While Murphy and his little players lay in wait, took out the convoy, and fought a desperate battle against the Wolfsbane Clan's elite, the same sort of developments were unfolding elsewhere on the battlefield.
The moment flames rose from the camp, Miss Femis sent Lady Adele back with several elite blood thralls. Their main task was to find Murphy and pass on a message, while also checking what the hell had happened at the camp.
Already aware that things had gone badly wrong, Lady Adele headed alone for Murphy's defensive line. The blood thralls under her command were ordered back to the burning camp, where they ran straight into four Witch Hunters who were preparing to leave.
"Kill!"
The five elite blood thralls wasted no time. The instant they saw their enemies, they charged with their spears in hand. Like Maxim, they were servants of vampires, but the fact that the Midnight Hunters kept them close proved they were carefully trained vampire "reserves." Their fighting strength was little different from that of elite human soldiers.
Their vampire masters had also enhanced their strength with dark psionic energy, so they weren't afraid of the Witch Hunters.
There was also a particularly darkly humorous irony to this: because vampires suffered a terrible weakening in sunlight, the armies made up of these armed blood thralls were, in truth, the main fighting force of Cadman City—and indeed the entire region of Transia.
"Vampire mongrels! Die!"
The four Witch Hunters had been tortured terribly, but by now they had accepted that they would die. Amid the blazing camp, they seized their weapons and fought the blood thralls.
"Little Natalie! Go! We'll hold these mongrels back!"
Porter, a one-armed veteran, slipped a set of combat claws onto his hand and threw himself at a blood thrall, knocking him to the ground.
The two fought like starving beasts in the firelight, each vowing to sink their fangs into the other's throat. Nearby, another veteran, Norman, fought just as fiercely. His skin had been torn open, but he seemed not to feel it as he silently battled on, dragging his battered body forward.
But they weren't fighting just for the sake of fighting.
The veteran's hoarse shout made Natalie's heart tremble. She knew how much they all cared for her. Even in this desperate situation, they were willing to fight to the death to cover her escape.
But their care was a burden.
From the beginning of the Ten-Year War until now, she had lost too many friends and comrades. She had lost count of how many times she had narrowly escaped death.
She knew this battle was hopeless, but she didn't want to run anymore. Perhaps dying here wouldn't be such a bad end.
Damn this wretched world!
Peace here was nothing but a tedious fantasy that would never come true!
She raised her head. Through her barely open left eye, she could see the sunlight psionic energy flickering at the far end of the swamp.
Those blazing rays were like a sun in the night. They also meant that the Midnight Hunters had run into a tough opponent: a high-ranking psionicist from the Tower of Rings was stationed there!
The flickering of that solar barrier alone was enough to make those fiends of the dark suffer terribly.
If they could wipe out nearly sixty elite vampires in one stroke, that would be an extraordinary victory.
If the Avalon Church still existed, Natalie and her team might well have been canonized after this battle, becoming revered champions of the faith.
Sadly, in the eyes of the living, the Avalon Church had become a forgotten Old Church.
The organization that had raised her, and that she had regarded as the home of her soul, had been reduced to ashes ten years ago. Along with it, warriors like her, who had fought to hunt down fiends and protect humanity, had become strays with nowhere to go.
"Clang!"
The violent clash of weapons jolted Natalie from her dazed confusion and reminded her that she was still in the midst of a brutal fight.
A lapse like that shouldn't happen to an elite fighter.
The fact that she had spaced out like this meant that her body, strengthened by natural psionic energy, had reached its limit.
She thought she could still fight, but her body was already beginning to give out.
The blood thrall before her, his face twisted with rage, kicked Natalie in her badly injured abdomen. She spat out blood and fell onto the ash-strewn ground. The creature raised his blade and advanced to take her head. As she struggled on the ground, she saw through her chaotic vision that veteran Porter was driving his combat claws into the enemy's neck, while a broken spear jutted from his abdomen.
"Don't touch her!"
A hoarse shout came from the other side. Natalie struggled to turn her head and saw the weakened Amber leaning against a wagon, gripping a hand crossbow with both hands.
