CH 250

Chapter 250

It was the Taurus who made the first move.

“Gwaaaaar!”

They roared loudly and stomped their feet as they began to charge in unison. They forgoed reconnaissance or anything of that sort, and aggressively charged headfirst into battle.

The Ursus equally matched them in their momentum, but unlike the Taurus, they stood in formation and marched forward step by step. The sight of a thousand white bears marching forward in formation with each other was different from the fierce charge of the Taurus, but neither side was any weaker than the other in terms of their momentum.

“Koaaaaaar!”

The white bears roared and built up their momentum, while the frontlines of the Taurus, who had closed the gap between the two armies, collided with the frontlines of the Ursus.

“Kaaaargh!”

Screams, roars, and terrifying sounds of shattering that drowned out their ferocious roars erupted from all directions.

“This is truly…” Seeing thousands upon thousands of monsters from Duke-level labyrinths fighting it out, Angela gasped. “...barbaric.”

Unable to accurately describe the sheer savagery of the battle that was unfolding before her eyes, she spoke of her honest impressions. “‘If I die, you die.’ Is that it?”

Just as she said, this war between the Taurus and the Ursus was a clash of pure strength, with no strategy or tactics. Having expected a somewhat different kind of battle, she was visibly disappointed and remarked, “Seeing this, I’m sure the Counts could do a better job.”

The Iron-Blooded Anatolius, who relied on swift maneuvers as his preferred tactic, was a master of surprise attacks and skirmishes, while Parthenon of Despair was good at finding openings in his enemy’s tactics and making them self-destruct. Denarion of Nightmares and Bryntess of Corruption were masters of the Dark World and were highly resourceful.

Angela, who had been under Anatolius’ protection before coming to the Naga’s Labyrinth, had witnessed the battles between the Counts several times. Thus, she had expected the battle between the Dukes to play out in a similar manner.

However, it didn’t. In the battle between the Taurus and the Ursus, the only factor that mattered was their brute physical strength. It was literally the most primitive form of battle, in which two powers physically collided and there was no room for any tactics, strategies, deception, or mystical powers.

“Then, does it seem to you that Anatolius and the Counts could defeat them?” Kim Jin-Woo suddenly asked.

Angela was left momentarily speechless. She began, “If they were similar in terms of their power level…”

“Such assumptions are meaningless. After all, even if the Counts went to hell and back, they wouldn’t be able to obtain such summons.” Kim Jin-Woo’s voice was unusually cold as he said, “They’re not barbaric. They’re simply efficient.”

Kim Jin-Woo had been a tunnel digger. The day he had unluckily dug into a neighboring labyrinth’s tunnel and started a bloody war, he’d had to hide himself in a narrow pit and watch the wild and ferocious monsters claw away at each other.

“How effective were the traps Daedalus was so proud of against the Satyrs? What were you and your Vampires able to accomplish against them?” he remarked.

Angela couldn’t answer this time either. It was because Kim Jin-Woo wasn’t wrong.

The traps that the Labyrinth Architect, who had risen to the rank of Master Craftsman, confidently created had only managed to slow down Luyang’s soldiers for a short while, and the Vampires’ surprise attacks from the dark had done quite literally nothing.

“Strategy and all that aside, isn’t it more important to see who deals the most damage from the beginning to oppress their opponent?” Kim Jin-Woo remarked.

The enormous strength of the Dukes’ soldiers, their hard bodies, their sharp teeth and claws, and their weapons were more menacing than any gods and demons. And they seemed to know what their greatest weapon was.

“Mm…” Angela imagined battling the white bears and bulls in her head, and she was soon forced to admit that no matter how many of her own clanmates she had, she would never be able to stop them.

“But!” The moment she came to that realization, she burst into anger.

She had lived her whole life being mocked. The Vampire, who’d had not a single drop of True Blood inside her until only recently, had been nothing more than a rare living artifact of the Underworld, and she’d had to auction herself off to find a master and sell her body for down gems.

She had pretended to be okay all along, but she’d always had a sense of inferiority. That was why she had tried so hard to obtain her True Blood, even if it meant performing a ceremony that had a higher probability of failure than success.

Although it wasn’t completely perfect, she had still succeeded in obtaining the True Blood. It was an attempt in which she had risked her own life, and it was literally the gamble of a lifetime. In return for her success, she had been able to break free from the shackles that had tied her down as a false Vampire.

