Chương 43: The Oathrunner vs. The Horde

The Horde For a moment after the boom, Sir Calven thought the wall had fallen. He had fought in the north, against the barbarians. He had stood shield to shield against men twice his size, watched horses break their legs in frozen mud, and heard siege stones land close enough to turn brave men into children. He knew the sound of wood splitting, iron bending, bones breaking beneath weight—but he had never heard anything like... the boom. Mud struck his shield hard enough to make his arm numb.

Something slapped against his helmet and slid down the side of his face. He did not look to see what it was, because the air in front of him had turned brown and red, and the men beside him were as confused as he was.

"Hold!" someone screamed. But... hold against what? Calven slowly lowered his shield, his eyes looking for the next vemon to come his way... but nothing. The rain slowly pulled the dirt from the air, and through it... he saw a crater.

"What..." He was sure of it—it had not been there a moment ago. What had been there, however, were dozens of vemons trying to mow their way through the gate. But now, there was nothing but the crater—no. Across the mud and the stones, among the vemon corpses scattered in a circle out of nowhere... stood a boy at the center of it all. Calven knew who he was. He'd only seen him briefly during the war in the north, but how could he forget? The Oathrunner. But the boy... looked completely different now.

His red cape hung torn behind him, and his golden hair clung to his face. And his eyes, oh... his eyes were so tired. But as soon as one of the vemons around him moved, the exhaustion vanished—not just from his face, but Enel himself. The next thing Calven knew, the vemon had suddenly been buried in the crater, one of its limbs twisted backward... and Enel was standing right beside it. Then another creature roared, lunging toward Enel's back.

"Behin—!" Before Calven could even say a word, the red cape snapped once, and the vemon disappeared. Enel had only turned, and that was all Calven saw before he heard a rumble from the wall. He looked, only to see a vemon splattered against the stone. For a breath, no one moved. They all just watched as part of the wall began to crack—even the vemons seemed to be watching... at least, until the horde screamed once more.

Vemons rushed him from every side, pouring through the fog and over the bodies of their own kind. Calven raised his sword out of instinct... but the battle in front of him no longer seemed to belong to men. It belonged to whatever the boy actually was. Calven had seen Duke Gawen fight when he was younger, and the duke moved like a storm through the battlefield. But this was different. The young lord of Widow's Wall was different. A vemon leaped, and Enel was already beneath it.

His sword rose once, and the creature came apart above him. Another crawled toward his side, but he caught it by the neck and dragged it across the mud into two more hard enough that all three vemons practically merged with each other. It was... gruesome. But the horde was not done, and dozens more reached him.

"Charge! This is our chance!" someone shouted from somewhere.

"No!" Calven screamed.

"Do not charge!" The panicked men charged anyway. But Enel was already somewhere else before they took their first step—all they saw were streaks of gold and red blurring in front of them. They could see Enel's figure from time to time, but only when he stopped to grab a vemon or push his fists through one. And when the charging soldiers actually arrived, the vemons in their area were all already splattered across the ground. And then, once again, from somewhere, another boom.

Their heads snapped toward the noise at the same time, and they saw a tidal wave of mud splitting across the field. The vemons that happened to be in its path were all buried—and even some of the soldiers' feet got caught by the wave. The soldiers began moving back, dragging away their peers who were unfortunate enough to be hit by the wave. Calven also rushed to help them, ordering them all to move back to the wall.

"By the Seven..." the soldier beside him whispered.

"That... that is the Oathrunner?" This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. Calven did not answer. He only watched as the child grabbed another vemon by the head, dragged it screaming across the field, and used it to crush another that had tried to climb over the broken gate. And right beside Enel... was Duke Gawen. He stared at Enel... and Enel stared back.

The young lord did not have to say anything—he only needed to look at Gawen from head to toe for Gawen to know how disappointed Enel was in him. And somehow, the duke could only look away. The red cape blurred past soon after, leaving behind a trail of dirt and mud, some blowing toward him. Gawen did not have the luxury to react to that, however, as one of his soldiers scampered toward him.

"Left flank!" one of his captains shouted.

"Your Grace, the left—" Gawen lifted a hand, but before he could even raise his voice... the left flank was gone. Not his soldiers, but the monsters. The only one left there was Enel.

"Fuck," Gawen whispered. He had thought of the boy as a tool to be used. Of course he had. Men born from power and into power were tools before they could even speak, and Enel Blackwood had more power in one hand than most houses had in their entire bloodline. A tool, Gawen had said... but as the boy crossed the field and turned a hundred monsters into meat and mud, the duke finally understood the stupidity of his own words. What kind of bastard thought he could even put a leash on that?

