Whether on horseback or running full tilt, the knights had their eyes fixed on one direction—Daniel's charging lead.
Bald-headed James was left at the back of the pack, grumbling. A proper elite knight forced to run on foot! Who would believe it? At this rate, it seemed he'd never recover his armored warhorse. Would Coruna Heights issue him a replacement? They… probably would, right?
"Argh! Filthy demon scum, die!" James roared, swinging his knight's sword furiously at a Lesser Imp hiding among the corpses.
The Lesser Imp had just started to scratch itself when James struck, leaving it no chance to react.
Slash!
Blood splattered.
James took great satisfaction in butchering the helpless underdog, his courage mounting in the overwhelming momentum of their advance.
As the knights surged forward with the force of a tidal wave, the demons' fear deepened. They stumbled, trampled each other, and some even fainted from sheer terror.
Any demon the knights caught up with was cut down on sight.
Back at the outpost, the overseer team looked at each other, dumbstruck.
"This won't do; we have to follow! No, I'd rather be out there slicing up some demons myself right now," one of the overseers declared, his eyes blazing with the thrill of battle.
"What are we waiting for? The whole outpost has charged out! Let's go too!"
With a whistle, the overseer team mounted their warhorses and burst out of the trenches.
The knights from Outpost 22 surged out en masse, pursuing the fleeing demons all the way to the base of the extinct volcano. Along the way, the demons couldn't mount any form of resistance and were cut down like helpless sheep.
Meanwhile, the fighting at other outposts remained fiercely contested.
Daniel scanned the Demon Clan's positions. Riddled with trenches and obstacles, a head-on assault would only lead to unnecessary casualties. Raising his fist in the air, he shouted, "Hold position! Follow me to reinforce Outpost 21!"
The knights turned their steeds and charged in the direction of the next white trail.
For the next half-day, they fought without pause.
From dawn until noon, one by one, the human outposts, bolstered by Daniel's leadership, pushed back the demon forces.
The number of knights behind Daniel continued to swell, forming an unstoppable tide that swept through the demons at the foot of the extinct volcano.
The high-intensity battle wore Daniel down. His knight's sword was now riddled with nicks.
Throughout the advance, Daniel had relied on his extraordinary strength, cutting down demons without hesitation or strategy.
By now, he'd forgotten every Demon Clan weakness and pressure point he'd learned in training. Weak spots and joint vulnerabilities? All irrelevant!
"Phew!" Daniel exhaled deeply, his armor stained with blood.
Norn, who had been at Daniel's side the whole time, let out a breath, feeling as if he'd just survived the battle himself. Jolene rode half a step behind Daniel.
The three of them looked over at the demon forces pulling back and then turned their horses away.
Behind them, the other knights were scavenging the battlefield for spoils. Many demon corpses provided valuable materials for weapons, and some demon blood and flesh could be crafted into costly potions. Even the demons' discarded weapons could be melted down and reforged into equipment fit for human knights.
Up on the extinct volcano, several demon leaders watched Daniel's retreating figure with a mix of anger and dread. One of them had even overturned their battlefield model in frustration. The sight of that pure white Unicorn would haunt them for a long time.
Unlike typical demons with grotesque shapes, these three had more humanoid features.
There were two male demons and one female demon, all with bodies resembling those of humans. One male demon bore horns on his head, and the other had black, leathery wings like some beast of prey. The female demon was a Succubus variant, marked by a pair of ram-like horns and a tail ending in a black, heart-shaped tip.
Succubus Naya's figure was strikingly seductive, with unique traits that set her apart from other Succubi: her long, forked tongue extended as she licked the air around her, like a venomous snake.
"Damn it, the Demon King's name! God! This is cheating! How is a human like that allowed in the rookie battlefield? Balu, say something!" Bull Demon Kent fumed, smashing the sand table and casting a fierce gaze at the massive support pillar in the stone room, clearly tempted to snap it in two.
Avian Demon Balu plucked a feather from his wings and sighed, "What else can I say? All we can do is send word to the higher-ups and hold our ground. If we abandon this position, we'll be the ones paying for it. Besides, they've retreated now, haven't they?"
