0104 If the Sun Does Not Remember

Li Yi stared in shock at everything before him.

The sun was still hanging perfectly well in the sky, so why had these magical beasts gone berserk ahead of schedule?

But he had no time to stand there stunned. This sudden turn of events shattered the withdrawal plan he had carefully arranged. He had intended to expend the magical beast army as much as possible before dusk, then retreat swiftly to Aikasia, raising morale, sapping the enemy’s edge, preserving their strength, and laying a solid foundation for the battles to come. He had never imagined that this abrupt change would, in an instant, turn the exhausted side into themselves.

Yet the magical beasts showed no sign of shock at all. They seemed to have known all along that they could enter their berserk state early, and one after another, as if pumped full of stimulants, they seized this perfect opportunity to slaughter recklessly. Some had gone so mad with killing that they no longer cared about the wounds on their own bodies, no longer protected their vital points, and cared only about creating a scene of carnage.

The human soldiers, too, had no room left to retreat. Better to die bravely in battle than to cower and perish in disgrace. In truth, by the time the fighting had reached this point, the soldiers’ emotions were already wholly at the mercy of the battlefield. One moment you were still standing intact; the next, you no longer knew where your body had gone. A comrade who had just been struggling beside you a moment ago might now not even leave behind a complete corpse. Faced with the arrogant, unrestrained magical beasts, the only word in every warrior’s heart was: kill.

Huan Luo had clearly been infected by that same murderous intent. Fighting at the very front line, she was already covered in wounds, and her once steady breathing and composure had long since been thrown into disarray. Even so, she felt no fear in the face of the rampaging beasts. In her violet eyes, all that swirled was killing intent. The speed and force of her swordplay did not grow heavy with time; on the contrary, it became even faster and more precise. The blood staining her blade had already darkened to black, and that cold, sinister edge looked almost like a dragon’s fang.

Lance also gave ground slightly, retreating toward the rear. As long as he avoided the most brutal front line, the second and third ranks were still manageable for him. Though he looked thin and delicate at first glance, the solid muscles hidden beneath his frame, his reaction speed, and his hand-to-hand combat ability, combined with his instant lightning strikes, were nothing to scoff at.

Xia Kui and Sang Qing were at a far greater disadvantage. Sang Qing was originally an official who mainly handled civil affairs and only trained in martial arts as a secondary pursuit. Having already spent much of his strength in the earlier fighting, he now looked somewhat spent under the magical beasts’ fierce assault. Xia Kui, meanwhile, simply was not suited to close combat. Although she desperately wanted to move closer to Huan Luo, strength of will could not make up for lack of ability. She could only keep falling back farther and farther.

As for that one, cough, still recovering mana...

Watching the battle line, barely held together through everyone’s efforts, Li Yi’s worry only deepened. He still did not know whether this sudden early berserk state applied only to the magical beasts in front of them, or to all of them, or whether the situation was even worse—whether even the monsters had already gone berserk ahead of time.

One had to remember that this battle was taking place inside the Magical Beast Forest. Before the invasion, many monsters had lived in this forest, but the large-scale advance of the magical beast army had forced them to flee temporarily so as not to be caught in the crossfire. Now that the berserk transformation had been brought forward, those monsters might very well be part of the berserk ranks as well. Berserk monsters had no intelligence whatsoever; they knew only how to kill. If they happened to return at a time like this, it would truly be adding frost to snow. Not to mention the latent threat of an army of twenty thousand still lurking somewhere nearby. Put all of that together, and it was nothing short of a nightmare.

After imagining the worst possible outcome, Li Yi lifted his head again and looked at the tightly shut gates of Aikasia. When he had once led the army to intercept the magical beast host before dusk, he had specifically told Andy that even if some enormous disaster occurred and all of them were doomed to die in the forest, the gates of Aikasia must not be opened unless they won the war.

Once the gates were opened, Aikasia would be no different from a lamb stripped of its last barrier, waiting to be slaughtered. No matter how well the militia had been trained, they could never match regular troops. If the magical beasts were allowed to seize the opening at the gate, Aikasia would have only one ending: destruction.

Please do not let me down. Li Yi frowned deeply as he stared at the temporary command post atop the walls.

Of course, reality was always the cruelest thing of all.

The moment you imagine the worst possible outcome and keep praying, please not now, please not now, it is already quietly upon you.

The first to discover that outcome, unfortunately, was our unlucky unnamed girl. And right as she was standing there, drenched and slow as she tried to recover her mana, a sharp claw lunged swiftly toward her. She, naturally, knew nothing of the battlefield around her. She only felt a chill wind sweep past, and then a familiar golden radiance burst suddenly into view behind her. But she had no time to turn and see what had happened. At that moment, she could only stand rigidly in place, as though her soul had left her body and was floating in the air. Even her breathing seemed to have stopped.

She saw Lance’s chest pierced by the enemy’s claw.

Hard, direct, mercilessly direct. Lance did not even have time to dodge or resist.

Because all of Lance’s attention had been fixed on her. He ignored his own safety, gave up the chance to evade the attack, and took that fatal blow simply to use lightning to knock back the sudden ambush behind her.

Shield.

In his final moment before falling, Lance had only enough time to say that one word to the foolish girl frozen beside him.