The Imperial Supreme Commander Has Returned - Chapter 36

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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 Chapter 36

‘Well done, Owl.’

Delram praised the Owl silently.
Not aloud—only in his thoughts.
He couldn’t afford to speak right now.

—Screee!

The Owl beat its wings in front of Delram’s face.
The feathers lashed against his cheeks sharply.
But today, he didn’t mind at all.
Not after what it had just accomplished.

First, the lure.
It was the Owl who’d brought the Hellhounds here.
It had carried the scent of Matthew’s group to the beasts again and again.
When they’d wandered off course—creatures that had been quite far away—it kindly coaxed them back on the trail.

The ambush that followed, the arrow loosed in the chaos.
That perfect shot had pierced straight through the knight’s head.
That too was thanks to the Owl.

‘I didn’t know it could bend an arrow’s path like that.’

It hadn’t curved much, but it had been enough.
Enough to send the knight crashing down just as he relaxed, seeing the arrow approach.
It was the result of the Owl giving everything it had.

‘If Spirit Power grew stronger, I could create true homing arrows. Ones that hit no matter how you threw them….’

In any case, three remained now.
Two Lower-Rank Knights and one Mid-Rank.
Of those, one Lower-Rank was Matthew—and calling him an “adviser” felt generous, and watching him tremble didn’t inspire confidence he’d be any real threat.
What kind of knight had no calluses on his hands?

Still, the fight wasn’t easy.
Naturally, because of the Mid-Rank Knight.
So it wouldn’t have been unreasonable to part ways now, each going their separate direction—but Delram chose to see it through.

‘They can pin it on me as an assassination.’

No—they almost certainly would.
What these types did was always predictable.

The Commander did trust Delram, of course.
Beyond that, there was also the influence of the Rubian and Bistache houses.
With their backing, clearing his name would be simple enough—
But that didn’t make all the problems disappear.

Suspicion would remain.
The lingering doubt: ‘Could he have really done it?’

Once a prejudice takes root, it doesn’t fade easily.
Especially not for a commoner like Delram.

‘Besides… it’s annoying.’

That was the biggest reason.
All this back-and-forth arguing, hunting for evidence—it was dreadfully tedious.
Why bother with any of it?

‘So let’s just kill them all.’

It wasn’t a thought that had come late.
The moment he laid eyes on them, the math was done. The plan was drawn.

One Mid-Rank Knight, four Lower-Rank Knights.
Matched the entire military strength of some decrepit lordling.
Formidable force, yes—but what of himself?

‘Fourteen years old. A Spirit User.’

And more than that: experienced.
A lifetime spent wondering how best to kill an opponent, how to orchestrate a massacre with flair. Years of it.
And that was only the half of it.
From such devotion had risen an absolute pioneer in his field—a mad killer, a virtuoso of murder.

Which was precisely why he lay here now.
More precisely: he’d burrowed into the earth beneath the Road.
Masking his presence, pretending to be nothing but soil.

Delram closed his eyes and focused his mind.
At once, a torrent of sensations poured in.

Tap-tap!
A mole’s snout brushing the earth.

Wriggle, wriggle!
Earthworms busy making offspring.

Thud, thud, thud!
Hooves—horses bearing riders down the Road.

‘They’ve come.’

His senses told him much.
Four horses. By the vibrations, three of them carried riders.
Of all days, all hours, all numbers—only they would gallop the Road now.
No one but Matthew’s men.

‘Just a bit longer. Just a bit more……’

Delram muttered this to himself, preparing.
The spacing of the hoofbeats was growing tighter.
In rhythm with them, he sent Mana coursing through his body.
Along the circuit it rushed, flooding through every muscle, building immense pressure throughout his frame.

‘The first one—skip him.’

Almost certainly a Mid-Rank Knight.
A Mid-Rank couldn’t be killed by surprise easily.

Next, the middle one—skip him too.
Precisely where a young noble would be positioned for protection.
So the target had to be… the last one!

‘Go!’

Shriek!

Delram detonated his Mana.

* * *

Shriek!

The road ahead, which had been running smoothly, suddenly erupted.
A familiar shadow rose through the thick cloud of dust.
It was Delram.

-Neigh!

At the sudden appearance, the horse reared up on its front legs.
Even a well-trained war horse had its limits.
A man erupting from the earth like this defied all expectation.

