Chapter 173 - 175: Tesvin Death

The battle rages on for another hour. Steel clashes. Magic detonates. Blood soaks the ground as corpses pile and banners fall. The field is chaos incarnate—commanders shouting, beasts roaring, spells screaming through the air. Yet even with the power of the Link Skill binding Asdri and his companions can only fight to a standstill. Every blow is matched. Every advance is repelled. Gorath, wreathed in his earthen domain. Valia and Ingra stand at Asdri's flanks, bodies bruised, armor cracked, but eyes unyielding. Behind them, the Golden Lion Legion fights tooth and nail, holding the lines against the monstrous Bonepiercers. Asdri growls, lightning dancing along his gauntlet. "He's not weakening." "Neither are we," Valia pants, sword resting on her shoulder for just a breath. "But this stalemate won't last forever." A distant crash—then a scream. One of the soldiers from the central line turns, eyes wide in panic. "The Marshal! Marshal Tesvin is—he's...!" His voice breaks. The battlefield stutters for a heartbeat. Another soldier shouts, louder this time. "Marshal Tesvin is dead!" The words crash into Asdri like a hammer. He turns—instinctively, disbelieving—toward the distant ridge where Tesvin fought. Smoke coils above it. A ring of shattered terrain surrounds the cratered rock. Silence steals over him, even amidst the roar of war. Valia's mouth opens slightly. Ingra's fingers tighten around her staff. Asdri's gaze drops. He doesn't say anything for a long moment. Then softly, hoarsely, "...He really...?" No one answers. He closes his eyes. His throat tightens. "We are..." he begins, then falters. "We are not that close. But still..." His voice thins. "He helped me. Trained me when others wouldn't. When I kept failing the forms, he never mocked me—just said to try again." A bitter breath escapes him. "I never even thanked him properly." Lightning flickers along his shoulders, angrier this time. Sharper. However, like a falling line of dominoes, it begins. One unit breaks—then another. Panic spreads through the soldiers ranks like wildfire. Arrows rain down, monstrous howls echo in the smoke, and soldiers are dragged screaming into the shifting earth summoned by Gorath. The frontline buckles. Bodies collapse in bloodied heaps. A commander is ripped from horseback by Nyssara's brute, his armor shredded in seconds. Asdri watches it unfold—his vision narrowing. "No..." he breathes. A healer cries out for protection before she's speared. A squad of spearmen is swallowed whole by rising stone. Ingra stumbles, barely shielding Valia from a lunging beast. One wrong decision more, and the entire left flank will collapse. "Prince!" a commander shouts, panic straining his voice. "We have to fall back—now!" Asdri's hands tremble. Not from fear. From fury. He looks around—the battlefield is lost. This isn't just a retreat. It's a collapse. And if they don't pull out now, no one will make it to the next city. "Everyone—RETREAT!" Asdri's voice roars through the battlefield, empowered with command. "Fall back to Braenhall! Regroup! Get the wounded and MOVE!" The order crashes over the battlefield like thunder. "RETREAT!" The cry is picked up by captains, sergeants, squad leaders. Horns sound—ragged, frantic. The Golden Lion Legion turns in unison, pulling back in fractured waves. Shields raise, mages cover, archers fire blindly to slow the advance. Chaos reigns, but it is a directed chaos now—guided by desperation and the prince's command. Monsters charge after them, bone-plated hulks and twisted beasts tearing through the dirt, sensing weakness, sensing prey. Asdri doesn't move. He stands at the center of the crumbling field, lightning crackling across his armor, eyes fixed on the encroaching tide of enemies. Valia skids to a stop beside him. "Asdri, we have to go!" "I know," he mutters, voice low, calm—too calm. He raises one gauntlet toward the sky. "But they won't reach the others. Not while I stand." His gaze sharpens. "Link." There's no hesitation. Not from them. Light flashes between their chests—golden threads of magic binding them to him once more. The Link Skill surges to life. Ingra breathes deeply. "I'll use Glacial Crest." Asdri closes his eyes, steeling himself. One by one, the others use their strongest Tier 4 skills. Their power flows through him. He slams both hands into the blood-soaked earth. The ground erupts beneath his feet. Light tears upward into the sky—raw, jagged, and blinding. Thunder cracks like a celestial whip as a towering wall of energy carves itself across the battlefield, dividing retreating soldiers from the advancing enemy. But it's not just light. It's a fusion everyone's skills, all layered into one colossal barrier. A wall of blazing storm-fire and crystalline ice surges across the land, stretching hundreds of meters, reinforced by runes burning along its edge. The monsters slam into it—and are thrown back. Bonepiercers screech, their claws blackening as they try to climb