"Are you some kind of super idiot?"
Ram set down the tray in her hand, the ceramic hitting the wooden table with a moderate "click."
She looked up, her eyes fixed on Tsukasa, her tone calm but carrying undisguised skepticism. "Ram has reason to suspect that Rem's behavior was infected by this reckless impulsiveness of yours."
An expected rebuttal.
Tsukasa raised an eyebrow, not replying immediately, but instead looking out the window.
He tapped his fingers lightly on the window frame. "They're just some cultists. Holding out until Crusch and the others arrive shouldn't be a problem, right?"
Ram's voice was devoid of inflection. "If it were only one or two, of course there wouldn't be a problem. The problem is that the enemy might swarm in from all directions. Besides..."
She paused, her eyes drooping slightly to rest on her hands, which were folded in front of her skirt.
"Ram's mana simply cannot sustain a long-term, large-scale war of attrition."
Having said this, Ram immediately fell silent.
In that brief silence, Tsukasa's lips suddenly curled. Then, he spoke, "Then what if..."
He turned around, facing Ram, his blue eyes shining startlingly bright in the dimly lit room. "If it were Ram with her horn, it wouldn't be a problem, right?"
"Of course that..."
Ram replied almost subconsciously, but halfway through the sentence, she suddenly realized what he had said.
Her pupils constricted sharply, her eyelashes trembled violently, and those red eyes, usually calm and even somewhat mocking, were now stirred with waves of disbelief.
The second half of her sentence stuck in her throat, turning into a short gasp. She looked at Tsukasa, her lips slightly parted, but she couldn't make a sound.
The others in the room were also stunned by Tsukasa's words.
Tsukasa looked at her momentary daze, saying nothing more. He raised his right hand, palm up, fingers slightly spread.
After a flash of blinding light and a surge of thick mana, a white object, about half a foot long with a beautifully smooth curve, floated quietly above Tsukasa's palm.
It was half a horn.
To the Oni clan, it was considered the supreme horn. It was the exact same horn that had broken off from Ram's forehead and fallen into the dust on that night many years ago.
—
"It... it's just ahead."
The speaker was Otto Suwen.
At this moment, his face was still somewhat pale, and his breathing was slightly rapid due to the long journey. He was covered in grass clippings and dust from head to toe, looking like he had just rolled out of a bush—in fact, before meeting the main force, that was pretty much exactly what he had done.
He pointed ahead. One could already vaguely see the mountain-like silhouette of the Flugel Tree, and the giant corpse of an unknown creature shrouded in shadow.
The lineup of this advancing troop was astonishing. If an uninformed passerby were to see it, they would likely think the Kingdom was launching an all-out attack on some empire.
The main body of the force was composed of several distinct groups, temporarily united by a common goal.
Representing the Anastasia Hoshin camp was a team led by the knight Julius, accompanied by the core members of the Iron Fang mercenary group—the captain Ricardo, the vice-captain Mimi, as well as Hetaro and Tivey. Behind them were dozens of well-equipped Iron Fang mercenaries of various races.
Representing the Felt camp and the Royal Guard was Reinhard van Astrea, who was walking at the very front to clear the path.
The current Sword Saint was clad in silver armor, his red hair particularly striking in the morning light, his pace steady, followed by a squad of Knights in uniform armor, disciplined and sharp-eyed.
Representing the Crusch Karsten camp were, naturally, the Kingdom's top healer at the front of the line—Felix Argyle, and the man who, in his youth, could be called the Sword of the Kingdom—the Sword Demon, Wilhelm.
As for those representing the Emilia camp...
Because Tsukasa had already gone ahead, he was not in the group at this moment. Subaru was arranged in the middle of the line, following closely behind and to the side of Reinhard, guarded every step of the way by Rem.
The encounter between Otto and this luxurious party was quite comical.
About an hour ago, halfway to Crusch's mansion, the group had discovered this young merchant, collapsed and nearly exhausted by the side of the road, about five kilometers away from the carcass of a ground dragon that had died from exhaustion.
According to Otto's stumbling description, after fleeing the battlefield in his dragon carriage, he had intended to head straight to Crusch's mansion to report, but his ground dragon, under the dual pressure of extreme fear and fatigue, ultimately couldn't hold on and died of exhaustion halfway there. He had to proceed on foot until he was discovered and picked up by this joint force.
At this moment, the closer they got to the Flugel Tree, the more the atmosphere within the advancing allied force solidified. At first, it was just a faint, uncomfortable smell of rust in the air. Gradually, the scent became thick and viscous, as if it could cling to the skin. Every breath carried a nauseating, fishy sweetness.
Then, the view changed. On both sides of the road, the originally lush grass was in a strange state—stained. Large patches of grass had lost their green color, covered in a dark red, almost black hue, reflecting a wet, sticky light in the morning sun.
Mixed between the grass stems were fragments of varying sizes—possibly flesh, dark brown in color, with irregular edges, caked together with dirt and blood.
In the group, some faces turned pale, struggling to endure the discomfort.
"That is..." A suppressed exclamation came from the front of the line.
Everyone's gaze, guided by the sound, turned toward the center of the road ahead.
Beneath the mountain-like trunk of the Flugel Tree, there lay a gray-white mountain of flesh.
No, that wasn't a mountain. It was a corpse. It was the lower half of the White Whale's body.
It looked as if it had been torn apart by some unimaginable force, its remains crashing down here.
The gray, rough skin was now covered in mud and dark stains, the edges of the wound jagged, with glimpses of the grim white bone inside and dried, congealed, dark-colored tissue.
A massive amount of blood had once surged from this carcass, soaking and staining the ground below and for dozens of meters around, forming a shocking, seemingly ever-wet swamp of blood.
One of the world's three great Mabeasts, the White Whale's lower half was now exposed in the wild, completely uncovered, in such an incredibly tragic and intuitive way.
Silence enveloped the entire group.
"He really did it." The voice that broke the silence was Wilhelm's raspy tone.
Wilhelm stood at the front of the line, his hair and beard trembling in the wind. He stared wide-eyed, his gaze locked onto the carcass ahead. Deep within his pupils flashed incredibly complex emotions—shock, relief, disbelief, and the glimmer of light that had settled over decades of glimpsing the end.
After a brief silence, Crusch quickly regained the composure of a commander. She turned her head and whispered a few words to the adjutant behind her, and a squad of Karsten House soldiers immediately stepped out to cautiously clear the perimeter and set up a temporary perimeter guard.
The main force did not linger here for long. Crusch waved her hand to give the order, and the troop bypassed the massive carcass and the bloody swamp, continuing along the road toward the depths of Roswaal's territory.
Then, everyone, without exception, stopped in their tracks. They saw a scene they would never forget for the rest of their lives.
(End of Chapter)
[New Series] Naruto: Eye Gacha System
Uchiha Ryosuke transmigrates to the world of Naruto during a time of war. Survival seems difficult but fortunately, he has the Eye Gacha System. With enough Chakra, he can spin for eyes, whose abilities are similar to the Mangekyo dojutsu.
Amaterasu? He has an eye that can set enemies on fire with a gaze.
Tsukuyomi? He has an eye that can trap enemies in a Genjutsu with eye contact.