Commander Valter rushed to the left flank of the battlefield moments after receiving a report from a soldier, stating that a rogue had suddenly appeared and was now locked in combat with soldiers from both sides.
Around the same time, on the opposite side, another small squad led by Commander Jancko left the fortress and headed for the right flank after a messenger delivered a similar report.
It had been several hours since the war begun, that day. The sun was preparing to set, and the sky had taken on a reddish hue—though not as thick as the battlefield itself, which was now dyed deep crimson as the blood of soldiers flowed like rivers.
Fresh corpses continued to pile up on both sides, Mardonians and the Walts alike, and the casualty count had already reached well into the five digits after two days.
Zachary weaved through the warriors like a specter. A longsword rested in his right hand, a scimitar in his left, both serving as tools for harvesting lives.
He had been fighting for close to two hours, yet fatigue had not set in. To retrain his physique, Zachary deliberately limited his power, relying solely on physical strength and the experience from his past life.
He could have utilized his Soul Energy to gain an immediate upper hand, but doing so would defeat the entire purpose. Besides, these warriors were not weak. If even one of them were placed on planet Agrae, they would be capable of fighting a former king of El Malais—proof that their base parameters were far beyond normal.
Zachary was fully absorbed in the fight when his ears caught the faint whistling of wind. He reacted in a split second, narrowly evading a long spear that descended from above and slammed into the ground with excessive force.
"Impressive evasion."
A gruff, masculine voice echoed across the heated battlefield. Standing before him was a towering man, more than a head taller than Zachary. His frame was broad and sculpted, his expression severe. He might have been considered handsome if not for the scowl etched across his face.
Zachary was about to lunge forward when a scimitar—slightly larger than his own—came crashing down from behind.
Once again, he was forced to evade. He dipped low to stabilize his center of gravity before dashing sideways.
The scimitar missed, striking the ground instead. Another powerfully built man entered Zachary's field of vision.
"Damned Walts bastard."
Commander Jancko, the massive man wielding the equally massive scimitar, spat on the ground as his eyes landed on the other towering figure.
"Dirty Mardonian."
Commander Valter sneered in response.
The air grew heavier with the presence of both men. Standing slightly to the side, with both commanders directly in his line of sight, was Zachary. The unexpected standoff gave him a brief window to take a closer look at both commanders' Life Codes.
Suddenly, both commanders' gazes snapped toward him as they felt a strange sensation probing into their souls.
Frowning, Commander Jancko barked, "Soul Arts… Slimy Archivistas!" before lunging at Zachary. His expression made his hatred for the Archivistas—whatever they were—abundantly clear.
Whatever the Archivistas represented, they were clearly despised enough that even Commander Valter was willing to set aside his disgust for Mardonians and join forces with Jancko.
As soon as they moved, Aura burst forth, flaring around their bodies and flickering like flames surging upward. Commander Jancko was the first to reach Zachary, slashing diagonally with one hand.
Zachary attempted to evade the strike but was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Commander Valter on his flank, thrusting his massive spear straight toward Zachary's heart.
With his escape route compromised, Zachary had no choice but to block the scimitar slash with his spear and deflect the spear thrust with his scimitar. Even so, both attacks still reached him, grazing his flesh as the auras extended the effective range of the weapons.
Zachary immediately understood that the physical limits he had imposed on himself over the last two hours would not hold, even briefly, against these two seasoned warriors.
Valter and Jancko did not disengage after their attacks landed. Instead, they stayed close and unleashed a barrage upon Zachary—slashing, thrusting, sweeping. Bladed edges, punches, and kicks. Nothing in their arsenal was held back.
Zachary quickly found his situation growing dangerous. Although he had already lifted another layer of his physical restraint, his pride as a feared immortal did not allow him to fully unleash his strength.
This one-versus-two battle was meant to hone his techniques. Both opponents wielded Aura, and Zachary proceeded to channel his Soul Energy into his arms, enshrouding his weapons with it.