Succubus Naya chuckled, "Who would have thought, after all these years, another fire-affinity knight would appear among humanity?"
Naya's snake-like eyes flickered as she gazed out the window, where thick smoke coiled up into the sky. Her long legs crossed as she reclined lazily in her wooden chair.
"Hold our ground? That's a joke!" Kent growled, his anger boiling over. "If we keep holding here, that human will be storming our lines today and flattening our stronghold tomorrow!"
Kent's muscular arms bulged, emitting a low, ominous sound as his muscles tensed and flexed.
Succubus Naya stood up slowly, prowling over with a feline grace to the scattered sand and debris on the ground. Among the scattered battlefield props, she picked up a small flag with her tail, twirling it in her hand. "Perhaps we could risk everything and bring that human here. If we lose the outpost, so be it. If we capture that human, the higher-ups will surely reward us!"
"Hiss! That… actually could work!" Bull Demon Kent huffed, visibly excited.
Just imagining the scene—capturing that human—was almost too thrilling to comprehend! After all, he possessed the legendary fire affinity that once belonged to a king of Coruna Heights.
That human's strategic value far outweighed even the entire Demon Clan force stationed at the extinct volcano.
Humanity feared fire.
The Demon Clan, on the other hand, was largely born of fire.
Some demons could even bathe in lava, transforming any environment they entered into volcanic terrain if they chose. The demon horde atop the extinct volcano was large enough to overwhelm more than twenty human outposts in a single assault. If they concentrated their forces on just one outpost, they could easily wipe it out.
But the long-standing arrangement with Coruna Heights was merely a matter of back-and-forth skirmishes.
This was, after all, just a proving ground for rookies.
Both human knights and the Demon Clan's lesser demons needed real combat to grow. And the higher-ups on both sides found it convenient to maintain control by giving their underlings tangible enemies.
Crash!
Bull Demon Kent stamped his foot onto the floor, fracturing the stone slab beneath him.
"I say we go for it!" he declared loudly, glancing at Balu and Naya, who both nodded in agreement.
After noon, all activity ceased on the demon's side. The demon forces stayed confined to the extinct volcano, with none daring to stray too far.
Meanwhile, Daniel rinsed off at the outpost, grabbed a quick meal, and then went to find the merit officer.
Along the way, nearly every knight Daniel encountered saluted him with the knight's bow.
At Outpost 22, most of the knights were his former classmates and teachers from school. A few months in the Otherworld had already taught them the hard realities of survival.
In the future, Daniel might well be a rising star, blazing brightly across the sky. For now, all they could do was look up in awe.
More and more people had started hearing tales from the native knights about the legendary king of Coruna Heights, those sweeping chapters of history that Daniel seemed to echo.
"Have you finished tallying yet? Just how much merit do I get?" Daniel asked, growing impatient as he watched the merit officer scribble and calculate at his desk.
The merit officer pulled a face and chuckled nervously. "Uh… it's not possible to calculate! Really, it's just impossible. Everyone else's merit can be counted, but yours… only the authorities at Coruna Heights can finalize it."
"Why?" Daniel demanded.
The merit officer cleared his throat, glanced around to make sure they were alone, and leaned in with a solemn expression. "It reminded me of something… that king of Coruna Heights did something similar in his day. Regular merit calculations couldn't apply to him either. Only the noble authorities, together with the Holy Maiden, could make a judgment."
"But that's not the real issue." The merit officer, a man in his fifties with strands of white in his hair, looked at Daniel with a gleam of wisdom. "Listen carefully to what I'm about to tell you, Daniel—the times have changed…"
He leaned closer, speaking quietly into Daniel's ear.
Slowly, Daniel began to understand the true problem.
Back then, that legendary king had risen from nowhere, his fire-resistant abilities making him nearly unstoppable against the Demon Clan. But that king came from common stock, with not a trace of aristocratic lineage in his bloodline.
The noble class, accustomed to a life of privilege, could never accept a commoner rising above them. But at the time, they couldn't halt the king's rapid ascent.
"Wait, are you saying those aristocrats don't want me to earn more merit?" Daniel frowned deeply.