It was truly a commendable effort. However, as if to ridicule her efforts, she was now being told that there was a limit to her species that couldn’t be overcome.

“We’re now facing two enemies that are obviously superior to us. Wouldn’t it be better to use our brains a little bit more in such a situation?” Angela asked, her youthful voice almost seeming to turn into a whine.

Instead of answering, Kim Jin-Woo smiled in response. It was such a refreshing sight to see, considering that a bloody battle filled with screams of death was taking place right in front of them. Finally, he replied, “Why? Are you upset? Are you angry at those who were born strong and make your fortune look like a joke?”

Angela nodded in annoyance.

“Then watch. Open your eyes and see carefully what their arrogance will cost.”

Having said that, Kim Jin-Woo gently caressed Angela’s hair.

“If you do that, you’ll see it.”

His voice was soft, but there was great power behind it.

“You’ll see how this wild dog that grew up in the smelly tunnels will topple these kings of kings.”

***

Where the Taurus rushed in, only bloodied white fur remained, and where the Ursus attacked, only broken bull horns remained. It was such a fierce battle that it was hard to predict what would happen next. But as time went on, the white bears were slowly being pushed back by the bulls.

“Looks like they’ve only sent out the fodder,” Kim Jin-Woo remarked.

All the small victories were to be forfeited, and only one major victory would be required. That was the winning strategy he had suggested, which the Ursus had accepted.

In the end, the white bears standing on the battlefield were the weakest among the Ursus clan. There was no reason to send out precious elite soldiers to a battle they knew they were going to lose anyway.

“Kaaaaaaaaargh!”

The Taurus, not knowing of such an arrangement, bolstered their momentum from the small victories in anticipation of a victorious war. The Ursus’ frontline collapsed at once, and the ferocious bulls started to run rampant.

“They are requesting for you to send in the promised reinforcements soon,” the imp said.

There was no way an imp girl, who had lived her whole life as a thief before being taken in by the Black Merchants, would have witnessed such horrors of the battlefield before. Seeing the Taurus charging forward with their horns while soaked in flesh and blood, she looked as if she were about to faint. However, she didn’t forget her duties as she continued to interpret the Taurus’ words.

“Already?” Kim Jin-Woo sounded hesitant, unlike his usual self. He looked as if he had been frightened by the ferocity of the battle, and the Taurus envoy subconsciously had a scornful expression.

“They are saying that although they can achieve victory on their own, they want to verify the integrity of the alliance,” the imp translated. Seeing Kim Jin-Woo being swept up by the Taurus’ fierce momentum, she spoke in an even softer voice than before.

“Urgh.” Kim Jin-Woo pretended to deliberate his decision.

“They are saying that trust in an alliance is not something that can be easily earned,” the imp continued.

Perhaps due to the high from the battle, the Taurus’ envoy was rather overbearing, unlike before. He might even have been wondering if Kim Jin-Woo’s victory against the Satyrs was a fluke, merely the result of luck and various flukes.

However, that situation was exactly what Kim Jin-Woo intended.

“Guess I don’t have a choice. Tell him we’re going to send our troops.” He hesitated until the end, finally granting the request of the Taurus envoy with a reluctant expression.

“W-Will that be okay?” the imp girl asked with a worried look.

“What do you mean?” Kim Jin-Woo asked.

“Ah…” The imp girl panicked upon hearing his casual answer.

Kim Jin-Woo, who had been shuddering with fear until just a moment before, had a deadly cold look in his eyes.

“Prepare for battle!” Kim Jin-Woo commanded.

The Ancient Hero-Grade summons who had been waiting in advance appeared in unison. Even while witnessing the brutal battle unfold before their eyes, the summons showed no signs of hesitation, as they growled wildly and raised their fighting spirit. They looked ready to jump right into the middle of the battlefield without any hesitation at their master’s command.

But his orders were far from their expectations. Kim Jin-Woo said, “There’s no need to fight so hard.”

Morrigan gave him a puzzled look and replied, “Sorry, what?”

