Episode 529
Chapter 144. For a Friend (7)
Dante couldn’t take his eyes off the piercing blue blade that had appeared all the way in the rear.
The entire family had staked their lives on this—he didn’t want to survive alone out of cowardice. Even without his grandfather, Hiran wanted to prove that he was still Hiran. And he refused to drag his friend down into this quagmire with him.
But the blue blade he saw with his own eyes felt like a light slicing through despair itself.
“Jin…!”
Jin hadn’t received Dante’s letter.
Even if he had, Jin and his men would have surely come to aid the Sword Emperor’s Fortress.
“Hiran! We’re here!”
When Jin shouted with all his might, the entire battlefield seemed to tremble with his voice. Even Dante, standing alone at the very front, could hear his friend clearly.
The emperor’s troops in the rear looked up. On the cliff towering behind the Sword Emperor’s Fortress stood Jin.
“The Balmel Alliance and the Kingdom of Tikan hereby join forces with Hiran to defend the Sword Emperor’s Fortress.”
The Sigmund Thunder Sword, a divine killing blade personally bestowed by the War God, crackled with sharp, electric energy.
The dragon cannons aimed at the rear gate abruptly turned toward Jin in a panic.
“Enemies, clear the way!”
KRAAAASH!
The moment the dragon cannon fired, Jin’s sword erupted with radiant light.
Runkandel’s Fifth Secret Technique
Lightspeed Thrust – Pluto
The single sword’s flash illuminated the night sky in an instant.
The dragon cannon’s projectile vanished without a trace, leaving only the echo of the blast behind.
The blade had swallowed the bullet whole.
That same blade then pierced through the emperor’s knights’ and mages’ protective shields, completely obliterating the dragon cannon.
It all happened before the sound of the explosion could even dissipate.
Those watching couldn’t comprehend what had just occurred.
But seeing Jin’s movement, and the electric energy and aura lingering in a straight line between the cliff and the shattered dragon cannon, they could only deduce one thing:
He had struck once with his sword.
Yet the shock didn’t end there.
“GRAAAH!”
“W-What is that…?!”
From the spot where the dragon cannon had been shattered by the Lightspeed Thrust, lightning began to pour down.
The original Lightspeed Thrust, as Talas described it, was simply a frenziedly fast stab. But Jin’s version, named after his brothers, carried the wild, violent energy unique to the Pluto Sword.
It was the ruthless power of a race that had conquered the world and reigned as the sole victor.
Blue electric energy trampled the emperor’s knights and mages beneath it.
They had no means to defend themselves against that power.
With a single strike, the emperor’s rear lines crumbled.
Both allies and enemies alike trembled before Jin’s blade, all thinking the same thing:
This is what it means to be a knight who dominates the battlefield.
Jin summoned his energy once more.
He unleashed Lightspeed Thrust repeatedly until the cliff itself could no longer withstand the force and collapsed.
The blue flashes falling across the battlefield looked to the enemy like divine punishment.
As members of the empire, it was as if they were paying the price for betraying Hiran.
As humans who had been safe behind Hiran’s walls, it felt like punishment for failing to stand against the emperor’s tyranny.
The cliff finally gave way after five more Lightspeed Thrusts.
And with the cliff’s collapse, the monstrous figure now roamed the battlefield directly.
The enemy’s terror deepened heavily.
The Pluto Sword was forged solely for conquest and destruction. No other martial art in the world was more suited to war.
The moment Jin stepped onto the battlefield, the scale of death shifted.
With every spread of electric energy, every strike of lightning, every thunderclap, dozens—sometimes hundreds—of enemies fell or were so grievously wounded they could no longer fight.
Not only the common knights, but even the emperor’s elite knights dared not stand before Jin. Anyone foolish enough to engage would be burned alive before their blades even met.
The battlefield echoed with screams so loud they seemed to burst eardrums.
But Jin didn’t hear their cries.
Only the rough voice of his friend, torn apart by the madness of war, tore through his heart.
“Fall back, you bastards! How dare you do this to Hiran…!”
The rebels witnessed another name for Runkandel.
The dragon cannons and all the artillery of dragon-lord rank and above, which had been targeting the rear gate, now tracked Jin’s movements.
The dragon cannon Dante had cut down at the front was merely a feint. Far more dragon cannons were positioned at the rear and flanks.
Over fifty cannons were loaded and ready.
The enemy commanders regained their composure and prepared to launch a coordinated attack.
“Jin Runkandel! Are you aware that those you’re killing belong to the army of His Majesty, the Emperor of the Great Biment Empire? Runkandel, you are interfering in the empire’s civil war—do you not understand what that means…?”
The commander of the Lilista Mage Corps couldn’t finish his sentence.
Jin immediately launched another Lightspeed Thrust toward the voice.
