The Lord: In Another World, I Have a Summoning Card !-Chapter 38 : The Night of Bloodshed (END)

Akar advanced through the chaos of smoke and steel, the sound of clashes barely ceasing for a moment.

The tall walls of the fortress, once seemingly impregnable, were now nothing more than cracked ruins, with orcs slipping through from every direction.

The orc leaders, under Gerum’s command, were still shouting orders, trying to maintain the organized formations of the elite amidst the fierce chaos of human resistance.

Akar stood beside Dogrel, and next to them stood Commander Kargas — a massive figure with sharp eyes.

Kargas, who had been excluded from leading the initial assault due to the severe wounds he received during his first attempt to breach or weaken the fortress, had now returned to issue orders to his personal battalion, which surged through the gate like an unstoppable flood.

Everything was going according to plan... or so they thought.

For even though they had entered through the shattered gate, the fortress’s defenders had not yet fallen.

In fact, they fought with such ferocity that the orcs’ advance was momentarily halted after a group of archers appeared in the castle tower, forcing the orcs to divert more of their elite forces to deal with them.

But this wasn’t yet a cause for concern...As long as Gerum was preparing to take the head of the fortress commander, the defenders’ morale would inevitably collapse, giving the orcs a decisive combat advantage — leading to the fortress’s swift fall.

The possibility that things might suddenly turn around, or that all of this was part of a trap set by the humans to eliminate Gerum instead of defending the fortress itself, was something no one seriously considered.

Not because the orcs were foolish or overconfident, but because Gerum’s power — and the unit accompanying him — left no room for doubt, or even the imagination of such a possibility.

Thus, the current commanders remained unaware of Gerum’s fate inside the fortress. They still believed their leader was busy annihilating the enemy within, never once suspecting that the man who had long stood as a symbol of strength... had fallen.

But that changed—suddenly.

The battlefield trembled, and all present heard the sound of marching—not the stomping of orc feet, nor the desperate charge of front-line human troops.

No, these were organized ranks, advancing with power and confidence.

From a dark, hidden corridor, far from the main lines of sight, a new human force emerged into the arena.Tightly packed rows moved forward with unstoppable steadiness, like a wall of iron in motion.

Akar narrowed his eyes as he watched.

"Where did they come from...?"

In a brief glance, he estimated their number to be in the low hundreds—but it wasn’t just the numbers that unsettled him... it was the soldiers themselves.

"This can’t be..." Akar muttered, his eyes tense and wary.

It was clear that these troops did not belong to the usual human forces they had been dealing with since the start of the assault

.Their formation, their posture, the way they moved—even their coordination—everything about them screamed professionalism.

And yet, that wasn’t the most disturbing part.

What caught Akar’s attention the most was the unusually high number of officers walking among them, clad in heavy black armor adorned with silver insignias.

"Their command level... this isn’t possible..."

He whispered to himself as the realization struck him.

The ratio of officers to soldiers in this unit was far higher than any force the orcs had ever encountered.

The number of officers in this battalion alone was nearly equal to the total number of officers the orcs had faced across the entire human defense force since the beginning of the siege—and who were still actively deployed within the fortress.

This was, without a doubt, bad news for the orcs.

As Akar observed from their initial movements, all of these officers possessed Qi—and their combat capabilities clearly surpassed those of orc officers of equivalent rank.In fact, some among them, without exaggeration, could take on weaker orc commanders in direct combat.

With this level of strength—and with so many officers present—Akar came to a realization he didn’t want to believe:

"The balance is shifting..."

The battlefield, which had slightly favored the orcs after breaching the gate, was now rapidly changing shape.

Especially with the arrival of this new unit—one that clearly wasn’t some random reinforcement, but rather a direct, well-organized support force for the defenders.

And that meant only one thing:

The orcs were no longer facing a worn-down, scattered resistance—they were up against a trained, disciplined unit, backed by high-level command.

And beyond that...

Akar didn’t know if this force represented the entirety of the humans’ strength—Or if other units were still lying in wait, stationed strategically at the remaining three gates, or simply biding their time for the right moment to strike.

He clenched the handle of his axe so tightly that the veins in his arms bulged from the pressure, his mind racing.

"If this is the fortress’s full might... then we may have walked straight into a deadly trap when we decided to breach the gate."

Beside him, Dugrel stood firm, eyes locked on the advancing force.

He hadn’t delved as deeply into thought as Akar had—but he understood perfectly what their appearance at this moment meant.He had fought in enough battles to know that this unit wasn’t just reinforcement...

It was the turning point.

The moment the humans had been waiting for to stabilize their defense—The beginning of the counterattack, and the shift in the tide of war.

A human commander clad in black armor emerged from behind the ranks.He was surrounded by the soldiers of this new unit, his eyes gleaming with a fiery resolve.

He raised his heavy sword, infused with Chi energy rituals, and charged directly toward one of the secondary orc commanders standing before him.And with just three strikes...The orc commander fell, slain.

The rest of the soldiers around him surged forward like arrows, moving in tight, disciplined formations.

They covered each other with shields, rotating seamlessly between offense and defense.

In an instant, the battlefield—once leaning in favor of the orcs after breaching the fortress gate—turned into a full-fledged massacre.

Heavy arrows rained down from the top of the fortress tower, providing cover for the advancing new troops.

