The Regressed Mercenary's Machinations-Chapter 472: If I Say I’ll Do It, It Gets Done (2)

BOOM! BOOM! BOOOOOM!

Flames, ice, and lightning rained down where Ghislain stood, consuming the soldiers of the Delphine army who had been charging toward him.

“Aaaaahhhh!”

“Spare me!”

“It’s magic! Get away!”

The soldiers, caught off guard and disoriented by the ambush, couldn’t discern whether the magic was cast by their allies or enemies.

The devastation was absolute. The soldiers swarming Ghislain were torn apart, and those rushing in were obliterated.

Even though the mages had used spells with relatively small areas of effect, the destruction was immense.

So intense was the attack that even the Fenris cavalry, which had been slaughtering the Delphine forces, hesitated for a moment.

FWOOOSH!

A shadow emerged from the flames and smoke, bellowing.

“Don’t stop!”

“Waaaargh!”

The Fenris cavalry let out a deafening roar and resumed their assault.

As expected of their lord—surviving such a powerful attack as if it were nothing. They almost felt guilty for hesitating, even for a moment.

While the Fenris cavalry rallied, the Delphine mages were pale-faced, muttering in disbelief.

“What kind of monster...?”

They had poured all their mana into the attack. Even a superhuman would be reduced to shreds after a direct hit from such spells.

Yet Ghislain emerged unscathed, his dark aura rippling ominously as he closed in on them.

With the soldiers surrounding him gone, he advanced even faster.

“Stop him! Kill him no matter what!”

At Count Fograne’s command, the mages desperately gathered what little mana they had left, scraping the bottom of their reserves.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Columns of fire erupted from the ground. The earth crumbled, lightning struck from above, and ice enclosed the area.

Ghislain gripped the reins of the Black King tightly.

He dodged what he could, enduring the rest by summoning every ounce of his energy.

NEIGH!

The Black King, matching Ghislain’s resilience, pressed on through the storm of magic, snorting in fury.

The dark energy shielding them didn’t nullify the damage entirely. Both horse and rider bore the brunt of the assault, but their unyielding determination propelled them forward.

The Black King truly mirrored its master.

CRACK!

Ghislain gritted his teeth. The relentless attacks of dozens of mages were formidable, the pressure threatening to crush his body.

Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth, hidden by the dark energy enveloping him. Even amplified by Dark’s power, his body groaned under the strain.

Yet Ghislain grinned and continued his advance.

He could fight defensively, retreating and striking when the opportunity arose. But that wasn’t enough. What the enemy needed to feel now was overwhelming terror.

FWOOOOOSH!

From within the inferno of mana and destruction, Ghislain and the Black King burst forth.

The sight froze the battlefield.

The dark aura surrounding him seemed to twist and laugh, mocking the enemy. The crimson glow of his eyes burned like demonic flames.

A black demon.

No other words could describe him.

“Kill him.”

Count Fograne repeated the command over and over, but doubt clouded his mind.

How?

How could they possibly kill him?

No matter how powerful a superhuman might be, they should not have survived such an assault unscathed. Even if they lived, they should have been grievously injured and exhausted.

But there Ghislain stood, defying all logic.

The soldiers shared Count Fograne’s despair. They had trained rigorously and were considered the kingdom’s finest troops, but their instincts screamed at them to flee.

Paralyzed by fear, no one moved despite the orders.

And Ghislain moved.

BOOOOOOM!

“Aaaahhhh!”

He tore through the soldiers guarding Count Fograne with brutal efficiency.

The men in his path didn’t even raise their weapons; they were cut down like blades of grass.

“Stop him!”

The knights surrounding Count Fograne charged, their swords glowing with blue mana as they struck with all their might.

Even as terror gripped them, they moved as knights should. Yet their attacks lacked conviction, reduced to desperate flails against an overwhelming foe.

Their carefully honed techniques disappeared, leaving only clumsy, panicked swings.

BOOM! BOOM!

