The Imperial Supreme Commander Has Returned - Chapter 14

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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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The Imperial Commander Has Returned – Episode 14

The battle raged on without pause.
Spear and Two-Handed Axe locked, struck, cleaved.
To describe the exchange in a single phrase:

‘It’s as though the boy fights possessed by spirits!’

These were warriors of the Sambala Tribes, who honored their ancestral gods.
Ordinarily they would never speak such words—
Yet now they could conceive of no other explanation.
The Spear Technique unfolding before them was simply too strange.
The boy’s Spear Technique was utterly uncanny.

“Haaagh!”

The barbarian warrior swung his Two-Handed Axe in a wide arc.
The boy blocked it with the shaft of his spear.
By rights, it should have ended there.
The Aura should have cut through the shaft and cleaved the boy in two—a simple, inevitable conclusion.

But it did not happen.
To his shock, the boy was channeling Mana as well.
Yet the real problem was something far more troubling.

Whiiissh—

There it was again.
The boy’s body flew backward from the block, weightless as air.
The warrior’s hand felt nothing from the axe blow.
It was as if he had merely swung at passing wind.

What made it most vexing:
The boy’s offense and defense were woven together as one.
Because of this, his defense was not truly defense at all.
It was defense and attack in the same breath—attack and defense inseparable.

Just as now:
Even as he was thrown backward, the boy seized the spearpoint and brought it down like an axe.
Arm’s reach plus spear’s length combined into tremendous distance.
More than enough to reach the barbarian warrior.

“Kyaaaahh!”
Whoooosh—

Evasion was no different.
The barbarian warrior gripped his axe with both hands and brought it down.
An all-consuming strike, as though he were splitting firewood!

But the boy’s response was elegantly simple.
He simply evaded.
By the breadth of a single hair.

As said before: offense and defense as one.
In the same motion as his dodge, the boy suddenly reversed his grip on the spear.
In that instant, the long spear had passed over his own back.
And from there, came a—whoosh!

From the barbarian’s perspective, the origin of the attack had suddenly shifted, and this thrust seemed to come from nowhere—a strike beyond his field of vision.
Yet he reacted with remarkable speed.
Had he been even a fraction slower, his eyes would have been torn from their sockets.

“You cursed wretch! You cursed wretch!”

It was hardly surprising that he was losing his mind.
But the more frenzied he became, the more perfectly he danced to Delram’s choreography.

Delram thrust his spear forward with a single hand, wielding it as though hurling it.
The moment the barbarian sidestepped, a follow-up attack came immediately.
With nothing but wrist strength, he flicked the spear upward in a sharp arc, then stepped forward and reversed his grip—shaft to blade, blade to shaft.
The next move was inevitably a strike.

Crack!
“Aaaagh!”

The barbarian warrior staggered backward, his jaw shattered by the shaft.
He was maddened beyond reason.
All the skill accumulated over decades of life had become meaningless.

The movements were clownish, yet impossible to evade.
Even accounting for the spear’s full two-meter length, he could not judge the distance.
Retreat or defense—nothing availed.

A relentless cascade of techniques that defied belief even as his eyes tracked them!
He might as well have been fighting a phantom, a specter.

“What in the hells are you doing right now—!”

But there was something else that truly kindled the barbarian’s rage.
It was Delram’s demeanor.

In the thick of combat.
He frequently closed his eyes or gazed into the distance.
It was plain that his mind was elsewhere.

……

Indeed, Delram made no response, as though he hadn’t heard at all.
Even his pauses now were merely mechanical.
When his opponent stopped, he stopped as well.

In truth, this should have been impossible.
He held no overwhelming advantage—far from it; he fought on the knife’s edge where a single stumble meant death—and yet his mind wandered?

Yet Delram was doing exactly that.
For one who had witnessed countless deaths and wrought them himself, and who had ultimately transcended even that—such extreme focus was possible.

Then why was his mind adrift?
The reason was simple.

‘The limit was approaching.’

It was Delram’s assessment.
His body not yet fully developed, his mana reserves depleted.
Under such conditions, he had already cut through dozens of enemies.
And then rushed to this very place.
He was already far from peak condition when this barbarian warrior had appeared.

The barbarian warrior’s skill was not particularly high.
By knight standards, he was merely lower-tier.

‘A lower-tier knight alone could face off against twenty armed soldiers, or fifty if they were poorly equipped.’

Considering that, this barbarian warrior was truly a formidable opponent.
And Delram had already traded blows with him dozens of times over.

As a result, Delram’s body now bore the marks of a brutal struggle.
His Mana had been depleted long ago.
He was forcing every last drop of the scant Mana pooled at the bottom of his heart to flow through his body, reinforcing it in desperation.
Had it not been for the Phlurex Arts, which pursued the ultimate principle of stability, he would likely have already coughed up blood from Mana exhaustion.

But the fight itself had reached a stalemate.
Delram was constantly gaining the upper hand, yet the problem remained: fatal wounds.
He bloodied his opponent relentlessly, yet could not deliver the killing blow.
So there was only one answer.

‘A different method is needed.’

So he pondered.
If Mana was insufficient, his body was exhausted, and his techniques availed nothing…….
Then how in the world was he to bring down the mass of flesh before him?

Of course, in a knight-versus-knight duel, there was no method.
Not unless someone came to aid him from the side.

‘By normal logic, that would be it.’

Then he would have to explore the illogical instead.
And fortunately, he did have something, didn’t he?

That astounding thrust he had demonstrated at the Training Grounds.
The Wind that had kept speaking to him all this while.

He still could not wield it freely.
He only knew that some mysterious force within him—something that had made it possible—lay quietly dormant.
And so he had not factored it into this fight.
A power he could not consciously summon was worthless.

But now he had no choice.
It was his only remaining card to play.

