Volume 2 Chapter 65: Crushing Head-On
"Casters, build fortifications!"
"Heavy infantry, maintain formation!"
"Medical team, treat the wounded!"
"Everyone else, hold defensive positions!"
"..."
Orders were issued one after another. Charles stared intently at Garde in the distance.
Even now, he hadn't given up on capturing him.
However, when they entered the town, they hadn't brought heavy weaponry, nor had they prepared any siege equipment.
Charles had to weigh carefully — what price would he have to pay to capture Garde?
Given Garde's speed and strength just now, if he were given a weapon, Charles was certain that it would only take a few minutes for Garde to slaughter all of his men.
"Damn it!"
Charles cursed under his breath.
Hadn't the intel said that Garde was, at most, on par with the Head of Rhine Lab's Defense Division?
As the director of the Trimounts branch of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Arts Units and Originium, Charles had dealt with Saria many times.
Saria was strong, sure, but nowhere near the level of being able to stand against an army head-on.
And the men Charles had brought weren't some worthless good-for-nothings who only knew how to drink and gamble, these were 160 of Columbia's finest!
Charles was beginning to regret his decision.
The Columbia Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Arts Units and Originium, whether domestically or abroad, was a force that few dared to provoke. They were used to being dominant.
But now they had run into Garde, someone stubborn, fearless, and absolutely deadly.
Will he run?
Charles watched Garde closely.
He had already called for artillery support from the border fleet, but it would take at least an hour before they reached firing range.
At the same time, he thought of the two armored squads he had sent into the inn earlier.
If he remembered correctly, Garde's companions were still inside.
Of course, Garde had noticed Charles' little maneuvers, but he didn't care.
Neither Ishar'mla nor Dario were helpless civilians.
Especially Ishar'mla, despite losing to Garde, she had incredible resilience. Even Laurentina, who could endure Garde's relentless pounding for days, had eventually crumbled.
By comparison, Ishar'mla's physical strength might even surpass Skadi herself.
Could a bunch of regular armored soldiers possibly defeat Skadi?
Sure enough, a loud explosion boomed from the inn.
Through the hole that Garde had previously smashed in the wall with his fist, Dario could be seen retracting his hand cannon.
He glanced at Garde from afar and tipped his hat.
Behind him lay more than a dozen exosuit-clad soldiers, defeated.
He had also casually rescued his apprentice from a bind.
On the other side, the little Seaborn girl, with her beast-like claws, gripped the helmet of an armored soldier.
The soldier, whose armor had been almost completely destroyed, tried to resist, but her tail lashed out and snapped his arm with a sickening crack.
"Ahhhhhhh!"
The soldier screamed in agony.
The little Seaborn girl opened her mouth full of razor-sharp teeth, preparing to bite down amid the soldier's horrified gaze.
In the next second — chomp — she bit at nothing but air.
"You're not allowed to eat random things!"
Ishar'mla scooped her up, and facing the little Seaborn girl's confused look, she explained, "Hunter doesn't like us eating raw things."
Some blood had splattered onto her dress.
Ishar'mla carefully wiped it clean.
Behind her, a long corridor of blood stretched from the room to the hallway, lined with more than twenty fallen armored soldiers.
Some bodies were practically embedded into the walls, shattered armor and bone fragments scattered everywhere.
Ishar'mla felt that she hadn't even used much strength, and yet these land creatures had already perished.
"Weak little creatures," she murmured.
Ishar'mla murmured to herself, puzzled.
Why would such weak creatures dare to provoke a hunter?
Meanwhile, Irene had run off to Dario's room, leaving Sideroca alone in hers, door locked tight, her head buzzing.
Had she boarded a pirate ship without realizing it?
The people surrounding the tavern seemed to be Colombian secret police.
Had Mr. Garde committed some terrible crime?
Why else would so many secret police come to capture him?
Moreover, Mr. Garde didn't seem like he intended to cooperate.
That last point worried Sideroca the most.
After all, Mr. Garde was just one person.
Could he really stand against an entire nation?
Garde did not stop Charles as he regrouped his forces.
If his true strength had already been exposed, and his enemies still dared to come after him, he would choose caution first.
But the Colombians were still unaware of his capabilities.
If he wanted to deter them, if he wanted peace in the future, he needed to strike fear, and strike it right where they were most confident.
Destroy them. Crush them.
Only after Charles's formation was restored, with the casters even constructing concrete bunkers that appeared solid and impregnable, did Garde finally start to move.
"I once heard two venerable monks having a conversation," he said.
