Chapter 540: Armistice

From the eyes of Clemence, a light infantry officer of the Border Guard, she could see the back of one man.

That back grew broader and broader, soon filling her entire view. Then it became a wall—one that blocked her path.

It was a wall she could see, clear as an illusion, rising between enemy and ally.

She knew it was a mirage, a trick of the eye. And yet, Clemence perceived it as a real wall.

That wall held the enemy back. It stood firm, like a fortress for their side.

Through that wall born of illusion, she saw enemy soldiers kneeling, one by one, on the other side.

Had they seen the same thing she did?

She didn’t know.

And it didn’t matter.

What was happening around her, even where she was now—none of it seemed to matter anymore.

The illusion faded, and only the man standing motionless remained.

Clemence suddenly remembered the nickname of the man who had appeared and blocked her path—who had come between ally and enemy.

The Demon Slayer.

She knew his name.

Enkrid.

She also knew his position.

Lord and general of the lands surrounding the territory called Border Guard.

He had said: “This is as far as you go.” “Enough.”

And with that, the battle ended.

The sun still hung in the sky, its rays illuminating the ground. That light made everything around her feel painfully vivid.

Just like the light, the fact that the battle had ended was burned into everyone’s minds.

This is the end.

“Armistice.”

Clemence muttered. Why? A song came to mind—a ballad often sung by minstrels, the one about the Knight of Armistice.

She knew it well.

The lyrics told of knights who could stop wars without ever drawing their swords.

And now, before her eyes, something right out of those songs had happened.

A shiver had started somewhere inside her, making her entire body tremble.

Goosebumps ran up her arms, and she couldn’t take her eyes off him.

Even after the illusion vanished, she couldn’t look away.

The Knight of Armistice?

The whisper never made it into words.

In truth, no one was making a sound.

Even the wind seemed to wrap gently around him, and the sunlight supported him from behind, as if in awe.

Clemence, without realizing, stepped out of line and walked forward—then stumbled and fell.

It was a clumsy misstep, something she would never normally do. With a loud thud, she twisted her ankle as she fell. Her knee bled.

A cry of pain might have been expected, but she felt no pain at all. The tremor in her chest still held her in its grip.

Something boiled inside her, warming her heart to the core.

Kneeling on one knee, she lifted her head. What was this emotion she felt?

She didn’t know. It didn’t matter.

“En–krid!”

She simply called out the name of her hero.

And she wasn’t alone.

The entire allied force shouted the name of the man who had stood before them and stopped everything.

Enkrid!

The name of the man who brought all movement to a halt on a field of death, steel, and blood.

***

And it wasn’t just Clemence. Many among the enemy also felt the same overwhelming moment.

Among them was one of the few commanders who realized something had gone horribly wrong.

These crazy bastards.

He cursed the higher-ups who had let things get this far—but it was already too late.

Even if he disobeyed now, there was no going back.

He faced the fully-prepared army of the Border Guard at point-blank range, and clarity struck him like a hammer.

We’ve lost.

And not just lost—a complete rout. The bodies would pile high, and nine out of ten of them would be Azpen soldiers—his own men.

Still, the arrow had been loosed. The water had already spilled. The leaves had fallen.

Somehow entranced, most of the charging troops—commanders and soldiers alike—snapped back to their senses.

More precisely, fear beat them back into consciousness.

We said you'd die if you charged. So you're coming to your senses now, right?

Put crudely, wasn’t that what was happening?

Rem might’ve phrased it that way.

In any case, even the commander who had initially assumed the allied knight corps would storm in from the rear and turn the tide had stopped moving.

In a moment where battle seemed inevitable, Azpen—though the enemy—now looked upon a man worthy of respect.

Even if they didn’t know it now, they would one day look back on this moment and be forced to admit their respect.

That man had stood before them to prevent meaningless bloodshed.

Had they fought, it would’ve been nothing more than Azpen’s crushing defeat.

