Zelos squinted his eyes for a moment and wondered what he should do… his club won’t last long. As crazy as that sounded against a glaive. In the end, Zelos put his club away and then equipped his sword and made Nightstorm move to the side a little. He was still holding the sword with a single hand, so the enemy wondered what he was on about.

  Without hesitation, the enemy’s general approached and then swung his glove, and Zelos did almost the same move. He swung his sword a bit upward, so the impacts didn’t cancel each other… Zelos’s arm was a bit blown away to the side, but at the least, he parried the attack without letting the enemy’s weapon hurt Nightstorm.

  Zelos looked at his shaking arm, slowly recovering. As expected, he still had a long way ahead of him. Despite all his training, there were plenty of people who had way more brute strength than him.

  Before long, the enemy’s general began to swing his glaive from one side to the other again, but Zelos deflected all those attacks. Before long, he was able to feel his right wrist throbbing, and the pain intensified with each impact and his health began to drop, but he endured all that and waited for his chance.

  … …

  Liry was watching Zelos fighting the enemy general from a distance of one hundred meters. They stood out like a sore thumb on the battlefield since there was his area around them that no one dared to approach. Half of that reason was the fact that Liry told everyone not to target the enemy’s general, and the other half was because the underlings of the general had total faith that their leader wouldn’t need help against a single target. Edea could see what was happening there as well, but she didn’t like it very much, what she was seeing very much.

  “Zelos is outmatched… perhaps we should help him.”

  Liry considered what she had heard and then looked to the sides. Irlan, Heirina and Kaitrine had joined the battle and targeted the enemies soldiers that seemed stronger than the average soldier because of their traits. Those three were young, but their skills and traits were a cut above the rest as well, so they could dispose of those enemies with relative ease and speed.

  “The battlefield is even… our morale is high, so our soldiers can ignore their wounds for a while longer, but the enemies’ morale is also high despite the fact that they lost yesterday. It will be better if we leave that in Zelos’s hands… if their general dies because of an attack from outside, they will get enraged and will want to avenge him, but if he dies in a duel, the shock will completely stop his troops, and we will use that chance to completely crush them.”

  Edea still didn’t like that a lot… she couldn’t see Zelos winning unless Liry put into action the next part of her plan, but even so, she could easily imagine that he would ignore that just to try his best to defeat the enemy by himself. Just as she had expected, Liry made her choice.

  “It is time.”

  All of a sudden, a large part of the left flank of the defending side suddenly began to disengage… the enemy infantry decided to follow them, but soon they changed their minds since it felt like a trap, and then they decided to attack the central area of their formation.

  However, the left flank soon returned from the south and attacked the enemies from the side. That caused some confusion among the enemy’s ranks, but soon they recovered and began to fight. Still, things were different from before… thanks to the change in positioning, the right flank of the enemies was now seeing the light of the sunset almost blinding them.

  It didn’t take long for the enemy general to notice that shift in the battle. He stopped Zelos less and less as he looked to the side and soon the light of the sunset began to bother him as well… confusion began to spread across the enemy’s lines and he could tell the reason for it.

  “Stand your ground! This cheap trick won’t last for long, men! You are my soldiers! You can’t lose to weaklings that rely on such tactics!”

  As the general’s voice rang out across the battlefield, his words infused with passion and conviction, a wave of excitement swept through the enemy ranks. Soldiers who, moments ago, stood in shock now erupted into shouts and roars, their voices blending into a cacophony of fervor.

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  It started with a few, but quickly spread like wildfire. Each warrior, from the frontline soldiers to those positioned at the rear, joined in the shout of excitement. The air crackled with energy as the shouts grew louder, echoing off the hills and across the plains.

  The general’s words had ignited something primal within them, stoking the flames of their determination and resolve. They pounded their weapons against shields and stomped their feet in unison, their shouts rising to a deafening fury.

  Zelos watched all that while waiting for the enemy to fight him. He didn’t want to win against that guy using cheap tricks either, but for someone who used surprise night attacks as well and also used corpses to demoralize his enemies, he probably shouldn’t say much about cheap tricks.

