It wasn’t fear that this might be one’s turn next. No, it wasn’t even fear to begin with.
It wasn’t a metaphor; literally, inescapable death was being scattered everywhere.
“Gatling-type,” “20mm.”
Dale, shielded by his subordinates, focuses his consciousness on the magical incantation as he unleashes the essence of slaughter.
Gatling포. The first weapon of mass destruction (WMD).
In a sense, it surpassed the ‘mass destruction magic’ imagined by the people of this world.
Countless black barrels endlessly scattering bullets of darkness. Shadow Bullets. There was no need to even consider the number of bullets. Following Dale’s footsteps, shadows whirled endlessly, wrought into hundreds of bullets, relentlessly raining down.
A hail of 20mm caliber shadow bullets.
“Aaaah!”
“It hurts, it hurts!”
Gunfire echoed, and screams rang out. Skulls shattered, brains splattered, bones broke, armor cracked. Intestines spilled out in streams, and a rain of blood poured down.
Those who died instantly, without even a scream, were perhaps the fortunate ones.
One crawled along the floor, both legs gone. Another, a bullet hole piercing his armor, desperately tried to plug the spilling entrails. Yet another wailed, crying out his mother’s name.
A river of blood.
The wedge formation deployed by the cavalry, intended to decisively break through Black Armor Company’s dense formation, had instead made itself an easy target for Dale.
And by the time the firing ceased, not a single one of the 2,000 enemy soldiers facing the Black Armor Company dared to approach.
It was an instant.
Before the cavalry’s horses could close the distance of a few hundred meters, the entire unit was wiped out in that instant.
What else could describe this but a ‘mass destruction magic’?
“How could they use a mass destruction spell…?”
“I, I said it in the Imperial Court! The eldest son of the Saxon family possesses three, three circles…”
“Don’t be ridiculous! How on earth is that a three-circle mage?!”
That should have been the case. But what stood before them now was the very embodiment of a high-circle mage unleashing a mass destruction spell upon the battlefield.
Silence fell. Yet the exploits of the Black Armor Company’s captain, the ‘Black Prince,’ were far from over. No, they hadn’t even begun.
Dale simply flicked his finger. Toward the shadow cloak fluttering at his feet.
“Rise, my children.”
Furthermore, becoming a 20mm caliber bullet, it aimed at the ‘Shadow Bullets’ scattered throughout the surrounding area.
「Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
At Dale’s command, the ‘Shadow Bullets’ embedded within the cavalrymen’s bodies began to glow. They were not mere bullets. They were a horde of living shadows, filled with terrible malice.
The living bullets of darkness began to rage within the cavalrymen’s bodies.
The second form of the Shadow Cloak. Shadow Parasite.
Those who were already dead were the lucky ones. For those still alive, they had to writhe in agony as their internal organs were torn out and devoured.
“Hungry, hungry, hungry!”
“Hungryyyyy!”
The corpses of cavalrymen who should have lain dead and scattered rose, emitting screams that seemed not of this world.
Using the corpses of the cavalrymen, who should have been riddled with Shadow Bullets and dead, as hosts, the shadows parasitized them, taking root in the darkness. They became the dead, dancing like puppets to the endless hunger and darkness.
The shadow cloak draped over Dale flutters even in the absence of a breeze.
‘Even though we’re quite a distance apart, it’s still manageable.’
He thought this as he observed the hosts of the shadow parasites rising up in various places.
Without a shred of emotion, Dale was gauging his own capabilities.
‘Could I add a modifier here?’
A conscious bias to induce the ‘magic’s character and form’ that aligns with his purpose.
The distance was considerable, and the hosts of the shadow parasites numbered well over a hundred. And once more, Dale focused his consciousness upon them.
Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!
The corpses’ bodies twisted grotesquely, like something out of a horror movie. The dead had no need to protect their entrails, so they shifted some of their ribs on the spot.
Snap!
Sharp white bone blades sprouted along the arms of the dead.
They erected bone armor across the flesh, promoting rigor mortis throughout the body where smooth movement was unnecessary, forming a ‘living armor’ ready for immediate use.
And there was no need to issue orders to each of those dead. For within their throats, and further still within their hearts, there already resided a ‘living shadow’.
Shadow parasites. By becoming hosts to those very parasites, the dead began to move.
“Hungry, hungry, hungry!”
An army of the dead. The dead, starving in endless hunger, craving prey.
Not a single one was spared, even if the target had been a comrade who had just exchanged jokes moments before.
Dale’s ‘weapon of mass destruction’ wiped out the cavalry… and the shadow bullets that poured into the cavalry’s bodies have transformed into parasites, now controlling the corpses of the dead.
‘How far can this go?’
Watching this, Dale calmly assessed.
‘How much influence over the battle can I exert through them?’
The power he wielded when focusing solely on magic within Black Armor Company’s dense formation. Furthermore, command magic on a scale rivaling the elders of the Black Tower.
