Law of Space and Time - v2Chapter 63: Empty Coffin

Ewen fought through the excruciating pain spearing through his back as he turned around to look at the leader of the magic beasts. His quiver was already damaged, so he leaped onto the magic beast’s back, planning to strangle the creature to death with his bowstring.

The magic beast naturally wasn’t just going to allow Ewen to do as he pleased, and in the instant Ewen’s bowstring wound itself around the creature’s throat, it immediately began to buck and kick violently.

Ewen was being jostled around so violently that he felt as if he were on the verge of throwing up his internal organs, but he still held tightly onto the bow in his hand for dear life.

Seeing as its attempt to throw Ewen off its back was proving to be ineffective, it hatched a desperate plan, charging directly toward a mountain. If things were to continue like this, it was going to be strangled to death anyway, so it decided to take some drastic measures to give itself a chance at survival.

It fought back the sense of asphyxiation from its strangulation as it crashed into the mountain at full speed.

The entire mountain trembled violently as if an earthquake were taking place, and the magic beast fell unconscious from the impact, but Ewen was in an even worse state, having been unable to halt his own momentum, resulting in his entire body being embedded into the mountain.

He could only blame himself for his unwillingness to let go.

Having said that, he had no choice in the matter. Ewen knew that with his remaining reserves of stamina, the only course of action that was available to him was to end the battle as quickly as possible. He simply didn’t have enough energy to engage the magic beast in a long and drawn-out battle.

Ewen was extremely dazed from the impact, and his consciousness began to fade.

He knew that death was beckoning to him.

His eyelids felt impossibly heavy, refusing to open even though he was instructing them to open with all his might, and the light filtering through heavy-lidded eyes was extremely blurry.

Is this it? Is this going to be the end of my life? Ewen thought to himself in a resigned manner.

He didn’t want to accept his fate. There were still far too many people in this world who didn’t know his name, how could he allow himself to die in a place like this? He refused to accept this.

Yuran was momentarily distracted by the sight of Ewen being slammed into the mountain by the leader of the magic beasts, and during his moment of distraction, a magic beast behind him was already swinging its ax down with immense power.

“Look out!!!” Lucian could see that Yuran was about to suffer a potentially lethal blow, and he immediately rushed over to Yuran, raising his shield to protect him.

By the time Yuran turned around, Lucian was already laying on the ground, on the brink of death. Both his body and the shield that he was holding had been chopped in half.

His mouth was opening and closing incessantly like a spluttering goldfish, but he was unable to make any sound, and blood was gushing uncontrollably out of his mouth. Perhaps in the final moments of his life, he wanted to apologize to Yuran for tipping Ewen off and informing him that Yuran had been at Intelar. Unfortunately for him, he was unable to articulate the apology in the end.

Yuran let loose a guttural roar of fury upon seeing this, and he hacked violently at the magic beast in an enraged frenzy.

The magic beast’s chest and stomach were split open after just a few strikes, but Yuran showed no intention of stopping, and it seemed that he was intent on chopping the magic beast into mincemeat.

The leader of the magic beasts took notice of Yuran’s fierceness and ferocity, and it immediately charged toward him.

This suited Yuran just fine as it would allow him to avenge Ewen as well.

Driven by his intense fury, Yuran was like the embodiment of rage and destruction, clashing for dozens of exchanges against the leader of the magic beasts without conceding any advantage. Meanwhile, Moustache was constantly sniping at the magic beast from afar, and at this point, there are already quite a few arrows protruding out of its body.

However, Yuran and Moustache’s valiant displays didn’t have much impact on the rest of the battle. Ultimately, the freemen were no match for the horde of magic beasts, and their prior battle experience was useless in this situation.

Before long, the freemen had already suffered severe casualties. The mountain path was riddled with piles upon piles of human bodies, but there are very few magic beast carcasses visible in comparison.

At this moment, the canyon resembled a massive abattoir, but it was one where humans were slaughtered.

The freemen who had lost their lives here had anticipated perishing on the battlefield someday, and never did they think that their lives would come to an end at the hands of these magic beasts.

All of a sudden, a thunderous roar rang out from the trembling mountain. “I refuse to die here!!!”

A man then jumped out from the rubble with his entire body riddled with wounds and covered in dust.

He was rejecting his fate, rejecting his so-called destiny. He couldn’t allow himself to perish here.

He felt like he was destined to be a protagonist on the stage that was the empire, and no protagonist would die like this.

Yuran and Moustache were both ecstatic to see that Ewen was still alive.

As for the leader of the magic beasts, it was quite shocked. Never did it think that this human archer would be able to withstand such severe physical trauma. Under normal circumstances, that blow should’ve been enough to kill him.

In reality, Ewen felt as if all of his organs had already been shattered, and he was only just barely clinging to life.

He leaped high up into the air before landing on the back of the magic beasts’ leader, then pulled out a pair of arrows that were protruding out of the magic beast’s back. In doing so, it tore off large chunks of flesh from its body, causing it to let loose an agonized howl.

Ewen then rose high up into the sky from the magic beast’s back, and dazzling purple light radiated from his shoulder as he nocked the two arrows before firing them with all his might.

The arrows sped through the air like a pair of phoenixes taking flight.

The leader of the magic beasts turned around to look at the pair of approaching arrows, and it instinctively tried to escape, but Yuran certainly wasn’t going to allow that to happen.

He spread his arms open and held stubbornly onto the magic beast’s lower body, not allowing it to move even a single inch.

The magic beast could hear that the two arrows were drawing closer and closer, and it desperately slammed the shaft of its ax into Yuran’s back over and over again, trying to get him off its body.

However, Yuran refused to let go, even though his pauldrons had already been shattered, and the razor tip of the ax shaft had pierced several holes into his back, out of which blood was pouring profusely.