“It’s exactly as you heard. There’s no need to go all out when this isn’t our show.” As time went by, Kim Jin-Woo was getting more and more wicked, as he made yet another absurd request. “If possible, save yourselves. Do your best not to reveal your true strengths. Only for this battle, I’ll allow you to retreat. However, don’t remove yourselves from the battlefield completely.”

Since he held the title of ‘Undefeated Commander’, he couldn’t completely retreat from the battlefield. If he did, the powerful title effects that had brought him this far would be lost. But other than that, he didn’t care what the summons did on the battlefield.

After all, the defeat of the Ursus was all but guaranteed. The Taurus would definitely claim that promised victory as their own. Kim Jin-Woo and his men only had to pretend to fight in moderation, and that would be enough to secure the victory.

“What do…” Morrigan began.

“It’s as you heard. From now on, you and I will involve ourselves in the battle and only pretend to fight,” Kim Jin-Woo replied.

***

“Urgh.” Morrigan found herself feeling exhausted. She had fought in countless battlefields, but it was the first time she had found herself unmotivated by combat.

That was because her master had given her an absurd order. Even as she looked at a white bear with the nape of its neck exposed, she couldn’t readily deal the killing blow. It was because her master had repeatedly told her not to reveal her full strength.

“Kaaargh!”

The angry white bear, not knowing that it had just barely escaped death, roared wildly at her. Looking at the bear in frustration, Morrigan slowly backed away.

“Kuuuuargh!”

A Taurus appeared out of nowhere behind her, and pushed her aside as it charged forward wildly.

“That son of a…” Having briefly lost her footing, Morrigan was now filled with anger and was about to spread her wings widely, before sighing deeply and folding her wings back up. “What the fuck am I doing here…” she muttered.

To her, a battlefield was sacred ground. The splendid moment where life and death was decided was a holy time for her that couldn’t be expressed in words. From her point of view, her master’s order was blasphemy.

There was no such thing as a battlefield in which she couldn’t fight. And there was no battlefield that was trivial enough to look down on. Nevertheless, she had no choice but to act according to her master’s orders.

“This is driving me crazy.” She saw her master running through the battlefield in the distance.

Despite having given such orders to her, her master himself was wreaking havoc splendidly across the battlefield. But a short while later, he quickly yielded the frontlines to the Taurus and made his retreat.

She was rather startled by the weak and pathetic appearance of her master, who normally would have handled all the white bears on his own, no matter how much it took.

“What the hell is his plan?” she grumbled, but she eventually gave up trying to figure out her master’s plan.

Her sly and cunning master was definitely plotting something else. She had thought that she was good at strategy and tactics, but she realized that her master was on another level.

Her style of using clever tactics, making full use of her forces to exploit loopholes in the enemy’s defense, was vastly different from her master’s insidious plans, and the outcomes were also different.

Unlike her, who only sought honorable victories, her master was extremely greedy and tenacious. Her master always wanted more and more, and always got what he wanted, and then some. Seeing someone like him behaving so differently, she was certain that there was a bigger picture to this war.

“Mm.” Having retreated even farther through the ranks, Morrigan immersed herself in her own thoughts before looking displeased again.

“I guess I can run free a bit, can’t I?” Morrigan, the Death Crow who could bring even the Deep Floor Nobles to her feet, spread her wings.

***

“Tsk, such a temper.”

From the beginning, Kim Jin-Woo knew that the Ancient Hero-Grade summons wouldn’t passively engage in battle, knowing their level of pride. He had simply wanted to let them know that this wasn’t a meaningful battle at all.

And as expected, the Ancient Hero-Grade summons, including Morrigan and Heimdall, started to reveal their true powers. After a while, black feathers scattered everywhere, and the battlefield was drowned by the cries of the Dawn Rooster.

As warriors favored by a mighty Ancient Lord, they displayed overwhelming majesty even against the summons of the Duke-level labyrinth. Although Kim Jin-Woo wasn’t fully exerting his powers due to keeping an eye on them, their display of power alone could be enough to raise flags for the Dukes.

“Well, I’m sure this won’t be that bad,” he muttered.

He had hoped that the Dukes would look down on the Grand Labyrinth and drop their vigilance. However, it also wouldn’t be bad for the Taurus to realize that their alliance was useful, which could in turn drive them to fight the Ursus even harder. After all, the more they were intoxicated with the prospect of victory, the easier it would be for Kim Jin-Woo to get what he wanted.