it. Stone-skinned beasts are frozen mid-leap. The sky churns above it, caught in the cyclone of colliding forces. Pyke staggers, grabbing Asdri's shoulder. "That wall... it'll hold for a few minutes. Maybe." "Then that's enough," he gasps. His knees buckle, but he doesn't fall. Valia's hand trembles as she maintains her link. "Your body can't take much more of this, Asdri—stop channeling!" "I can't," he says through gritted teeth, sparks leaping across his back. "Not yet." He watches as the last units of the Golden Lion Legion retreat over the ridge. Horses gallop. Stretchers bounce on wounded shoulders. The city of Braenhall lies distant—but reachable. Only when the final banner disappears behind the hills does he let go. The wall begins to crack. Valia catches him as he falls to one knee. "It's done. They're safe." Asdri breathes, slow and ragged. "...Then let's go." Across the battlefield, Gorath watches them vanish through the smoke—five silhouettes slipping behind the dying glow of the wall. The massive earth-wielding monster doesn't move for a long moment. The heat from the barrier still radiates in the air, blistering even his reinforced hide. The ground is carved and scorched in a vast arc, the air crackling with residue. The wall groans, splits, then finally collapses into dust and shards of spent magic. Gorath narrows his eyes, jagged stone still curling protectively around his shoulders. "...So that's what it looks like," he rumbles, voice deep and dry as grinding gravel. "A link-empowered Tier 4 skills." Behind him, the monsters begin to cheer, raising guttural roars into the sky, pounding their claws against armor, biting at the air, howling with savage joy. Another victory. Another win. But Gorath doesn't celebrate. ---- By the time Gander can stand on his own, the grove is bathed in twilight. Birds have begun to return. Mana hums softly through the grass and trees, as if nature itself knows a storm has passed—but not for long. Alix watches Gander roll his shoulder, testing his strength. The monster's once-warped flesh is whole again, his aura stabilized, his movements crisp and controlled. Still monstrous, yes—but no longer cracked and near-collapse. "Better?" Alix asks. Gander grins. "Yes, your majesty. I could take on those two right now." Alix chuckles quietly. "No need. That fight's over." He steps forward and pulls a shimmering black card from his inventory—its surface etched with golden runes, pulsing faintly with transformation magic. Without ceremony, he flicks it toward Gander. It dissolves in midair, releasing a stream of spectral threads that wrap around his body. Gander's body shifts as the magic threads pull tight. His stitched flesh warps slightly, seams realigning, limbs adjusting, frame bending subtly into a new form. Patchwork look of his old body. In its place stands a sleeker creature, taller, draped in shadow-flesh bound by thin arcane cables. His frame is elongated, his joints sharper, his limbs more fluid—like a shadow stitched into a body and given form. "Still me," Gander rasps, his voice even more distorted now, a whisper layered with echo. "But... improved." Alix nods. "You look less like walking surgery and more like an executioner now." He pulls out a second item—a simple, dull-gray ring. Ordinary-looking, but its center pulses with a strange internal rhythm. 'A gift from a hidden merchant quest,' Alix thought. He hands it over. "Put it on." Gander does. The moment the ring slips over his clawed finger, a soft veil of mana ripples outward—subtle, precise, and suffocatingly effective. Gander's terrifying Tier 6 aura fades like a candle under glass, vanishing entirely. "Even someone like Astram wouldn't be able to tell," Alix says, crossing his arms. ----- The Ashen Woods greet them not with hostility—but with silence. When Alix and Gander cross into the twisted forest, there's a pause, a shift in the air—as though the forest itself recognizes them. Dozens of eyes peek from the dark: monster beasts with moss-covered spines, creatures made of bone and ash, hybrids of claw and flame. None attack. They simply watch. Then, one by one, they begin to lower their heads. A hulking beast with molten cracks along its jaw lumbers forward. It snorts once, heavy steam curling from its nostrils, then gives a slow nod. "The new commander that defeated Lathar," it rumbles, voice like stone dragged across stone. "We sensed your mark the moment you stepped in." Alix stops in the clearing and regards them coolly. "You all already knows. I'm the new commander of this base," he says. None challenge the claim. Instead, another monster—one with three jagged wings and no eyes—chitters softly. "Then we follow." By the time Alix and Gander reach the outpost, the sky has turned a dusty red, the kind of twilight that stains wood and stone with soft gloom. The base sprawls like a small town—crude but functional—lined with barracks, supply depots, smithies, and a central command hall made of reinforced stone and dark timber.