The awakened who had barged into the battlefield.

The moment I realized who they were, I was deeply shocked by their identity—

and at the same time, overwhelmingly glad.

‘There really were survivors!’

Through Kangil, I’d heard that people like that existed.

But even that had only ever been a rumor that there were survivors in other regions.

And the shape of that rumor had been similar to the rumors Ariella had spread when she lured people in.

So I’d even thought that maybe those rumors too were nothing more than traps made by the Grand Duke’s bloodline to lure in humans, and that maybe humanity had already been wiped out.

But now—

“Stay calm! It’s fine if all you do is buy time, so fight safely!”

“Five people on each one!”

right in front of my eyes, healthy, living survivors had appeared and were driving the vampires back.

Watching that, I was able to realize it.

‘It’s them.’

The reason the Grand Duke’s forces, powerful as they were, hadn’t been able to march south.

The existence Jinlei had feared so much and been so reluctant to meet.

...The bloodline’s weakness.

It was none other than—

‘humans...!’

The fact that surviving humans still existed, and that they stood in a position to threaten even the bloodline,

filled my chest to the brim.

But—

“Kgh...!”

“These bastards are strong!”

separate from how glad that made me, I couldn’t help but feel puzzled as I watched that battle.

Given the circumstances, it was clear that these were the ones who had been stopping the bloodline’s advance.

And yet—

‘...They’re weak.’

Because for that to be true, their strength wasn’t all that impressive.

[Lv.17 Archer]

[Lv.22 Shield Warrior]

No, to be precise, it wasn’t right to call them weak.

Most of them were in the high teens or low twenties.

Even considering how long it had been since the world ended, those were levels above the average for most awakened.

But—

KWA-A-A-ANG!

“Brother Wei!!!”

“Goddamn it, why are monsters this strong roaming around in the rear instead of the actual front line...!”

“We’re changing tactics. Put at least ten people on each one! Under no circumstances are you to take their attacks head-on!”

The Grand Duke’s thralls were far stronger than that.

Of course they were.

This army the Grand Duke had sent as support was so powerful that even if you gathered all of Ariella’s thralls, they still wouldn’t even be able to match it.

The only reason the battle had managed to take shape at all was because the Trow had made good use of the confusion created by the awakened.

If not for that, this wouldn’t even have been a battle in the first place—it would have been a one-sided massacre.

No.

That was still true even now.

-Ka, hak...!

-Great Warrior!

-Kak! The First Root has been gravely wounded! Call the sorcerer!

At the beginning of the intrusion, the Trow had been able to make active use of that confusion, but in the end, that too lasted only a short while.

The Grand Duke’s thralls overcame the confusion in no time.

Even though the awakened and the Trow had formed an alliance, and even though this region was terrain favorable to the Trow, this army was overwhelmingly stronger than that.

‘With strength like that, they stopped the bloodline from occupying the region?’

Unless Lieutenant Kim Hyeon-seok’s [Meeting Expectations] back in Korea could be maintained for twenty-four hours, it made no sense that even unbelievably inspired command ability could overcome a gap in strength like this.

Just as I was thinking that—

“...It’s coming!”

“Finally!”

the people fighting seemed to exchange words, and then something revealed itself among them.

Thud...

‘...What is that?’

A giant knight clad in heavy armor.

Its entire body was wrapped in thick golden armor, and the armor carried the same kind of soft radiance as the pillars that had poured down from the sky earlier.

A world drowned in thick darkness.

The sight of a lone warrior shining by itself looked like something straight out of myth.

And then—

Swoosh.

that warrior raised one hand, and clenched something it was holding tightly.

A blinding mass of light gathered into that hand.

And then, soon—

Paang...

when the warrior let go, the object in its hand shot upward into the sky.

[Ingredient Appraisal (Enhanced)]

And only then, after seeing it, did I understand why those comparatively weak people had entered the battle with such confidence.

[Helios’s Small Sun]

“Ah.”

Brilliant sunlight covered the earth without leaving a single gap.

***

Paang.

The moment the light that had first been in the warrior’s hand shot into the sky,

I didn’t know exactly what it was,

but—

‘It’s dangerous.’

my body moved on instinct.

A strange sense screamed at me that I couldn’t stay still here.

And the one I needed to protect from that wasn’t me, but—

“...Master...!?”

Ariella.

The moment I moved to stand over her as though shielding her,

Paang!

a little later than that, other figures appeared from somewhere and moved to block the space in front of me.

“Lower yourself, Count!”

“......!”

The Grand Duke’s thralls.

Among them, the ones with especially large bodies.

They sprang up all at once over me and Ariella.

At that moment—

PAAAAAAK!!!

an immense radiance overturned the earth.

Overwhelming light and noise.

Because of it, I had no choice but to lower my head without being able to come to my senses.

‘...Is it over?’

A little later, when that blinding light began to diminish at least somewhat, I barely managed to open my eyes and look around.

And then, what spread before my eyes...

was quite a shocking sight.

Ariella and I had avoided that light within the shadows, but the ones who had created those shadows—

...the Grand Duke’s thralls that had taken the blast head-on—

Crackle...

their bodies were burning gray, and as dust, they were scattering away somewhere.

“That...”

And then, seeing that, Ariella stared blankly and muttered,

“The Holy Kingdom’s... artificial sun...”

Unfortunately, there was no room to stand around and ask what that meant.

“There!”

While the sunlight hanging in the sky was weakening at incredible speed, while some of that light still remained, the awakened pointed somewhere and shouted.

“The ones the vampires tried to protect with their lives!”

What they were pointing at was none other than—

“Those two are the masters of this group—”

“[nobles]!”

