“You’ve got to be kidding!” With that shocked cry, they threw the rest of the stones and blinding agents down, but it wasn’t enough to stop Gezarius. He slammed into the gate with enough force to destroy the catapults behind the door. Werner looked on in shock from atop the walls, but he couldn’t just let Gezarius carry on unopposed.
“It’s dangerous, Lord Werner!” Neurath called out.
“You need to hide!” Schünzel said.
I would if I could, Werner thought. But if Gezarius broke down the walls and wreaked unchecked havoc in the town, there was no telling how many people might perish. If they couldn’t hold him at the walls until the knight brigade arrived from the battle outside, there were sure to be civilian casualties. He would never be able to forgive himself.
Werner climbed down the walls’ stairs. It was hard to say if he was truly of sound mind, but he was certain that an effective way to buy time was to appear in front of Gezarius himself.
The Demon Commander was covered in blood as he smashed the catapults sealing the doors and strode inside. The townsfolk’s screams and cries reverberated through the air, but Werner spoke loud enough to cut through the noise. “I see you were kind enough to bring me your second eye yourself!”
“So that’s where you were, brat!” Gezarius dashed right for Werner, closing the distance between them in a flash. Werner dodged—where he’d stood a moment ago, there was a crater in the ground. Cold sweat began to trickle down his back.
“I shall suffer this no longer! Your life is mine!”
“Ooh, how scary! You’re freaking me out, so how about you just go home?” Werner teased him, but he didn’t actually have the composure he pretended he did. However, he didn’t expect a verbal response, and the Demon didn’t plan to give. All of Gezarius’s blood had rushed to his head, and now there was no holding back. Neurath and Schünzel ran to Werner’s side and unsheathed their blades.
Gezarius had already suffered many wounds. He had exerted himself past his body’s limits, careening into the gates. At first glance, Werner seemed to have the advantage, but he too was at the edge of exhaustion. Not to mention that at their best, the difference in strength between them was vast. Werner’s only aim was to buy time until the knight brigade arrived, but Gezarius was strong enough that the odds of Werner holding out were in doubt, even if he fought with all he had.
Gezarius dashed forward. He knew the reach of Werner’s spear. Werner parried the swing of his foe’s arm with his spear. The force rattled his arms, but his new spear was able to withstand the Demon Commander’s blow. Gezarius’s injured shoulder probably made that easier.
Werner moved to Gezarius’s blind spot. At the same time, Neurath and Schünzel launched simultaneous attacks from both the left and right. They were strong. Blood spurted from the fur on his back.
“Out of the way!” Gezarius once again swung his arm with all his strength, but the two dodged. They were swift—though really, they just barely managed to get out of the way—but in that moment, a leg hit from Werner knocked Gezarius off balance. While the shadows of the people on the sidelines finally began to disperse, a much larger shadow approached Werner, Neurath, and Schünzel. The one-eyed lion completely ignored the humans around them as he shot Werner a furious glare.
The next moment, Gezarius let out a tremendous roar just as he had when he launched his attack on Anheim. If there were any glass windows in the vicinity, they would have surely shattered. Hearing such an intense noise up close sent Werner, Neurath and Schünzel’s heads spinning. Some of the soldiers around them even cowered on the ground.
“Does that have a debuff effect?!” Werner barely managed to get away before Gezarius lashed out unexpectedly, gouging the earth with his good arm as if it were a backhoe, and then launched a heap of earth at Werner. It rained down on him like an avalanche.
“Huh?!”
“Lord Werner!”
Having been completely buffeted by the mass of earth, Werner couldn’t stand up straight. Gezarius lunged at him with enough force to cave in his head. Werner put up his spear. Rather than try to protect himself, he was simply demonstrating that he wouldn’t go down without a fight.
Then, everything past Gezarius’s elbow fell to the ground.
Neurath, Schünzel, Werner, and even Gezarius himself didn’t know what happened. But then the only man who could so easily cut off the arm of a Demon Commander stood before Werner and faced Gezarius. He turned his head around and flashed Werner a haughty grin. “That’s one less debt I owe you, Werner.”
“Mazel?!”
The Hero, Mazel Harting, stood before him.