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62. The End of the Southeast War (3)

With one of its legs caught in a giant mouth, the manticore fell to the ground.

The mortally injured imoogi had dragged the previously floating manticore down to the earth. The manticore desperately flapped its wings, trying to rise back into the sky by any means. But try as it might, the imoogi, refusing to release its catch, succeeded in driving the manticore into the ground.

-This… this nasty bastard!

The manticore swung its thorn-filled tail, and struck the imoogi with its wings filled with void energy. But even though it sustained more injuries, the imoogi did not let go of the manticore’s leg in its mouth.

And it was not just the manticore’s leg.

The imoogi withstood the manticore’s attack while tearing into its shoulder, a wing on one side and part of its back.

Crush!

The manticore let out a roar of pain and turned all its rage towards the imoogi.[1] Where the flesh had been bitten on its leg, green blood gushed and splashed all over. As if to show that it had to kill the imoogi immediately, the manticore did not care that its leg was still caught by the imoogi, and launched purple beams of light at the imoogi’s mouth.

-Kkieeeeekk!

The imoogi gave a gruesome cry, as its thick shell was pierced through. Its outer shell that had been weakened in the fight with Iron was now lanced through, a fatal injury. Even though it had excellent ability to recover, the imoogi couldn’t hold out against the damage this time. Its gigantic figure fell to the ground, stripped of all strength.

The giant worms, a step too late, flocked towards the imoogi, but it was beyond revival, with the level of damage it had sustained. The imoogi wrigged on the ground, only able to spew dark blood.

Watching the imoogi’s terrible state, the manticore let out an eerie shriek, as if to say that it had ended things finally.

-It’s over!

As it gave a victory roar, the manticore turned its head towards Iron, intending to finally kill him.

-Finally, I can put an end to this nuisance of a fight!

The manticore roared as it again sent thorns flying towards Iron. But the Storm Troops and the Knights Order that had arrived in the middle of the fight rushed towards it. Rodem and Ludem, covered in the blood of the countless monsters they had cut down, glared at the manticore, their eyes seeming to glow with menace as they attacked it. Meanwhile, Nyx Cole attacked chinks in the manticore’s body while it had its gaze stuck on the former duo.

At the same time, Gaon, leader of the Raven troops, stood before the manticore swinging his cold-aura filled sword.

The manticore put up a fight, roaring, as they furiously targeted all the severe wounds it had gained while fighting the imoogi. But they continued to attack it doggedly.

In the midst of the fight, the collapsed corps commanders rose, and joined the attack on the manticore.

No matter how much of a master the manticore was, it could not ignore the fight it was entangled in and go to attack Iron.

-Piss off, all of you!

While giving off an aura that was unique only to masters, it spread an energy wave made from void energy all around that pushed back all the commanding officers.

Seeing its chance, the manticore began gathering battle qi. As it had used so much of its strength, the battle qi could not take shape completely, but no matter. If it could just unleash all its might to kill Iron and then retreat, it would become the final victor, the one who got the last laugh.

It charged at the commanding officers, aiming to pass them by. It was the same unsophisticated move that the imoogi it loathed had used, but there was nothing else that would be effective. It would just be a simple attack based on the manticore’s overwhelming strength.

The commanding officers continued to attack the wounds given by the imoogi but the manticore ignored them. Even as its expression twisted in pain, it continued to rush towards Iron.

-Just go die!

As it thought this, the manticore opened its large mouth to swallow Iron whole. The moment the manticore saw Iron right in front of it, it smiled brilliantly, even without knowing. But suddenly its expression froze.

-Huh?

At the sudden pain it felt on its neck, the manticore was full of doubt. Its field of vision seemed to be falling to the ground. Unable to understand what was going on, the manticore looked at Iron, only to see the imperfectly formed aura blade that surrounded Iron’s sword.

‘Ah…”

Now it could understand what had happened.

The manticore’s head fell to the ground as it dawned on him how that punk had finally defeated him. Using the time that Ariel and the other commanding officers had earned for him through their frantic efforts, Iron had forcefully gathered the remnants of his mana to make an aura blade, and used it to end the manticore.

But Iron too was not unharmed.

Without any of his divine beasts to help him, and with all the grave internal injuries he had sustained, the moment he killed the manticore, Iron himself also fainted.

“Commander!”

Ariel, who had thrown up blood, ran urgently to Iron’s side, the other commanding officers following close behind.

“Carry the commander immediately! Hurry!”

Kardro ordered quickly, looking at the drake knights who had descended from the sky at some point. Seeing how Iron hung between life and death because of all his wounds, the drake knights hurried quickly to help carry him to the airships.

Finally seeing Iron being taken into the command plane with medical facilities, Kardro took a deep breath and turned his head.

“We… we won?”

At Kardro’s words, all the commanding officers looked around them. Everywhere, there were traces of the intense fight that had taken place, and in some places vestiges of powerful mana still remained.

These were the remnants of the battle between Iron, who had fought to be the most powerful, and the monsters who had been strong enough to put Iron in a fix. Just watching those remnants gave the commanding officers goosebumps.

As they were watching their surroundings in silence, a voice came out of the blue.

“Over there!”

The imoogi’s corpse had been squirming restlessly for some time, and Rodem, having felt something strange, had started to move towards where the imoogi’s body lay. A giant worm smaller than the imoogi burst out from the corpse.

“Gia… giant worm?’

While Rodem mumbled to himself, the juvenile-looking giant worm began molting.