Ariella and me.

Srrr...

The sunlight that had illuminated the world in an instant died down just as quickly, and darkness fell over the world once again.

But the sight within that darkness was very different from before.

The Grand Duke’s thralls, which had looked so overwhelmingly strong.

That mighty army I had been certain could never be defeated even if Ariella brought all of her own thralls.

“The... Count and the knight...”

“Pro... tect...”

Most of them no longer even retained a shape, and even the ones that had escaped a direct hit by hiding within their ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ comrades’ shadows were barely able to crawl while drawing breath.

Near-total annihilation.

‘Even monsters that strong... can’t withstand it at all.’

No, rather—

they looked even more devastated than Ariella’s thralls had after being hit by the [Sunbug]’s light last time.

And trampling over that army reduced to ruin,

“Capture the [nobles]!”

“The nobles are strong, so the resistance will be fierce! No one is to break formation, no matter what!”

the awakened charged all at once.

And behind them—

“......”

the golden warrior who had fired that small sun earlier was slowly approaching with heavy footsteps.

‘Ah.’

Well,

I was the one who had steered this chaos into happening.

If the bloodline’s enemy, which was likely somewhere around here, created disorder, I had intended to take advantage of that confusion.

But—

‘This isn’t what I was hoping for.’

Because given the power the Grand Duke’s thralls had possessed, I’d thought that no matter how strong that enemy was, at best it would only be able to create some confusion.

...I had never imagined it would be enough to completely wipe out the army like this.

“Got you, vampire...!”

The awakened closed in on Ariella and me in an instant.

Watching them, I was trying to think through how I should respond—

when, at that exact moment—

Rumbleeeee...

the ground suddenly shook violently, and between me and the awakened—

-Kreaaaaaaak!!!

letting out a grotesque shriek, a gigantic earth dragon appeared.

***

“Kuhek...!”

It smashed away the awakened who had been trying to attack us,

KWA-GWAGWAGWAGWAGWAK!!!

and swept past right in front of my nose as the massive scaled beast revealed its enormous body.

It was too close for me to see its whole form, but its identity was easy enough to guess.

After all, I had seen it just recently.

“Count!”

The thrall of Jinlei, the one Ariella and I had refused to ride.

“...And the knight as well, this way!”

Jinlei came up beside Ariella and me, grabbed us, and started fleeing.

Looking at him, I thought,

‘Jinlei had been carrying all of his forces inside that earth dragon.’

Whenever he moved around normally, he kept no troops around him at all, and stored all of his forces inside the earth dragon.

At first I’d thought that was because it was convenient for moving a large force.

But that wasn’t it.

‘That artificial sun just now.’

He had known about its existence.

That was why he had hidden his forces underground, where they could avoid sunlight.

Fwhoooosh!!!

The earth dragon, now fully exposing its body, began spewing out other thralls from its mouth.

The same ones who had subdued Ariella last time.

An enormous force rivaling that of great nobles poured from its maw.

Compared to the Grand Duke’s support force, it would still fall short, but that was only because the Grand Duke’s army had been too powerful.

Even Jinlei’s thralls alone were a nightmare the awakened couldn’t handle.

“That’s... an underground dragon?”

And yet, far from trembling in fear at the sight, the awakened only stared blankly at it and muttered in low voices.

“If that monster is here, then...”

At that moment, through the gaps in the huge earth dragon’s twisting body, Jinlei’s and the awakened’s lines of sight overlapped.

“...General Jinlei?”

And then, to the awakened staring blankly at him,

“...It’s been a long time?”

“......”

“H-ha ha.”

Jinlei gave an awkward laugh and waved his hand.

And then—

“Traitor Jinlei!!!”

a roar so loud it felt like it would split my ears covered the battlefield.

I frowned and turned to the source of that voice.

“The great criminal who sold humanity to the vampires!”

The warrior in the massive golden armor, the one who had been marching forward in silence until just a moment ago.

“It’s the enemy of humanity right there!!!”

This was the first time I’d even realized that thing could speak.

And more than that, the one that had been moving with heavy, steady steps until then suddenly shouted in fury, yanked out the enormous hammer slung across its back,

and—

“I won’t let you escape this time.”

“......”

“I’ll place your heart upon the altar and offer it to the comrades who died!!!”

like a berserker, came charging forward with terrifying force.

***

“Traitor Jinlei...!”

“General Jinlei is over there!”

“Get him! Catch that piece of trash no matter what!!!”

The awakened, who until then had seemed to be fighting steadily in line with their operation.

The moment they spotted Jinlei’s face, every single one of them started charging in like raving berserkers, not caring in the slightest for their own safety.

“This is exactly why I didn’t want to come here...!”

Seeing that, Jinlei clicked his tongue and fled while dragging Ariella and me along.

As I ran like that, I looked back.

If the awakened I’d seen really were at the level I’d judged them to be, then under normal circumstances they should not have been able to stand against Jinlei’s thralls.

But—

Slash—

a faint light clung to the weapons they held.

Even I knew what that was.

‘Divine power.’

Vampires struck by that light were significantly weakened, even if not to the same extent as when they were hit directly by sunlight.

Jinlei’s thralls, powerful as they were, were being cut down.

...Just like when I subjugated Ariella together with the Legion.

They were certainly threatening enough, but more important than that—

Thud, thud!!!

that huge warrior charging toward us like mad at a speed that seemed impossible for a body that size.

At that ridiculous speed, the distance between us kept shrinking.

“Are you satisfied now!”

At that moment, Jinlei, fleeing while dragging us along, glared at me and shouted.

“Is this the sight you wanted to see or not—that’s what I’m asking!”