There was a sun in the Lands Between. As the light changed, he could feel it sinking in the west.
Heat radiated from Zhao Si's entire body. The stamina Helena had just restored was rapidly draining away again.
At times like this, he admired Blaidd? even more. Blaidd? had fought from beginning to end without replenishing anything. With the help of the soldiers who had fought their way out from behind them, they formed an assault squad and drove like a knife into the heart of the Demi-Human horde.
At last, Zhao Si and Blaidd? stood before the final bosses-the Demi-Human Chiefs.
There were two of them, like twins.
Not that they actually were twins. Demi-Humans simply all looked much the same to human eyes. It was like humans looking at small animals; unless they were familiar with them, they had trouble telling them apart.
Demi-Humans saw humans much the same way, actually. It was easier to distinguish their scents than their faces.
"Want to pick one?" Blaidd? rested the Twinblade on his shoulder.
Zhao Si glanced at the Demi-Humans who dared not approach and the soldiers holding them back, then pointed at one at random. "They're all the same anyway. That one."
Blaidd? nodded, advanced with a swing of his sword, and drew the other Demi-Human Chief away.
Only Zhao Si and the remaining chief were left in the clearing.
The beast, almost human but not quite, carried a great blade and roared at Zhao Si. The language barrier did not matter. On a battlefield, warriors' body language and the clash of their weapons were enough to convey their intentions.
There was no need for pointless talk. They just had to fight.
The Demi-Human Chief struck first, sweeping its great blade sideways to cut Zhao Si in half at the waist.
Zhao Si held his ground and met it with his shield. The instant the shield touched the blade, he leaped into the air.
Using the blade as a pivot and his shield to protect his body, Zhao Si borrowed the force of the strike, spun halfway around in midair, and landed steadily.
"It works!" Zhao Si was thrilled. Unlike his blind struggle against the Lion Misbegotten, he now knew what he was doing. His shield let him shed the force of an attack effectively.
"Water is invincible at its most yielding. Isn't the Flowing Sword all about taking force out of an attack to the utmost?" Zhao Si felt he had grasped the essence of the Flowing Sword.
The Demi-Human Chief grunted. It probably meant something, but unfortunately, Zhao Si was no Magic Princess and could not understand animal speech. All he knew was that this was his chance to attack. Controlling the rhythm of battle was the key to victory.
He modeled his attack in his mind, predicted the Demi-Human Chief's possible responses, and prepared to change his move. Zhao Si began with an ordinary slash to test it.
The Demi-Human Chief stepped back and raised its great blade to block, but that upward sweep met nothing.
Zhao Si had already anticipated that response from the straightforward Demi-Human. Relying on the Sacrificial Axe's maneuverability, he spun it in his palm to evade the chief's blade and swiftly changed his move into a diagonal rising cut.
Wreathed in ghostflame, the Sacrificial Axe sliced through the muscles of the Demi-Human Chief's right arm. Cold spread over the wound, bringing pain and numbness, and the chief howled.
Demi-Humans had keener senses and could clearly feel death approaching. The ghostflame froze its arm as it burned, and the stiffening of its veins filled it with panic. It switched its great blade to its left hand and flailed and hammered with its right, trying both to strike Zhao Si and to beat the ghostflame off its arm.
Having landed a hit, Zhao Si did not launch into a frenzied pursuit. He had learned his lesson from the Lion Misbegotten. When his strength was insufficient, attacking wildly would never end well.
He protected his body with his shield and dodged the chief's frantic blows. Seizing an opening, he slammed into its chest and buried the Sacrificial Axe in its abdomen. Before the Demi-Human Chief could react, Zhao Si gritted his teeth and dragged the axe sideways, ripping its belly wide open!
Reeking entrails spilled across the ground, and ghostflame froze the blood. The Demi-Human Chief collapsed and rolled in agony. Zhao Si hopped into the air and used the jumping cleave he had seen countless times, chopping his axe into the back of its neck.
