The Battle of Yrun’Dïr [1]

A month?

Yuushin had certainly lost track of time in that place, sure. To him, it felt like years—an endless cycle of torture and exhaustion as he fought to keep his mind sane enough, his body functioning well enough, in order to survive.

But to think it’s actually been a month…

This makes no sense.

An attack made the entire castle shake, the vibrations reaching and reverberating through his bones. The demon tensed even more, her eyes narrowing as she spoke with a somber, cold tone.

“Burning plight…” Then she turned to him again, her eyes almost desperate. “I can answer any question you may have later. We must move, now.”

She was about to fly away, before Yuushin grabbed her by the wrist.

“Wait—what can I do? I have no idea how to help!”

With a long, exasperated sigh, she got a hold of Yuushin—wrapping her arms below his—aiming her hand at the large, wide window.

Then blasted the entire thing with a red burst, glass bursting outside and falling like crystal rain. Before he even had a chance to ask why she was destroying her own home, Yuushin realized what the female demon was about to do.

And that was how Retsugo Yuushin found out he was afraid of heights.

Don’t look down don’t look down don’t look down

“Oh shi—!”

He looked down.

And Yuushin’s heart almost jumped out of his mouth.

Suppressing a scream, the man tried holding to the stranger’s arms, which made her quite mad.

“Do you want to fall to your death?!”

Oh, that’s the last thing I want.

Yet he never expected the castle to be that tall.

In the end, Yuushin just closed his eyes shut, praying for him to be touching the ground soon—the raging and chaotic sounds of war echoing all around him. Yet from all the sounds he heard, they all came from the same direction. The Dikarux and Church’s priests.

There was no one fighting on the other side.

“What you need to do is simple. Stop the paramounts’ attacks and cease the templar knights’ chants—I don’t care how you do it.”

He was slightly startled once his feet finally touched something solid, that voice reaching his ears with a warm softness to its words.

“I can’t reestablish the barriers with so much primeval magic spreading. So stop them, before they take down my last defense.” Yuushin had time to turn around and meet her gaze once before she spread her wings again, the words leaving those lips as a silent plea. “Please…don’t fail.”

And then he was alone.

The man let out a long sigh, trying to ground himself in that new location.

“Hah…this is crazy.”

The woods from afar resembled a lot the one Yuushin saw, when he first arrived in that world. The sky, however, was painted in delicate shades of violet and blue—two full moons shining brightly in the sky.

Though the castle’s wall was meters tall, many Dikarux flew above it—paying him no mind, that was, if he was in their line of sight at all. Yuushin had to assume he could step outside the barrier without complications, so the next question was—

How do I get to these guys…?

Veritux’s members were way past the wall, farther away from the front lines. Yuushin had very limited knowledge of how the magic worked in that world, and the only two things he was relying on were his Soma and karate.

If those “templar knights” were so far away, it probably meant they were doing something important. If that was the case, it could be a good idea to strike them down first.

“Let’s see if your body can still take it, Yuushin…” he mumbled under his breath, focusing on the Soma again. Whatever he had drunk before really did the trick, the warmth spreading within him with a pleasant familiarity.

Sending the energy in his lower body, Yuushin jumped with all he had—actually surprised when he jumped far higher than the wall itself. As the man fell, he spotted Veritux’s group with ease. Separated into three lines, each member standing side by side.

Let’s see, the best route would be…toward their right side.

Lucky for him, the Dikarux either had no interest in a mere human or they were too focused in breaking down the last shield. Yet although Yuushin felt no qualms about attacking Veritux’s forces…

He didn’t want to kill them.

Yet since all he had was a dagger…

If he was going to stab me in the back, couldn’t Jay have given me something better?

As he glared at the weapon, its metal suddenly started to heat up. So much so, Yuushin was forced to drop the thing on the ground, his heart racing faster and faster as the dagger began to glow—brighter by the second.

It’s not gonna blow, is it?

Yuushin was two seconds away from kicking the thing far away when he saw the weapon changing.

Transforming.

“No way…”

Into a metal bo staff.

As his hands closed around the weapon, Yuushin was grinning. How did the dagger know? Did it look into his memories? It had to, right?

Oh Jay, I could even hug you right now.

With a full-hearted laugh, Yuushin sprinted toward the group, tightening the grip around the staff, not bothering to make himself quieter as he approached. And when the first knight spotted him—

It was too late.

*THUMP*

As soon as their eyes met, Yuushin hit them with the staff right in the stomach, making the knight collide with the others behind.

“By Veritux’s Light, who is the name of God…!”

“Doesn’t matter who, just kill it!”

Though most knights continued their chant, a few did turn toward Yuushin with arms and weapons raised. And as he stared at them, completely outnumbered, wearing nothing but torn and dirty clothes, holding only a single staff…

Yuushin felt at ease.

“From what I was told, I’ve been training for quite some time. So you guys need to at least be a nice warm-up, all right?”

The first fire ball charged at him at such slow speed, it almost hit him right in the face by how taken aback Yuushin was. Then came a polearm, followed by a mace and two arrows, and all Yuushin had to do was lean to the sides and block with the staff, each movement fluid and precise.

…

Should it be this easy?

They were not jumping at him all at once. There were no knights more than four meters tall. Though outnumbered, their numbers were not in the hundreds. While the ones using Soma took the charge, the others aimed their magic at him. Fire, wind blasts, even roots bursting from the ground, trying to grab him by the legs and arms.

But it was so slow.

Yuushin was only patient enough to keep dodging for the first half minute, twisting and spinning the staff in his hands a few times as soon as he found an opening. And one by one, they went down.

*SWOOSH*

The knight with the mace—one strike in the head.

Fox knight with a polearm—one kick in the ribs, one hit in the face.

The one with arrows? Two swings with the staff—one to break their bow, the second to knock them out.

Changing the Soma’s flow in his body, Yuushin kept measuring and calculating his energy and strength, his movements faster, his strikes more powerful, his reflexes sharper. When all knight stopped chanting, glaring at him with rage and panic, Yuushin spun the staff twice before placing it under his arm, changing to an offensive stance.

“Hey! I thought I told you I wanted a good warm-up—what are you guys doing?”

And though Yuushin never thought of himself as someone petty, or childish, there was only one thing he could think of. A single promise, to a single person.

I will make Your Excellency regret ever sending me to that place…

A promise he would make sure to fulfill.