Emperor Has Returned

Chapter 252 – Warriors of the North (4)

Torbal was a warrior of the Northern Army.

Just like the other warriors, Torbal’s admiration for General Nienna started when he was young, and he had always been longing to be placed under her command. Fortunately, when he joined the army as an adult, Nienna was still in command of the army.

When Torbal finally stepped into his very first battlefield under General Nienna’s command, he was also with the emperor. Honestly, he didn’t entirely trust the emperor.

The stories about the emperor that had been passed down orally were unbelievable and absurd, and the emperor himself also didn’t look reliable.

Nienna was the best commander in Torbal’s eyes, and there was no way that someone else could convince him otherwise. General Nienna was beautiful and kind. She was a powerful ice mage as well. Torbal wanted to help her, but their situation was hopeless.

The Northern Army was able to crush the monsters at the beginning of the battle, but the fight soon became incredibly difficult for them because of the tentacles and the monsters attacking them at once.

Even Nienna seemed like she was barely holding out from afar.

The only reason Torbal was still alive was thanks to his comrades and luck.

“Aaaahhh!” Torbal shouted and swung his ax. Torbal was drenched in blood and riddled with wounds. His vision had long gotten blurry as well, but he didn’t mind dying on this battlefield. It would be an honor for the northerners to die in action.

Actually, it was common for old people to purposely go to the North and die fighting monsters rather than dying on their sickbeds.

‘But…but Your Majesty. Please save our queen. Please save General Nienna…!’

For Torbal, Nienna’s death on this battlefield would be no different from the end of the world. Torbal wished that he could clone himself so that he could build a wall of flesh to protect Nienna.

For the first time ever, Torbal prayed earnestly in his heart.

“This is it! We need you the most right now!” Torbal exclaimed without realizing it.

However, his earnest prayer only ended up catching the monster’s attention. A monster that looked like a giant beetle that was at least five times larger than Torbal approached him.

Torbal came to his senses and realized that he was alone.

His comrades were nowhere to be found.

Torbal could already smell the scent of death. The monster charged toward him with its sickle-like teeth. Torbal managed to stop the monster’s teeth from biting him, but the monster swung its short leg and stabbed Torbal in the stomach.

The sharp pain made Torbal brace himself before he could fall to the ground.

However, he didn’t fall.

The grotesque-looking monster was torn into ribbons.

Someone protected Torbal from certain death, and he also came to his senses just then.

Someone was still alive and was fighting with him.

Torbal turned to express his gratitude, but his eyes widened.

The man standing next to him turned out to be the emperor with his signature black hair and black eyes.

The emperor swung his sword with Torbal next to him.

***

Nienna extended her hand and scratched the air.

The floating ice spears moved and tore dozens of monsters at once. The monsters couldn’t regenerate—not even their blood could stain the ground because their wounds had instantly frozen over.

Nienne felt like she had been doing the same routine for ages now, but she was still quite a distance away from Black Aldebaran.

“Not bad. I can tell that you really want to show off. I’m hoping that you’ll learn the meaning of helplessness this time,” Black Aldebaran mocked Nienna while standing behind the multitude of monsters.

Nienna ignored Black Aldebaran’s mocking and focused on the monsters in front of her.

Honestly, she felt that the ongoing situation was becoming more and more disadvantageous for them. He couldn’t even count how many monsters she had slain at this point, but the monsters still showed no signs of decreasing.

Nienna felt like she was fighting the waves of the ocean. The corpses of the monsters had already formed a few tall hills, but they were still coming at her like a deluge.

Since even Nienna herself was finding it difficult to keep up with the overwhelming numbers of the monsters, she was sure that the soldiers had to have lost their morale by now.

The army was still holding out in a triangular formation because Nienna was at the tip of the formation, but the monsters not only weren’t showing signs of abating, but they were also becoming stronger as time went on.

‘Should we retreat?’

Nienna had retreated for strategic purposes before, but she had never once retreated to save her life. Running away from the Crack had never been an option for her, and she had never even thought about it.

However, Nienna was convinced that if she were to run away this time, she wouldn’t be able to come back and fight them again. Therefore, Nienna knew that she had to do her best to hold out as much as she could, and to do that, she had to fight.

“All warriors!” Nienna gnashed her teeth and shouted, “Think of your comrades’ shoulders as walls! Try your best to hold out rather than kill! I will kill them all for you!”

