Divine Beast Ascension

621 Looking For a Chance of Survival

Khas’s eyes drifted toward the rest of the army with mixed feelings growing more turbulent inside him.

The wildebeests were only a few minutes away from reaching the back of the Prodson army. And without the incoming wildebeests, the Prodson army was already on the back foot in battle. Especially when three perennial beasts were carving through the Prodson troops.

So, Khas hurriedly scanned for the Prodson army leaders.

Right away, Captain Khas was startled to see Lizbeth returning to the battlefield. Next, Khas spotted Lambier sitting up beside Rakan’s lifeless body.

When Khas failed to spot Lieutenant Commander Darett, Khas quickly assumed the worst.

But, just as a spec of hope for surrender and survival appeared in Captain Khas’s mind, Khas noticed someone still standing. To confirm what he saw, Khaw hurried to his feet and leaped into the air. He grunted, “Damn! Ephar’s still alive…”

Chting! CH-CHTING! Frr-chting!

Ephar held strong, refusing to fall back or be finished by any blade. He blocked with either his axe or with stone pillars. Even when Mertin’s ice-laced blade nicked Ephar’s arm, Ephar leaned aside while knocking the sword away.

Unlike Ephar, Mertin’s breathing was calm. Mertin’s arms were steady. And Mertin’s footing was sure while skating around the commander.

.....

“Wildebeests?!”

“INCOMING!”

“There are too many perennials!?”

A few shouts rang out from the army’s rear, piling more fuel onto the Prodson army’s growing bonfire of despair.

The cries of his men grated on Ephar’s ears. He didn’t have the time or the opportunity to worry about anyone else. Ephar was too busy trying to figure a way out of his own precarious situation.

“At this rate,” Mertin shared a sly comment, “you really will be nothing but my stepping stone.”

That was the final straw!

There were more than half a dozen slits and stab wounds littering Ephar’s body. Though Ephar wasn’t on the verge of death, Ephar was reaching the point of no return. Unless something changed soon, Ephar’s two-handed grip would weaken and his legs would no longer be able to keep up.

“Die already, pest!”

Ephar yelled at the top of his lungs. Stone pillars rose under each foot at a diagonal, propelling Ephar forward while trying to also raise Ephar out of immediate striking distance.

The earth essence gathered around Ephar’s battleaxe instantly grew in length, more than doubling the size of Ehpar’s axehead by making it a construct axe with the true battleaxe at the core.

Mertin was stuck in a bind.

Ephar was uncomfortably close. And the commander’s ankles were at the height of Mertin’s face, with Ephar tucking into a front flip to finish his heavy, downward strike.

So Mertin reflexively reacted by copying Ephar, to an extent.

The ice already under Mertin’s feet suddenly raced up Mertin’s legs. While the frost grabbed hold of Mertin’s feet, locking them into place, the ice grew backward at the same angle as Ephar’s stone pillars.

One man was coming down. One man was going up. And both overloaded their weapons with essence, looking to deal the final strike of the match.

CH-CH-CHTING! CR-CRACK! Crunch-FRRRIP! … Thud.

Mertin’s upward, diagonal swing was made with his revolving saw of a blade. But, when the ice saw failed to cut and break through the dense earth essence around Ephar’s axe, the axe continued to fall down upon Mertin.

The half-construct battleaxe cracked through Mertin’s ice essence armor, along with Mertin’s actual, early-perennial grade armor.

Inevitably, blood splattered and flesh was hacked apart. The battleaxe cleaved into the back of Mertin’s shoulder. A long, diagonal gash was created on Mertin’s back, from the tip of his shoulder to almost the center of his back.

However, due to Mertin’s strange lean forward, Ephar’s strike didn’t get a simple, direct landing.

Instead, Mertin had leaned toward the incoming commander with Mertin’s right-hand side. And the razor-thin, icy blade around Mertin’s second sword extended forward with explosive speed. Mertin’s saw-like blade slowed and partially redirected the threatening battleaxe. That gave Mertin the split second necessary for his rapidly expanding ice blade to pierce the flipping commander.

The razor-sharp blade was thin, so it broke the next moment due to Ephar’s fast rotation. But the damage it had caused was irreversible.

The long, thin blade of glacial ice had quickly pierced through the front of Ephar’s shoulder. And the furiously-expanding blade managed to stab all the way through most of Ephar’s torso, until the frosty tip poked out of Ephar’s lower back.

The battle axe slipped out of Ephar’s weakening grip, fully knocked back by Mertin’s saw-like sword the next instant.

All while Ephar’s flipping body slammed into the ground. And the razor-thin ice blade shattered inside him on impact, cutting even more of Ephar’s internal organs and muscles in the process.

F-Frrrip!...

Mertin wasted no time. Mertin’s ice-locked legs held firm while he ignored the bleeding scar on his back. So, immediately breaking the hold on his feet, Mertin swiped his sawing blade across the fallen Ephar’s neck, severing the spinal cord along with the back half of Ephar’s neck.

While the first cries of worry and fear rang out from the charge of Eefran’s wildebeests, Mertin swung his sawing blade once more to fully decapitate the commander.

Then, after skewering the severed head on his ice-bladed shortsword, Mertin took a moment to breathe while rising a few krin with an ice pillar under him.

Exhaling sharply, Mertin raised Ephar’s head to the sky for all to see. He yelled, “PRODSON! Your commander is dead! Surrender, or be trampled to death!”

The Prodson troops were already at their limit, under the threat of more beasts and even more perennials now.

Captain Khas saw this as his moment to speak.

After getting a nod of approval from Ania, Khas immediately leaped into the air and hovered with wind essence wrapped around Khas’s lower body. “PRODSON SURRENDERS!! Men, drop your weapons and kneel if you long to survive!”

Thump, thump, thump…

Dozens of troops fell to their knees and dropped their weapons to the ground without hesitation. Dozens more did the same a couple seconds later.