“Wh-what in—”

The knight was equally caught off guard.
Still, his horsemanship proved exceptional.
He tensed his thighs and dismounted in one fluid motion.

But whether that was fortunate remained to be seen.
Delram’s Tarving was already scattering slashes through the air.

Crack!
“Ahhhhh!”

A pale light flashed near both of the knight’s arms.
No blood sprayed.
They had frozen solid the instant they were severed.

But that made it all the more terrible.
The knight shrieked, while his severed arms swayed uselessly, still clutching the reins in a death grip.

A spectacle of pure cruelty.
Delram had no intention of lingering on the sight.
What meaning remained in a lifetime without hands?
The desperate knight deserved mercy.
So Delram drew the Tarving toward the knight’s throat—

“Hah!”

Delram caught his breath as he checked the blade.
Then, with the grace of a dancer, he pivoted half a turn and slipped aside.

Thud!

The knight’s heart split vertically the next instant.
Delram, who had used the knight as his shield, was drenched in the spray of blood.

Yet he felt no disgust.
Had his dodge been even slightly slower, that blood would have been his own.

“Neooooow!”
“You called?”

Delram lunged at Gibson with a snarl.
Gibson, who had braced himself to chase after a fleeing opponent, flinched momentarily before surging forward like a tiger to meet the assault head-on.

“I’ll tear your limbs apart!”
“Show me mercy.”

Clang-clang-clang-clang!
Clash-clash-chime!

Their blades sought and met each other in mid-air.
In seconds, they exchanged dozens of strikes before springing apart.

Gibson’s swordsmanship was honest and unyielding.
For that reason it lacked variety, yet for that same reason it was formidable.
He had honed the fundamentals to their limit—swift and heavy-handed.

Delram’s blade, by contrast, was unorthodox.
A sword that never telegraphed when, where, or how it would strike.
It seemed to be coming from one direction, only to arc toward another; seemed to hang high, then suddenly erupted from below.

Both were exceptional.
Yet if forced to judge, Delram held the edge.
The gap in defense was especially stark.
The way he drew his blade close just before the opponent’s strike landed, killing its momentum or sliding it past—it was nothing short of masterful.

“Die, you worm!”
“Ugh!”

Yet the chasm between Lower-Rank and Mid-Rank Knight was staggering.
Gibson bore down with straightforward cuts—up, down, left, right.
Delram had to roll, dive, leap, perform every desperate maneuver imaginable just to cling to life.
With each collision, Tarving was driven back hard; he moved with frantic haste, barely—barely—deflecting the next blade strike.

Desperation.
There was no better word for it.

“This infernal blade won’t cease!”

Yet Gibson was in no better position.
At Mid-Rank, a warrior’s body became suffused with a Mana field.
Known as Anti-Magic Resistance, this aura mitigated various effects wrought by Mana—curses, magical harm, and the like.

But Tarving was the problem.
The formidable chill emanating from Tarving, a 5-Circle Artifact, pierced even a Mid-Rank Knight’s Mana field and seeped through.
It did not freeze him solid as it would a Lower-Rank Knight, yet with each blade contact, numbing cold accumulated, layer by layer, growing unbearable.
And it dulled his fine motor control.

Thud!

Then Gibson unleashed a ponderous strike.
He had reversed his longsword and brought it down like a club.

Delram placed one hand flat against the blade and held firm.
But that alone was not enough.
He had blocked it, yet the overwhelming impact of raw strength lingered.

Whiiing—

Normally, he would burn Mana to dissipate it.
But rather than waste precious Mana, Delram stepped back naturally and channeled the shock harmlessly through the earth beneath his feet.
It was truly the handiwork of a veteran.

“That bastard…!”

Gibson’s eyes widened as he recognized the move.
But he quickly grasped what needed to be done and drew up his Mana.
Gibson’s Mana spun rapidly through the Mana Road.
The accelerating Mana radiated heat, beginning to drive out the chill that Tarving had driven into his body.

This was the reason Gibson had unleashed such a powerful attack.
Now all that remained was to finish Delram again—

“What!?”

Gibson’s smirk vanished in shock.
In that brief moment when his focus shifted to manage his Mana, Delram had vanished from his sight without a trace.

