The Imperial Supreme Commander Has Returned - Chapter 26

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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 Returns — Episode 26

Whistle-snap!
“Choke!”

Delram’s arrow—two shots in quick succession.
One of the Sorcerers clutched at his chest and throat, crumpling.
His eyes had already gone dark, holding nothing but emptiness.
For all his claims of refining his soul through Sorcery—
A pierced throat made that irrelevant.

Thump—

With it came a sickening lurch. The Altar shuddered.
The writhing scarlet Aura that had flooded the air thinned noticeably.

But it wasn’t nearly enough.
Only one of ten had fallen.
He needed at least four more dead before that Altar would shatter.
Which meant the next arrow had to fly now—

“Roaaaar!”

Delram couldn’t.
The Warrior Commander refused to allow it.
He’d reached the tree beneath Delram’s hiding place in what felt like a heartbeat.
Terrifying speed.

Crack!
Splinter-burst!

The Warrior Commander’s fist came down, and the oak exploded into splinters.
Through the debris gleamed a brilliant blue Aura.
Unmistakable proof of true Warrior Commander Rank.
Projecting Aura bare-handed was beyond the reach of anyone below intermediate mastery.

‘Damn.’

Delram bolted for the next tree.
Nocking an arrow mid-leap, he fired again—rapid shots.
He aimed deliberately for the Sorcerer farthest from the Warrior Commander.
Even shooting from mid-air, every arrow found its mark.

“Gah!”

The Warrior Commander roared, his feet slamming the earth.
Massive weight surged forward in an instant.
His hand shot out, snagging an arrow from the air and snapping it clean in two.
He’d predicted the trajectory, moving a step ahead—a defensive move that left Delram genuinely impressed.
If only this man weren’t his enemy.

‘If only.’

Still, the distraction gave Delram a clean landing.
And as his boots touched ground, a single thought crystallized.

‘Retreat? Or press the attack?’

Delram’s real combat experience was beyond counting.
How many crises had he endured along the way?
Through them all, Delram’s spirit—honed to its absolute limit—grasped the situation in a single flash of clarity and seized upon a path forward.

‘No time to hesitate—just go!’

He didn’t know why. He didn’t need to know.
Somewhere along the way, Delram’s hard-won experience had crystallized into pure intuition; he no longer needed to weigh options or deliberate.
All that remained for him was one thing.
Believe. Then make it real.

Crack!

The moment his mind settled, his body launched downward from beneath the tree.
He pushed off the branches, momentum gathering, and vanished in an instant.

“Kill him!”
“The demon of Piyohr—it ends here!”

Directly below him swarmed the Barbarians.
They raised their weapons toward Delram as one.
Yet nothing touched him as he hung suspended in the air.

Their chance had passed. Now it was Delram’s turn.
He rolled forward to evade, fingers brushing against his thigh.
What drew free was a Curved Crescent Blade—a weapon favored by dancers.
It curved like a crescent moon, lithe and graceful, almost beautiful in its elegance; now it sang through the air in a wheeling arc.

Whiiiing!
“Argh! I can’t see!”
“My—my legs!”

Like a true dancer, Delram spun with perfect grace in place.
But the result was merciless.
The Barbarians who had rushed in found themselves writhing.
None suffered a killing blow, yet his blade had found marks across every quarter—blood misting the air as they retreated in desperation.

A three-meter circle around Delram stood empty.
So now he just had to sprint the twenty meters to the Altar?

‘Not a chance.’

Of course not.
What good was it to scatter the Barbarians like minnows?
The Warrior Commander was already charging back.

“Now it’s your turn!”
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh!

The moment Delram sensed the Wind Pressure, he tilted his head back.
The Axe the Warrior Commander had hurled grazed his cheek, close enough to feel the heat.

Crack!

The boulder where the Axe struck shattered completely.
As for Delram—there was no question.
Defense was useless. Only evasion meant survival.

Thud-thud-thud!

The Warrior Commander rushed through the opening.
Delram quickly retreated backward.
Of course, a Barbarian behind him seized the opportunity, brandishing his Scimitar with a delighted grin.
But Delram dodged it with animal instinct, pivoted sharply past the Barbarian’s flank, and claimed the space behind him.