“No way! It’s absorbing the imoogi’s strength?!”

Ariel replied to Rodem’s mumble with a sense of urgency as she ran forward.

“Stop it! We must kill it!”

If it had truly absorbed the imoogi’s strength, then it was an absolute danger. If they could not immediately snuff out its life, it would become an even greater danger. No matter what it took, they had to kill it right then and there.

Even with the injuries she had sustained from the manticore, Ariel took out her quick sword, intending to kill the giant worm.

Clang!

Immediately as she charged, some giant worms popped out of the ground to fend her off. They shrieked as they faced Ariel’s sword, instead of the small giant worm. Their cry caused other giant worms around to begin gathering there too.

Seeing this, Ariel bit her lips and then yelled.

“Go!”

Hearing Ariel’s yell, the Knights Order charged as one towards the giant worms. Other officers soon joined their advance, but everyone of them had some injury or the other. There was no unharmed person in all of the Mobile Field Army.

All of them had internal injuries, and some even had fatal wounds on top of that.

But still, they were resolved, as if wanting to sustain even bigger injuries, as they ran towards the giant worms.

“We cannot leave them be!”

Despite Ariel’s shout, the Mobile Field Army could still not break through the lines of the giant army. The airships above them bombard the worms too, but the giant worms continued to resist, ready to lay their lives down.

In addition, some of the monsters who had escaped previously returned to help the giant worms in obstructing Ariel’s move forward.

With all this, Ariel had a serious hunch that the juvenile giant worm behind the monsters and the giant worms would definitely become a problem later. It was not just because of the giant worms’ defense. The dead manticore’s loyal guards and lord-level troops had returned to protect the giant worm, knowing that it was their only hope.

“Ah……”

Ariel sighed, her sword hanging by her side.

Everyone gritted their teeth while engaging in battle, but they still could not reach the small giant worm.

Having finished its molting, the giant worm dove underground, while the rest, seeing that it had safely run away, all began running in every direction.

“……”

Watching the small giant worm disappear, everyone remained silent. The future danger they had wanted to eradicate had escaped alive. On the other hand, their own officers’ lives were hanging by a thread. Even though they had won, they could not fully enjoy their victory.

“…let’s return.”

Ariel’s quiet voice broke the silence.

They had suffered incredible damage, and even some of their commanding officers were barely hanging on. But they had indeed gained a victory. Although they had missed eliminating a future threat, the current threats to the safety of the southeast had all been removed.

They had really won.

“The battle has ended now, and all that’s left is the safety of the southeast. Before the commander wakes up, let’s carry out all the tasks he ordered.”

All the commanding officers nodded as they listened to her speak.

They had emerged victorious in a battle that had seemed impossible to win, and even though he was in a critical state, the commander was still alive. Satisfied with that, the Mobile Field Army assembled at Command.

Not too long after, the result of the war in the southeast began spreading through all regions of the empire.

[Mobile Field Army finally achieves victory in southeast!]

[Field Army commander Iron Carter in crisis, life hanging by a thread!]

[Can the empire’s hero really survive? Situation grave]

Death was almost at the doorstep of the field army commander, but victory had been won in the southeast. The news elated all the citizens of the empire, and they hoped for Iron to make a quick recovery. They were certain that if he woke up, the empire could pull through even if on the verge of collapse.

Finally, after a few days and with everyone concerned about him, news that Iron had survived the crisis was released, causing everyone to cheer.

But the celebration did not last long.

“Unknown individuals have led monsters to invade the empire!”

This was the only type of report received at first. Apparently, an unknown group had come out of the eastern side of the chaotic southeast region, and was heading north towards the capital. As these unknown people had rampaged through some of the fortresses in the east and were making their way upwards, the eastern army also began moving in earnest.

Soon shocking news was passed into the capital.

“Dra… dragonfolk have appeared?”[2]

“They defeated two regiments of the united eastern army and are making their way towards here now!”

“The capital is in danger!”

As reports arrived from various places, a grave danger was making its way towards the capital.The reports made the capital’s army begin readying itself.

As for the eastern region, even though they were in a dangerous situation, they pulled together all the troops they could and moved towards the capital.

But despite that, all the troops were destroyed one after the other, and the dragonfolk eventually arrived at the empire’s capital.

“Is this the empire’s capital?”

“It seems so.”

A handsome man with horns on his head asked, and a robe-clad dragonfolk man replied to him while kneeling on one knee.

“Those vermin, there seems to be a lot of them here.”

The horned man spoke with an impassive look on his face.

“Those things have been in charge of this world for quite some time now.”

The man spoke quietly to himself, while looking at the human troops that gathered in the distance. As he looked at the lowlifes who had come to stop him and his followers, his eyes became filled with rage. He turned to the dragonfolk man and gave an order.

“Destroy them all. You cannot leave even one of them standing.”

“It will be as the master has commanded….”

“Clear the road up till where they have placed that abominable excuse for a divine relic. If you do that, this land will belong to you all….”

The dragonfolk man had his head lowered as he listened to the beautiful horned man speak, accepting his master’s orders.

And so, that day, the dragonfolk army advanced and annihilated one of the capital army’s divisions.

Not a single soul survived their attack.

Notes:

[1] Raws said the imoogi let out the roar of pain. This didn’t make sense in the sentence, so was changed to manticore.

[2] Dragonfolk: 용인. The description indicates that they are human, or at least human-like, and are not full dragons. The wording might be changed later on if more detail appears.