As soon as the commander died, the emperor’s central knights—about a hundred of the key figures Dante had thought of—formed ranks to block Jin.
Jin sneered.
“To die by Runkandel’s blade on the battlefield is the greatest honor you worthless scum could ever hope for.”
The central knights, like the Lilista commander, said no more.
They recognized at a glance that no matter what was said, Jin would not stop.
“So I’d rather not even grant you that honor. Isn’t that the price of forgetting honor?”
No sooner had Jin finished speaking—
BANG! CRACKLE!
Suddenly, cannonballs rained down on the central knights’ heads.
Dragon cannon fire.
The knights hastily raised their shields and swung their swords, but the empire’s most powerful artillery claimed the lives of three of them.
“Damn it! Why are the dragon cannons firing on us?!”
“The Hensark Mage Corps wouldn’t make a mistake like this. Could it be…!”
Jin smiled coldly and shrugged.
“I clearly shouted that it’s not just me, but we who have arrived. Have the commanders forgotten that?”
CRACK, BOOM!
Dragon cannon fire continued to rain down on the central knights.
The figure aiming those cannons from the left rear was not an emperor’s soldier.
“Direct hit! Hehe, my lord will praise me for this!”
Amela giggled as she loaded the next shot.
The mercenary Amela, upon entering the battlefield, quickly assessed the enemy’s equipment and began snatching it one by one.
“Uncle Valkas, this one here looks useful too. Bring it over, please.”
“…Understood.”
“I wish the cuties had brought it instead of Uncle Valkas. Our lovely Prochi girls are doing a great job cleaning up the flank.”
Black King Commander Valkas and mercenary Amela.
These two, who could be called the incarnations of war, were also rampaging through the rear battlefield alongside Jin.
The emperor’s troops, realizing this too late, felt once again a dreadful sensation as if the blood drained from their heads.
Valkas hoisted the dragon cannon Amela pointed at like it was a slightly heavy rock.
To a superhuman like him, the number of troops meant nothing.
“It’s no match for the magic-absorbing, all-weather accelerated shatter cannon, but this isn’t bad either. After the war, I’ll take a few back to Tikan and set them up! Fire, fire!”
Within less than thirty seconds, the dragon cannons operated by Amela annihilated all the knights blocking Jin’s path.
“Ugh… cough…”
Jin hadn’t even cut them down himself, just as he said.
He didn’t even leave them the honor of dying by Runkandel’s blade on the battlefield.
“Repent in death. For what you have done. And pray that Dante neither dies nor is harmed. If that happens, I will exterminate not only your families but your vassals and their kin as well…”
Even as they faced death, the central knights couldn’t believe this was the end.
Jin’s voice was deep and dark, impossible to dismiss as empty threats—a pureblood Runkandel’s warning.
As Jin moved forward again, the emperor’s troops retreated.
The plain was vast, but it felt as if a cliff lay just behind them. If they kept falling back to avoid Jin, they would surely fall into it.
Yet their feet refused to move forward.
A massive shadow of terror, one that overshadowed even the emperor’s orders and the madness of war, was steadily advancing.
When they thought they faced Hiran without Ron, the emperor’s troops were confident of victory.
With countless dragons, knights, mages, and the empire’s most powerful war machines like dragon cannons, they believed the Sword Emperor’s Fortress would be destroyed.
That was why, even knowing this purge was unjust, they attacked the fortress.
Right or wrong, standing on the losing side of war only leads to death and ruin.
If they sided with Hiran, they too would become traitors and meet their end.
But they had overlooked one thing: Hiran was not alone.
They failed to recognize the bond between Hiran’s lord and the twelve Runkandel riders, a bond stronger than blood.
Now, certainty and despair that ‘we cannot win’ weighed heavily on the emperor’s troops.
Beyond that, a question gnawed at them:
Could the empire even continue to exist after today?
They wanted to confess their sins and beg to stand with Hiran, even now.
I wanted to say in a pitiful voice that I was powerless and only followed the emperor’s orders, and that, in truth, I respected Hailan more than the royal family.
But Jin and Hailan weren’t about to accept such a ridiculous excuse.
They knew better than anyone that “I was just following orders” was no excuse at all.
Some finally lost their minds and broke down in tears; others dropped their weapons, trembling all over.
Some screamed, but not to fight back—they had simply turned into frightened beasts, losing all reason.
“I swear on the names of the twelve knights of Runkandel. Run away. I won’t stop you. But anyone who stays on this battlefield will die—without exception. However, in my opinion…”
You’d be better off dying here than living with a lifetime of shame and self-loathing.
Jin’s words trailed off as he glared at the enemy.
Those who met his gaze felt it deep in their bones.
Whether they stood their ground or fled, there was nothing waiting for them but hell.