  The enemy general looked at Zelos and then saw the look in his eyes and he didn’t like that… there wasn’t much to say about that, but he didn’t like it, even though Zelos’s way of thinking was correct.

  “Rules for thee, but not for me.”

  The enemy’s general opened his eyes wide in rage and soon charged to attack him again. Another rain of thrusts came and began to be blocked by Zelos’ sword… this one didn’t suffer any damage, but Zelos was still feeling his bones breaking with each impact.

  Nightstorm was forced to take a few steps backward when he felt that Zelos was losing his balance and that helped a bit… but things still weren’t good for Zelos. In the end, he couldn’t help but bite his lips in annoyance.

  “I am not strong enough… but there are things more important at stake here than my pride.”

  As soon as he thought that, the enemy general was able to break Zelos’s guard and force his right arm to be pushed to the side. Before he could recover, the enemy approached and then thrusted his glaive at Zelos’ head. It felt like time had slowed down as the glaive approached Zelos’ head. Still, he was able to move his left hand and grab the blade of the weapon. The enemy’s general opened his eyes widely when the weapon stopped a few centimeters away from Zelos’ face… his hand and glove should have been destroyed, but it didn’t… then the enemy realized that the glove was a relic.

  Before the enemy general could do anything else, Zelos jumped from Nightstorm and then impaled the enemy’s neck with his dark sword. The general began to agonize in pain, but not for long. The connection between his brain and the rest of the body was completely severed, after all.

  Before long, the enemy general fell on the ground, and then Zelos pulled his sword. He took a deep breath and then looked around. Some people had seen what had happened and soon the silence began to echo and spread around the enemy’s lines. Their general had lost in a one-on-one duel and that was simply impossible to accept for them.

  “Their general died! Kill them all!”

  Liry’s voice echoed on the battlefield and then the defenders began to fight even more fiercely than before. However, much to everyone’s surprise, the enemies began to assume defensive stances and retreat. The shock of the loss of their leader was still etched on their faces, but they knew what they should do.

  The general’s death sent shockwaves through the opposing army, causing confusion and shock among its ranks. Without its leader to guide it, its cohesion faltered, and the momentum swung in favor of the defenders.

  However, to the defenders’ surprise, the enemy responded swiftly to the loss of their general. Almost as if they had prepared for such a scenario, the enemy troops began a coordinated retreat, moving with remarkable speed and discipline. It was as though they had received orders in advance, indicating a well-planned escape plan.

  The defenders, excited by their sudden advantage, initially gave chase, eager to press their advantage and rout the retreating enemy. But as night descended, casting a shadow over the battlefield, they soon realized the danger of blindly pursuing the enemy’s force.

  Aware of the potential for ambushes and traps that could be lurking in the darkness, the defenders made the decision to stop their pursuit. The risk of falling into enemy traps outweighed the benefits of further press their advantage.

  Before long, the defenders retreated to their camp and soon began to work on tending the wounded. Around that time, Zelos showed up as well, with his hands messed up, but at least he had already used some bandages on them. Heirina furrowed her eyebrows while watching him.

  “... Why is your hand covered in blood when you had that glove?”

  “This thing is truly mysterious… it used all of my mana in a single moment to block most of the damage that that guy caused, but after that, it felt like it was no longer there, even though it didn’t suffer any damage.”

  As for Zelos’s right fist, he blocked too many attacks of the enemy using a single hand block while the enemy used two hands to attack and thanks to that, Zelos suffered some damage, but he looked like he had made a lot of progress. He also got the glaive of the enemy’s general and it seemed of high quality, and since his club was damaged, perhaps Zelos could use that, but he was against the idea. It would be a hassle to learn how to use it, and it was too light for him.

  “Well done, Zelos. We thought that perhaps we might be able to send some help at some point, but we didn’t expect that you would actually win. You will be rewarded handsomely for your achievements. ”

  “I will be waiting for it. Although I lost in all aspects of the battle, I managed to surprise him at the last moment.”