"Are you even human?"
"Why? Just because I kill little more than others?"
Even without an order, Fret was determined to take down this excuse of a human, no matter what was the cost. But just the moment the talwar clash against the claymore, the color of Fret's face changed. The force he had received, from the collision, was much more than he had expected.
'Could he be hiding his strength last time?' But, his confusion didn't stop him from attacking.
Kinoya, on the other hand, was relieved. Just one use of Varytita had left him bloody-handed, but things are different now. The condensation of the first essence circle had changed it all.
"Why are you fighting? Those prisoners had already reached the city." The speed of Fret was not something he could match up with, but with the utilization of the gravity domain, he was able to keep up.
"If I couldn't kill you right now then it will be an insult to those who had been tortured by you."
"Wow, you have great virtue."
"And you have none."
"But, Fret by now, you should have understood that you can't beat me."
"Who told you that?" With each attack, Fret increased the intensities more and more.
"Well, you can beat me but can't kill me unless you want to bear the consequence."
But, his body was saying otherwise. The essence circle enabled him to have better control over the gravity around him, but that didn't mean that he had an endless amount of mana. The brown mana inside of him was nearing its limit and he can't use Varytita using black smoke. On top of that, he had no idea about the strength of Fret, the magic knight.
With each strike the force was becoming stronger, blood had started to sip out of his palm. The black smoke quenched his mana hole, as the last bits of brown mana extinguished from his body. The sword, Varytita, became heavy on his hand, and he could do about it.
"You are bluffing." The sluggishness in Kinoya's movement didn't miss his eyes, blue hue on his claymore deepened, but…
"You are welcome to try." Kinoya's face was decorated with a smile, " But, one couldn't win a war alone."
The crack on the wall of the city widened, the closed gate of the city opened again.
'What the hell are they thinking?' But Fret had no way to know, he looked back in shock as the soldiers continued to pour out of the gate. 'Could there be a spy in the army?'
"Do you think there are spies in your army?" His overgrown canines were making his smile more frightening, "I can assure you there aren't one, but you are welcome to search your army."
Before he could assemble his thought, Kinoya used his leftover strength to give another blow. Fret forced to take a few steps back, but the deflected talwar created a dust cloud. Before Fret could understand what was happening, Kinoya was already halfway back towards the camp. In desperation, Fret was unable to choose the right option.
Fret moved straight to the quarters of General Manu. The place was flooded with the generals. Their demand was same, their voice was one,
"We have 150,000 soldiers. Even if we don't use the garrisons we can beat their 110,000 soldiers without much of effort."
Fret was going to answer but it was Manu, who did. The flame of revenge was hottest inside his heart, but "Listen, those are the heroes, who died for our land. I wanted to kill those bastards too, burn them to the ashes, but it is not the right time. We have to wait and strike at the right moment." Even he himself was unable to find the right reason to explain to them, why he shouldn't do that. After all, it wasn't his idea to not attack.
"Think about it. The cities those fell till now, didn't have much of civilian but there were 100,000 here. Will you leave them here?" Some of them understood Fret's meaning, but most of them didn't.
"We are not leaving them, we are trying to remove the cause of despair, once and for all."
"That won't do. If we leave the city, they might attack the city, rather than attacking us and breach the city. Think what will happen to the civilians if they could do that to the soldiers."
"Then let half of us go. We will teach them the lesson, that they will never forget." One stubborn general spoke. Other joined too.
"How do you expect us to sleep, if we don't do something after seeing that?"
Fret was going to retort, but one soldier came in shouting. Manu was more than agitated right now. He shouted, "What it is?"
"One of the soldiers woke up and said everything." The vein was popping up on his forehead as he explained the horrifying torture the soldiers had to go through. "General, that son of the devil had said, that they will continue to do it every day until we surrender the city to them. We have to kill them, general, our brothers are in pain."
He wasn't the general or someone important, but he was a soldier, whose heart cried in the pain of his brothers. In the room full of warriors, his voice echoed most.
There was a pin drop silence inside the room no one spoke. Everyone was looking at Manu with rapt attention.
"Today we march to battle. We will send them to death. At night we will celebrate with our brothers and drink from the skull of that devil." Manu said with a stern voice, "Get ready to move out." Nobody uttered words just complied, leaving only Fret and Manu behind.
"Don't say anything, you just remember what that freak had told you." Fret just nodded to words. "Don't worry we will win. The man will win even if they had to die." Manu smiled and left the room with a bright smile on his face.
*********
Fighting under a strong leader is good, but a psychopath is never suitable. Most of seventeen had regretted their decision to stay with Kinoya, but Palsa was not one of them.
"Captain, why are we not fighting?" When others were afraid to even look at Kinoya, Palsa had a more open attitude.
"Because you will die, even before you can draw your sword." Kinoya and his 17 were standing on the hill, little distance away from the battlefield. But the view was open like a chess board in front of them.
"Then would you have died too?" Palsa's words put a smile on Kinoya's face. Kinoya turned around to look at them. All 17 of them were young, even the oldest sergeant was just 27 years old. With the life expectancy of 150, he wasn't even reached his prime.
"You know I am thrown out of the military. So I can't put on the armor of the empire. I hope Chanakya have told you about It."
"We know." It was a sergeant who spoke.
"What is your name?"
He was surprised for a moment but answered with all seriousness. "I am Chand Sadagar."
"Oh! Chand, you are the one who got the [Basic Archery] skill first. Well, you will be captain of my archer troop."
'What this child is talking about?' Chand almost spoke out loud.
"Captain, you are a captain yourself. How you can do that?"
"You have followed someone who was thrown out of the army. Do you wanted to retire from the army when you followed me?" Hesitation wasn't the emotion one could find on the face of Kinoya neither they could fathom his level of confidence, "It is just 2-year suspension, as long as general Akai is alive, it won't even the problem to get me back in."
"But captain even if I get in I am a swordsman, not an archer," Chand said.
"I will give you three statements, if any one of them are wrong I will make you a swordsman" Kinoya looked at Chand and said, "Even the things of long distance away are very clear to you, all the moving things slowed down when you concentrate, you can sense everything around you even the things that are behind you. In one word you have three skills [Far-sight], [Perception] and [Focus]. And your dexterity is very high, but the health is low."
Chand couldn't believe what he was hearing. These skills are something not many knew about. "How do you know?"
"That is not important. You are wasted as a swordsman, you are an archer, but not the type you are thinking about."
Before Chand can ask about it more, Palsa shouted, "Something is wrong, the line is breaking. General Akai is at advantage, but General Vorn's corps are moving back."
"That was the plan."
"Tell me about it." The man who came out wasn't one of them.
"He is friendly." His right eyehole flickered in the blue fire for a moment, before Kinoya said it. But Chand moved closer to Kinoya, was going to say something but he was stopped, "I know. Don't worry."
"You must be the Devil." Neither the voice of the man suited his bulky body, nor his robe. What surprised him more was, the man was giving off a scholarly vibe. But the smile on his face was really refreshing.