**Chapter 30**
—
“For House Saxen!”
“For House Brandenburg!”
Two of the Empire’s most elite cavalry divisions clashed—an encounter so direct, so absolute, that there was no room for tricks or stratagems.
Sir Milbas personally led the knight order’s finest elite unit, positioned on the right wing, their objective being to break through the enemy’s flank and encircle them.
The “official supreme commander,” Philip, was stationed in the center of the formation beneath the Brandenburg banner.
Lastly, Baron Perker’s troops took the left wing, tasked with holding down the enemy’s right.
The right wing—the strongest and most mobile—was composed of elite troops with superior firepower.
The center and left were filled with infantry and regular soldiers, forming a solid defensive line.
The plan was simple: while the powerful right wing smashed through the enemy’s side, the center and left would hold firm against the enemy’s assault.
As the two forces drew close enough to make out each other’s banners, the enemy’s left flank finally appeared before them—Sir Milbas’s elite unit facing the black-armored riders of House Saxen.
They were cloaked in gray surcoats over jet-black plate—the infamous *Ravens of Saxen*, the “Black Cavalry.”
‘Ho…’
And leading them from the front, instead of commanding from the rear as a general should, stood the enemy’s young commander—House Saxen’s firstborn son himself.
‘So, he intends to settle this with a clash of main forces right from the start.’
By placing himself at the very forefront, as bait.
A supreme commander joining the front lines could mean only one thing—that this flank bore immense strategic weight.
It wasn’t a risk one could take with mere bravado.
‘As expected, he’s no ordinary child.’
Yet Sir Milbas had no reason to refuse such a challenge. In fact, this was precisely the kind of battle he desired.
The right wing cavalry—Saint Magdalena’s proudest knights, his hand-picked elite—was perfectly suited to fulfill his resolve.
──Sir Milbas of Triang.
A high-ranking knight of the Saint Magdalena Order, and the de facto supreme commander under the Count’s banner.
He was a veteran of countless battles, one who had once stood beside the Holy Sword Knight himself.
And ten years ago, he was among those who witnessed his lord plunge that sacred blade into the Hero’s back.
—
—
“Charge!”
Leading the right-wing cavalry in a full-on assault toward the enemy’s left, Sir Milbas’s powerful voice rang out.
From afar, beneath the shadow of a black helm, the enemy commander—Dale of Saxen—watched him.
Unlike Saint Magdalena’s usual wedge formation, Milbas’s cavalry advanced in layered horizontal lines—able to scatter or tighten formation freely as needed.
“For Saint Magdalena!”
“For House Brandenburg!”
The knights cried the name of their patron saint and began their charge.
The cavalry’s advance marked the beginning of battle.
As they thundered forward, the lances of Sir Milbas and his foremost knights began to gleam with light—an ethereal radiance.
It was the pure white aura of Saint Magdalena’s knights, bright as angelic feathers, gleaming like untouched snow.
Their lances wrapped in that immaculate aura, the pure-white cavalry accelerated sharply, charging headlong toward the black-armored Saxen riders.
“For House Saxen!”
“For Young Lord Dale!”
Two cavalry forces, both renowned across the Empire for their unmatched martial prowess, collided.
There was no place here for cunning or deceit.
Lance met lance.
Warhorse crashed against
warhorse.
Steel tore into flesh.
Screams rang out, blood and bone scattered like rain.
Among House Brandenburg’s forces, only about fifty knights could wield an *Aura Blade*—enough to form a battalion of their own.
“First Cavalry Battalion, follow me!”
Leading this elite battalion of fifty *Aura Knights*, Sir Milbas charged into the enemy lines—not to join the chaotic first clash, but to pierce through directly toward Dale, watching calmly from the rear.
His aim was to strike through in a single blow, subdue the enemy commander, and end the battle in one swift stroke.
A battle of speed and precision.
Sir Milbas’s aura-laden lance impaled a Raven Knight clean through, his entrails spilling out as the knight fell lifeless from his horse.
Milbas released the lance, drew his sword from his waist.
Sir Milbas, the *Innocent Sword*.
A blade as pure as his name—he swung it, leaving a streak of white light across the air.
Slash!
The shining edge drew a flawless arc, slicing through an enemy knight’s neck before the man could even scream. The severed head tumbled to the ground.
‘…What is this?’
After cutting down two more riders, Sir Milbas frowned slightly.
Something was off.
His right-wing cavalry—Saint Magdalena’s elite—was utterly overwhelming the Black Cavalry.
It was one-sided. Too one-sided.
Weren’t the Ravens of Saxen supposed to be destroyers of battlefields?
“Retreat! Turn the horses around and fall back!”
“Fall back! Regroup and reform the lines!”
After just one clash, the entire enemy cavalry was already turning tail, fleeing in disarray.
Cavalry battles never ended after a single charge. There were always second and third waves.
So for Sir Milbas, this was an oddly hollow victory.
