SSS Gacha Master: I Can Only Gacha Bikini Warriors

Chapter 51: 51. Thirty Miles of Wrong Sky and a Bridge Full of Dead Knights

They hardly slept.

Three hours, maybe four, of rotating shifts on the hard ground, with the sounds of battle in the distance reminding everyone who tried to close their eyes why they were there in the first place.

When Marshal’s voice broke through the darkness before dawn with such clarity that it sounded like she hadn’t slept at all, Lucian was already sitting up with his boots half-laced and his sword belt fastened.

"We’re behind schedule," she said as she walked through the camp with a low lantern. "Double-time march."

"We’re leaving in ten minutes."

No one said anything. That was different, and Lucian noticed it because Octavia would have said something about being woken up before the birds three days ago.

This morning, she was already up and dressed in armor, with a water whip coiled up and a serious look on her face that was nothing like the usual ara ara softness. What had happened in Hesten had settled on all of them like a weight they had agreed to carry without talking about it.

From the moment they got on the main road, they could see the capital, which was not a comforting sight. There were thirty miles of flat land ahead, and the sky above the city walls was wrong.

The smoke columns that had had thin hints the day before were now thick, black, and many. They rose from many places and spread out into a layer that covered the bottom half of the sunrise.

The lightning moved slowly and in strange arcs through the clouds above the towers. There was a sound in the wind that wasn’t quite thunder, and it wasn’t quite anything Lucian could put into words yet.

"That’s not sounding like weather lightning at all," Glacielle said, reading his face without looking at him.

"No," Marshal said, two steps ahead. "It’s something that’s called a magical discharge."

"I can already feel that something powerful is going on near the walls."

The road to the city had turned into a one-way street that went the wrong way. There was a steady stream of refugees coming in, some on carts, some walking, and some being carried by people who looked like they could barely carry themselves.

Soldiers who were injured showed up among them often enough to give their own report on how the battle was going. The burned supply wagons were left at the side of the road, and their contents had already been taken.

"It’s hopeless," said a man walking the other way as he watched their group push through the crowd.

He wasn’t trying to be mean; he was just being honest, like people do when they don’t have to be nice anymore. "There’s nothing left to protect...! Turn around before you regret it!"

And of course, Lucian did not turn around. None of them did.

After a while, the people going the other way stopped trying to warn them, and the party quietly pushed through the crowd.

They were ten miles away when the road got narrower over a stone bridge. Lucian could feel the problem before he saw it.

The bridge crossed a wide river gorge. On the other side, twelve knights in capital-city armor stood in formation, waiting with the patience of things that had been put there instead of getting there on their own.

The armor was right, the stance was right, and the positioning was perfect on purpose for a choke point defense. But the purple seals that glowed through the gaps in the plate mail weren’t right, and the way they stood still, lacking the breathing, weight shifts, and small movements of living people waiting, was wrong.

"Necromancy," said Marshal in a very flat voice.

"Former defenders," Glacielle said in a softer voice.

Lucian gazed at the bridge, the drop on either side, and the gorge that stretched for miles. There was no way to get around this in a reasonable amount of time, especially considering the urgency of their quest and the potential dangers that lay ahead.

He thought about the quest notification’s due date. And then he thought about Hesten.

"We’re going to punch through," he said. "There’s no going around it."

"Octavia, you’re the battering ram. Marshal, we breach when she makes the gap."

"Got it," Octavia said, and her tone had changed since the day before.

The last bit of hesitation she had about the tentacles was gone. Six of them left before she was done talking, and she was running.

She hit the first rank of knights like a wave hitting a breakwater, with water blazing and tentacles swinging in wide arcs. Three knights fell off the bridge completely and into the gorge.

Two more were thrown back so hard that they slid across the stone. The barrier stopped the rest of the counterattack, and Octavia stood in the gap.

"NOW!" Marshal shouted, already moving.

Both Dawn Reapers were trailing solar fire as she cut through the left side of the formation with the kind of quick, practiced violence that comes from a long career of doing this. In the first three seconds, two knights fell.

Glacielle had gone the right way, and ice spikes rose from the river below and punched through the bridge’s gaps, knocking three more knights off their feet. The frozen ground spread out from where she was standing, and the other knights lost their footing, making their coordinated defense fall apart into separate battles.

Lucian stepped into the opening, and because of the synchronization, Glacielle’s ice was still in his blood. The first knight to find its footing and turn toward him was hit by a blade that was too cold for the armor to handle.

He fought the second one at the end of the bridge, felt the drop behind him, and forced himself to stay focused and present, just like Marshal had taught him to do, until it became second nature. The second knight fell, followed by the third, and then there were no more knights standing.

The entire process took a mere ninety seconds.

Marshal was already checking the other side of the bridge for a nonexistent second ambush. Lucian counted the dead knights, counted his party, made sure everyone was okay, and let out a breath that had been building up since he saw the formation.

"We’re getting better at this," he said.

Over her shoulder, Marshal looked at him. "Don’t get cocky."

She turned back to the road ahead, but for a split second, the smile was small and real. "You’re STILL learning and TRYING to get better."

That was all of the praise, but coming from Marshal, it felt like a compliment.

They crossed the bridge and kept going. After a while, Marshal fell into step with Lucian instead of ahead of him, which was strange enough that Lucian noticed but didn’t know what to do about it.

He stood there.

"Your sword work has improved," she said eventually, in the analytical tone she used when she was doing genuine assessment rather than instruction. "The stance is actually solid."

"You’re not using the synchronization as a substitute for your own technique anymore."

"Well, hehehe, you taught me well," Lucian said. "You taught me everything I know about tactics."

"A strong student came from a wonderful mentor, right?

For a moment, she was quiet. "You listen..."

"That’s not something that happens very often." Another pause, this time longer. "Most masters see their warriors as tools."

"They are powerful and valuable, but they are still just assets to be managed."

Lucian said, "That would be a strange way to treat people," and he meant it as a simple observation, not something that had a lot of weight.

He was still trying to understand why it seemed to matter to her.