If a slaughter had broken out, whose blood would’ve filled that field?

It was a question that needed no answer.

“Wow.”

One of Azpen’s frontline shock troops let out a breathless sound.

“Hey, it’s over.”

Their quick-witted shock leader said it outright. The momentum was gone—if they charged now, they wouldn’t even leave a scratch before being wiped out.

No matter how idiotic the commanding officer was, no one could possibly charge under these conditions.

And so, all of Azpen’s commanders and soldiers stared at one man.

The one who had stood alone and blocked the battlefield.

They say a knight is someone who can slay a thousand.

Then what do you call someone who stops an army of more than a thousand, alone?

“A hero is born.”

One commander muttered what his instincts had already accepted. Then calmly laid down his weapon.

It was over. The only thing that remained now was what came after the surrender.

Far behind them, one man had been watching the fight.

He had stood idly by as his superior died. And now, that made him the highest-ranking officer left.

When he saw one man stand alone and halt an entire army, something inside him collapsed.

He didn’t even kill. He just blocked them?

It was like yanking the reins on a galloping horse and stopping it through sheer strength alone.

Even that would be impressive. But normally, when you forced a horse to stop like that, it would topple over—its legs would break, its neck would snap.

Shit. How is this even real?

And yet both horse and rider were completely fine.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

From a distance, it looked like one man had single-handedly stopped an entire army.

As sunlight shone down on that solitary figure standing in the center of the battlefield, dread took hold of his chest.

What had collapsed within him?

His future—and everything he’d built, piece by piece, until now.

It would’ve been better to fight and lose.

Even if it meant building a mountain of corpses.

At least then he could say he had fought to the end, that his commanding officer died in battle, and that he had done his best in the name of the knights.

Even if punished afterward, it wouldn’t have been a capital offense.

But if they surrendered now, what then?

If the battle ended like this—who would be held responsible?

Even if everything came to light, there would still be trouble.

The knight was a problem, yes, but it was clear that he himself—who had meekly followed the knight's command—would be seen as one too.

He’d simply frozen in place, paralyzed by fear.

He tried to flee in a panic. Cleanup didn’t matter—just running away seemed like the best option.

What awaited the remaining soldiers in their army was nothing short of a massacre, and there was no guarantee he would survive afterward.

Isn’t your own life the most important thing in this world?

I need to survive first.

If there are those who speak of duty and responsibility, there are always those who take the opposite stance.

He stole a horse and fled headlong—only to run into another allied unit mid-ride.

Unable to avoid them, he pulled up and stopped, and from their midst, Abnaier stepped forward to meet him.

“What happened?”

The fleeing man blinked. Gasping for breath, he couldn’t answer—just stared.

Why was Abnaier here?

Abnaier had come because one of his commanders had failed to send a scheduled report, and a persistent prickle on the back of his neck pushed him to act.

Though he trusted Barnas, an unease had remained—that anxiety was what had driven him to the battlefield.

Even as he’d set out, he’d hoped there would be nothing to worry about. But now the situation had twisted far beyond expectation.

“Um, well...”

The man started pouring out excuses. They were pitiful.

Abnaier quickly recognized the shifty-eyed man was hiding something and said,

“If you lie to any of my questions from now on, I’ll cut off one of your wrists.”

His voice wasn’t loud or rough. It was calm. Flat.

And that made it all the more terrifying.

Because Abnaier was a man who kept his word.

The deserter knew that all too well, even after abandoning his unit.

“What happened to your direct superior?”

“H-he died.”

The man caught his breath as he spoke, cold sweat running down his back even as the words left his mouth.

When the truth came out, and Abnaier had heard the whole story, he closed his eyes.

We lost.

He didn’t know all the details, but this much was certain.

If they hadn’t lost, then why would an enemy knight be standing where a full-scale clash had broken out—before Barnas could even return to their side?

Ha...

Not the Red Cloak Knights, but the Border Guard’s standing army had stopped them?