Moustache also seized this opportunity to strike, and a white arrow was sent flying from his bow directly toward the magic beast’s heart from behind.

In the end, the magic beast was unable to push Yuran away, and the two phoenix arrows pierced through its head, while the white arrow also plunged into its massive heart.

The demise of their leader was a heavy blow in morale for the magic beasts that were still fighting down below, and they began to flee in a panic toward the collapsed sections of the canyon.

As for the freemen, they had suffered extremely heavy losses. Initially, they had close to 8,000 men, but in the wake of that brutal skirmish, there were only around 1,000 of them left. With their greatly reduced numbers, it was naturally unfeasible for them to pursue the fleeing magic beasts.

This was why Ewen and the freemen were unable to make it in time to the battle at Fort Lungpierce.

By the time the freemen made it to Belama to meet up with Menpo, some of the more severely wounded members among them had perished along the rest of the journey, so the unit was reduced to only several hundred men. Menpo was quite startled to see this, and looking at the terrible condition that the entire unit was in, he couldn’t help but wonder exactly what they had to suffer through to get to this point.

…

Following the victory at Fort Lungpierce, Erwin didn’t remain at the fort for very long, setting off back to Newfando after just a few days. He had left Sherry and Shiba at Fort Lungpierce, while Lanyon accompanied him back to Newfando.

The entire group only consisted of Erwin and those close to him, as well as some guards, amounting to only several dozen people, all of whom were looking rather worse for wear. As for Lanyon, he was returning to Newfando on one of the airships rather than accompanying Erwin.

After learning of Erwin’s victory, Lia had spread the good news to the entire city, organizing all of the city’s residents to gather for a welcoming parade on the day that Erwin returned to Newfando.

Erwin was at the forefront of the unit, riding on horseback as he looked at the flower petals raining down all around him, putting on a forced smile to keep up appearances.

He took an absentminded glance at the empty coffin at the very rear of the unit, and he thought to himself that Theresa most likely wouldn’t have cared for a parade like this.

There were most likely going to be some people who were going to speculate that Erwin had intentionally set up Theresa to perish during the battle. It stood to reason to them that Erwin would take advantage of this invasion from the Delair Dukedom to send Theresa to her demise. In doing so, his position as the ruler of the City of Freedom would be bolstered even further. In reality, Theresa was a slave to Erwin, so she wouldn’t have been able to pose any threat to Erwin anyway, but this was not common knowledge to everyone.

In any case, Erwin didn’t care what other people were going to think. All he wanted was to give Theresa a proper funeral so he could send her off with dignity.

A small yet clean and elegant church was chosen as the site for the funeral, and Lia acted as the officiant at Erwin’s request. He didn’t want Theresa to be disturbed by the presence of too many people, even though she was no longer of this world.

As the religious leader of the City of Freedom, Pope Lia gave Theresa the highest possible praise for her selfless actions, posthumously awarding her one medal after another. Erwin stared at the medals lining the top of the coffin in a silent and expressionless manner.

There weren’t many people in the church. Aside from a few clergymen, the only ones attending the funeral were Erwin, Onean, Lana, Aglea, and Duke Eru.

After learning about Theresa’s death, Duke Eru was so horrified that he had fallen out of his seat. He was terrified that Erwin would take him out of the picture now that Theresa was no longer around to protect him. However, seeing the grief-stricken look on Erwin’s face, he knew that Erwin wasn’t going to target him.

In reality, his concerns had been unnecessary to begin with as Erwin never had any intentions to kill off former nobles like Duke Eru.

Looking at Erwin and his group right now, a hint of pride welled up in the former duke’s heart. He felt like his daughter had done extremely well to stand out among these stunning beauties, leaving an irreplaceable mark on Erwin’s heart. However, this twisted sense of pride was quickly washed away by a sense of grief.

Duke Eru made his way over to Erwin’s side, then carefully asked, “Is she here?”

Erwin shook his head in response.

Duke Eru heaved a faint sigh. He had a rough idea of what Theresa had done to her own body, but he was too cowardly and weak, so much so that her daughter had to carry the entire Boll Dukedom on her shoulders in his stead. Due to his weakness, he had never interfered with Theresa’s actions, and the thought of this finally brought a few tears to his eyes.

Right as the mourning phase of the funeral was about to draw to a conclusion, a girl suddenly stormed into the church.

It was Faya.

After entering the church, she gave Erwin a vicious glare to express her displeasure, then sat down onto a bench near the back before commencing a prayer. Judging from her bloodshot eyes, she had clearly been crying on the way here. Thankfully, the fact that she was in Erwin’s inner circle allowed her to find out where the funeral was being held. Otherwise, she would’ve missed the funeral entirely.

Only then did Erwin realize that he had forgotten to inform Faya of what had happened. Even though they weren’t all that close back when Theresa was alive, they were still cousins, so it was only right for Erwin to invite Faya to Theresa’s funeral.

Meanwhile, Duke Eru was rather surprised to witness the scene that had just unfolded. Faya clearly didn’t stand out in the looks department, so he couldn’t help but wonder how she had become involved with Erwin, to the point that she dared to display such a spiteful attitude toward him.

Following the mourning segment came the burial. Erwin insisted on burying Theresa on the hill behind Fort Breeze so that she could always see the scenery at the foot of Mount Buellen.

Theresa had always been telling Erwin about how had found immense enjoyment in sitting on the steps, looking at the scenery down below while basking in the warm breeze, but at the time, he had brushed her off without thinking much of it.

As Erwin carried her coffin up the mountain steps, a red spider lily began to sway in the wind, waving from side to side as if Theresa were waving farewell to him one final time.