No fancy techniques, no room to dodge.
The soldiers in the very front, whether noble private soldiers or Lily Guard, had their chests pierced by the opponent’s halberds or longswords the instant they made contact.
Shields shattered like cookies, armor caved in deeply, and scalding blood mixed with rainwater gushed out.
The comrades surging up from the rear stepped on the corpses of the front-rank soldiers and continued to rush at the Enemy like a wave.
This was a battle of elite against elite. Normally, the first charge of elite troops was enough to break the will of armies with weak fighting spirit.
Yet here, it was only the appetizer of a bloody slaughter.
The battle formations of both sides were like two crazed Beasts, tearing at each other in the most primal way until one side stopped breathing completely.
Reynard split open a Lily Guard’s helmet with one sword strike, and scalding blood splattered across his face.
But he had no time to wipe it off; more halberds thrust at him from all directions, forcing him to awkwardly search for gaps in the crowd.
He did not use the Engraved Emblem Power.
He knew that as soon as he exposed himself, the enemy Crestbearer hidden in the shadows would deliver a fatal blow capable of changing the course of the battle.
The battle fell into a brutal deadlock; people on both sides kept falling, but no one was willing to retreat, and everyone had killed until their eyes were red.
In this situation, issuing orders would instead cause morale to collapse.
‘Where is the breakthrough?’
Reynard suddenly raised his head, his gaze cutting across the chaotic battlefield to meet the bald strongman who was also madly cutting down people in the crowd.
One offered his final loyalty to the decayed Old World; the other opened a path for a brand-new Dawn.
The two almost instantly realized that the other was the backbone of the army.
The next second, Reynard stepped through the slick blood beneath his feet and, like an arrow released from a bowstring, charged straight at Worner.
The Empire greatsword in Worner’s hands was wielded with supernatural skill; every swing carried the majestic momentum to cut through everything.
Using the blade as an axis, his whole body was like a spinning iron tower; the Death hurricane carved by his sword edge forced the surrounding Enemy to keep their distance.
Reynard was more agile; the Knight’s longsword in his hand was as light and quick as a bee’s sting, constantly searching for gaps in Worner’s defense.
“Clang!”
The greatsword and longsword clashed, sending sparks flying.
Reynard used the recoil to retreat half a step, dodging a “horizontal slash” from Worner, and at the same time flipped his wrist, turning the longsword from a chop into a thrust aimed straight at Worner’s face.
Worner’s body was heavy, and he could not dodge in time, so he had to hold the greatsword across his front to block.
The tip of the sword landed precisely on the broad blade of the greatsword; Reynard pressed his wrist down again, actually trying to suppress Worner with skillful force.
“Get lost!”
Worner let out an explosive shout, his arm muscles knotting and veins bulging, and he forcibly pushed Reynard and his sword back.
Reynard slid two steps on the wet ground before steadying himself; looking at the bald strongman before him, his heart sank.
This guy’s swordsmanship seemed rough, but in truth it hid deadly intent; it was a killing technique honed purely from mountains of corpses and seas of blood.
In terms of swordsmanship, the other was superior; only by relying on the physical enhancement brought by the Engraved Mark could he contend with him.
But he could not drag it out any longer; the surrounding Lily Guard had already begun to form an encirclement.
“This ends here!”
There was no longer the slightest hesitation in Reynard’s eyes.
Just as Worner’s greatsword fell toward his head, Reynard did not retreat but advanced; he spread the five fingers of his left hand and, facing the blade, grabbed the heavy sword body!
A bone-chilling cold erupted from Reynard’s palm!
Crack! Crack-crack!
Worner’s pupils abruptly constricted; he watched helplessly as his greatsword, still scalding from battle, condensed a thick layer of white frost at a visible speed!
The piercing cold instantly spread along the blade to both his hands, and his movement suffered a fatal freeze at this moment.
“Die!”
Reynard’s Knight’s longsword traced a cold arc of light; with the enhancement of the Ice Engraved Mark, it easily tore open Worner’s sturdy breastplate.
Riiip—!
Armor plates shattered, and a wound deep enough to show bone opened across Worner’s chest; before the blood could gush out, it was half-frozen by the escaping cold.
“Master!”
Worner’s trusted men glared until their eyes nearly split, threw themselves at Reynard like madmen, used their bodies and blades to smash open a bloody path, and forcibly dragged the tottering Worner back into the formation.
The commander was gravely wounded, and the Lily Guard’s indestructible steel square formation fell into chaos for the first time.
“All troops! Crush them!”
Reynard fully released his power; the Ice Engraved Mark received extreme amplification in the torrential rain.
With every wave of his hand, large stretches of the slippery stone road beneath him froze; countless Lily Guard slipped, men and horses tumbling, and were then mercilessly cut down by the noble private soldiers charging from behind.
“Damn it! That bastard!”
On a distant rooftop, Hugo, wearing a Kamen Rider uniform, was so anxious he stamped his feet; he grabbed a weapon and wanted to charge down, but Pierre beside him clung tightly to his leg.
“Big Brother! Calm down! In the Plan, you are the final trump card. Who knows if the Enemy has other Crestbearers?”
“We can’t just watch our brothers be slaughtered, can we?” Hugo’s eyes were red.
“This is war!” Pierre grew anxious too and roared back at his big brother, “What war has no deaths? If you rush out now, the Leader’s Plan will be completely ruined!”
When Hugo heard the word “war,” his whole body stiffened, and he fell silent.