If he hadn’t sunk into the ground, there was only one possibility left.
Realizing this, Gibson snapped his head upward.

It was a reflexive motion, but his instinct proved exact.
There—high in the sky beyond his normal vision—was Delram.
Impossibly, he was pushing off the empty air itself!

Thud—

But that was not all.
Delram pushed off the empty air again, his body still in motion.
Not upward, nor to the side.
Downward.
With momentum gained, Delram plummeted at terrifying speed.

Screeeee!

Of course, he did not come unarmed.
The Tarving in his hand aimed for Gibson’s crown.

“A peculiar tactic!”

But if he had seen it coming, he was prepared.
Gibson thrust his blade forward to meet it, humming with Aura.

When blade tip met blade tip with such force, what must happen?
The sword of the weaker hand would inevitably be knocked aside.
Victory, naturally, was his.
Then he would cut Delram down without hesitation.

And just before the two blades collided.
Gibson’s torso suddenly wrenched backward at the last instant.

“Hragh!?”
Slash—crack!

Gibson’s instincts were indeed formidable.
The spot where Gibson had stood moments before was now torn apart.

The grass that had grown to ankle height scattered and fell away.
The razor-sharp edge testified to no ordinary blow.
A direct hit would surely have been fatal.

“Another artifact… damn!”

Gibson, who had been blazing with fury, stiffened in sudden alarm.
Delram, who had been thrusting his blade forward, should have fallen before him—but the boy had vanished from sight.

Gibson jerked his head up in panic, scanning quickly.
But unlike moments before, all he saw was a clear, cloudless sky.
Delram was long gone.
Then where—?

Screech.

The vibration of a blade sang out from his side.
His eyes pivoted faster than his head could turn, catching the boy in their sights.
Startled eyes met leopard-keen eyes in an instant.

An abrupt change of position.
It was the result of Delram having created a fresh foothold beneath him, then forcibly pushing against it with his palm instead of stepping on it, wrenching his entire body sideways.

“What—what—!”
“Farewell.”

Crack!

Delram, gripping the Tarving, surged forward in one long stride.
What met him was Gibson’s armor.
The Tarving’s mana tore through the Plate Armor, sheared past the Chain Armor, and sliced through the quilted Gambeson like paper.

Hiss-crack!
“Aaaahhhhh!”

Delram rolled forward past Gibson’s cleaved form.
Though that was exactly what shouldn’t have happened.
Gibson did not counterattack; instead, he clutched at his side.
Like plunging a searing hot knife into butter and pulling it free—the wound gaped in agony.
At a glance, there was no hope.

And then the cold.
Though the blade had cut cleanly, that strange hiss-crack sound came because the wound was freezing over with horrifying speed.
The cold was not limited to the wound itself; it was killing the surrounding tissue as well, stealing away any last chance of recovery.

“Please… please…!”

Gibson whimpered, his face drained of all color.
Even as he did, he threw aside his blade and clawed desperately at his own clothes.
Likely searching for a Potion.

Of course, no Potion could heal a wound like this.
And Delram had no intention of standing idle and watching.
The vanquished’s possessions belong to the victor, after all.

Whistle—
Thud!

The Tarving that Delram hurled buried itself in Gibson’s skull.
The large frame froze where it stood, trembling violently.
Then the massive body pitched forward, falling without strength.
Disbelief lingered distinctly in his dying eyes.

But there was nothing surprising about it.
By now, Delram had slain quite a number of barbaric warriors.
They all wore the same expression as Gibson.

“Stubborn bastards.”

Delram muttered this to himself as he drew Tarving from its sheath.
A sound like something collapsing came from beside him, followed by a strange moan.

“Unh… nngh-nngh…”

It was Matthew—the sole survivor.
But whether or not he acknowledged this, Delram inspected Tarving.

Remarkably, not a single tooth was missing from the blade.
Despite having clashed so fiercely with a Mid-Rank Knight’s Aura.
This was why knights obsessed over named blades.

“It’s genuinely convenient not having to wipe away blood.”

It froze the blood solid in the first place.
Delram smiled with satisfaction and turned his gaze toward Matthew.
Had that smile truly been so terrifying?

A soft hiss escaped the air.

Faced with that smile, Matthew’s breeches grew warm.
Delram’s expression hardened again, needless to say.

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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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