However, Zachary no longer intended to fight with two weapons. The purpose of encasing the scimitar and longsword in Soul Energy was to melt them into a liquid state, then merge them into a single weapon.
Soul Energy, in the hands of those who knew how to wield it, was vastly deadlier and superior to most powers obtained through external means.
As the melting weapons continued to deflect the incoming barrage, Zachary maintained precise control. The Soul Energy surrounding them acted as an extension of his will, creating a telekinesis-like effect.
Though bewildered by what the youthful Archivistas was doing, neither commander paid it excessive attention, focusing instead on inflicting further damage on Zachary.
From the moment Zachary enshrouded both weapons with Soul Energy to the completion of their fusion into a new weapon—a javelin—only five minutes passed.
Why a javelin?
"Soul Weapon: Javelin Jeopardy."
In an instant, Zachary created distance between them—nearly a dozen meters. He entered a throwing stance briefly and launched the javelin straight toward the bewildered Valter.
Caught off guard, the commander barely managed to block it. Even so, the force behind the javelin sent him tumbling across the ground.
Commander Jancko immediately seized the opportunity, launching himself at Zachary now that the young Archivistas appeared weaponless.
With a psychotic grin, Zachary met the commander's gaze as Jancko glided through the air.
Suddenly, the javelin—previously behind him—reappeared from below.
Jancko had no time to evade, nor was he in any position to block or deflect it. He could only grit his teeth and prepare for the worst.
The javelin found its mark.
It pierced Jancko's abdomen vertically, continued upward, punctured his lung, and burst out through his ribcage.
The soldiers had already stopped fighting the moment Commander Valter was sent tumbling across the hard ground,
just in time to see Commander Jancko's upper body pierced straight through.
Commander Jancko spat a mouthful of blood from his internal injuries. Even so, his willpower was something else. He remained standing, though his steps were unsteady from the sudden loss of a massive amount of blood.
"Damned Archivistas…!" the man scowled, trembling with anger and pain.
"What are Archivistas? And why do both of you seem to hate them so much?" Zachary asked, tilting his head innocently.
For the record, there was not a single piece of information regarding Archivistas in the minds of the Mardo soldiers he had killed earlier.
Commander Valter, who had been sent flying moments before, had already recovered and was now charging toward Zachary like an enraged bull, his massive spear thrust forward like a lance.
Zachary reacted instantly. He closed in on Commander Jancko, ripped the javelin from the man's body, then swiftly hurled it straight at Commander Valter.
This time, Valter easily deflected the incoming javelin and was mere feet away from reaching Zachary's neck—
when the javelin suddenly descended from above, impaling the commander firmly into the ground.
Current kill count: 179 (2 Commanders)
With the deaths of their respective commanders, the soldiers' morale plummeted as both sides began fleeing the battlefield toward their camps. The Mardonians regrouped behind the fortress walls, while the Walts retreated further west, running into the setting sun.
It wasn't long before the battlefield became a dining hall for vultures and other scavengers.
The sun was nearly set, and only a single shadow was cast across the ground amid the piles of corpses.
"Phew… that was a great exercise. Totally worth it." Zachary chuckled as his eyes swept across the battlefield one last time.
His gaze then fell upon the corpses of the two opposing commanders. They had died believing the wrong things. Unfortunate, yes. As brutal as his methods had been, it was purely because they stood on opposing sides—a circumstantial difference, if one wished to call it that.
Nevertheless, vain as their deaths were, valiant mortals deserved a measure of respect, even if they died unjustly.
Zachary dug two graves, one for each commander, and buried them with proper respect. He used his own hands to place them into the ground before covering them. Their respective weapons—the scimitar and the long spear—stood as their tombstones.
Life and death are tangled. Creation and destruction come in pairs. So do joy and sorrow, anger and peace.
With this chant upon your death, I release the curses of your birth.
"Hah… this is making me nostalgic." Zachary chuckled and shook his head. With one final glance at the battlefield, he flew toward the horizon, heading further west.