Regressor of the Fallen Family Novel - Chapter 137 (New)

Chapter 137

“Every soldier, establish a defensive perimeter! Do not let the line break!”

Roger Bifrost barked out his commands, pulling himself together with surprising speed despite seeing his tactical ace countered by such an absurd maneuver.

“Mages, rally to me!”

He reached into the folds of his cloak, brandishing a staff that pulsed with an eerie azure radiance, and immediately began channeling his internal energy. The mana radiating from the artifact enveloped the wind mages gathered at Roger’s side, weaving their collective power into a single, massive incantation.

Whoom.

An immense gale, shimmering with a ghostly light, surged forward to shield the Bifrost ranks.

Tat-tat-tat-tat.

The heavy bolts launched by the Mclane crossbow cavalry clattered harmlessly against the infantry’s raised wooden bucklers. Meanwhile, the swarm of Liberatio shells filling the horizon was caught in the artificial cyclone, detonating prematurely in the sky.

Boom. Whoom. Boom-boom-boom!

Startled by the sudden barrier, the crossbow cavalry wavered, reluctant to close the distance, while the barrage of Liberatio raining from the heavens began to thin out.

“Is such a feat even possible?”

The sight of a small group of sorcerers generating a shield expansive enough to cover an entire division was staggering. Clayton turned his bewildered gaze toward the man who had just performed an even more nonsensical miracle, clearing his throat to offer the explanation he sought.

“…In theory, a wizard could manage it. But a barrier of that magnitude won’t hold. It’s a fundamentally crude and wasteful defensive spell for any high-level caster.”

“Then how do you explain what we are looking at?”

“That staff is undoubtedly a potent artifact. Even so, they are pushing their limits. It won’t endure. Even if they fueled it with their very life force, it would last two hours at the absolute most.”

Logan’s tension eased at Clayton’s confident assessment. Though it might have been invisible to the rank-and-file, from Logan’s vantage point, Roger Bifrost looked like a man on the brink of total exhaustion.

Yet, one mystery remained.

“They aren’t deploying their knights; they’re just hunkering down behind that wall… Why no counter-offensive? They’re barely tossing a few arrows to keep us back.”

“They are stalling for time. Sir Clayton, are you certain about that two-hour window?”

Paderic, who had been bracing for a spearhead assault, stepped into the conversation.

“I am, Your Lordship.”

“Would it be paranoid to think that whatever they are waiting for is set to arrive within those two hours?”

“No, that seems highly probable. A fifth-circle wizard wouldn’t push himself to this breaking point otherwise.”

It was better to assume the enemy had a plan than to hope they were merely incompetent. Without needing to dwell on it further, Paderic looked to the young heir.

“What is the move, Logan?”

“What else can we do? There is only one path forward.”

With a grim, determined grin, Logan turned toward his men.

“All knights, prepare for the vanguard! I will take the lead. We break them through the center!”

“Understood!”

Even though Mclane’s specialized arsenal had been neutralized, the spirit of the knights remained at a fever pitch after witnessing Logan’s recent display of power. If the distance tools failed, they would simply finish it by hand.

“If their magic stops outside interference, we’ll just detonate it from within their walls.”

Trading their golems for raw steel, the knights tucked two or three Liberatio into their armor plating.

“Charge!”

Whoom.

A sickly emerald aura, granted by Clayton’s magic, shrouded the knights as Logan led the frantic dash forward.

Thud-thud-thud-thud.

Logan felt his pulse quicken as he watched the enemy knights at the heart of the Bifrost formation react to their approach. Even if defense was their priority, no knightly order could simply stand still and receive a full-tilt heavy cavalry charge.

“Intercept them!”

Just as he predicted, the enemy knights surged forward, led by a voice he knew all too well. Logan welcomed the challenge.

“Fire!!”

At Logan’s shout, the Mclane knights mimicked the earlier enemy tactic, hurling the blood-red explosives. These force-users used their enhanced strength to whip the bombs toward the exposed Bifrost knights who had transitioned outside the safety of the wind barrier.

However.

“Don’t you dare!”

The two knights leading the enemy charge reacted instantly. A silver force blade, flickering like a luminous whip, lashed out in front of them, supported by a massive, five-meter pillar of crimson energy.

Bang!

Though a few riders in the rear were caught in the blasts, the bulk of the Bifrost knights pressed on, largely unscathed. Logan’s smile only grew more predatory.

‘So, they won’t go down without a fight, eh?’

Since his reincarnation, Logan had focused on cold efficiency. He preferred to catch enemies off guard or obliterate them with superior technology before the swords even touched. That strategy had brought Mclane nothing but victory. But deep in his soul, a part of him remained unsatisfied.

Facing the family that had sparked a generational blood feud—a grudge that had reached the point of no return—Logan felt a raw, primal fury surging within. He wanted to break them in a fair fight, face-to-face. And today, he saw no reason to suppress that rage.

‘Strike first, strike hard!’

Whoom.

The force core in his chest began to pulse. As the energy flooded out, it synchronized with his second, third, and fourth cores, spinning into a violent, amplified vortex. Mana surged down to his boots, sharpening his reflexes and boosting his speed to a blur. It flowed into his gauntlets, hardening the muscles of his forearms. Finally, the massive tide of energy poured into his sword, Lux.

Whoom.

