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[Villian] Chapter 23: This Farce Has Gone on Long Enough
🕑 Added 2025-04-02 01:50:43 +0000 UTCBeldroth didn’t think he had seen someone die so pitifully in all his years as a soldier. Dagger to the head while being held onto by a corpse.
He quickly regained his focus and ordered everyone into formation. The bodies began to rise once again. He thought long and hard about his training, trying to remember how to defeat the undead. Fire and Light magic were noted to be effective, but he only had sword-skill recruits. Sure, some of them could heat their swords with Weapon Arts, but that was not the same as a Fireball or Light Beam. He needed support from mages.
Beldroth's Wind magic was laughably useless in this situation. No matter how hard he flung them away or how many limbs he cut off with his sword, they stood back up.
For ten minutes, they fought, slowly the fatigue accumulated, and eventually, the recruits stopped activating skills. They were gasping for air as the mana depletion cramped up their bodies and minds. This wouldn’t have been the case if they had been real elites.
Suddenly, a young elf to Beldroth’s left screamed as a ghoul’s claw had ripped out a chunk of his throat. He had been too slow to parry due to fatigue. The elf dropped to the ground and died within seconds after a few gargled breaths.
Despite his years on the battlefield, an emotion that Beldroth had locked away through years of training had emerged.
Fear.
For the first time since the slaughter of the Silvermoon clan twenty years ago, he felt fear once more. Another scream sounded as two more elves fell. They were quickly mauled to death by the ghouls.
Their formation started to fall apart. With only sixteen of them left, surrounding the car and protecting it from over a hundred ghouls was near impossible.
Beldroth could run away at any moment, but he would be leaving too much behind. Emilia would never forgive him if he lost the Luna runes and one of her spies. The expensive car would also be sacrificed, and he was unsure how important the nobles within were.
A minute passed, and only the deep breaths and clang of swords could be heard. Everyone was focusing on survival. But slowly, everyone realized.
Was this the end? No help was coming. None of their attacks worked on the undead. They were outnumbered ten to one. The ghouls did not tire, but they certainly did. With every sword swing, the recruits’ muscles screamed in protest. They cried for their bodies to recover even a single drop of mana, but their bodies refused to do so. Everything hurt. The recruits who had only trained against dummies and each other couldn’t help but wonder if this was what actual combat was like.
A few minutes passed, and seven more elves fell in quick succession. Finally, the formation was abandoned, and the remaining nine soldiers tried to cover just a single side. The car rocked back and forth as the ghouls tried to climb over from the other side to attack the soldiers from the rear.
“Captain, what can we do?” a young elf girl said through labored breaths. Beldroth almost broke down into tears from the sight. Her silver hair was a mess, stuck together with dried blood, likely to be both her own blood and the blood of her friends. She had a deep wound across her shoulder and dried tears on her face, yet she still stood firm and fought off the ghouls to fulfill her duty.
“There’s nothing to be done,” Beldroth said grimly. He planned to grab the Luna parchment from Imryll’s hands and run back to the palace. Everything else would be left behind.
The young elf soldier just gave him a pained smile. “It’s all right, Captain. You can leave me behind. It was an honor to fight,” she grunted while parrying a claw from a ghoul, “alongside you and the other elves. I always wondered what war was really like. My mother always told me stories. It looks like she wasn’t exaggerating the horrors she saw.”
Beldroth unleashed a mighty gale for the hundredth time, sending them all flying back, just for the ghouls to stand back up moments later and resume the charge. “Persistent bastards,” he cursed under his breath.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a ghoul’s claw going for the young elf’s head. He tried to react, but his body refused to respond. His mana was depleted.
“Watch out—”
The girl turned to look at him confused, the claw right behind her head and swiping down. Beldroth’s eyes widened, she was going to die.
The car’s door abruptly opened, knocking the ghoul backward with a crunch.
Damien emerged with blood dripping from his mouth. Beldroth could see Imryll and Fay passed out in the car’s seats.
“This farce has gone on long enough, don’t you think, Captain?” Damien gave Beldroth a wide and sinister grin.
His eyes shone blood red as his nails elongated to the size of daggers. Then his bloodlust burst forth, causing the usually mindless ghouls to falter for a second.
“What are you going to do?” Beldroth asked.
“I think it’s time for a slaughter,” Damien answered coldly.
