Read Novel Full Chapter 404: Valerion advantage
Chapter 404: Valerion advantage
Above the chaos of clashing steel and colliding formations, the usurper archers finally received their signal.
They had waited with disciplined patience, allowing the infantry and cavalry to engage first, allowing Valerion to commit fully to the choke point. Now, as the valley descended into close quarters carnage, their true role began.
Quivers were opened.
Not ordinary arrows.
These were specially modified shafts, their heads wrapped in tightly sealed capsules etched with runic patterns. Some contained condensed flame cores that would erupt upon impact. Others carried toxins meant to disperse through shattered armor. A few were designed to fracture into razor fragments mid-flight, shredding through clustered ranks.
The archers rose in coordinated motion along both ridgelines.
Bows drew back in synchronized arcs.
They loosed.
A dark wave of death poured downward toward Valerion’s engaged front.
For a breath, it seemed inevitable.
Then screams echoed from behind the archers themselves.
Bartho had not remained idle.
While Lucas had led the frontal charge, Bartho had guided his squad through narrow stone paths previously scouted and memorized. They had moved low, silent, concealed by dust and the shifting distraction of battle below.
The first line of archers never saw them coming.
Bartho surged from behind a cluster of stone outcroppings like a force unchained. Flames ignited around his blade not in a disciplined stream but in a roaring burst that engulfed three archers before they could even turn.
Their modified arrows detonated prematurely in their hands as fire consumed them, explosions ripping through their own ranks in chaotic bursts.
Bartho did not slow.
He swung wide, releasing a horizontal wave of concentrated flame that tore through wooden bowframes and ignited cloaks instantly. The dry air, now thinned and controlled by the Ice Belle, fed the blaze violently.
Archers stumbled backward, some trying to nock arrows blindly behind them, others attempting to retreat toward higher ground.
There was no ground left to retreat to.
Bartho closed the distance with savage precision, his fire not wild but directed, burning flesh and armor alike. He seized one archer by the collar and slammed him into another before igniting both in a pillar of searing heat that left nothing but charred remains.
The ridge became an inferno.
Screams replaced disciplined silence.
On the opposite ridge, Volde executed with colder efficiency.
His squad emerged from concealed stone depressions in perfect coordination. Dominion bracelets pulsed in unison as they struck from the flanks. Volde’s blade moved without wasted motion, severing bowstrings before they could be drawn again, cutting down archers as they scrambled to reposition.
An archer attempted to activate a volley of toxin-tipped arrows downward.
Volde crushed his wrist mid-draw and drove his blade through his chest in the same fluid motion.
His squad moved in tight formation, eliminating pockets of resistance methodically. No flame. No spectacle. Only swift, disciplined killing.
Within moments, the second ridge was reduced to scattered bodies and broken bones.
A few archers attempted to fire blindly toward the valley before dying.
Most never released a second arrow.
Below, several of the modified shafts that had been loosed earlier struck Valerion’s lines. A handful detonated in bursts of flame and shrapnel, causing casualties and disruption.
But the expected rain of devastation never followed.
Instead, smoke began rising from above.
Lucas noticed it instantly.
Through the chaos of combat, he saw fire consuming the ridge to his left and disciplined figures clearing the opposite side to his right.
The usurper commander saw it too.
Panic rippled across his features as he realized their elevated advantage had been erased.
The archers who were meant to devastate Valerion from above were now dead or burning.
The valley walls, once their silent ally, had turned against them entirely.
Between poison-weakened infantry, stiffening cold, fractured momentum, and the loss of their ranged superiority, the usurpers’ numerical advantage began to feel like a tightening coffin rather than overwhelming force.
And Lucas, standing amid bent space and shattered armor, pressed forward without mercy as the battle tilted further in Valerion’s favor.
At the heart of the usurpers’ formation, their General stood amidst the chaos, fury twisting his expression.
This was not how it was supposed to unfold.
They had the numbers.
They had the cavalry.
They had the high ground.
They had prepared the archers with specialized munitions precisely for this valley engagement. The first charge was meant to shatter Valerion’s front, the second to crush retreat, and the third to annihilate whatever remained.
Instead...
His infantry were slowing.
He could see it clearly now. Their steps lacked the explosive drive expected of a first collision. Several men staggered between swings. Shields dipped at the wrong moments. Horses were slipping on a surface that should not have been slick.
And the cold.
It had come without warning.
Breath fogged thickly in front of his face despite the sun overhead. Armor felt heavier. Fingers less responsive. He clenched his jaw, ignoring the subtle churn in his own stomach.
Then he looked up toward the ridges.
Smoke.
Flame.
No volleys descending.
"No..." he muttered.
A messenger stumbled toward him, pale and wide-eyed.
"The archers...!"
"I can see that!" the General roared, cutting him off.
The ridge to the left burned openly now, figures writhing before collapsing. To the right, his archers were being cut down in brutal efficiency. Whoever Valerion had sent up there had struck with precision and timing that suggested premeditated counter-ambush.
How?
How had they known?
Below, in the thick of battle, he watched a section of his reinforced line implode inward unnaturally...as if crushed by invisible walls.
..before bodies were thrown aside.
His gaze locked onto the masked figure at the center of that devastation.
Space bent around him.
Men died without even touching him.
"That monster..." the General breathed.
Around him, his numerical superiority began to feel like a liability. Six thousand compressed within a narrowing valley meant congestion. Congestion meant slower maneuvering. Slower maneuvering, combined with nausea and sudden freezing air, meant collapse.
He barked orders desperately, attempting to reorganize cavalry into a flanking maneuver...but the ice underhoof and the tight terrain made proper acceleration nearly impossible.
What was meant to be a crushing hammer strike had turned into a disordered grind.
Meanwhile...
At the rear of the valley, dust parted as a new force crested the incline.
The banners of Valerion.
The King rode at the front.
King Alden Highmoor sat tall in the saddle, his gaze sharp as he surveyed the battlefield unfolding before him.
Beside him rode General Varran, battle-hardened and unreadable, and Commander Alexander, whose eyes widened despite his discipline.
They had expected carnage.
They had expected Valerion’s front to be buckling under superior numbers.
Instead...
They saw usurper ranks faltering.
They saw smoke rising from both ridgelines.
They saw cavalry struggling to gain traction.
And at the center of it all, a masked figure carving through enemy lines with impossible spatial distortions.
General Varran exhaled slowly.
"They had every advantage," he murmured.
Commander Alexander shook his head in disbelief.
"The numbers alone should have broken us in the first charge."
The King’s eyes did not leave the battlefield.
"No," he said quietly.
"This was planned."
He watched as another segment of the usurpers’ front line collapsed inward under invisible pressure, watched as Valerion soldiers....bolstered by confidence and protected from above...pressed forward instead of retreating.
The momentum was unmistakable now.
The usurpers were no longer advancing.
They were being pushed.
The King’s lips curved faintly...not in arrogance, but in recognition.
Valerion held the advantage.