The Forgotten Field - Chapter 233

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 233
Barcas lifted his head and bellowed across the battlefield.
“Those who lay down their weapons and surrender peacefully shall be spared!”
A heavy silence pressed down upon the field for a moment.
The soldiers, who had been gauging each other’s reactions, gradually began to lower their weapons one by one.
The dull clang of swords and spears striking the ground rippled outward like waves from that pivotal moment. Behind the castle walls, screams and the sharp ring of metal still echoed, but the soldiers filling the Inner Courtyard had lost all will to fight.
Barcas, his sharp eyes sweeping across the surroundings, swiftly wrenched a sword from the man’s shoulder. A low groan escaped between the man’s lips as he grimly endured the pain.
Barcas brought the blood-stained blade to the man’s throat and gestured toward the soldiers with his chin.
“Bind him.”
The moment his command fell, Imperial Army soldiers rushed forward, brutally subduing the man and wrapping rope tightly around his broken wrists.
Once the binding was complete, Barcas sheathed his sword and added in a cold tone.
“This man shall be brought before the Imperial Court to answer for his treason. Keep him alive.”
He then turned sharply to assess the situation at the rear, but a harsh, grating laugh—as if scraped up from the depths of a throat—caught at his heels.
Barcas stopped and turned, his brow furrowing.
“What exactly is so amusing?”
“Ah, if I’ve offended you, I apologize. Your Grand Duke’s loyalty to the Imperial Family is simply so admirable that I cannot help but laugh. It’s truly impossible to contain myself.”
The massive-shouldered man, encased in a breastplate, spoke in a languid tone.
“It’s like watching a well-trained lapdog. The rumors that the Osiria Priests have trained the Grand Duke’s successor so thoroughly were not mere fabrication, it seems.”
In an instant, the air around them froze.
An enraged warrior from the Eastern Territories pressed the shaft of his spear down upon the man’s shoulder and raised his voice.
“How dare a criminal speak so recklessly!”
Fresh blood welled up from the wound, but the man paid it no mind.
His eyes gleaming, the man looked directly up at him and continued his provocation.
“Where have you cast aside the pride of a warrior? Your ancestors fought against the Empire to the very end. Sierkan the Great King, who once struck terror across the Robiden Continent, even dealt a mortal wound to the hero Wigru in his final battle. And yet the descendant of such a great warrior has become a servant of the Gurta family… Your ancestors must be weeping tears of blood in the afterlife.”
“What did he just say?”
A faint smile played at the corners of Barcas’s lips as he gazed down at the man quietly.
He bent his upper body toward the man and responded gently.
“Nothing is as hollow as the eloquence of a defeated man.”
The man’s shoulders stiffened slightly. Though his expression was obscured by his helmet, it was easy to discern that the smile had faded from his face.
“Shall I ask you a question? How does it feel to have lost everything to the hands of that ‘well-trained lapdog’ you mocked?”
“….”
“Your ambitions have been trampled beneath my feet. Heimdal has been annihilated, and soon your body will become the dew of the execution grounds and vanish. And the name Bjorn Blodar Heimdal will be recorded in history as a defeated general who met a miserable end in a reckless rebellion.”
Barcas seized the man’s lower jaw and asked softly.
“How does it feel to have fallen to the very bottom?”
“…Quite filthy.”
The man spat the words through his teeth. Cold breath escaped through the visor and washed across Barcas’s face.
“But I shall spare you the detailed explanation of just how filthy my feelings are. You, Grand Duke, will soon taste this sensation for yourself.”
Barcas’s eyes narrowed.
A strange chill ran down his spine in that instant.
Instinctively sensing that the man was not merely bluffing, Barcas drove his boot into the man’s abdomen.
A dull impact echoed through the courtyard as the man’s body flew sideways, the force snapping his chin strap and sending his helmet tumbling upward.
I seized it and tore it away in one motion, then grabbed his thick platinum blonde hair—matted with blood—and wrenched his head upward with brutal force.
“I don’t know what you’re plotting, but you’re already finished. Whatever you do now won’t change the outcome….”
My cold voice cut off abruptly. The increasingly bright bluish dawn light illuminated the man’s face with sudden clarity.
The man twisted his lips and asked lazily.
“Do you recognize me?”
A suppressed sound escaped from my rigidly clenched jaw.
“Roman Talis….”
“How gratifying that you haven’t forgotten me.”
A strange smile deepened across the man’s lips.
I tightened my grip on his hair and wrenched his head back violently. Though his hair color had changed, this was unmistakably the heretic hunter who had once ravaged my lands at will.
I growled at him.
“What in the Eastern Territories have you been doing all this time?”
“Don’t be so angry. Just as you’ve been stirring up my domain for years, I’ve merely been poking around in yours a little….”
The man gave a slight shrug and chuckled darkly.
“I’ve put considerable effort into it, so by now Kalmor should be in complete chaos.”
My face began to contort slowly.
Seeing my expression, the man burst into triumphant laughter.
“Why that look? Did you really think you could reduce my territory to ruins while your own nest remained untouched? Ha! If you’re going to pour ashes on someone else’s life work, you should have been prepared for your own operations to go up in flames!”
My leather-gloved fist crashed into the man’s face. His cackling visage snapped violently to the side.
As I seized his reeling head before it could collapse, his blood-soaked face filled my vision once more.
He spat the blood pooling in his mouth and spoke slowly.
“While you play the Imperial lapdog, a feast of blood is unfolding in the Eastern Territories. Your castle and fortune will be consumed by flames, leaving only ash, and your family will meet gruesome deaths. And your woman….”
A strange smile played across his blood-drenched lips.
“I gave special orders for that cute one. By now she’s probably having a very stimulating time with the barbarian men. It’s a shame I couldn’t join in.”
His shallow, cackling laughter echoed grotesquely through the devastated courtyard.
“By now she’s probably become a rag…. Gack!”
Blood sprayed from the man’s mouth. Only then did I realize I had driven my dagger into his throat.
I heard the soldiers gasp in shock. But I felt nothing.
Gripping the back of his head firmly, I drove the blade deeper and slowly moved my arm to the side. The man’s eyes, his throat pierced while still alive, glazed over with agony.
I stared directly into those dark pupils and moved the blade with deliberate slowness. The blue steel tore through rigid muscle, blood vessels, and nerves as it inched sideways. The man, his severed windpipe gurgling as he desperately tried to breathe, finally lost the light in his eyes.
I withdrew the blade from the opposite side and lifted his head, blood pouring from it. The soldiers who had witnessed the spectacle from nearby collapsed to the ground and retched.
I paid them no attention and hurled the enemy commander’s head before the Knights.
“Display it on the city walls.”
Even the Knights, hardened by countless horrors, seemed to lose their nerve, and none stepped forward immediately.
As they hesitated, I trampled across the mountain of corpses and crossed the Castle Courtyard rapidly.
Near the Castle Gate, I saw the Wolfram Cavalry regrouping. I approached them directly and issued orders in a voice so chillingly composed it sent shivers down their spines.
“Assemble all forces immediately. We march to Kalmor at once.”
Sensing that something grave had occurred, Darian wasted no time sounding the horn to rally the Eastern Territories warriors.
I seized Torque’s reins roughly and stared at the sun rising above the black mountain peaks.
A sharp beam of light pierced my retinas like a needle, and I squeezed my eyes shut against the sudden vertigo. When I opened them again, I quickly hoisted myself into the saddle.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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