Nienna had no choice but to admit that there was no way she could kill Black Aldebaran at this point. The front line would immediately collapse if she were to abandon these warriors for the sake of fighting Black Aldebaran.

Therefore, Nienna decided to open a retreat route for the soldiers rather than fighting Black Aldebaran. Nienna used every drop of mana she could squeeze out to gather enough power that would instantly kill hundreds of monsters.

‘Using that gap, I should be able to carve a path for them to retreat.’

All of a sudden, Nienna could feel people advancing toward the left wing. Nienna was perplexed when she saw Walter, the deputy of the Order of Fenrir, running toward the left wing.

Nienna was about to shout and ask him what he was doing, but she suddenly felt a shiver down her spine.

Nienna was convinced that the army would be annihilated, but for some reason, the soldiers and monsters were being forcibly rearranged. It felt like an unknown anomaly was forcing the monsters and soldiers to move like that.

In fact, Nienna was convinced that the soldiers and monsters had no idea that they were already moving in accordance with the anomaly’s will.

“General Nienna!” Walter shouted at Nienna. Goosebumps broke out all over Nienna when he saw Walter’s eyes. Walter’s eyes burned orange, making them look as if they were melting iron. “To the left wing! We have to get to the left wing! I will open the way!”

Walter cleaved the monsters ahead of him.

Walter’s swordsmanship had always been great and powerful, but the combined strength of the monsters had to be stronger than Walter's. Despite that, Walter knocked them down as if they were strawmen and led the way.

Walter wasn’t the only one who had changed. Nienna could feel that the casualty rate of the army had gone down considerably at some point. In addition, the morale of the soldiers was increasing.

It was incomprehensible.

‘The monsters have become even more numerous and stronger, but why are the soldiers becoming more motivated? Shouldn’t they despair that the enemies had grown in number and strength?’

It didn’t make sense. However, Nienna’s heart suddenly throbbed upon sensing a powerful presence at the left wing. Her heart started beating so fast that she started feeling like she was burning.

“His Majesty!” a soldier shouted.

“His Majesty The Emperor is with us!”

A soldier’s cry was the tinder that ignited a wildfire of cheers that soon evolved into a concerted slogan. The cries of the soldiers got so loud that the isolated soldiers erupted with enough power to break through and join the line.

Nienna was also shouting along with the soldiers.

Black Aldebaran and the Thornbush Priest Organization noticed something strange.

An aberrant flow was going against the multitudes of monsters on the battlefield, and it was showing no signs of abating.

The Northern Army pushed the monsters away. Nienna could also feel that the aberrant flow was slowly taking over the battlefield.

It wasn’t really that unusual because something similar had been happening in some areas of the battlefield, and the battlefield itself was filled with lots of coincidences and desperation.

The aberrant flow was leading the army through the narrow path to victory.

The battlefield seemed to be covered in an orange haze.

“His Majesty is with us!”

At last, Nienna saw a black-haired young man among the soldiers.

The young man was none other than Juan.

Nienna felt as if her heart stopped the moment she saw Juan.

Juan calmly put his shoulders together with the soldiers as he cut the monsters down along with the soldiers.

“His Majesty is with us!”

Another round of cheers swept across the battlefield, and Nienna was finally convinced that she hadn’t been seeing things when she saw Juan just now. It couldn’t have been an illusion because the soldiers were shouting at the top of their lungs.

It was then that a line emerged from the right flank. The line of soldiers parted the monsters, and a bloodied Pavan emerged to join Nienna’s line. Pavan’s eyes were also burning with an orange light.

When Pavan saw Nienna, he started shouting desperately, “General Nienna! Did you see?!”

Nienna understood right away, even though Pavan didn’t specifically refer to someone.

“Of course…” Nienna faced Pavan’s burning eyes and answered, “His Majesty is with us.”

***

“W-What is going on right now?” Bekelt muttered, seemingly dumbfounded.

The battlefield belonged to them until recently. The Northern Army was about to get annihilated, and Bekelt himself was already imagining the scene of Gerard acknowledging him for faithfully fulfilling the orders he had received.

Anya was powerful, but the Order of Huginn was still not the Order of Lindwurm’s match. The Northern Army would also get buried beneath the multitude of monsters, even if they were led by the powerful Nienna.

Pavan and the Imperial Army would also become monster feed.

