Translator: Nox

Ch#233

233

Varkas raised his head and let out a thundering roar.

“Lay down your weapons and surrender, and I shall spare your lives!”

A heavy silence pressed down upon the battlefield for a moment.

The soldiers, glancing warily at one another, eventually began to drop their weapons one by one.

The dull thud of swords and spears hitting the ground rippled outward from his position. Though screams and the sharp clatter of metal still echoed from behind the fortress walls, the will to fight had vanished from the soldiers filling the courtyard.

Scanning the surroundings with sharp eyes, Varkas finally pulled his sword from the man’s shoulder. A low groan escaped the man’s lips as he stubbornly endured the pain.

Varkas pressed the blood-stained tip of his blade against the man’s throat and gestured toward the soldiers with a jerk of his chin.

“Bind him.”

No sooner had the command fallen than the Imperial soldiers rushed forward. They subdued the man with brute force and wound ropes tightly around his crushed wrists.

Once the prisoner was finally secured, Varkas sheathed his sword and added in a chilling tone.

“This man will stand before the Imperial Court to answer for the crime of treason. Keep him alive.”

He turned away to survey the state of the battle in the rear, but a raspy laugh—sounding as if it had been scraped from the depths of a throat—caught his heels.

Pausing, Varkas looked back and frowned.

“……What is so amusing?”

“Ah, forgive me if I’ve offended you. It’s just that Your Excellency’s loyalty to the Imperial Family is so commendable. I simply couldn’t suppress my laughter.”

The man, his massive shoulders encased in a breastplate heaving, spoke languidly.

“It feels like watching a well-trained guard dog. I suppose the rumors that the priests of Osiria trained the heir of Shikan quite well weren’t lies after all.”

The surrounding air froze instantly.

An infuriated Eastern warrior slammed the butt of his spear into the man’s shoulder and raised his voice.

“How dare a criminal wag his tongue so recklessly!”

Fresh blood welled from the wound, but the man didn’t seem to care.

Glaring straight up at Varkas with gleaming eyes, the man continued his provocation.

“Where exactly did you throw away your pride as a warrior? Your ancestors fought the Empire to the bitter end. The Great King Shikan, who once made the continent of Loviden tremble in fear, even dealt a fatal blow to the hero Wigru in his final battle. To think the descendant of such a great warrior claims to be a servant of the Guirta family……. Your ancestors must be weeping tears of blood in the afterlife.”

“……I wondered what you were going to say.”

A faint, mocking smile spread across Varkas’s lips as he looked down at the man.

He leaned forward toward the man and countered smoothly.

“Nothing is as empty as the oratory of a loser.”

The man’s shoulders stiffened slightly. His expression was obscured by his helmet, but it wasn’t hard to guess that the mirth had vanished from his face.

“Shall I ask you a question in return? How does it feel to lose everything at the hands of the ‘well-trained guard dog’ you so despise?”

“…….”

“Your ambitions have been crushed under my feet. Heimdall has been wiped out, and soon your body will vanish like dew on the execution grounds. And the name Bjorn Blodar Heimdall will be recorded in history as a defeated general who met a miserable end after a reckless rebellion.”

Varkas gripped the man’s jaw and asked in a low voice.

“Tell me, how does it feel to have fallen to the very bottom?”

“……It’s absolutely filthy.”

The man spat the words through his teeth. Chilly breath escaped through his visor and blew over Varkas’s face.

“But I’ll skip the detailed explanation of how filthy I feel. You’ll be tasting the sensation for yourself soon enough, Grand Duke.”

Varkas narrowed his eyes.

A strange chill suddenly ran down his spine.

Sensing instinctively that the man wasn’t bluffing, Varkas kicked him in the abdomen with his combat boot.

With a dull thud, the man’s body was knocked aside. The impact must have snapped the chin strap, as the helmet shifted upward.

Varkas grabbed the helmet and yanked it off in one motion. He then roughly seized a handful of the man’s thick platinum-blond hair, matted with blood, and jerked his head upward.

“I don’t know what scheme you’re trying to pull, but you’re already finished. No matter how much you struggle now, the result won’t change—”

His cold voice cut off abruptly. The brightening blue light of dawn clearly illuminated the man’s face.

The man twisted the corners of his mouth and asked languidly.

“Do you recognize me?”

A stifled voice escaped Varkas’s frozen lips.

“Roman Talis…….”

“I’m glad you haven’t forgotten me.”

The peculiar smile on the man’s face deepened.

Varkas tightened his grip on the man’s hair and wrenched his head back violently. The hair color was different, but this was undoubtedly the heretic hunter who had once roamed his territory as he pleased.

He growled out a question.

“What the hell have you been doing in the East?”

“No need to be so angry. Just as you spent years rummaging through my domain, I simply poked around yours a little…….”

The man’s shoulders shook with a faint chuckle.

“I’ve put quite a bit of effort into it over time, so Kalmor must be a complete shambles by now.”

Varkas’s face slowly contorted.

Seeing this, a burst of triumphant laughter erupted from the man.

“Why that face? Did you really think your own backyard would be safe after you turned my territory into a wasteland? Ha! If you’re going to throw ash on someone else’s lifelong ambition, you should have been prepared for your own business to go to hell!”

A fist clad in a leather glove struck the man’s face. The laughing man’s head snapped to the side.

As Varkas yanked back the hair of the reeling man, the blood-soaked face once again filled his vision.

Spitting out the blood pooling in his mouth, the man murmured slowly.

“While you were playing the loyal hound for the Imperial Family, a blood feast was likely taking place in the East. Your castle and wealth will be reduced to ashes by the flames, and your kinsmen will all meet a gruesome death. And your woman…….”

A strange smile played on his blood-drenched lips.

“I gave special instructions to put extra effort into that little darling. By now, she’s likely having a very provocative time with the barbarian men. I only regret that I couldn’t be there to join in.”

The frivolous, cackling laughter echoed eerily through the chaotic castle courtyard.

“By now, she must be looking like a tattered rag—urk!”

Blood sprayed from the man’s mouth. Only then did Varkas realize he had plunged a dagger into the man’s throat.

The faint sound of soldiers gasping in shock could be heard. But Varkas felt nothing.

Holding the back of the man’s head firmly, Varkas moved the dagger slowly to the side. The man’s eyes, his throat pierced while still alive, were clouded with agony.

Varkas stared straight into those dark pupils and moved the blade with agonizing slowness. The blue steel sliced through tough muscle, veins, and nerves, shifting inch by inch. Finally, the light faded from the eyes of the man who had been struggling to breathe through his severed windpipe.

He pulled the blade out the other side and then held up the head, which was gushing blood. Soldiers watching the scene from nearby collapsed to the ground, retching.

Without sparing them a glance, Varkas threw the enemy leader’s head before his knights.

“Hang it on the walls.”

Even the knights, who were hardened to all sorts of atrocities, were so appalled that no one stepped forward immediately.

While they hesitated, Varkas strode quickly across the courtyard, trampling over the mountains of corpses.

Near the castle gate, he saw the Wolfram Cavalry regrouping. Approaching them at once, Varkas gave orders in a voice that was chillingly calm.

“Assemble all forces immediately. We are going to Kalmor at once.”

Sensing that something grave had occurred, Daren blew the horn without delay to gather the Eastern warriors.

Varkas roughly pulled the reins of Toruk, who had been tied near the camp, and stared at the sun beginning to rise between the black mountain peaks.

Sharp rays of light pierced his retinas like thorns. Varkas closed his eyes for a moment against a strange dizziness, then opened them and mounted his saddle.