‘Is the heir of Saxen merely trying to delay us by tying us down?’
If the power gap between the two sides was great enough, the weaker might feign retreat to buy time.
But this was *the* Black Cavalry of House Saxen.
Their strength did not lie in petty tricks—it lay in overwhelming force and discipline.
Yet their retreat was clumsy and chaotic. Horses collided, knights fell, the field turned into a mess.
Their morale was shattered. No reinforcements came to cover the retreat.
Gone was their famed precision, their unshakable order.
They looked nothing like the fearsome “destroyers of battlefields” he once knew.
At this rate, they were no different from the ragtag soldiers under that buffoon, Baron Greenbelt.
‘Baron Greenbelt’s rabble…?’
The thought struck him—and then his heart sank.
That faint sense of wrongness… was not wrong at all.
‘No… it’s a trap.’
As someone who had fought beside and against the Ravens of Saxen many times before, Sir Milbas understood at once.
The Saxen heir had *never* placed his true elite on this side.
This was bait. A snare.
—
—
On the opposite flank—Sir Milbas’s right—Baron Perker’s left-wing troops faced what seemed to be the ragged army bearing the crest of Baron Greenbelt.
‘Crushing Greenbelt’s idiots will be child’s play!’
Perker, who had secretly feared taking losses, let out a sigh of relief.
That was—until he saw the black aura of an *Aura Knight* of Saxen enveloping the lance of one of “Greenbelt’s” supposed knights.
—
—
“Baron Perker’s left wing is calling for aid!”
“Reports say Saxen’s Aura Knights are breaking through their lines at alarming speed!”
“But Sir Milbas said the enemy’s main force was on the right, with the Saxen heir!”
“Wasn’t Baron Perker supposed to face Greenbelt’s rabble? How could Saxen’s Aura Knights be there!?”
Beneath the great banner of House Brandenburg, as both battle lines ground against one another, twisting counterclockwise like clockwork, Philip—the lecherous heir—stood at a crossroads.
As the true “supreme commander” responsible for this battle, he now faced a decisive choice.
“……”
A suffocating pressure crushed his chest.
But even heavier than that was the memory of a boy’s cold laughter—ten years younger than him.
──If you lose this battle, the one who bears the blame won’t be Sir Milbas.
──It will be the useless, incompetent heir of House Brandenburg.
‘Like hell I’ll let that happen!’
Indeed. This battle, and the glory of defeating the Saxen prodigy, was his to claim—not Milbas’s.
He would prove himself—before his father, before the Empire—that *Philip of Brandenburg* was no failure.
Philip raised his head, eyes blazing with resolve.
“Message from Sir Milbas! He orders the central and rear cavalry to reinforce Baron Perker’s left—”
Before the words were even finished, Milbas, realizing the situation on the right, had sent an urgent messenger with precise instructions.
“Silence!”
But to the Count’s hot-headed heir, burning with the desire to defeat Dale, those words carried no weight.
—
—
For a veteran like Sir Milbas, Dale’s feint was nothing new. A common ploy, nothing more.
Nothing would change—or so he thought.
“R-report! Young Lord Philip is personally leading the rear cavalry to reinforce *this* flank!”
At those words, Milbas froze in disbelief.
“I ordered him to send reinforcements to the *left*, where the true enemy main force lies!”
“Y-yes, sir, but the Young Lord was too stubborn to listen—”
‘That damned brat…!’
The right wing, under Milbas’s command, already held the advantage.
Sending reinforcements to a winning flank would only overcrowd the field, ruin maneuverability, and waste men.
Yet, blinded by the prospect of personally defeating the enemy commander, Philip had chosen disastrously.
He had abandoned the allies crying for aid—left to be crushed by the real main force disguised as Greenbelt’s rabble.
As the right wing lost its momentum, confusion would spread.
And in that gap, the “true elite” of Saxen—hidden behind their disguise—would break through and execute their encirclement.
At this point, the battle’s outcome was nearly decided.
‘…No. Not yet.’
Milbas clenched his jaw, shaking his head.
He turned his gaze toward the enemy commander watching him from afar—the young heir of Saxen, face hidden beneath a black helm.
“First Cavalry Battalion,” he called out, his voice grim.
He thought of the fifty Aura Knights at his side—his most loyal comrades.
“We will break through the enemy lines and pursue the commander directly.”
There was no other choice.
Before their formation completely collapsed, they would strike through, seize the enemy leader, and end the battle swiftly.
A battle to be finished in a single breath.
“In the name of Saint Magdalena, may the pure sword be blessed.”
Sir Milbas and his knights traced the sign of the cross, invoking the holy name of their patron saint.
“May the Goddess Sistina watch over us.”
“May the Sister Goddesses’ mercy and grace be upon us.”
With their prayers whispered, they spurred their warhorses forward—
—pressing on into the heart of the mire, toward a fate from which there would be no return.
