Chapter 269: Chapter 268: The Living Keep Walking
On Skitz and the captains’ side, the clash was already ending. One by one, the Knights who had tried to overwhelm them fell, their blood darkening the mud.
Krivex stood over a collapsed opponent, arrow buried deep in his visor, Aren’s spear had pinned another through the chest, the boar riders hacked the last of their foes down in savage rhythm.
They regrouped quickly, dragging the wounded Knights toward Lumberling. Their commander waited, spear still humming faintly with lingering essence.
The first Knight slumped against the earth, blood bubbling at his lips. His gaze was wild, laughter breaking through the agony.
"Go on... finish me... but know this, General Lafuente will come for you. I’ll be waiting for you in hell!" His laugh turned into a rasping cough, but his eyes burned with hate until the very end.
Lumberling’s face didn’t change. He drove his spear clean through the man’s chest. Essence surged, and with a flick of his hand, he directed it into Skitz.
Skitz wiped his blades clean, glancing at him with a flicker of concern. "This General Lafuente... what do we do if he comes?"
Lumberling rolled his shoulder, as if the question weighed less than the blood on his spear. "We’ll face him. And if we can’t... then we’ll find help."
Skitz snorted, a crooked grin breaking across his face. "Hah. Simple as that, huh?"
"Simple’s what keeps us alive," Lumberling answered flatly, before turning his eyes back to the battlefield.
Anderson was dead. The elite Knights lay broken at their feet. The battle, once a storm threatening to drown them, shifted like a tide.
The Sengolio lines wavered. First came hesitation, then shouts of retreat. Soldiers who had roared into battle moments ago were now stumbling back, eyes wide with panic as they saw their Knights lying in the mud.
"Don’t let them breathe!" Takkar bellowed, blood dripping from both axes as he charged forward.
"Run them down!" Vakk and Skarn echoed, their boars crashing into the scattering enemy like a living wall.
The captains roared, surging ahead in a frenzy. Krivex’s arrows cut down men fleeing into the dark. Gobo1 and Gobo2 smashed into their ranks, blades flashing with grim precision. Aren drove his spear into another man’s gut, twisting as the soldier screamed.
Lumberling himself waded forward, every thrust of his spear a death sentence. Essence spilled into him with each fallen soldier, the air around him humming with the weight of it. He didn’t slow down.
More than two thousand Sengolio soldiers were crushed beneath the rampage of Lumberling and his captains. The rout became a slaughter. Those who tried to regroup found no ground to stand on, those who fled found a spear, an axe, or an arrow waiting in their backs.
When the screams finally dimmed and only silence lingered, Lumberling stood at the center, his chest rising and falling with steady rhythm. The stench of blood clung to everything.
A faint chime rang in his mind.
(Beginner Flowing Edge has become Level 5. Power +208.)
He felt the strength surging through his veins, every muscle thrumming with new life. His sword techniques had sharpened, and the two new active skills he had gained in the battle settled into his core. Growth had come, but so had the cost.
.....
When dawn touched the broken battlefield, silence reigned. The smell of blood and ash hung heavy in the air, broken only by the low cries of the wounded. Lumberling walked among his subordinates, his spear resting against his shoulder as he took stock of the living and the dead.
The count was grim. From Baron Roland’s side, nearly all of his hundred men lay scattered across the field. The young recruits, brave but green, had stood little chance against the seasoned blades of Sengolio’s veterans. Roland himself stood hollow-eyed, his once-proud banner tattered and slick with blood.
Worse still were the civilians. Over three hundred had perished in the chaos, trampled or cut down when the lines broke. Their screams still echoed in the minds of those who had survived, a reminder of how fragile their charge truly was. Protecting thousands with only a few hundred blades had been impossible.
On Lumberling’s side, the losses cut deep as well. Twenty-three of his own, hobgoblins and elite kobolds who had fought with discipline and fury, now lay still among the dead. Their blood mixed with their enemies’, their weapons clutched in stiff hands.
No one spoke when the pyres were built. The soldiers worked in silence, stacking wood, laying bodies with care. Flames licked upward as dusk fell, painting the sky with smoke and sparks.
Gobo1 stood with head bowed, hand clenched on his sword. Gobo2 knelt silently beside the flames, shield resting against the earth. Takkar and his brothers muttered old words from their tribe, their voices low and rough, carried off by the wind. Skitz lingered in the shadows, his daggers still sheathed, his eyes unreadable.
Lumberling stood before the pyres, face hard but his chest heavy. "You fought well," he said at last, his voice carrying over the crackle of fire. "Your strength carried us here. And your sacrifice will carry us further. Rest, knowing your blood was not wasted."
The flames rose high, burning the dead until only ash and glowing embers drifted into the night. No one cried out, war had taken their tears long ago. Instead, a heavy silence settled, deeper than mourning.
When the last spark dimmed, Lumberling turned to his men. "We move at first light. The living can’t stop walking."
No one argued. They all knew it to be true.
The days that followed were strangely quiet. For two weeks, no ambushes came, no shadows stalked their march. The roads that had been rivers of blood became paths of uneasy calm. Soldiers healed, armor was patched, spirits steadied. The civilians, though shaken, began to walk with more hope than fear.
And at last, after hardship that felt like years crammed into weeks, the banners of Lireath’s territory rose on the horizon.
The sight brought a murmur through the weary caravan, relief, disbelief, and a flicker of something none of them had dared feel in too long, safety.