With Fire Emperor’s Crimson Armour active, Rei freely rampaged through the rear of the punitive army, causing massive confusion.
The actual number of injuries and death caused by Rei wasn’t that great, but his one-sided rampage, which could hardly be called a fight, caused tremendous fear and awe among the punitive force soldiers, making many of them flee.
Of course, nobles and the soldiers loyal to them didn’t flee.
But, with an army of over 40,000 soldiers, it was inevitable that nobles alone wouldn’t have been able to muster such a force. A majority of the punitive army was still made up of mercenaries, adventurers, and fighters recruited from the territories of various nobles.
What would happen if such people saw someone as devastating as Rei?
And what would happen when they heard that Rei had fought and defeated Noiz?
It led to countless deserters and even those who didn’t desert lost so much morale that they were no longer willing to keep fighting.
Naturally, the commanding officers and knights ordered their soldiers to keep fighting, but……
「Fight! If we lose here, His Highness Shurus will have no future! You’ll all be treated as defeated soldiers! I’m not asking you to defeat him. Just to hold him back……」
「Ahhh, here he comes!」
The commander was trying to raise the morale of his soldiers when Rei appeared, wrapped in crimson magic power and charging straight towards them, causing the soldiers to quickly flee.
Realising the danger of his situation, the commander decided that he should move away as well as he tried to control his frightened horse, but……
Sensing his surroundings suddenly heat up, the commander turned around on his horse, only to see Rei right next to him and swinging the Death Scythe.
「Gah-!」
The Death Scythe rapidly swept towards him before cutting him in half.
Empowered with magic power and boosted by the increase to physical strength provided by the Fire Emperor’s Crimson Armour, the Death Scythe cleanly cut through the commander’s metal armour.
……The cut was so clean that the horse carried the commander several further meters further before the upper half of the commanders body fell to the ground.
Like so, Rei focused on taking out the commanders leading the soldiers in order to maximise the confusion among the punitive force.
There were quite a number of nobles among the commanders, but to Rei, they were Bestir Empire nobles and nobles hostile to Mercurio.
Even if they begged for their lives, Rei had no way to control those who had surrendered, so in the end he either cut them in half or burned them with fire.
As he pushed his way through the punitive force and towards Mercurio’s army, he realised that he was out of the rear guard and approaching the front lines.
Furthermore, he caught sight of someone familiar as a smile formed on his lips.
That person was casually defeating any enemies that approached.
And yet, she didn’t kill them, only knocking them unconscious, a feat only possible due to her exceptional skill.
However, the look on her face wasn’t one of enjoyment.
She probably thought that they were all too weak, was what Rei though as he dashed forward, blasting away the remaining enemies in front of him while still clad in Fire Emperor’s Crimson Armour.
The moment Vihear turned to look at Rei, she gave a smile so bright that it made people wonder where her previous disatisfaction had disappeared to.
Vihera was already a striking beauty, so her smile was enough to make her presence brighten the surroundings.
「Did I keep you waiting?」
「Yes……but, could you please step away for a moment. I can manage to endure it, but the others can’t get too close you you right now.」
Vihera’s happy smile turned into a wry one as she spoke as Rei remembered that his Fire Emperor’s Crimson Armour emitted a large amount of heat.
When fighting on his own, it wasn’t really an issue……in fact, the heat was enough to make others hesitant to hit him with melee attacks. But when fighting alongside others, it became a much harder skill to utilise.
「My bad.」
Rei distanced himself from Vihera.
(It’s a bit late to think about it now, but this really is a solo only skill. I wish I could at least do something about the heat……!)
A spear flew towards his back, piercing through the air behind him. Using magic power that formed the Fire Emperor’s Crimson Armour, tentacle extended out to knock down the spear.
At the same time the wooden shaft was knocked away and burned up, another tentacle sent out a ball of fire towards the direction the spear had come from.
The fist sized flames flew towards the adventurer who had thrown the spear at him, turning into a huge pillar of flames on contact and engulfing the adventurer in fire.
「AHHHHHHHHHHHHH……」
At first, the adventurer let out a scream that echoed into the surroundings, but their screams soon faded, unable to withstand the intensity of the flames.
They fell to the ground as their body and life where consumed by the flames.
「……Well, you’ve learned another interesting ability.」
Though surprised by the chain of events, a smile soon reappeared on Vihera’s face.
She could tell how strong Rei currently was from his series of movements.
However, Rei shook his head at Vihera’s words.
To Rei, this was only raw strength……while he had mastered a skill that could be considered an upgrade to Overlord’s Armour, Noiz had still manage to leave without him being able to do much.
Technically speaking he had defeated Noiz, but to Rei, it was merely a symbolic defeat.
No matter how powerful a skill was, using it to its full potential was a completely different matter.
Having seen how that had played out in practice, Rei couldn’t feel happy at Vihera’s words.
「That’s true. It is a powerful skill, but it has a number of drawbacks, particularly the consumption of magic power.」
Thanks to the Bracelet of Magic Absorption, he had been able to reduce the amount of magic power consumed on his way to Vihera, but battles of this size didn’t happen that often.
「Hmm, well, I’ll talk with you more after we finish this battle. For now, we need to deal with the punitive force……right!」
Vihera used the claws that extended from her gauntlets to cut down an arrow flying towards her.
Seeing that, Rei extended more tentacles from his Fire Emperor’s Crimson Armour as he unleashed Deep Flames.
With a thunderous roar, another pillar of flames appeared, burning an archer to death.