With a single draw of his blade, he manifested a force edge that stretched over three meters. It was a technique reserved for the elite of the elite, rendering traditional lances redundant in a charge. But Logan was far from finished. Following the ancestral secrets he held, he twisted the force, molding it into a terrifyingly destructive shape.

And then.

Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud.

The distance closed until they could see the whites of each other’s eyes.

“Eradicate them!”

A titanic golden blade, two meters in width and stretching over twenty meters long, swept across the battlefield like a horizontal scythe, cleaving through the front line of the Bifrost knights.

Snap.

The golden arc tore through the air, a sight so overwhelming it momentarily silenced the chaos of the melee. The two high-tier knights at the front managed to leap into the air just in time, but they were the only ones fast enough to survive.

“Aaargh!”

The twenty knights directly behind them were caught in the golden death zone, sliced into pieces as the light roared through them.

Hee-hee-heeing!

The surviving Bifrost riders stumbled over the remains of their comrades, their horses slipping in gore as their momentum collapsed. Their formation was shattered in a heartbeat. Sensing the advantage, the reinvigorated Mclane knights plunged into the gaps.

Bang!

“Aaargh!”

The collision was deafening. Though the numbers were roughly equal, the clash resulted in a one-sided slaughter.

“No, this can’t be happening?!”

From his position at the command tent, Roger Bifrost’s face drained of all color. The sixth-circle wind spell—the Wide Multiple Barrier sustained by the artifact and his supporting mages—began to flicker. The relentless fire from the crossbow cavalry finally found purchase through the gaps, raining down upon the Bifrost encampment.

“Aaargh!”

“Your Grace!”

“Ugh!”

By the time Roger managed to stabilize the barrier’s center, more than a hundred of his men had been cut down. He bit his lip until it bled, his eyes hardening with a desperate resolve.

“Kill that boy! Kill him now!”

The knight commanders, Aslan and Plantz, didn’t need the order to know their line was failing. But the “Twin Swords of Bifrost” were currently too preoccupied to worry about the bigger picture.

“We’re taking you to hell with us!”

“Don’t make me laugh, you fools!”

They ignored the five elite Mclane knights harrying their flanks, even as those knights suffered horrific wounds to keep them busy. They focused entirely on the young man before them, pouring every ounce of their focus into a relentless coordinated assault.

“Die!”

Plantz’s silver force blade lashed out like a whip to entangle Logan, while Aslan, silent and focused, thrust his glowing red sword toward Logan’s heart.

‘Hmph!’

As Logan vaulted into the air to evade the pincer movement, the two commanders shared a dark look. They prepared to shred him the moment his feet left the ground.

Scratch. Snap.

But as their red and white blades tore through the space where Logan had been, they felt no resistance. No blood sprayed. Before they could comprehend how they had missed, a fountain of red erupted from an entirely different direction.

Fwoosh.

A golden blade suddenly materialized behind Plantz, skewering him through the torso. The lethal combination of the wind god boots and the ghost shadow footwork had produced a result that defied belief.

“It’s time to close the curtain. Goodbye.”

Slash!

In the middle of the carnage, the head of one of the realm’s most famous knights spun into the air.

Aslan had known what Logan was capable of since their clash at Tomodo Castle. He knew the boy was a freak of nature whose power far outstripped his years. Even so, Aslan had believed that with Plantz at his side, they could handle any outcome.

But the moment he had seen that swirling golden pillar earlier, his instincts had screamed at him to retreat. He knew Logan was different now—stronger than before. His gut had warned him of catastrophe, and unfortunately, that premonition had come true faster than he could have imagined.

Slash!

“Plantz!”

Watching his lifelong companion fall sent Aslan into a blind, murderous fugue. He channeled his power into his sword, Mobilitas—an artifact slightly inferior to the lost Velocitatas—pushing his speed past the breaking point of his own body. A red force blade erupted from his weapon, lashing out like a bolt of crimson lightning. This was his ultimate technique, Red Lightning, a move inspired by his fallen brother-in-arms.

Fzzzt!

But the strike found only empty air.

Snap.

“Your swings are too wide.”

The mocking voice whispered in his ear just as a searing, white-hot agony tore through his side. Golden light filled his vision once more.

“Ah…!”

Just as the terror of death took hold, a violent storm erupted behind him, inadvertently saving his life.

Boom-boom-boom-boom!

“Tsk!”

Logan clicked his tongue. Caught up in the rhythm of the duel, he had failed to land the finishing blow on both. The incoming barrage of wind blades was too dangerous to ignore for a follow-up strike. Frowning, Logan adjusted his stance and swung his blade through the storm of invisible edges.

“Aaargh!”

Wails of agony rose from the enemy ranks.

‘What?’

Logan looked back, confused. He saw the enemy infantry being decimated by heavy bolt fire, and the once-mighty barrier had shrunk significantly, now only protecting Roger Bifrost and his remaining mages.

‘Are you insane? You abandoned your own soldiers just to target me?’

Golden flashes lunged at him in a moment of renewed danger.

‘Ugh!’

Scratch.

A force blade sliced across his flank. Aslan’s face, contorted into a mask of pure hatred, vanished back into the magical gale in an eye-blink.

Ah. Kab. Da.

Logan read the silent words Aslan mouthed before disappearing.

‘Fine then. I’ll give you exactly what you want.’

He welcomed their desperation. Logan’s sword began to glow with an even more brilliant, suffocating golden light.