Dale knew it too. And the enemies here were merely sacrifices to test his capabilities.
The sacrificial lamb of the experiment. The darkness of the Black Legion’s execution squad came to mind without warning.
“……”
After the memory surfaced, he shook his head. This was a battlefield. Kill or be killed.
Going into battle without preparing for death is absurd.
That was why Dale’s fallen began charging forward, heedless of danger. Though they couldn’t compare to the ‘Death Knights’, how many infantrymen would it take to deal with just one of those fallen?
“Hold them back! Do not break formation!”
“Aaaargh, it bit my neck! My neck! Aaaargh!”
Watching the scene where the living and the dead clashed, he coldly assessed the tactical value of Dale’s fallen.
‘One undead armed with heavy armor equals seven infantry.’
‘One unarmored undead against three infantry.’
‘Piercing armor with a bone blade remains impossible.’
Without a shred of emotion, his expression resembled that of one gathering experimental data. He assessed and honed his capabilities as a mage, repeatedly thinking to reach the next level.
It was at that very moment.
“Master, I don’t want to die…”
“I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die!”
“We can’t win! Everyone, run!”
“Get out of the way!”
Amidst the endless tide of the fallen, another plague began to spread. It was the same plague that Dale’s sniper rifle had once scattered.
Fear. The fear of not wanting to die was spreading like a plague. Facing barely a hundred undead, despite possessing a force equal to that number, the soldiers turned their backs en masse and began to flee.
“Don’t… don’t run!”
“Hold your formation! Don’t show your backs!”
“Deserters will face summary execution!”
The unit’s morale plummeted, discipline crumbled, and only one thing awaited them next.
Desertion.
The execution squad belatedly swung their swords to strike their necks, but the morale that had begun to crumble could not be restored. Even the mercenary squad, resolved to crush Black Armor Company flat, was no exception.
Everyone, desperately trying to survive, turned their backs and fled.
However, for an entire unit to turn and move en masse required a greater cost than anticipated… and in the process, it was tantamount to exposing their rear to the enemy.
The unit’s center of gravity shifted, and amidst the confusion caused by overcrowded troops, the dead surged upon them.
Before long, it wasn’t even a fight. It was a one-sided massacre.
The Viper Mercenaries, the Golden Lion Mercenaries, the Brotherhood Mercenaries. Their names and reputations meant nothing; they were simply scrambling to flee.
‘Well, that’s what you get when you face an opponent threatening your livelihood this much.’
The two organizations that formed the twin pillars of the empire’s foremost mercenary corps…
The fact that the ‘Landsknecht’ and the ‘Reisläufer’ remained silent was proof.
A symbol of trust that never retreats until the last man falls.
They too must be keeping a close watch on Black Armor Company’s actions, but at least what stands before Dale now can hardly be called a threat.
“We won.”
Dale murmured softly. Yet, despite his words, no one could bring themselves to raise their voice.
Swallowing their shock in the face of the overwhelming intimidation emanating from this non-standard entity, they maintained only silence.
Dale snapped his fingers again. The shadow parasites halted their pursuit of the enemy soldiers fleeing with their backs turned.
They turned their heads toward them.
Toward the city walls of Hamburg, and the heavily armored infantry of the Black Armor Company.
Everyone held their breath and fell silent at the sight of the departed silently staring this way.
“Even if we won, it’s still like this.”
Dale muttered as if it were someone else’s affair, and the dead fell to their knees in unison. At that voice, the terror finally vanished.
“We have won!”
The belated shout echoed through the air.
“Black Armor Company’s victory!”
“The Captain swept away the enemies!”
“As expected of Prince Dale!”
A deafening roar. The people within the city raised their voices in unison, praising Dale’s victory.
A mere hundred heavily armored infantrymen defeated an enemy force nearly twenty times their size. And they did so through an extraordinary power capable of single-handedly swaying the tide of battle.
Victory was theirs.
It was an indisputable victory for Dale and Black Armor Company, and furthermore, it was the infamy and cruelty of the ‘Black Prince’ that would echo through people’s mouths.
Around that time, the Britannian Independence Army also began retaking the kingdom’s former territories with unstoppable momentum.
Under the banner of the nation’s savior, the ‘Holy Maiden Aurelia’, they overcame a several-fold disparity in forces and secured countless decisive victories.
The morale of the independence army fighting against the empire was truly beyond description.
Shortly thereafter, the Holy Maiden Aurelia proclaimed Charles VII, the rightful heir to the Britannian throne, as king. With the restoration of the monarchy, the fight to drive the Empire’s forces from the island of Britannia began.
Reclaiming their fortresses, cities, and fiefdoms from the Empire, the Kingdom of Britannia officially charted its ‘territory’ on the map.
It was the first territorial recovery since the Empire’s unification that no one had dared to achieve.
The news spread that the empire was preparing another unprecedented large-scale deployment, putting the bitter defeat behind them.
They knew better than anyone the backlash that would follow should a single independence succeed.