The frail, sensitive, yet resolute young scout must have found a weapon inside the vampires' wagon.
She tried hard to aim.
But the poison that had blinded her right eye made it difficult to hit her mark as unerringly as before.
"Thwip!"
The bolt flew through the air and struck the blood thrall just as he raised his blade, knocking him to the ground. The other two blood thralls turned and charged at Amber.
She had no chance to reload.
Natalie and old Norman used their last strength at almost the same moment. They grabbed the two wounded blood thralls and dragged them down, fighting with fists and teeth. Only when Amber crawled over, covered in blood, and stabbed both of the last blood thralls through the eyes with a dagger did the fight end.
The four Witch Hunters, at the end of their strength, lay in the wreckage of the burning camp.
They were dying.
Though they had won another precious victory, the fire was closing in, and they no longer had the strength to crawl out of this vortex of death.
Amber tried to drag Natalie away, but as soon as she got up, she fell beside her captain. All she could do was stare at her with her remaining left eye, her cracked, parched lips moving as she tried to pass on a message.
She wanted to say she was sorry.
But there was no need to apologize.
Dying in a battle like this was the best fate available to the Witch Hunters, who had nowhere left to call home.
It was better than going back alive, facing the hatred and fear of the very people they had once protected, being denounced as traitors, and then callously sent by the psionicists of the Tower of Rings to yet another battlefield of death.
Their lives had become expendable fodder for war. Perhaps that was what they had been from the very beginning.
Natalie closed her eyes.
She felt so tired.
All she wanted now was a good, long sleep.
Perhaps if she welcomed death in her dreams, she could reunite with her mother in another world. Memories of that dear one seemed to have been blurred and tainted by the black nightmares of war. It wasn't right.
The sound of hooves rang out in the night, growing closer. Amid the warhorse's panting and uneasy whinnies, a tall knight who had come from afar leapt to the ground and strode into the silent camp.
The terrible sight before him moved the hooded knight, who carried a great oak sword on his back.
He realized what had happened. Bending down, he carried Natalie and Amber, who were nearest to him, out of the camp, then went back for the veterans Porter and Norman.
Those two were already dead.
But they had died only a few minutes ago. Their souls had not yet departed for the underworld, so there was still a chance to save them!
"May Avalon protect you. The mission of the faithful is not yet complete."
The knight murmured the name of the god and took emerald-green seeds from his pouch, placing them in the veterans' mouths.
As his fingers glowed with green specks of light, he struck them hard over their hearts. The seeds of life fused with their hearts, which began to beat faintly once more in this strange state.
The odds of saving them in these circumstances were only fifty-fifty. But tonight, fortune truly favored the brave.
Natalie was soon roused by the activity around her.
She felt warm liquid flowing into her mouth. It tasted strange, as if herbs had been added, and eased her utterly exhausted mind at once. She struggled to open her eyes and saw a familiar face.
It was lined with wrinkles and seemed sorrowful. Gray-white hair spilled out from beneath the hood, and scars remained over the left eye and the bridge of the nose. A trace of worry showed in those old eyes.
"C-Commander..."
The huntress jolted and grabbed the old knight's hand. She coughed and struggled to speak.
"We... didn't manage to..."
"Rest, child. You've done very well."
The old knight, addressed as "Commander," comforted her.
"Your falcon, Swiftshadow, brought the message back to headquarters. It also led me here. You lured nearly one-sixth of the Blood Eagle Clan's hunters into a trap. That's already a remarkable victory.
"I'm here now.
"I'll deal with the rest."
"P-Please... avenge the warriors..."
Natalie finally let herself relax.
Her exhausted mind could no longer hold on. Her head drooped, and she fell asleep.
Then a small but fierce and clever gray falcon swooped down in a panic. It landed beside Natalie and hopped around, crying mournfully at the old knight.
"She's fine, Swiftshadow."
The old knight stood, lowered his hood to cover his face, and spoke to the falcon.
"Look after them. I'll take care of the remaining trouble."
He whistled, and the tall red warhorse charged into the camp. Without slowing, he grabbed the reins and vaulted into the saddle, then galloped through the burning camp and onto the narrow trail through the Filthy Swamp.