What did that imply?

It meant the military power of the Border Guard surpassed that of the entire Azpen Duchy.

Of course, if you compared numbers or resources, that shouldn't have been possible.

A knight...

Even the strength they called a disaster had been pushed back.

Abnaier looked up at the sky for a moment. Blue above, scattered white clouds, rays of sunlight breaking through.

The wind blew, rustling his hair.

He removed his helmet and nodded once.

“Kill him.”

“...Why?!”

The commander had tried to run away.

It was a stupid move. Where could he possibly go now?

Defeat? That could be forgiven. Losing a commander to the blade of a mad knight? That too could be forgiven.

But fleeing alone and abandoning the remaining troops—that could not be forgiven.

A slaughter might occur simply because the highest-ranking officer had left his post.

Thunk!

One of the guards thrust his spear forward. The fleeing man twisted to run but was pierced straight through the back.

“Guh!”

The man dropped face-first to the ground, lifeless.

Abnaier didn’t even glance at the corpse as he and his guards moved forward.

“Did we lose?” one of the guards asked.

Instead of answering, Abnaier spoke of what needed to be done.

“Save as many as we can and return.”

Would the enemy let a retreating army go?

Someone had stopped the battle entirely. What kind of madness was that?

He had to see it with his own eyes before acting.

Abnaier arrived on the battlefield and took in everything.

He saw the man who had stood alone to block the enemy.

Abnaier recognized his face—and his name.

He was the one Abnaier had once sworn to kill, even if it meant burning through his forces. How could he not know him?

Black hair, blue eyes, a man standing alone beneath sunlight.

He had become a knight now. That was the only fitting way to describe him.

Abnaier didn’t have the eye for judging strength, but the situation itself made the man’s power undeniable.

“The Demon Slayer,” Abnaier muttered. It was his most infamous nickname.

Now, what should he do?

Abnaier was ready to stake his life to save the rest of his troops.

“Return to base, all of you.”

“We started this together. We’ll see it through.”

His guard captain refused to leave. But Abnaier didn’t have time to argue.

If the Border Guard’s standing army decided to press the fight now, their forces would be slaughtered.

Especially since that side had a knight.

He was about to step forward—

But the enemy spoke first.

“Withdraw.”

Just like that?

The distance was too far to hear clearly, but Abnaier muttered to himself.

It was unbelievable—and yet true.

That man had halted the battle, thrown the field into silence, and turned the Azpen army back.

No promises of “we won’t pursue” were even necessary.

His word alone was enough.

Especially when he turned his back first.

Abnaier watched Enkrid turn away and reviewed everything he’d seen so far.

And then he understood why Enkrid had turned his back.

Unnecessary bloodshed.

They could fight. The battle could go either way. Death would be dealt on both sides. That’s what war was—by stepping onto the battlefield with sword and spear, you’d already accepted that.

And yet, if it was truly unnecessary, he would stop it.

Abnaier felt as though he could hear Enkrid’s voice.

And what Abnaier felt now—was a shiver deeper than what even the wall of Will and pressure had caused.

Can someone like that really exist?

Abnaier had seen many people in his life.

Not legends, perhaps, but kings. Imperial knights. ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) Knights of the great southern nations.

Even the eastern king—hailed as a hero—was said to lack nothing.

But how would he compare to the man before his eyes now?

That man was beyond Abnaier’s ability to judge.

He had no right to measure someone whose ideals were so lofty, whose beliefs so unshakable, whose Will so solid.

“Let’s go back.”

It was time to return and face judgment for the war.

General Frokk had tried to die to save his subordinates—but survived.

The commander who abandoned his troops was killed by one of their own knights mid-flight.

The newly promoted commander, who’d ordered a full charge on impulse, had tried to save only himself—and died for it.

Abnaier, even if he spent the rest of his life in prison for another failure—or was executed—would take responsibility.

That was the end of this battle.

And that... was Azpen’s armistice.