Undying Berserker
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Chapter 61 - Risk and Reward
🕑 Added 2025-02-05 13:20:46 +0000 UTCMoving in the middle of the enemy’s lines was a pretty risk, tt was almost suicidal, but thanks to the darkness of the night and the chaos, Zelos was able to do so without being stopped. Some people found it odd seeing someone moving from one side to the other of their formation, but they just assumed that he was a messenger or something.
It didn’t take long for him to find another mounted archer, and then Zelos got closer and then threw an iron ball at him. Another skull was crushed, and the enemy fell to his death. When Zelos managed to kill the fourth mounted archer, he noticed that things were starting to heat up… he tried to be faster than the word of those guys being attacked could spread, but it looked like he failed.
“Kaitrine should be doing better there… there are dozens more of those, after all, and not all of them should have come to this attack.”
Zelos began to run and eventually noticed some people looking at him with suspicious eyes. Before they could do anything, though, he used his charging technique and then impaled them and moved on.
Still, when he found the fifth target, Zelos saw his guards completely battle-ready, with their weapons drawn and looking in all directions. In the end, Zelos drew his club and then increased his speeds to the limits. One side of the enemies guarding that target noticed his approach and then positioned themselves to face him, but as soon as they opened their mouths to alert the others, Zelos used his charging technique and then collided with them.
The four guards were smashed between the club and the horse… They survived the attack, but they lost the air in their lungs as their bones cracked… the mounted archer began to fall, but Zelos still had the chance to swing his club at his head and then kill him instantly.
When the other guards saw their leader falling, they soon got ready to face the enemy, they should at least kill the assailants, but when the horse fell alongside the dead lieutenant, they found only their wounded friends on the ground.
“This will be harder than I thought.”
Zelos had turned to the side and then disappeared in the darkness of the back of the enemy’s formation… he will have to cross longer distances thanks to that, but at least he will be safer for a while longer.
While looking over his shoulders, Zelos realized that in the areas he had passed, the chaos was unfolding since the enemies were still fighting, unaware that their officers had been killed. The same thing was happening on the other side of their formation… and they never noticed it because the back and the front of their formations were too engaged in the combat. That was the demerit of trying to be overly cautious… they knew exactly what they had to do and never went beyond that all in order to preserve their strength as much as possible.
“Kaitrine doesn’t know how to pace herself… so I need to hurry up.”
That was a bit odd considering how much composed and calm her father was, but it looked like it would take years before Kaitrine managed to deal with her hot-headedness. While he was thinking about that, Zelos found the next target and soon changed his direction toward him, but as soon as he got closer, he saw the enemy looking in his direction and then readying his bow.
“I knew things wouldn’t be convenient forever…”
The enemy fired his arrow and Zelos was unable to see it coming, thanks to the darkness of the night and its speed. Still, he moved his club to protect his head and heart. The weapon trembled when the projectile hit it, but then it ricocheted and then hit Zelos’s left shoulder.
The impact made it lose some power, but it still pierced his flesh a fair bit… enough to make him grunt in annoyance. Zelos ignored the pain and kept going, but soon, the enemy began to fire several arrows faster than before. They had lost their power, but their speed was still troublesome.
In the end, Zelos moved his club to the side and then put all his strength in the next motion… moving his entire body like a whip, he launched his club in the air and made it spin violently toward the enemy. No one expected a club like that to cross those forty meters… much less cross it so fast, but it happened. The weapon not only blocked the arrows the enemy fired in the blink of an eye, it also hit his head, making him fall from his horse.
In the next moment, his guards looked behind to see what had happened to him, but one second later, they turned only to see Zelos right in front of them, swinging his sword and claiming their lives.
……
While Zelos was finishing that group of enemies, Liry was watching the battle unfolding before her while squinting her eyes… Despite the darkness of the night, she could see some silhouettes two hundred meters ahead of her falling on both sides of the enemy’s lines. At the same time, Heirina was holding her spear tightly since they were too close to the front lines… one could literally see the enemies and their expressions of anger ahead while facing the defenders.