The flames burned behind him, stretching the old knight's shadow long.
As he drew closer to the vampires' battlefield, the great sword on his back, its hilt and fittings made from sacred white oak, began to hum strangely.
"Mm, so you can sense the fiends ahead. Good."
The White Oak Warband's commander felt the fervor rising from his weapon and spoke in a hoarse voice.
"Since the fall of the Old Church, you haven't been this lively in a long time. Are you still remembering the shame the Blood Eagles brought you all those years ago? Good!
"I'm in a foul mood myself!
"Let the vampires' eternal silence and a woodland revenge serve as offerings. Sacred Blade, lend me your strength."
The great oak sword, wrapped in a tattered sword cloth, hummed, its sound turning into the strange howl of a forest wind. The surrounding trees trembled and opened a path for the knight riding forward.
Vines withdrew, branches lifted, and boughs bent, as if aiding the old knight's charge toward the battlefield. The sword's shrill song sounded like a response—or a cry urging him on.
At last, he saw the Midnight Hunters retreating into the night before him.
Those nauseating crimson wraiths were falling back from the dazzling sunlight in the darkness. Protected by the night, they believed they could still escape.
How naïve!
"Retreat!"
Miss Femis hurled the dark psionic lightning in her hand at the last three riflemen ahead.
Her hunters had suffered heavy losses because of those damned psionicists. Though they had killed a force of humans and Witch Hunters four times their number, Miss Femis knew there was no point continuing the fight once she realized the convoy had gotten away.
It wasn't impossible to kill that high-ranking psionicist from the Tower of Rings.
But there was no point!
If they killed one here, the Tower of Rings would send three more. As the main base for psionic users in the human world, nobody knew how many psionicists the Tower of Rings had ready to deploy.
Humans learned at a terrifying pace.
The lives of these short-lived beings were like pathetic fireworks, yet the speed at which they grew made every vampire—no, every supernatural creature—jealous.
Miss Femis had ordered a retreat.
Having lost more than ten hunters, the Midnight Hunters withdrew decisively. They had an overwhelming advantage in speed, and the enemy's pursuit force had already been wiped out.
No one could stop them if they wanted to leave.
But when the vampires turned around, they saw that the once-peaceful Smugglers' Woods had transformed in an instant into a hostile "labyrinth."
Vines writhed like snakes and surged into the treetops, dragging airborne hunters into the forest. On the ground, flickering shadows among the trees formed unsettling shapes.
They were trapped.
Then blue-green flames suddenly surged up, forming long swords that fell through the darkness and cleaved the Midnight Hunters who failed to dodge in time in two.
As the red warhorse carried its rider past, a Midnight Hunter struck down by the sword screamed and turned into burning rotten wood. Crimson embers flickered and whirled before vanishing in the howling forest.
Miss Femis's scarlet pupils contracted at the sight.
That was an elite Midnight Hunter on the verge of reaching Silver rank, and he had been killed in a single, casual blow? He hadn't even had the chance to recover or flee?
Who was this newcomer?
And that strange sword!
What was it?
The old knight riding toward them seemed to sense Miss Femis's shock in the air. As he swung again and cut down another Midnight Hunter, he raised his head amid the scattering embers.
There was no worry or weakness left in his aged eyes. In their place was a sharp, chilling gaze that promised death.
"Saint of the Old Church, Lord of Oak, White Knight Commander Finoc Lawson salutes the Blood Eagles! The bell of eternal silence has rung! Fiends, repent!"
He shouted the words.
The Oakwood Sacred Blade, burning with cleansing fire, swept casually through the air. The vampire who had tried to attack him from behind was cut down in a single stroke. A brighter burst of crimson embers flared, and Miss Femis turned and fled without a moment's hesitation or so much as a reply.
She had heard that name before, when she was very young.
The Oak Knight, Finoc, one of the Old Church's Three Holy Protectors, a Gold-rank warrior!
Damn it!
This human monster, at least two hundred years old, had no business being here!
Mother of Night, have you abandoned us?
Before you continue