"One asked: 'If others slander me, deceive me, insult me, laugh at me, belittle me, despise me, wrong me, what should I do?'"
"The other replied: 'Just endure him, yield to him, let him be, avoid him, be patient with him, ignore him, and after a few years, just see what becomes of him.'"
Garde walked right into a position that was dangerously exposed, both to himself and to the Bureau's formation.
A savage grin twisted across his face.
"Back then, I wondered, why should good men always endure humiliation?"
"Why must the honest bow their heads, accept mockery and contempt?"
"Perhaps... I'll never reach those monks' level of enlightenment."
"I only know one thing—"
Garde began to charge.
His voice roared in the ears of every Colombian soldier:
"An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth!"
"Heavy infantry! Snipers! Casters!"
Charles shouted in fury.
They had spent the past few minutes, while Garde allowed it, building a position strong enough to fight a small-scale war.
In warfare, casters weren't just for assault.
When on the defensive, every geo-affinity caster was an extremely efficient combat engineer.
Two thick walls now stood across the street.
The six remaining heavy infantry stood firm in the center.
From the high buildings flanking the street, snipers and casters took aim at Garde's advancing path, firing crossbow bolts tipped with Originium explosives, unleashing devastating Arts.
A drumbeat-like chant rose over the battlefield.
The Bureau's bards were singing to boost morale, while binders frantically unleashed their binding Arts to slow Garde's advance.
The street turned into a mire.
Engineering robots, released without hesitation by the engineers, charged at Garde.
Trapmasters triggered their devices, explosions erupting underfoot.
Layer upon layer of Originium Arts stacked up.
There was no pure warrior alive who could withstand dozens of debuffs and hindrances and still maintain their original speed.
If Garde stopped, he would be dragged into the rhythm of warfare Charles had meticulously prepared.
Columbia lacked true monster-class warriors, so they had developed their own methods to deal with those stronger than them.
On the condition, of course, that Garde was nothing more than a "pure warrior."
"It's useless," said Ho'olheyak, standing at a distance, an observer uninvolved with either side.
"If he truly is a Feranmut..." she said coldly, "then this level of binding means absolutely nothing to him."
If Garde truly was a Feranmut, then could Ho'olheyak believe that everything he was doing was a Feranmuts' final act of resistance against the relentless wheel of the era?
A refusal to accept decline.
As a god, he wanted to once again stand above mankind.
But…
Was Garde really a Feranmut?
And if he was, how could a Feranmut change the course of human history?
Ho'olheyak felt as though she was witnessing the arrival of a new era.
And she was standing as its witness!
On the street.
Originium-etched crossbow bolts rained down on Garde without mercy.
Enhanced by Originium launchers, the Colombian military's bolts at this close range were no weaker than the anti-materiel sniper rifles Garde had once seen in his previous life.
Blasting casters chanted their spells, ready to unleash devastating attacks the instant Garde stopped moving.
If he stopped, that is.
The golden Ascension Power flared to life across Garde's body.
Binders, using their Originium Arts, attempted to manipulate the arrangement of Originium particles in the air, thus affecting him.
In this world saturated with Originium, as long as a caster held their staff, they could summon spells that seemed almost magical.
But once you understood how magic worked, why not destroy it instead?
Reflected in Garde's pupils, the world took on a new appearance, the Arts woven by the binders appeared like countless invisible chains wrapped around him.
Garde's natural aptitude for Originium Arts was utterly ordinary, meaning, he would never in his life master a proper spell.
At best, he might someday form a tiny fireball on his fingertip.
But just as he had always thought, he didn't need to learn Originium Arts.
Because he already had Ascension Power.
And would spells shaped by Ascension Power be any inferior to those of Originium?
To Garde, the Ascension Power was something far superior to Originium.
He could tell from the moment he released it:
The Originium was retreating.
It was making way.
It was afraid.
Thus, Garde needed to do only one thing:
He did not stop.
He opened his mouth and let out a terrifying, despair-inducing laugh.
"You should pick up your broken pieces before you come for me again!"
The Ascension Power burst out from him like a flood.
In an instant, all the casters realized that their Originium Arts had failed, and before they could react, Garde had already crashed through their defenses.
"Slice!"
Garde unleashed a single skill, and only that one skill.
The seemingly impregnable defensive line shattered.
The Bureau's carefully laid fortifications splintered into ruins.
Garde's body became like a giant drill, forcing his way violently into the heart of their formation, and once again reaching Charles.
"Colombians, there's a price one needs to pay to challenge me."
Garde seized him and sprinted away at terrifying speed.
"Are you ready to pay the price?"
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