“Liry, we should retreat…”
Liry was too focused on the enemy’s lines to hear that, so her response was nothing like Heirina, Edea, and Irlan had expected.
“We need to advance. We need to rally up our allies right now.”
Everyone stared at her blankly. That wasn’t part of the plan they had heard before. Considering what they could see in the battle, both sides were even, so perhaps she had a point, but that was too dangerous.
“Zelos and Kaitrine are having a hard time facing the mounted archers, and they should have some guards or something like that. They aren’t firing arrows at us because they are aware that someone is targeting them… it is time to go all out and deliver a power blow to their numbers.”
Heirina had many things to say about that, but she couldn’t deny Liry’s points… if they wanted to change the flow of the battle as much as possible to their side, they had to do it now while the enemies were unaware of what was happening.
“All right… but stay behind us, no matter what! Edea, stay behind and keep an eye on the surroundings. Put an arrow on the head of anyone suspicious that might approach us.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Let’s go then.”
Zelos thought that his cover was gone as soon as he got rid of those guys, but much to his surprise, things got even more insane in the area. He began to hear screams on the defending side, and then the enemy soldiers looked even more enraged and began to charge even faster.
“This is my chance!”
Zelos began to run again toward the next target, but then he looked to the side and then saw for a moment Liry approaching the front lines… she even had a sword in her hand and was raising it to rally the troops.
That made Zelos even eager to make sure that her stupid decision would work without costing her life. To the point that he began to use his charging technique, even though he was fifty meters away from the next target. He decided to do that because he could feel his body reaching the peak in terms of warming up.
Thanks to that, Zelos was able to cross that distance in three steps and in the blink of an eye as well. When the guards of the next target realized that something passed by them, Zelos had already cut the throat of their leader and he was landing on the other side of the horse.
After using the technique two more times, he disappeared completely from the area and he still couldn’t feel his legs suffering damage. He only began to feel some pain when he killed two more targets, but at that point in time, he soon stopped when he saw Kaitrine stopping ahead. She raised her eyebrows while sweating a lot… she didn’t expect that Zelos would have been that fast, but there was no time for that.
“Let’s leave right now. They will start the encirclement and we will be found by the enemies.”
Zelos nodded and then they soon began to run while taking a long arc away from the area. The enemies were trying to reach Liry with all their might, but the defending soldiers were roaring while facing the enemies without a shred of hesitation.
While Zelos were circling around the enemy’s lines to reach the defending side, the enemies began to retreat because they weren’t receiving orders. Soon enough, they realized that their officers have been disposed off and we’re forced to retreat, but the defending side keeps chasing them and killing them further until Liry gives them the order to stop thanks to the darkness of the night. All that only happened in just ten minutes, but the chaos seemed endless.
When those two found the others, they saw that the group looked completely fine, but they were cleaning their weapons from blood. It seemed that some of the enemies reached them.
“WOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!”
The defenders began to roar in excitement for their obvious victory, but the group wasn’t so sure if that truly had been a massive victory. There were a lot of corpses from allies on the ground… a lot of them were from the ones that died a few days ago.
“Half of those who are fine form a line and stay on watch, the others who need medical attention retreat immediately. Help those that can’t walk retreat!”
The two captains were nowhere to be seen, but soon they appeared while helping the wounded. They had some scratches on their bodies as well, so it looked like they fought a lot… that was a bold move, considering that the other three had been executed.
The group retreated to the tent that they had set up for Liry and waited for the reports. The number of wounded was high, but they were all doing relatively well thanks to their high morale. Irlan didn’t look that serious. It looked like he also had a fair estimation of the numbers.
“I think that fifteen hundred of the enemies were disposed of while we lost around five hundred. The problem is the number of wounded on our side.”
The high morale made people fight more and better than they could, but that was also a double-edged sword since it could compromise their future fighting abilities. Regardless, soon one of the captains confirmed that… the enemies lost a little more than fourteen hundred soldiers while the defenders’ side lost 450. However, the number of wounded was almost two thousand, and that was two-thirds of the remaining forces. Liry held her chin while squinting her eyes.