Its enormous head crashed to the ground. In a single day, Zhao Si had cut off the heads of two bosses.
Zhao Si planted his foot on the Demi-Human Chief's head and looked around. The Demi-Humans were all trembling, showing signs of fear. On the other side, Blaidd? had also severed his chief's head. He kicked it into the air and skewered it on his Twinblade, blood running down the edge.
Zhao Si drew a deep breath and roared, "Get the hell out of here!"
With their leaders dead and these two men so ferocious, leaving the corpses of their kin strewn along their path, the Demi-Humans felt an even stronger urge to retreat. Finally, one let out a strange cry and fled the battlefield first.
Once one ran, another followed, and the rest ran with them. The Demi-Human horde abandoned its gear and scattered like birds and beasts, leaving as quickly as it had come. Only the witless Misbegotten remained, surrounded and slaughtered to the last by the soldiers defending the castle.
How the Misbegotten had made contact with the Demi-Humans might remain an unsolved mystery forever. Zhao Si, at least, was unlikely to have a chance to investigate.
Only after watching all the Demi-Humans retreat did he let out a long breath and feel his legs weaken. Ever since leaving Roundtable Hold, he had done almost nothing but fight and kill. Such a relentless pace made it impossible to work up any enthusiasm. Anyone who enjoyed the battlefield was either obsessed with martial arts or a battle maniac. Blaidd? was probably someone who enjoyed war. Otherwise, he would not have been the White Wolf War-Witch.
But Zhao Si was not. At that moment, looking at the corpses carpeting the ground before Castle Morne, he felt from the bottom of his heart how wonderful peace was. Even a small, local clash had killed so many people. The damage caused by the endless Shattering could only be greater. It truly was a case of marching off to war at fifteen and only coming home at eighty. No wonder Morgott wanted to extinguish the flames in the hearts of those ambitious pretenders coveting the throne. At least he could preserve the status quo and keep things from getting worse.
As they cleaned up the battlefield and collected the weapons the Demi-Humans had abandoned, Zhao Si exclaimed, "All of this is wrong!"
Blaidd? had not heard him clearly. "What?"
"I said, all of this is wrong!" Zhao Si tossed a crude blade into his Inventory. "The goddess is an idiot, the Elden Lord is a fool, and the Demigods are each stupider than the last. This nonsense of whoever has the biggest fist becoming king is primitive and inefficient. Put kindly, it's honoring martial prowess. Put bluntly, it's worshipping violence. All it does is start one meaningless war after another, over and over and over! Just like... just like..."
Just like ancient Japan: a long, narrow island nation with only so many people, yet all they thought about every day was killing one another. The Lands Between were not particularly large either, and likewise had a bunch of Gods killing one another here.
The Shattering had no winners, and a war with no winners was naturally meaningless. War was a means to an end. To maintain peace, one needed powerful military strength.
Yet they had not even eliminated threats like the Demi-Humans, which showed just how poorly these Demigods followed through on anything.
"Lunatics, every last one of them! Don't they even know how to wipe out bandits? Who cares how your lousy Law works? Every day, it's all about the
"big picture, the big picture. Why don't you try thinking smaller for once and pay attention to ordinary people's lives?" Zhao Si felt none of the joy of victory.
Blaidd? offered no opinion. It was perfectly normal for people to think differently. Tarnished were unwelcome everywhere, so it was hardly surprising if they had a few mental issues. He fought so desperately because he wanted to earn a good reputation, hoping to become an Empyrean's companion-though that was probably impossible.
A person had to have a dream, after all.
"Destined death." Zhao Si stroked the mark on his wrist.
Destined death ought to serve as a deterrent against these Demigods and Outer Gods. According to Helena, those words were his mission. The Gloam-Eyed Queen had also asked him to help find destined death, and he himself wanted to intervene in the Night of the Black Knives.
In that case, he might as well improvise a little!
The system of rule by one God and one lord was due for an update. If they all wanted to be lords so badly, then they could all be "lords" together.
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