Chapter 393

The man who had become a lycanthrope was named Ronald.

Even when he was human, Ronald was a pervert who enjoyed killing people and dismembering bodies.

“It’s fun.”

And he never denied that he took pleasure in it.

So his end was inevitable. Ronald was hunted by bounty hunters and driven to the brink of death. That was when he met Count Molsen and received the power of a Demon.

Ronald considered it luck.

The Demon’s power surged through him, threading into his arms and legs. His pounding heart pushed blood through his entire body.

He was overflowing with strength. He had to do something. He wanted to tear someone limb from limb, devour their insides, drink their blood, and crush their bones between his molars.

Desire churned and writhed, and it shone clearly in his eyes.

“Heh-heh-heh!”

Laughter and howling mingled together.

It was a shriek of impatience.

He could see the line of soldiers standing their ground before him. They were pretending not to be afraid.

And at the front, a large figure raised an arm and drew it back.

He looked tough, but it didn’t matter. Ronald’s sharp fangs could tear through anything.

He would chew them up indiscriminately.

Then, once he entered the city, he would pick out young women from those hiding and watching in fear, kill them, and gnaw on their flesh.

“Yee-hee!”

Baring his claws, he lunged forward, swallowing his anticipation.

Whoosh.

The wind slammed into his face.

It was too fast to react to.

Ronald’s strength had doubled, and his speed had risen with it, but to Audin, it was all the same.

Bang!

It sounded like two carriages colliding at full speed.

A roar erupted amid the lycanthrope pack’s howling. Shards of a shattered skull flew in every direction.

Audin stopped in a stance with his left hand extended like a blade and his right arm thrust out.

Crimson liquid dripped from the studded leather gauntlet on his right hand.

Normally, he used a club so he wouldn’t have to use his bare hands.

But now the situation was different.

‘If we can’t stop them, it’s over.’

Hadn’t Krys said that?

Everyone behind him, in the Border Guards city, would die.

There was another reason not to hold back.

He was facing degenerates who had chosen the life of Demons while still human.

The Lord said that if humans abandon being human, the only place left for them is at the Lord’s side.

Seek forgiveness at the Lord’s side.

Be judged at the Lord’s side.

Words spoken in the Holy War.

“My left hand is a sword, and my right hand is a rock.”

Audin muttered.

He moved without breaking his stance, continuing as if chanting.

“The Father commanded me to show mercy with neither hand.”

Drunk on slaughter, the lycanthrope pack rushed in without fear. They had lost human reason.

Their leader had been splattered and thrown aside, but even seeing that, their Demon-soaked minds failed to recognize it.

Audin stepped forward and blocked their path.

He advanced, stomping the ground with each step.

A walk like a tank—crushing and destroying whatever lay ahead.

Straight ahead, unwavering.

“Once human, but now…”

He prayed and struck down the Demon charging at him with his left hand.

His left hand was a sword.

As the edge of his hand cut diagonally, the head of a one-eyed lycanthrope was severed along its arc.

Splurt.

Blood burst out. Dead, but still carried by the momentum of its charge, the body crashed toward Audin.

Audin twisted slightly, pivoting on his left foot to avoid it. The headless lycanthrope collapsed, slid across the ground, and tumbled away.

Bang!

Before the corpse had even finished sprawling, another roar exploded.

Audin’s right fist had slammed into the chest of a Demon that rushed in from behind.

From the impact point, organs, bone, flesh, and blood sprayed outward in a radial bloom.

Where his fist struck—and then withdrew—was a hole no human fist should have been able to make.

“Now I send those who have become Demons to judgment, declaring their sins and delivering their sentence.”

Before his prayer ended, Audin swung his left hand three times and his right fist four times.

Three lycanthropes were cleaved apart.

Four were smashed into ruin.

Only then did he finish his prayer.

A husky voice slid in at Audin’s left.

“Forgiveness and judgment are the Lord’s work.”

It was Teresa, continuing the prayer as she held her shield horizontally.

She pulled her left arm back, then thrust forward.

Whoosh!

The shield flew.

Not faster than an arrow, perhaps, but impossibly fast for a massive shield that covered half of Teresa’s body.

The sharpened edge split the waist of a lycanthrope in front of her.

With that edge and Teresa’s strength, it was no different from a famed sword.

Thunk.

She tugged the rope, and the shield snapped back into her grasp.

At the same time, a Demon lunged from the side.

Teresa, drawing the shield back, brought the flat of her sword down on the crown of its head.

Clang!

The strength of a half-giant erupted.

Crunch!

The skull shattered. Tongue, teeth, and fragments sprayed red, and blood poured from what looked like a crushed potato of a head.

The newly appointed heavy infantry commander and several others witnessed it.

They were stunned—even though they already knew.

Is that even human?

It was the first time they’d seen Audin fight with resolve.

Is it possible for a human to do that with two hands?

The gauntlets on both hands were torn apart, but he didn’t care. He swung his right fist and cut with his left hand.

It was like a shredder.

The lycanthrope pack that rushed in was torn apart in an instant.

Cut. Exploded. Smashed.

As if they were nothing but moving chunks of meat.

Beside him, Teresa moved with shield and sword.

Fifty lycanthropes were a force that would burden most cities.

That threat was ripped apart, broken, and shattered by the hands of two people.

A commander among the standing army, watching, shook his head hard and shouted,

“Everyone, charge!”

Move when you have the advantage.