The last cluster of vemons near the gate scattered, crawling over each other in blind panic as Enel appeared among them. One tried to burrow into the mud. Enel stepped on it without looking. Another ran toward the fog, and Enel threw the body in his hand after it. The body struck the fleeing creature and carried it into three more. And then, something happened. For the first time in days, the number of vemons that were either dead or fleeing outweighed the crawling.

The field went quiet after that—well, quieter than it had been since all of it started. But there were still men in pain, and the rain continued to fall. Somewhere near the gate, Robert was still holding Brenn. He could not quite see what was happening outside, but he knew enough that Enel was changing everything. At least near their gate, there were no more vemons. Calven, who had watched everything unfold from near the gate, stiffened as Enel suddenly stood beside him.

The young noble was breathing hard, but his stride as he slowly approached Gawen did not show any of his exhaustion. And Calven... he had seen the duke make men step back just by looking at them. He had seen commanders, nobles, and even priests grow careful whenever Gawen's eyes landed on them. But when Enel appeared in front of him, Duke Gawen... flinched. Enel didn't seem to notice. His eyes simply moved past Gawen, searching the wall.

"Where is Father?" he asked. Gawen looked at him for a moment. Then he carefully pointed toward Robert inside the wall, and once again, Enel was gone. Robert was still kneeling beside Brenn when his son appeared before him. He almost fell back, not because he was frightened, but because the air moved too quickly and his tired body could no longer bear the weight of anything at all.

"Enel..." He looked up at his son.

"Father." Enel looked him over once, then fell to one knee and bowed to him.

"I am back. Are you... hurt?"

"No. Not badly." Robert pushed himself to his feet, finally removing his hand from Brenn as he motioned for Enel to stand.

"You... came."

"Is... Lamb still inside?" Robert closed his eyes at the question.

"Yes." Enel's eyes moved to the Dark Forest.

"Where's... Mother? Why do I not see her?" Robert stared at him, and for a moment, the rain seemed louder.

"Axe... did not tell you?" Enel turned back to him, and the look in his eyes made Robert's chest tighten.

"What...?" Enel whispered.

"Tell... tell me what, Father?"

"Lamb went back for Mira," Robert said quietly.

"Your mother is inside as well."

"Oh..." A loud breath escaped Enel. He did not know whether to be relieved that his mother was alive, or dread that both Lamb and Mira were inside the Dark Forest. Enel then looked back, and once again heard the vemons marching toward Widow's Wall.

"Go," Robert whispered.

"But Widow's Wall—""Is my responsibility," Robert cut him off.

"I may look like this, son—but I am still the Baron of House Blackwood. Go. Get your mother... and end this." Enel stared at him. And for a moment, Robert saw the boy who used to stand in the garden with dirt on his cheeks. The boy, who was unaware of his strength and had caused endless troubles for him. Then, he saw the child Mira had held in torn cloth beneath a sky they thought would kill them. He did not see the Hero of the West Camp, nor the boy the duke had described as equal to a siege weapon.

He did not see the Oathrunner they had been whispering about for the past few days. He only saw his son. A son, bowing to his father.

"Yes, Father." Robert wanted to say more, anything. He wanted to tell him to be careful, to come back, to not believe the voices in the trees, to... return. But Enel was already moving. He crossed the field toward the Dark Forest, and the vemons that happened to be in his path were slaughtered before they could slow him. Everyone watched him disappear, but none of them had the luxury to just stand there—once Enel was inside the Dark Forest, the vemons once again began to charge.

"Men!" Robert raised his voice.

"Block the gates!" And while Widow's Wall once again started its defense, Enel took his very first step into the Dark Forest. The first trees seemed normal. The ink oozing out from the wet bark, the black leaves, the large roots—it was as Axe had described it to him whenever he and Lamb asked what the forest was like. Axe's stories changed from time to time, however, making him and Lamb not believe everything that was coming out of his mouth.

But if there was one thing that was consistent, it was this—never cross the sign that says, DO NOT ENTER BEYOND THIS POINT. And yet... Enel only glanced at the sign before passing it. Or rather, passing them, because there were about a dozen signs where he stood alone. He sighed for a moment, then continued on... only for the sky to suddenly clear. He looked up, and the rain that had been falling endlessly since earlier was gone. Not even a single drop was left to fall on his face.

He took another step, and the mud beneath him was gone, replaced by...

"Is this... sand?" He crouched down for a moment, grabbing a handful of sand for the very first time in his life.

"Feels... weird." He looked ahead, and the trees were now completely different. None of them were standing upright, with most completely stretched sideways. But of course, what actually caught his attention... were the trees floating in the air. If there was one other thing that did not change in Axe's stories, it was that once you went deeper, you would no longer be in the land of the living. You would enter the Veil. Or, as Axe and many others described—the Spirit World.