Yes, this was war.
Without Sacrifice, how could a true iron army be forged?
In the rear, the Workers’ Patrol tried to flank from behind, but Reynard did not even turn his head; with a backhand press, an ice wall several meters high rose from the ground and completely sealed off their path.
The tide of battle reversed in an instant.
Reynard bathed in the ice rain, transformed into the battlefield’s god of Death, and mercilessly slaughtered every Enemy who dared resist.
The power of a Crestbearer before an army formation made of mortals was just that unreasonable.
At this moment of Despair, on the noisy battlefield, a crisp explosion suddenly rang out.
Bang!
Reynard, who was enjoying the pleasure of power, suddenly froze as a sharp, intense pain came from his chest.
He looked down and saw a smooth hole had appeared in the very center of his breastplate.
An unfamiliar, scorching power was rampaging inside him, frantically suppressing his Engraved Emblem Power.
‘What… is this?’
‘It is not an Engraved Mark!’
Reynard’s mind went blank, and an absurd yet terrifying thought surfaced.
‘The Mutual Aid Association… actually possesses a weapon that lets ordinary people kill Crestbearers?’
‘The King’s true trump card… is this?’
‘So this is his true plan to pull the rug out from under all Sword-Bearing Nobles!’
‘I must seize that weapon! I must tell all Sword-Bearing Nobles everything that happened today!’
At this moment, his own life and Death no longer mattered.
“Aaaagh—!”
Reynard roared at the sky, driving his Engraved Emblem Power to the extreme.
The raindrops in the sky seemed to freeze, then transformed into countless sharp ice crystals, falling like a torrential storm.
Large swaths of Lily Guard were instantly pierced by ice crystals, collapsing with screams.
He sealed his continuously bleeding chest with ice, condensed an ice path beneath his feet, and slid toward that window at an incredible speed.
No one could stop him now.
Everyone was frozen in place by his out-of-control Engraved Emblem Power, unable to move, including his own subordinates.
It was a race between life and Death.
Behind the window, Luca’s heart almost leaped out of his chest.
‘I failed to kill him with one shot!’
‘That monster is charging straight at me! No, at the “Dawn Spear” in my hands!’
‘Thirty seconds! Damn it, I need at least thirty seconds to finish reloading! That’s enough time for that monster to cut me down ten times over!’
‘Even if Hugo acts now, it will be too late!’
‘What should I do?’
The more critical it became, the clearer Luca’s mind became.
He remembered the scene when Leader Allen performed the “Blessing” on this gun, and remembered that Divine Power that seemed able to purify everything.
He remembered his oath—to complete the First Kill of a Crestbearer with a Firearm as a mortal!
‘I have no Engraved Mark, but… I have faith!’
Luca watched the rapidly approaching figure of Death, took a deep breath, aimed the empty barrel at him again, and, carrying absolute worship for Leader Allen and absolute faith that the Revolution would surely triumph, resolutely pulled the trigger.
There was no Gunpowder explosion, only a soft click as the firing mechanism released.
However, the instant the trigger was pulled, a point of pure golden light appeared from nothing inside the barrel!
Bzzz—!
A golden streak of light burst from the muzzle of the “Dawn Spear.”
It was not physical, but constructed from the purest Faith Power, ignoring distance and wind and rain, as if guided by the hand of the supreme deity itself, and it precisely sank into Reynard’s brow.
Reynard’s charging figure came to an abrupt halt.
The madness on his face froze instantly, and the cold light in his eyes rapidly dimmed and went out.
The Engraved Emblem Power within him dissipated like an ebbing tide, and the ice path beneath his feet shattered inch by inch.
His tall body fell straight forward, sliding a long trail of blood across the ground.
The ice seal covering the battlefield was instantly released.
“Kill!”
“Avenge the boss!” one of his trusted men roared.
Worner, supported by someone beside him, coughed up a mouthful of bloody foam and cursed weakly, “Damn it… I’m not dead yet!”
“Long live victory!”
The Lily Guard were the first to react, their accumulated fury turning into a surging tide of counterattack.
The ice wall in front of the Workers’ Patrol collapsed as well, and they launched a deadly charge from behind.
The noble private soldiers caught in a pincer attack looked at the commander’s corpse and knew the tide had turned.
But not one surrendered, not one fled.
They silently raised their weapons, faced an Enemy several times their number, and launched the last charge of their lives.
When the battle ended, the rain stopped.
The dark clouds scattered, and pale moonlight pierced through the clouds, shining on the corpses strewn across the ground and the pools of crimson blood.
The gravely wounded Worner, supported by others, looked at this brutal scene and shook his head.
No one was immersed in the joy of victory.
The Enemy’s fearless defiance had shaken them as well.
The Old World was not a rotten house that would collapse with a gentle kick.
Today, even as the most elite force of the “Dawn’s Children,” the Lily Guard had still suffered grievous casualties.
And this was only a small-scale clash involving a few hundred people.
Then, when campaigns mobilizing thousands upon thousands of people begin, and when those high-and-mighty Crestbearers join the battle en masse, what kind of bloody scene will it be?
There is still a very, very long road before the true Dawn arrives.
Worner traced a Wheat Ear over his chest and softly recited the scripture from , mourning all the heroic souls who had died here, whether Enemy or friend.
“The Lord says: All who shed blood for belief, whether good or evil, shall return to me. I will wipe away all their tears; there will be no more Death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor pain, for the former things have passed away…”