「Now then, since we’ve met up on the battlefield, shall we bring this battle to an end?」
「Of course. ……Is what I would like to say, but unfortunately we can’t fight alongside you. Even if we could launch an attack on their main camp, we’d stand out greatly.」
「I suppose you’re right, I understand.」
Overlord’s Armour, with its white glow, was already quite eye catching, but Fire Emperor’s Crimson Armour had a deep crimson glow, matching Rei’s title.
In terms of visibility, it stood out significantly more than Overlord’s Armour.
If Rei were to charge towards the enemy’s main camp in such an obvious manner, the punitive force would undoubtedly send their forces to stop his advance, resulting in increased casualties.
「But, Vihera-sama, would it be better to make our advance clear and our overwhelming victory known? That way we could display our victory in the best possible manner.」
「……I agree. While it is a good idea, it wouldn’t just lead to the deaths of more soldiers, but also nobles and senior military officers. What’s more, many nobles are still on Kabadjid and Shurus’ side. In other words, there is a high chance that many family feuds will break out after the end of this civil war if too many of them are killed. If that were to happen, it would be a waste of all the effort we put into ending this civil war. The Bestir Empire would be thrown into chaos again. In addition, with so many nobles embroiled in family disputes, it’s likely that one scheme will lead to another, causing the situation to get even worse. We’ve finally manage to end the civil war, so I want to avoid anything that could lead to another pointless decline in the country’s strength.」
「I see, so you were planning to spare as many of the opposing nobles as you could. I had been thinking that you would execute all the opposing nobles……or at least purge them.」
That’s a shame, Tilleyle muttered out loud. Rei couldn’t tell if he was serious or not as he watched on from the side.
「It might sound strange of course, coming from the person who started this civil war, but this whole thing has already drawn a lot of attention from the neighbouring countries. Fortunately, the Imperial Army is currently fortifying our borders and the Noble and Neutral factions in the Mireana Kingdom are keeping things under control on their side, but if the chaos continues, it’s hard to say what they’ll all do……」
「Things seem to be going quite smoothly in the Mireana Kingdom though. Anyway, back to the main point. What should I do then? I was a little late, but I’ve achieved my original goal of attacking the punitive force’s rear guard and causing chaos for now, so there’s nothing else for me to do.」
「……’For now’, how can you even say that……」
Tilleyle seemed shocked, his expression completely different from the one he had on his face just a few seconds ago.
Next to him, Vihera gave a wry smile, agreeing with what Tilleyle said.
Confusion in the rear guard.
Technically speaking, Rei was right.
But in reality, confusion wasn’t enough to describe what he had done to the punitive force.
That was only natural. Who in the punitive force could have expected that someone would charge at them from the rear, causing so much damage?
What was currently happening in the rear of the punitive force’s center army couldn’t just be described by the word ‘chaotic’, even ‘total chaos’ would be an understatement. Calling it pandemonium would probably be the best description.
And yet, even in such a situation……
「Gurururururururu~!」
Set was flying through the sky as he breathed fire.
Some soldiers shot arrows, magic, or even stones from a catapult that they had brought over from somewhere else.
However, all of their attacks were either dodged or knocked away. When the rocks missed, they even fell on their allies, causing more collateral damage.
The result of throwing rocks at Set using a catapult was obvious with even minimal thought, but Set was currently attacking the soldiers below with Fire Breath, Water Ball, Wind Arrow, and Ice Arrow, attacks impossible for an ordinary Griffon.
There was no other way to attack Set, but every attack that missed would inevitably fall back to the ground, injuring their allies.
As more attacks hit their own allies, the chaos only grew further.
The few commanding officers that were lucky enough to not be targeted by Rei or Set didn’t have the ability to contain the chaos.
Chaos resulted in more chaos, leading into a vicious cycle.
What’s more, on the front lines, Mercurio’s army didn’t care about the state of the punitive force……no, they took advantage of the chaos to push their own attack.
Their momentum had weakened slightly after Rei and Vihera had met up in order to discuss what to do next, but the rest of Mercurio’s army was still pushing forward, seeing this as a great opportunity.
Given the situation, one or two more advances from Mercurio’s army would likely lower the morale of the punitive force enough for their center front line to collapse at once.
「The center is already a mess and on the verge of collapse due to Rei’s actions, so I’d like Rei and Set to attack the right and left wings next. What do you think?」
At Vihera’s words, Rei deactivated his Fire Emperor’s Crimson Armour and jumped onto a nearby horse as he looked at the left and right wings.
They were some distance away from the center, but Rei’s eyesight still allowed him to see both sides clearly.
On the right wing, the White Rose Knights were still engaged in fierce combat with the punitive force’s cavalry while the Demon Soliders on the left wing were struggling.
Vihera’s unit should have been on the left wing, but she had left to deal with Water Dragon Digma. Gurgast’s unit on the other hand just fought where they pleased, passing through the center and even showing up to the cavalry fight on the right wing for a period of time.
That said, both Gurgast and Tilleyle were now at the center.
As a result, the Demon Soldiers on the left wing were struggling against Pelfiel’s soldiers.
The right wing had been struggling at one point due to the sheer number of infantry that had joined the fight, but Gurgast’s charge had inflicted heavy casualties on the punitive force there.
As a result, the right wing was still an even fight for now……although news of the chaos in the center was gradually spreading, tilting in favour of Mercurio’s army.
Seeing how both wings were doing, Rei dismounted again before making his decision.
「Understood. I’ll take the left wing. I’ll send Set to the right.」
The Demon Soldiers were being pushed back on the left wing and more forces were needed.
As for the right wing, many of the White Rose Knights had their own thoughts regarding Rei, Set aside.
His decision came as a result of all his thoughts.