Chapter 26
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Chapter 26: As Bright as Fireworks
Just as Midi had predicted, Sigmund and Lilian were surrounded, alongside forty-one surviving elite warriors. Twenty-nine had already perished. The remaining fighters, all wounded, were pushed to their limits. The nerve-wracking disguised infiltration the previous night, back-to-back assaults on two granaries, and relentless battles had sapped their strength.
Sigmund and Lilian fared better due to their higher levels, superior equipment, and perfect transmutation. Their recovery speed and battle strength far surpassed ordinary knights. Though a melee fighter, Lilian’s Blue Fist Saint abilities allowed minor healing, boosting their endurance.
But there was no respite.
The duo alone sustained the front line—one close-range, one ranged. As enemies multiplied and assaults intensified, stopping their counterattack meant total collapse. They fought desperately, yet their physical strength, the gunner’s ammunition, and the Blue Fist Saint’s holy light drained like water through a broken dam.
“Can’t… hold on much longer,” Sigmund wheezed, eyeing his scorched cannon.
“Are we dying here?” Lilian’s voice trembled with fear and bitterness.
“Keep going. There’s still hope,” Sigmund urged.
“Stop lying!” Lilian snapped. “Dying for the Asreks family? What a waste! Damn it all!”
“Not for Asreks or Midi. We chose this—to catch up to Miss Fina,” Sigmund said firmly.
Lilian sighed, nodding. Despite her resolve, death terrified the teenage girl.
*Too much left undone. Dying in this nameless county? In a forgotten surprise attack?*
Fury surged through her. She lunged forward, breaking through enemy lines.
“We’ve got a path!” she cried.
But rounding the corner, they faced a fresh hundred-man squad—sword-and-shield guards, balanced in attack, defense, and evasion. The Blue Fist Saint’s strikes couldn’t pierce their guard; bullets ricocheted off shields. The Crimson Flame Legion had adapted.
Even Lilian froze in despair.
Sigmud gritted his teeth, ignoring the burning cannon. He slid into a firing stance, targeting the new foes.
As they braced for a final stand, a figure shot from the opposite street—a black streak trailing a Lightsaber’s glow—plowing into the guards like a cannonball.
“Midi?” Lilian gasped.
“Midi!” Sigmund’s voice cracked.
They stared, verifying the impossible.
“That moron,” Lilian muttered after a beat.
Both knew attacking a granary alone was suicidal. Even victorious, how much stamina could a level 22 like Midi have left? What good was adding one man to a hopeless fight?
“Total idiot,” Sigmund laughed hoarsely.
An idiot who’d charge into certain death for them. The gunner’s throat tightened.
“Quit gawking! Suppress and advance!” Midi barked through clashing steel.
Sigmund blinked. The guards—now scattered, groups of eight retreating—were crumbling under Midi’s solo assault.
*How?!*
Sigmund could hardly believe his eyes, but there was no time to question why—the chance to survive lay right before them. All they needed was to attack relentlessly!
At that same moment, Lilian spotted their opportunity. She mustered her remaining strength to charge forward, joining Midi’s assault. The Asreks family warriors roared fiercely as they followed in formation, cutting down foes desperately.
The final and strongest defense line blocking their path crumbled like a dam under floodwaters.
"You Asreks mutts won’t pass!" wheezed the mold-covered sword-and-shield centurion, his labored breath not dampening his roar.
A gleaming arc flashed. Midi’s blade severed the shouting head.
The wide-eyed skull soared skyward, its crimson blood-trail pointing the way forward like an arrow.
"You wield Ghost Cry’s demon arrays and Sword Soul’s swordsmanship together?!" Sigmund blurted, having noticed the anomaly earlier. The combination of wide-area control and pinpoint strikes stunned him.
"Such abundant magic reserves… Your demon god must be formidable," observed Lilian, her cleric senses tingling with the magical ripples.
"Perfect Transmutation’s effect. Explain later." Midi swiftly oriented himself before charging north.
Sigmund and Lilian swallowed their questions, rallying the warriors to follow.
Though his reincarnation memories offered no tactical advantage here, Midi’s experience leading the Hawk Brigade against Heaven’s Alliance proved invaluable. Each skirmish revealed patterns in York County’s troop movements—numbers, formations, fatigue levels, enemy lures, street layouts, Crimson Flame Legion’s favored tactics…
While his Lightsaber pierced enemy weaknesses and Ice Binding Arrays halted assaults, Midi’s mind calculated endlessly, mapping escape routes through the burning county.
The Crimson Flame Legion had deployed 2,000 troops to guard their last granary while 4,000 others formed a dragnet—a solid plan until Midi’s group transformed from exhausted prey to razor-fanged predators slipping through every gap.
Repeatedly breaking through checkpoints, narrowly avoiding main forces—sometimes separated only by a street corner—the doomed raid team somehow reached York County’s northern edge.
The sole northern exit lacked proper gates, just a post road now barred by multiple Crimson Flame fortifications. Four hundred soldiers stood guard here, disciplined statues ignoring the inferno behind them.
Of the original forty-one elite warriors, only twenty-nine remained. Sigmund swung a blood-caked blade, his ammunition spent. Lilian panted like any mortal without holy light. Even Midi neared collapse, recovery impossible with enemies minutes behind.
Yet the black-haired leader calmly drew an automatic pistol from his belt.
Mechanic? Sigmond wondered, briefly forgetting their peril.
Midi fired skyward. A flare bloomed above the flames and stars.
Then came the first azure Magic Beam—a screaming projectile from northern darkness obliterating the checkpoint in fiery eruption. Wooden barriers vaporized, knights scattered like leaves, the earth gouged into a ten-meter crater.
More followed—magic-enhanced, explosive, scattering blue comets painting the night with deadly fireworks.
