CHAPTER 464

BEYOND THE LINE

The fire raged asudden, drawing a line in wet, trampled grass, curving at the center like an outline of a belly, shooting up in the thickness of a grown man’s thigh. The curtain ascended, with it swallowing several dozen Devils who found themselves kneeling in pain, turning to ash rapidly. It rained droplets of filthy water from above, though it hardly did much to keep the blaze at bay.

The massively-armored and shielded Vanguard pressed forth, their formation tight, leaving no gaps. They stretched along the line of the curtained fire, four rows in total, forming a crescent-like shape at whose center a squad of fine bowmen stretched their arms up and heaved their chests back, unleashing a hail of arrows toward the sky and above the curtain.

“—BEWARE!!” a commanding voice of a man standing at the far end of the formation, draped in silver-cast armor, a shiny, crimson medal stapled to his chest. “FIRE IS DYING! PREPARE FOR A RUSH!”

As his words prophesized, the fire in front of them soon died out. The men upfront roared from the top of their lungs, steeping their feet into the muddy earth beneath and stoning themselves in place. From the other side of the fire came a rush, a blaze of shadows drowned in crimson eyes full of hate.

Rio rapidly counted over two thousand God-Devils leading the charge, closing in; there were barely a few dozen meters of distance. Luckily, the array had still managed to curtail their wings, earthing the battle. Even amidst the shouts and roars and cries coming from all ends of the battlefield, most of which he couldn't see due to smoke and mist and a variety of Arts being blasted left and right repeatedly, his ears still picked up on the droplets crashing against his steel helmet. They’ll hold, he reassured himself, gritting his teeth. They have to hold!

He grabbed the halberd from his side, ripping it out of the earth and raising it up to the sky, shouting. His cry was echoed by over a hundred others, as the Vanguard clashed with the charging Devils; the belly of the formation was broken immediately, over fifteen men pierced dead, their hearts bedeviled in ashen gray. The rest, however, didn’t scatter, rapidly converging from the back rows to fill the gaps. The initial charge was always the hardest.

The spearmen pushed the sharp tips through the gaps of the formation, spiking any Devil who dared rush them; the bowmen fired overhead, smoking away at the stragglers of the Hell’s army. The Shieldbearers gritted their teeth and bit till their gums bled, enduring despite the pressure feeling as though a mountain was collapsing on them.

“—DRAW BACK FIVE PACES!” Rio shouted as he saw that the Vanguard was having trouble. “CARE FOR THE FLANKS! How far are the reinforcements?!” he turned sideways and asked a masked woman who was currently burning through a dozen talismans a second, her exposed, silver eyes darting through the runes at speeds Rio couldn’t even comprehend.

“Three minutes for General Yun, eight minutes for General Namia, fifteen for General Xia.” the woman replied in a calm, detached tone, as though she wasn’t privy to the reality in front of her.

“… ugh,” Rio groaned, his eyes veering back onto the battlefield. “We can’t last that long. Take my place,” he told her, taking a step forward. “Guide them slowly to Yun. I’ll try and distract the devils.”

“—your chances of dying are extremely high,” the woman said in the same tone. “It is best if we—”

“Ye, ye, ye, whatever,” Rio shrugged, already looking for the best spot to rush at. “Just do what I told you.”

“… very well.”

All around him, corpses lay stuttered, some strewn individually, some a part of a much larger mound. Swords, spears, broken blades, shields, pieces of armor… they all shimmered beneath the occasional flash of a massive Art. It was flatland, making any sort of clever maneuvering much more difficult. There was only a direct clash and a flank if one got lucky; they didn't. They were so close to the Gorge – merely the last twenty miles rush, and they'd be there. The goal. They could set up the encampment, rest, regroup, eat, drink. So close, yet so far.

Shaking his head to dispel the thoughts, he settled on the left-end, bounding around the squad of bowmen who didn’t even notice him, rapidly firing one arrow after another; some were raw, some coated in one Art or another, occasionally lighting up the sky.

Rio’s steps were rapid and silent despite his boulder-like stature, his halberd both light and heavy at the same time. This was far from his first rodeo, far from his first battle where he was at a disadvantage, but it was his first time leading others. He was promoted to a General just a couple of days ago and had already found himself in a precarious position. They didn't expect such massive numbers here, as this was merely an outside skirmish, far removed from the one where the main army fought. Yet, they were daftly outnumbered, one to nearly twenty by Rio's rough estimates.

He jerked his right arm, the one that held the halberd, shoving the copper-dyed tip sideways into the seeming nothingness. He could feel the flesh tear beneath the blade through his fingers as nothing turned to a shadow and the shadow turned to a shocked figure and the shocked figure to a dead corpse. Jerking it once more, he threw the corpse backward and looped around the Vanguard, rushing past the collapsing front, gathering a massive Qi storm as he ran.