However, the battlefield changed rapidly, and the monsters kept on falling everywhere.

The Northern Army seemed to have gotten lucky because things kept on going their way, and they were also able to muster more strength than normal.

In addition, there had been several cases where soldiers managed to avoid dying thanks to absurd and ridiculous coincidences.

However, what was even more ridiculous was that his body was currently thrashing around on the ground. Grotesque-looking parasites extended their appendages from his head, seemingly in an effort to re-attach Bekelt’s head to his thrashing body.

Anya ruthlessly stomped the parasites and giggled.

“At last, I can finally fulfill one of my lifelong wishes—talking to a severed head.”

“T-this is impossible…! We—the Order of Lindwurm is…!”

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“I have been looking forward to this, but you’re boring me here,” grumbled Anya.

“What have you done? How could this be…!”

“Hmm.?I expected you to tell me the secret behind death or sightings of the afterlife, but this is rather boring...”

Anya spun Bekelt’s head around and hurled it away.

Urkel snatched Bekelt’s head out of mid-air, and he immediately chucked Bekelt’s head into his mouth. Bekelt could only watch as Urkel’s sharp teeth surrounded him, and he couldn’t even let out a scream because Urkel tore and chewed on his tongue.

“You’re not even worthy of being a slave. Just float in the void for eternity,” Anya said.

Anya was about to continue to snap her fingers, but she suddenly tilted her head in wonder. Bekelt’s regenerative ability was strong, and his magic resistance was considerably high as well, so it had taken Anya quite some time to defeat him.

‘Will he die immediately once Urkel’s teeth penetrated his skull?’

Anya got curious, but Bekelt couldn’t even groan, not to mention scream, which meant that he couldn’t satisfy Anya’s curiosity. Urkel continued chewing on Bekelt’s head, and Urkel seemed eager about not leaving even a crumb behind as he made sure to chew even the tiniest pieces.

Anya decided to abandon her curiosity and continue what she had been doing all this while.

Meanwhile, Entalucia’s flames turned hundreds of monsters into ashes, creating a long path for the northern troops to take. The other northern troops quickly entered the path, and they finally appeared in Anya’s sight as they trudged through the scorched ground.

Nienna froze the approaching monsters, and she eventually managed to create a thin wall around them. Anya got ready to join them while observing the miracles that were happening all over the battlefield.

However, Anya wasn’t really surprised because she had faced Juan several times before. She simply smiled as if she had been waiting for him all this time and as if not not even once did she think that Juan had actually died.

Anya had long noticed Juan’s presence; more specifically, she noticed him when the battlefield started changing drastically.

Right now, Juan was currently staring at the Crack. He didn’t disappear into the monsters anymore, and Anya stared at him in silence from a distance.

Eventually, Juan made a move.

Anya saw that Juan was heading toward the now ownerless Dragon Citadel that the Order of Lindwurm had brought over with them.

***

A lukewarm and sweet scent struck the tip of Juan’s nose.

The air from beyond the Crack was a sweet trap. Many people had fallen victim to the sweet scent and stepped beyond the Crack, and they either died or became a degenerate that only knew how to either praise, curse, love, or despite the Crack.

Despite their cries, the Crack had never answered them—even once.

It couldn’t be helped because the Crack had always been like that.

After stepping into the Crack, Juan felt like he was starting to understand the bittersweet attitude of the thornbush priests to the Crack and Nienna’s blind hatred for the Crack.

The more humans found out about the Crack, the deeper they would fall into it, and it was all because they would become cognizant of the world’s emptiness upon learning of the Crack. The Crack was ruthless, and it would tell them that the world wasn’t interested in them and that the world was only interested in expanding endlessly and remaining eternal.

Juan also felt like he was starting to understand Gerard.

After all, Qzatquizail was born in such a void.

Juan looked into the Crack from right in front of the Dragon Citadel and muttered into the air, “Perhaps you also found it difficult to endure such emptiness, Gerard.”

Juan could already feel Gerard’s energy, and he could also feel that Gerard was listening to him and watching his every move.

“I’m convinced that the reason you wanted to fill the entire world with your own race was that you think you know them well and that they are similar to you…” Juan grinned and mocked. “However, do you really think that we’ll just leave the universe in the hands of an immature bastard like you? A man like you does not deserve to rule the entire universe—you do not deserve anything more than a tiny sandcastle.”