Ghislain’s spear swung in wide arcs, scattering the knights like leaves in a storm.

They, the kingdom’s so-called elite, resembled nothing more than straw dummies, powerless before him.

The mages, having expended most of their mana, stood frozen in shock, unable to act. Their terror had completely broken their will.

This was exactly what Ghislain intended. The Delphine mages, numbering in the dozens, had been rendered useless.

“Kill him... Kill him now...”

Even Count Fograne, faced with a power beyond comprehension, stood rooted in place. Escape didn’t even cross his mind. He could only watch as his men fell one by one.

NEIGH!

“Move aside!”

Ghislain’s thunderous voice broke what little spirit remained in the soldiers. Instinctively, they stepped back, abandoning any thought of resistance.

THUD, THUD, THUD!

The Black King galloped through the path cleared by the terrified soldiers, heading straight for Count Fograne.

The count could do nothing but stare blankly as Ghislain closed the distance.

SWOOSH!

With a swift motion, Ghislain’s spear slashed through Count Fograne’s body.

THUD!

The lifeless body toppled from the horse, leaving only silence in its wake.

None of the surrounding soldiers reacted. The contrast between the screams from the outskirts of the battlefield and the eerie stillness here was stark.

CLIP-CLOP... CLIP-CLOP...

Ghislain turned his horse leisurely and approached Count Fograne’s corpse. He lifted the severed head with his spear, holding it high for all to see.

It was time to declare victory.

But he paused.

“What was his name again?”

The rush to battle had left him without a proper briefing. The man’s face was vaguely familiar—someone he might have encountered briefly in his past life—but his name eluded him.

Turning to a trembling soldier clutching a weapon, he asked casually.

“Hey.”

“Y-yes?”

“Who was your commander?”

“C-C-Count Fograne, sir.”

“Ah, right. Thanks for reminding me.”

Ghislain grinned and raised his voice, channeling mana into it so it carried across the battlefield.

“Count Fograne is dead!”

The Fenris cavalry echoed his declaration with deafening shouts.

“Count Fograne is dead!”

“Throw down your weapons and surrender!”

“If you surrender, you will be spared!”

The Delphine soldiers, who had been fighting in a blind panic, instinctively looked toward the command post.

There, they saw their comrades on their knees, weapons discarded.

In battle, a single shift can change everything. Their morale, already shattered by the relentless assault, plummeted further. One by one, the Delphine soldiers began throwing down their weapons.

The mages dropped flat to the ground without hesitation. More than anyone, they were self-serving individuals, and surrendering didn’t bother them in the slightest.

A few knights fought on stubbornly to the bitter end, but every one of them met their demise at the hands of the Fenris cavalry.

One of the knights who had been guarding Count Fograne hesitantly asked, “What will you do with us if we surrender?”

Ghislain responded with an expression that implied the answer was obvious.

“You’ll all be reintegrated into the kingdom’s army. You’ll fight the Ducal Faction again, but isn’t that better than dying here?”

“That... doesn’t make sense.”

The Ducal Faction had become a pariah not just in the Ruthania Kingdom but across the entire continent. Their alliance with the Salvation Order had drawn the Four Great Churches into the war.

Anyone associated with the Ducal Faction was branded a heretic. The churches would demand their execution to maintain their authority.

The Delphine knights and soldiers had fought with the resolve to die, believing they’d never be forgiven.

But Ghislain, unbothered, shrugged and replied, “If I say it’ll work, it’ll work.”

“...”

“It’s simple math. Reducing the Ducal Faction’s forces while bolstering ours is a win. Just kill off the leaders.”

“...”

It was a shocking statement. Ghislain made it clear he would ignore any backlash from other nobles or the churches.

He was a man who would do whatever it took to win.

Ghislain, now free of the black aura, smirked and said, “Well? Are you going to fight or surrender properly?”

The knight glanced around with exhausted eyes.

Those who resisted to the end were already dead. Most of the soldiers had thrown down their weapons and were lying flat on the ground.