Crack!
“Gah—!”

Delram struck the Barbarian with his shoulder.
He charged Mana from below to above in a diagonal arc, and the Barbarian who took the blow went sailing far ahead with a deep, reverberating thud.
It was the Eastern Iron Mountain Strike.
The Barbarian flew straight into the Warrior Commander’s charging path.

Delram’s logic was simple.
Surely the Warrior Commander wouldn’t kill that Barbarian outright?
He’d have to stop to catch him safely.
Which meant, even for just a moment, Delram could push closer to the Altar—

Boom!
“Ahhhhh!”

Of course, his assumption was wrong.
The Warrior Commander simply batted the Barbarian aside.
Struck mid-air by the flat of the Greatsword, the Barbarian sprayed blood from every wound and flew far, far away.

“Damn… merciless bastard.”

Delram muttered in exasperation.
Somehow, impossibly, the Warrior Commander had heard him over the chaos—a tendon visibly jumped at his temple.
The one who started all this seemed to have struck a nerve.

Delram offered a silent prayer for the Barbarian’s soul and spun to run.
It wasn’t enough to lose the Warrior Commander, but it bought time.
As he ran, his hand dug into his satchel. What emerged was a Horn.

Whoooooo—

Delram blew it with all his strength.
The deep, resonant note cut across the Altar’s perimeter and carried far into the forest beyond, where the Special Operations Unit soldiers were locked in fierce combat.
Was it his imagination?
He thought he heard an answering cry rise up in response.

“……!”
“Be careful! Reinforcements might be coming!”

The Barbarians panicked, scattering in confusion.
Even the Sorcerers faltered—the crimson Aura around them shuddered for an instant.
But one remained unmoved.

“Back to hell, demon!”
“Won’t fall for that one.”

The Warrior Commander alone pressed onward without hesitation, his Greatsword still raised.

Clang!

* * *

When you hear the word “Barbarism,” what comes to mind?
First and foremost, it’s not something positive.
Ignorant, stupid, and brutishly strong!

He ought to lose his composure at the slightest provocation, predictably so.
Surrender his reason, reveal his weakness, and ultimately fall to an opponent beneath his own level—that’s how it should end.
Isn’t that what Barbarism is?

‘No—why is this bastard so rational?’

But the Warrior Commander was different.
He pressed Delram without ever rushing, without ever losing his discipline.
Whenever Delram attempted to break toward the Sorcerer, the Warrior Commander would sense it as if by second sight and cut off the approach.
It was a patience that surpassed even that of a knight.

In truth, Delram held back a portion of his strength throughout the fight.
From the Warrior Commander’s perspective, Delram needed only to commit more aggressively, to push just a fraction harder, and the kill would be his to take.
That was the very trap Delram had laid.
The moment the Warrior Commander overextended, Delram would pierce through to the Sorcerers beyond.

But the Warrior Commander never took the bait.
He refused to overcommit, steadfastly guarding the Sorcerer.

“Hyah!”

The Warrior Commander unleashed a sudden kick.
Delram slipped it with uncanny grace; the Greatsword came sweeping in next.
But something about the attack felt wrong.
The flat of the blade, not the edge.

The slow delivery made it simple for Delram to evade—by reflex, he sideslipped with nearly a hair’s breadth to spare.
Extraordinary skill, and yet in this moment it became a mistake.

A howl erupted from the weapon.
“Aaagh!”

Wind Pressure crashed down upon Delram.
Not mere wind—he felt the intense Mana coursing through it.
Meeting that force head-on would shatter his stance entirely.
This was the Warrior Commander’s ultimate technique, the one that had carried him to victory through countless battles.

What astounded everyone was Delram’s response.
Against any other attack, it might have been different—but this was wind.
He staggered, a beat slow to react, yet he managed to stabilize his footing and retreat sharply.
The Warrior Commander couldn’t have known it, but Delram had glimpsed a kind of current within the torrential Mana—a seam he could slip through.

A wet, tearing sound.
“Damn it!”

But evasion had not been perfect.
In this place, there were more than just Delram and the Warrior Commander.
A Short Spear thrust from the blind spot—he couldn’t defend against everything.