Several dozen heads spun as they spotted him, but he didn't care; his right arm swelled, the veins on it nearly ready to burst, his eyes obtaining a faint, cyan sheen, while the haze of the wind surrounded the shaft of the halberd. He leaped, using the momentum to evade a spit of shadowed blades that corroded the earth upon which he stood just a moment ago, looming overhead of the Devils and slashing the halberd downward with massive momentum. The shaft bent halfway over, nearly breaking due to the force applied, but it endured in the end.

The wind cried due to the pressure, the Qi storm transforming into a raging torrent of steaming icicles that shot out from beneath him, piercing through over sixty Devils at the same time, ripping through their thin flesh as though it were made out of paper. He landed on the other end, somewhat awkwardly, forced to bring himself down and roll over twice to regain his footing. Right from the seated position, however, he swept his left leg in a circle and shot the halberd backward, using the sharp pommel to knead the Devil’s brain, shattering his skull in a swift strike. Blood and gore covered his cape, though he remained undisturbed.

The pressure on the front lessened as a small army of roughly a hundred Devils split off from their main force and rushed toward him. Could he defeat a hundred God-Devils? Probably not. Even if he could, it would cost him too much. He didn't need to beat them; he needed to survive and drag them toward the point the reinforcements were coming from. Could he do that? He wasn't certain. The only reason he managed to kill so many of them in a single strike is that he took them by surprise; he was by no means an agile fighter and would serve the best on the backline, shooting beams of ice and controlling the battlefield by modifying the terrain. Why choose the halberd then? Solely because he heard the Lord Empyrean's first weapon was a spear, but the only long-shafted weapons the armory had that supported Ice Qi and range capabilities was this single halberd.

He propelled himself backward, coating his feet in ice, allowing himself to skate through the muddied and wet earth, avoiding the exploding shard of shadows that landed in front of him. Just as he thought he was in the clear, however, nearly a hundred arms shot out from the explosion, swarming at him from all angles. Panicking slightly, he swung the halberd in a full circle, thrusting a mountain of Qi through it in the process. Ice rapidly condensed from the droplets of water, forming a thick shell around him; one end exploded as he shot through it, while the rest held on for but a moment before also shattering.

Losing his footing, he slipped against a corpse and heaved backward through the sky, flying good ten meters before crashing onto the earth, rapidly rolling on his side. Groaning in pain, he used Qi to quickly dispense the dizziness only to be welcomed by a full encirclement of shadows that formed a ring-like array; a hundred blades of darkness rapidly shot out, over ten managing to dig their way into his flesh. Though the pain was immense, he endured by biting his tongue, using the halberd instead of his legs to move about by sticking it into the ground, spinning around it and jolting elsewhere.

The trail of light behind the tip of the halberd was like cloth, weaving briefly behind before vanishing. Cyan in make, it was residual Qi that he had been building up slowly from the start of the battle. Seeing the faint gap in the formation, he drew a full swing with the halberd to push back the enclosure, using the momentum to drag himself over and swing in a full overhead motion, lighting up the remnant Qi in the process.

The halberd crashed into the earth, a minute tremble echoing beneath Rio's feet before the tip of the blade broke apart the ground. A spear-like iceberg shot out from the earth, bounding over a mile into the sky, tearing apart the entire formation as well as over twenty Devils in the process. It was over fifteen meters thick, glistening in dark azure and bright cyan, impervious to the corruption of shade surrounding it.

Though faintly proud of his achievements, Rio didn’t have a minute to rest; instead, he shot up against the surface of the iceberg, climbing rapidly without even moving his feet, escaping his chasers for a moment. Taking a deep breath, he glanced back and saw they were hot on his tail; he would still be able to buy some precious seconds, however, even if he was pushing his luck a bit too much.

A few seconds passed before he reached the tip of the iceberg and, without hesitation, leaped off of it, his feet leaving behind a brilliant stream of cyan light; he spun midair, rapidly swinging the weapon chaotically. Each swing stirred Qi in the surroundings, condensing the droplets into the shards of ice and firing them off toward the pursuers. Each shard was as thick as a decently-sized claymore, though not nearly as fatal, as even the most direct hits weren’t enough to kill the targeted Devils, at most swatting them temporarily from the sky.

As he was in a freefall, Rio didn't have many options left. He once again condensed a massive wall of ice in front of him, blocking the attacks temporarily as his body began falling at the earth beneath. He didn't even turn around to see how far up he was. There was a chance he might survive, and a chance he might die; whichever the case may be, he bought as much time as he could. He upheld the title of a General. Perhaps, his name might even reach the Revered One's ears and be inscribed into one of those steles where the heroics are recorded. Heh, he chuckled inwardly. Sis was right… I'm really fuckin' vain…