So as he fought, he kept his focus sharp.
The good fortune was that he now stood at death’s threshold.
With Death itself swinging its great axe before his eyes, Delram’s concentration had reached its absolute peak.

The mysterious force sleeping within him responded the same way.
It felt dozens of times more acute than usual.
And now—

“Sorry for the wait.”

Delram spoke those words as he snatched the sword from the ground.
Then he hurled it high into the sky and pushed off from the earth.

Crack—boom!

His rush was devastating, despite the absence of Mana.
Like a single gust of wind given flesh, his agility was extraordinary!

“So now you’re finally going to fight properly? Though your methods remain as cowardly and dishonorable as ever!”

With that, the barbarian warrior swung his axe.
The Great Sword that Delram had hurled skyward moments before went spinning away.

Clang!

He marveled at how such a frame could throw a blade so high.
But it was far too obvious, wasn’t it?
And yet, the very next instant—

A wet puncture.
“Ghh…?”

The barbarian warrior’s hand flew to his throat.
His fingers found a hollow cavity, and blood bubbled up through it.

There was nothing left to see.
The spear had driven clean through the back of his neck.

He staggered backward, one faltering step after another.

The barbarian warrior’s face as he retreated.
It held confusion rather than the fear of death.
Looking ahead, he saw that the youth—no, the warrior—stood motionless with his spear extended toward him in a perfect line, as if he’d never moved at all.

But there had been no sound.
The distance between them was still considerable, far too far for contact.
How could this attack have possibly—?

“The wind opened a path for me. I simply followed that path and extended my spear along it….”
“What are you…?”
“It’s just something that exists, worm.”

He’d even given it a name.
A Secret Art—Silent Pierce!
It was humble-sounding, perhaps, but a flawless title nonetheless.
No sound, and truly a piercing strike.

Delram walked forward slowly and pushed the barbarian warrior down.
The massive frame, already lifeless before the shove, toppled backward.

Thud.

And then another body fell.
Delram collapsed to one knee where he stood.

He crumpled.

He tried to push himself up using the spear, but it was futile.
His body would not obey him.
Stamina, strength, mana—and something else besides, something nameless.
He had scraped every last scrap of it clean away.

“Damn powerful… but using it… is absolutely brutal.”

Delram’s consciousness began to fade.
In the distance, the horn of retreat continued to sound.

Whoom—whoom—whoom—

* * *

The Pior Kingdom had not been defeated.
Or rather, they had been defeated, but… they hadn’t lost, not really.
It sounded like nonsense, but it was accurate nonetheless.

At first, the Pior Kingdom had been pushed back mercilessly.
Not only the front-line soldiers, but the mages as well.
Their Knights at least held the advantage, though not overwhelmingly so—to any observer, defeat seemed inevitable.

-Sir Loel has arrived!

But then, in the latter stages of the battle.
A certain order of Knights reached the field at precisely the right moment, and everything shifted.
The order was led by the Kingdom’s one and only Sword Master.

A Sword Master was not human.
Rather, a calamity wearing human form.
The pinnacle and ultimate perfection of all Knights, unleashed with deliberate fury.
Before him, the barbarians were swept away entirely, as though erased.

But the barbarians did not remain idle.
Thanks to the appearance of Tamuka, the legendary Rune Master.
While he could not match a Sword Master in raw combat strength, in the chaos of a battlefield where multitudes clashed against multitudes, he wielded power greater still.

Thus the battle ended with neither victor nor vanquished.
Both sides had struck each other equally.

“The losses are staggering.”

A Female Knight muttered this as she surveyed the battlefield.
Plate Mail and a Great Sword slung across her back.
At a glance, she was no ordinary swordsman.
Her emblem made that abundantly clear.
She bore the insignia of one who served in the order of the Sword Master himself.

Her duty had been to defend the command post and those around it.
To prepare for any assassins or sudden attacks that might come.
Yet here came running soldiers—and not for her protection.

-Please, Knight! Save us!
-Compose yourselves. If you’ve made it this far, you’re safe enough. Keep running—the command post is just ahead. You can manage that much.
-It’s not about us! It’s the Decurion—he’s in danger!
-Hmm? The Decurion? But aren’t you a Decurion yourself?
-W-well, yes, but… that’s different! He’s different!

Soldiers never truly saw Knights as comrades.
They were the slaughterers of the field, nobility!
The gulf between them in skill, rank, and treatment was simply too vast.

And this particular Female Knight? She was especially so.
It’s human nature—the sight of a woman can suddenly kindle courage where none existed before.
Even commoners felt it.

But was the Female Knight easy prey?
To become a Knight while overcoming the disadvantage of one’s sex required talent, effort, and iron will that made male Knights look trivial by comparison.
Because of this, there were quite a few lustful men who’d lost their heads in a flash—literally, when her instant judgment sent their necks flying.
It was the equation: Female Knight equals death.

And yet they persist like this?

But hearing the circumstances, it was understandable.
A barbarian warrior encountered during the retreat.
While common soldiers were being slaughtered without mercy, the Decurion leading the group stepped forward alone to stand in their way.
He told them to flee while he held the line…….

“A noble soul. I should at least find his body and give him proper burial.”

The Female Knight murmured this to herself as she surveyed the battlefield.
Of course, she harbored no illusions that the Decurion had survived.

He was merely a conscripted Decurion.
His opponent, by contrast, was a barbarian warrior of recognized standing among the Sambala Tribes.
Seasoned in Mana, and by reputation alone a master of the axe.
It was a fight without even the pretense of balance from the start.

“It should be somewhere around here.”

As she pressed deeper, the corpse of the giant appeared in the distance.
His bare chest was covered in a dense tapestry of crude, filthy tattoos.
The telltale garb of a barbarian warrior.

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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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