With each volley, an orc—or more—fell to the ground.

The human front line, which had previously been pushed back, seized the opportunity to reorganize and joined the forward march.

Each strike from the well-trained human forces brought down a warrior, carving gaps into the orc lines.With every step forward, the encirclement tightened around the orcs from three sides.

At first, Akar thought a few tactical orders would be enough to contain the situation.

But after witnessing the rapid shift in the tide of battle, he shouted:

"Kargas! Pull the fourth battalion to cover the left flank! Dugrel! Concentrate the remaining archers and try to support that position!"

But Dugrel responded with a tense voice as he watched more orcs fall around them:

"That won’t work. We need to regroup and retreat through the gate! This is a coordinated counterattack, and the quality and number of officers who came through the cavalry path is far beyond what we expected... If we stay, we’ll be annihilated!"

Akar understood the message—and truth be told, he had already seen the situation even before Dugrel.

But he lacked the authority and support to order a retreat. After all, he was just a temporary commander and held no true weight or authority beyond what Gerum had entrusted him.

So now that Dugrel, the second most respected figure after Gerum, had taken the initiative and called for a retreat, Akar seized the opportunity and relayed the order to the rest of the unit commanders by shouting through the horns:

"Tactical retreat! All battalions, fall back toward the broken gate! Don’t let them cut off the escape route!"

Then, Kargas was struck in the shoulder by an arrow as he tried to reorganize the sixth battalion. He fell back, shouting:

"Akar... what about Gerum?"

Akar’s heart froze,he looked toward the corridor that Gerum had entered—the same corridor from which a white light had just emerged moments ago.

But there was no trace of him.

No sound,not even a soldier from his personal guard,Akar muttered quietly:

"If he hasn’t come back by now... it might be too late."

Still, he didn’t allow himself to freeze. He grabbed his axe and pointed backward:

"Retreat! Anyone who reaches the gate first, cover the others! There’s no room for bravery now... only survival!"

But even retreating wasn’t easy...

The orcs had become disoriented. They no longer fought as a unified force.The formations began to crumble—especially after the loss of their sub-commanders.

The archers on the towers showed no mercy, and Victor—leading the rest of the bowmen from atop the city walls—treated the retreating orcs as nothing more than easy targets.Somehow, the human commanders were attacking in perfect harmony, as if they could predict every move before it happened.

The retreat did not go as Akar had hoped.And worse still...

As the orc ranks hurriedly fell back in a storm of confusion and fear,just before the last of them could cross the remaining stretch toward the shattered gate...

A black shadow suddenly burst forth from the heart of the fortress,rushing with unimaginable speed, trailing behind it tendrils of dark smoke.

It swept over the heads of the retreating orc army without touching a single one,but everyone who saw it felt a sharp chill shoot down their spine...

Even Akar gasped unconsciously, frozen in place.

The very air around the shadow trembled,as though something from a cursed world had just broken through into theirs.

And in a single blink—a burst of motion and silence—

The shadow stopped suddenly, standing before the shattered gate of the fortress.

He stood alone.

Alone, yet his presence filled the battlefield.

A man clad in black armor woven with threads of ash,his long cloak rippling in the wind,and a twin-bladed sword slung across his back, pulsing with a cold, mysterious energy.

The orcs who had nearly reached the gate felt something strange...

As if the very air had grown heavier...as if time itself had slowed.

Dugrel whispered, "Who is that...?"

Akar muttered,

"That’s no ordinary knight... that aura, that pressure... He’s on the same level—or beyond—Gerum..."

And as he said those words, his expression changed completely.

His gaze shifted back to where Jonathan had disappeared into the depths of the castle...

It seemed a realization had struck him.

Jonathan’s face showed no trace of tension as he turned his head slightly, watching the retreating army approach him.Then he shifted his gaze toward the horizon, where the human forces had begun reorganizing their ranks to pursue the fleeing orcs...

And then...In a deep, quiet voice—barely above a whisper, yet somehow heard by all:

"You... retreated too soon."

The orcs hesitated, caught in a moment of uncertainty. Their advance was severed, their retreat ensnared, and their hope crumbled like rotten flesh under a pitiless sun.

"We fight to the end!"

Dogril’s roar shattered the tension, the only option now was to face their doom head-on.

Akar, bloodied and battered, lifted his heavy sword with unshaken resolve, speaking calmly, "We will carve a path through this man’s body..."

The orc forces surged forward, a final, desperate charge—a wave of raw, violent fury tearing through the battlefield like a storm shredding a forest.

Jonathan stood still. He didn’t move an inch. Yet, with every wave, his blade sent forth a single, swift shadow. With each strike, an orc was erased from existence.

For anyone who dared approach... they never returned.

Victor, high on the city wall, spoke softly in awe: "That’s the blade of Negron Duchy... the Black Raven Knight high Commander... Jonathan de Caster."

An hour of desperate resistance passed in grim silence.

Then, the battlefield grew still.

The orcs lay scattered, their bodies a testament to the carnage, their pained cries carried away by the cold wind.

Akar, broken, dropped to his knees, gazing up at the gray sky. The fight had drained him. With no strength left, he collapsed, wordlessly.

And Jonathan? He never moved. He stood unmoving at the shattered gate, his presence alone a solid wall that no one could breach.