those sensitive to mana—
it had been a monstrosity.