It was an order from above. Big Eyes, the messenger who came down, had hammered it into them until their ears bled.

“Don’t be surprised by anything you see. Advance. Keep your formation and push forward.”

“Even if the enemy retreats?”

“Maintain formation. That comes first. Chasing comes after!”

Krys—that crazy bastard—talked too much.

But aside from talking too much, the commander obeyed.

Everything had been approved by the lord, Graham.

And above all, this was to protect the city where they were born and raised.

Most of the troops Krys sent forward were locals of the Border Guards—this was their home and their livelihood.

The troops advanced without breaking apart.

Proof of a well-trained force.

Of course, the commander leading Count Molsen’s troops saw it too.

What kind of battle starts without a single arrow, begins with bare hands, and ends with an orderly march?

‘What is this?’

It was a battle far removed from anything he knew.

Count Molsen’s commander wasn’t worthy of being called excellent, but he still did what he could.

He made the best choice available.

“Retreat! Retreat!”

Their prepared blade had broken. They needed to regroup.

He withdrew with the troops.

Exactly what Krys wanted.

This was enough.

Push farther and inflict fatal damage? No chance.

Only a small portion of Count Molsen’s forces had come here.

Buying time was enough.

Watching the enemy retreat, Krys thought.

‘I need to know what’s happening.’

Had the Count already swallowed the royal palace?

No. If that were the case, there would be no need to strike the Border Guards. This was an ambush.

‘If I’d taken the royal palace, I’d demand oaths first.’

It would be more efficient to propose it while the other side was surrounded.

Isn’t narrowing the opponent’s choices the best kind of offer?

But he didn’t do that.

‘So this is revenge.’

Who was the target?

There was no need to think hard.

Who in the city was tied to the Count?

Graham, the lord?

He had only bared his teeth and declared he would protect the city.

Krys’s instincts whispered an answer.

‘Could the Captain be involved?’

It was a small suspicion, but he was almost convinced.

Nothing in the world was absolute, so he couldn’t call it certain, but the probability was high.

‘This is going to be a headache.’

It looked like a civil war—a war.

And what did the Count show first?

Fifty lycanthropes.

Humans turning into wolves. If you don’t piss yourself the moment you see that, you’re not human.

So by Krys’s standards, Encrid and a few others weren’t human.

They were monsters.

If it were them, they’d get excited and jump out instead of being intimidated.

Or they’d just kill whoever annoyed them.

Either way, the Count had revealed a dangerous force.

And the point was: this wasn’t a hidden card.

Which meant—

‘That’s not the end of it.’

Krys had seen humans turn into Demons while fighting the Black Blade Bandits. He knew what it implied.

A force that all but declared Count Molsen himself was behind it.

‘And the territorial army’s training is excellent.’

It would have been more shocking if they’d marched shoulder to shoulder with the lycanthropes, but even so, they retreated in silence.

Their formation barely collapsed. It looked like they had trained for this moment.

Krys postponed pursuit because he didn’t know what lay behind them.

No—he shouldn’t pursue.

His head agreed, and so did his gut.

Fortunately, the opposing force retreated at a leisurely pace.

“Giant Siblings!”

Someone shouted the nickname.

Audin silently shook the blood from his hands and pulled off his broken gauntlets.

For what he’d done with his hands, there were only a few scratches on his fists.

More than forty lycanthrope corpses lay piled in front of them.

The remaining dozen or so had slipped past Audin and Teresa, only to be stopped by a newly formed spear-and-shield unit.

They didn’t panic.

They kept distance with spears and hid behind shields.

A tactic where the squad moved as one.

It was a small-scale formation commonly used by the mercenary king of the eastern continent, taught by a recently joined commander with a mercenary background.

One squad, bristling like a hedgehog, calmly stabbed and killed the werewolves one by one.

Not as overwhelming as Audin or Teresa, but there were several skilled soldiers who could kill a werewolf alone.

So the victory was inevitable.

Krys predicted that the Border Guards’ strength would spread everywhere after this battle.

‘Azpen and the others will analyze it.’

He couldn’t block every watching eye and listening ear. Soon, it would be known that the Border Guards weren’t easy prey.

Would that help in this situation?

‘Of course it helps.’

Power is better than no power. That’s obvious.

Krys exhaled and prepared for the next step.

‘The Count’s target is the royal palace.’

Swallowing the Border Guards would be nice, but he’d just shown it would be difficult. Predicting the next move was easy.

So Krys had to prepare for that here, too.

He relayed everything to Graham.

Graham nodded.

“I’ll send the fastest bird to the royal palace.”

After a fight that ended almost as soon as it began, Krys sensed a truly desperate civil war had been set in motion.

He didn’t know everything about Count Molsen, but if he were the Count—

‘I wouldn’t step out without confidence.’

The Count had moved because he was sure he’d win.

To him, poking the Border Guards was just a light prank.

“Anyway, what are you doing out there?”

Krys muttered to himself.

It was the moment he found himself especially curious about what his Captain was doing.

—

“What is this?”

He had fallen asleep and opened his eyes.

Encrid stared at the unfamiliar things arranged on the deck—a table, a chair.

The ferry seemed to have doubled in size.

“I want to talk to you. You.”

The Ferryman sat across from him, tilting his hood back.

Beneath it was the same gray skin and violet eyes, like a cracked wasteland.

There was no lamp.

Instead, the Ferryman’s eyes shone like lanterns.