It was a complete defeat. The knight could not have imagined such a devastating outcome.

He looked back at Ghislain and spoke.

“Remarkable. To reach us so quickly and execute such a perfect ambush...”

“Pursuit, ambush, annihilation—that’s my specialty,” Ghislain replied casually.

The knight couldn’t refute it. The rumors about Ghislain’s prowess were true.

Sighing in defeat, the knight dropped his sword and knelt.

If the Ducal Faction hadn’t allied with the Salvation Order, he might have fought to the end for them.

But the Ducal Faction had lost all legitimacy, slaughtering innocent people through their partnership with the cult.

After learning that the Salvation Order was behind the rift calamities, many knights had already begun to feel disillusioned. Stripped of their loyalty, they found it easy to yield to Ghislain’s call for surrender.

Surveying the subdued battlefield, Ghislain commented, “Quite a few survived. Excellent.”

Nearly 20,000 prisoners had been taken.

Thanks to the speed of the assault, far more had survived than expected.

These soldiers would now join the kingdom’s army, lending their strength against the Ducal Faction.

Ghislain allowed himself a satisfied smile.

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In truth, his body wasn’t in great shape. He had swallowed back blood several times during the battle.

But he had to endure it. He needed to show his soldiers that this much was nothing to him.

That was the only way to ensure they continued to fear and respect him.

Raising his spear high, Ghislain shouted, “Once again, we’ve won!”

“Waaaargh!”

The Fenris cavalry cheered, raising their weapons in unison.

Despite their exhaustion from the forced march, this declaration washed away all their fatigue.

They had been with Ghislain since the mobile unit’s inception, and their pride in following him had grown into an unshakable belief.

Under the Fenris banner, there was no such thing as defeat.

They had become a force of unyielding will, fearing nothing.

They were the undefeated army.

The fortress that Marquis Maurice’s forces had lost was now an eerie, desolate place.

Caw, caw!

Near the partially ruined stronghold, crows picked over the remains of corpses.

Count Fograne, having succeeded in taking the fortress, had barely rested before abandoning it to march onward.

In the lifeless and desolate ruins, a figure appeared, leaning on a staff.

“Hmm, hmm, hmm...”

The figure was an elderly woman with a hunched back, wearing a genial smile.

She was the fortune-teller who Maurice had treasured and brought everywhere.

The old woman looked around and muttered to herself.

“Maurice, you fool... you need to stop trusting in superstitions. Although... I can’t deny some of the blame is mine. Still, thanks to your reverence for me, my life wasn’t unpleasant.”

Chuckling to herself, she continued muttering as if amused by some private joke.

“A lucky bastard, that one. He survived because that boy arrived just in time. Fate, I suppose...”

Tap, tap, tap.

The old woman shuffled toward the edge of the fortress, glancing at the northern sky.

There, she paused.

“Ghislain Ferdium... truly remarkable. Turning the Ruthania Kingdom into the epicenter of conflict and steering the war as you see fit...”

Even with no one to hear her, she continued speaking to herself.

“To shape fate to such a degree... not once in a thousand years has there been anyone like you. Even ‘we’ couldn’t have foreseen it.”

Ghislain was a storm. Even the Salvation Order, which had spent decades amassing power, had been utterly crushed by him.

Once a weak and impoverished heir of a border count, he was now a figure no one dared to challenge.

“Your effort and ability deserve admiration. Your unrelenting determination and sense of responsibility are truly extraordinary.”

The old woman smiled, her thoughts elsewhere.

“For Ereneth to meet you first... it only proves how central you’ve become to this war. And the one who just arrived... they, too, will find you soon.”

Her body began to glow, scattering into countless motes of light.

Amid the dispersing light, the faint outline of a woman with massive wings appeared.

Her features were indistinct, but the oppressive majesty radiating from her was enough to make the air feel heavy.

From within the light, a faint voice echoed.

“Ghislain... may that child aid you... for ‘we’ can no longer...”

Her final words dissolved into the air as her glowing form faded, scattering into the void.