Cold metal bit deep into his flank.
Fortunately the organs were spared, but bleeding was inevitable.

A sharp whistle.

Delram spun around and swept his Curved Crescent Blade in a wide arc.
The spear shaft snapped; white-hot pain shot through whoever held it.
Ignoring the agony, Delram snapped his wrist with brutal precision.

“Gack!”

The enemy with the Curved Crescent Blade embedded in his forehead crumbled.
But what good did it do?
The battle had only been raging for fifteen minutes.
Delram had killed over ten Barbarians while evading the Warrior Commander’s interference, yet more than thirty still remained.

“D-damn tough bastard! He must be possessed by a demon!”
“Piyohr truly is a land of demons!”

In those fifteen minutes, Delram’s appearance had become unrecognizable.
Battered and broken—the phrase fit him perfectly.
His armor had been torn to shreds long ago, and his limbs bore countless small wounds scattered across their surface.
The bleeding from each one had gradually painted his entire body crimson; he looked like a living canvas of blood.

The most dangerous injuries, however, came from the Warrior Commander’s hand.
Curiously, the Warrior Commander used his Greatsword as a secondary weapon.
His primary art was Unarmed Combat.
Where his fists and feet had connected, the flesh wasn’t merely bruised—entire patches of skin had split open and torn away.

“Haah… haah…”

To any observer, Delram cut a pitiful figure.
He wasn’t merely pitiful—he was a corpse still standing.

Yet the Barbarians could not rejoice.
Fear lay thick across their faces instead.
In other words, he was not yet dead.

Moreover, despite the blood covering him, there were no truly fatal wounds.
The Short Spear from moments before, perhaps, if one had to choose.
He had clashed with the Warrior Commander—revered by ten thousand—dozens of times over these fifteen minutes, and this was the only wound of consequence to show for it.
But the truly terrifying thing lay elsewhere.

“Huh… huh.”

Even in this brief moment of standoff, his breathing stabilized with remarkable ease.
The most striking feature was his cold, unwavering gaze.
Though he’d faced death dozens of times more in those short seconds, his eyes still burned with piercing rationality.

‘Hmm…’
His grip tightened.

Seeing this, the Warrior Commander’s hands clenched around his Greatsword.
It was an involuntary reflex.
Into the face of the Warrior Commander—which had held only resolve and fury—there crept now a faint shadow of weariness.

Then Delram surged forward with sudden speed.
He covered the earth with long strides before launching himself skyward in a fierce assault.

“Ha! So you are human after all!”

The Warrior Commander’s response was a cold laugh.
The secret technique he’d just displayed.
In attempting to withstand the Wind Pressure of his Greatsword, Delram’s flank had been torn open.
He couldn’t hold his ground before it—and now he’d thrown himself into the air?
Clearly, evasion and defense both became impossible.

This was as good as offering himself to death itself.
Blood loss must have clouded his judgment.

“As you wish!”
Whoooosh!

The Warrior Commander laid the Greatsword flat and swung it in a wide arc.
Again, a tremendous Wind Pressure surged along the blade’s path.

Delram’s fate was sealed.
His stance would collapse, and he’d plummet to the ground.
One stomp on the neck would finish it.
Or so it should have been.

“What the—!?”

The Warrior Commander’s eyes widened of their own accord.
Rather than falling, Delram had simply passed straight through.
It was as if the wind itself had parted.
The very air had opened a path for him.

But the true shock lay elsewhere.
Impossibly, even suspended in that state, Delram stepped on empty air—

Thud.

And propelled himself forward as if stepping on solid ground.

It was neither magic nor Sorcery.
There was no flow of Mana, and it was no artifact.
The activation phrase that should have sounded never came.

Regardless, Delram went flying.
With the Warrior Commander’s Wind Pressure at his back, he shot forward like a sail catching the wind, even stepping on empty space at the last moment.
In that brief instant, he’d been launched nearly fifty meters.

“Did you enjoy the show?”

Around the Altar.
A chilling voice rang out among the Sorcerers.
It was the declaration of the slaughterer, finally touching ground.

Crack!

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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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