I Have Returned, but I Cannot Lay down My Gun

Chapter 464

[General] Wow, this second 1 : 300 match looks like it’s completely off the rails???

<Photo of a sloped hill map>
They've really gone all out with this one ?????

This doesn't even look winnable.

[All Comments][By Registration Order]

Cavalry???? 50 people??????????

Looking at the weapons they're holding, this seems more like a 1 : 400 match ???

Fact: There’s also a commander.

???????
A third party will be commanding in real time ???
Is this for real???
Trying to see Be-yam lose at least once, huh? Really sharpening my knife ???

Personal Opinion: I think Eugene might struggle in this match. They’re really pushing all the forces toward the enemy team. Even the map feels malicious. The positioning is clearly set up for cannons and arrows to hit us...

Yeah, I agree.

This feels ridiculous, how blatantly they’re setting it up ???

But without it, can they win?

If 50 cavalry charge in together, Be-yam’s gonna be out of options ?

Easy peasy ? Be-yam just sprints, grabs the cannon on the hill and shoots it at the cavalry heads. End of story ?

Do you think it’s an Armstrong gun or an AC-130? ???
I think Be-yam could pull it off though?? ?
Can’t argue with that ?
Yeah, Be-yam won’t lose~ horses, arrows, cannons – everything’s getting smashed to pieces~

Seriously, thinking this could work makes me think it’s crazy.

???
Living Point: If you’re not quite getting it, think of Eugene as an armored vehicle.

???
Huh? Now I think we might win...?
Fact: She’s stronger than an armored vehicle.
Armored vehicles can jump, right? ?
Don’t care, screw it, I trust Be-yam’s tail~

“Fifty cavalry, five cannons, archers, and shields. The enemy's sharpshooters are on a gradual hill, and we’re below... Isn’t this a bit too much?”

In my right hand, I held a hammer, and in my left, an axe.

The sky was blue, and the ground was covered in steel. On the gentle slope, which reminded me of a beginner ski slope, there were 300 players all facing my direction. At least a dozen archers, fifty cavalrymen, cannons aimed from the top of the hill, and multiple shield formations made up of dozens of men.

The number of people required to kill a single person was excessive, to say the least. But instead of being overwhelmed by the numbers, I thought about how I could overcome this situation. And somehow, I could see a way through.

I hadn’t received no information at all. I had a rough idea about the number of troops, their types, the ratios, and the battlefield. And even if I hadn't heard all the details, I couldn’t complain. Special forces are trained for precisely this kind of unpredictable situation, funded by taxpayers.

Of course, the display of power was also somewhat intimidating.

“...A Pike, huh.”

The formation I was facing was the very definition of a well-organized shield formation.

Dozens of soldiers holding pikes longer than humans and shields in their left hands. They looked like they would be better at stopping cavalry charges than anything else. However, if they failed to break through the defense, they would transform into some of the most skilled cold weapon users.

But what I was focused on wasn’t that.

What mattered was the spears they were holding. These would provide the long-range attack options I was lacking today.

Whoooooo!

The sound of the horn seemed to vibrate through my whole body, as always.

The second battle began in earnest, and the first thing to greet me was nothing less than a killing field made of arrows—at that moment, 70 arrows flew toward me, each tracing its parabola with deadly accuracy.

I put away my hammer and axe and drew two daggers. I felt like I could avoid or deflect them. Despite the barrage of arrows coming at me, there wouldn’t be too many that would actually hit.

And then, the next moment, my hand moved, creating a slight gap.

“…Huh.”

Ka-kak!

I deflected five of them, dodged three more. Zero effective hits. Two arrows grazed past my hair, but since it wasn’t real hair, I didn’t care, and now it was time to avoid the next attack—the cannon.

Boom. The earth trembled with the sound, and I saw it clearly. Five cannonballs accelerating to hundreds of meters per second, all of them aimed right at me. Naturally, the direct impact from the cannonballs wasn’t the only danger; the shockwaves were powerful too, and I had to dodge them all.

So I ran forward.

I felt the vibrations behind me, and the world began to stretch out before me.

“They’re coming! Brace for impact!”

“Be ready to switch weapons at any moment! Anyone with energy left, surround them quickly!”

The vibrations from the galloping hooves of about 20 cavalrymen echoed from far away.

The enemy's shouting reached my ears as it rode on the wind, getting closer with each passing moment. The voices of the users grew more frantic. As the first few users in the formation raised their pikes, I jumped, propelling myself with all the speed I had, leaping several meters into the air.

The spear was longer than my jump, but the enemy couldn’t raise it in time to strike, failing to react to my sudden ascent.

With one unfortunate victim crushed beneath me, I landed right in the center of the shield formation. In my right hand was the hammer, and in my left, the tomahawk.

I needed to destroy the first line of defense before the cavalry's dust storm reached me.

"Alert! The first shield formation has been breached! Permission for direct fire!"

"There's still 15 seconds left to load! Cough...!"

"Thanks for the information."

Having provided enough information, it was now time to pay the price.

As my hand holding the axe made a full rotation, the enemy's head and upper body were neatly severed. Before the body even knelt to the ground, I kicked it, and with a delayed reaction, it burst into golden mist, obscuring the vision of other users.

I briefly considered throwing the tomahawk, but after several failed attempts where it either flew too far or got stuck in their heads, I decided against it. Instead, I just needed to charge into the cluster of enemies.

I sheathed the tomahawk and hammer and drew my daggers. I pushed off with my legs and slammed into the ground.

It was time to shoot arrows.

Wherever I passed, golden bloodstorms erupted. I severed the arm of a user wielding a claymore, and despite the limb being chopped off, they still tightly gripped the handle, which I then yanked with my tail and threw horizontally.

The claymore, moving at the speed of a flash, severed one user’s waist and, still carrying force, lodged itself in another user’s side.

At that moment, an Armstrong cannonball shot straight at me.

Boom!

"Ugh...!"

"Crazy, how do you avoid explosions in midair?"

Crack.

The second explosion sounded in my ears as I jumped again, stomping on an enemy’s head and leaping once more. From below my feet came a sound and sensation I didn’t want to identify, but because of that, I shot up nearly 6 meters into the air. As soon as I was airborne, the explosion rang out below me.

Although I had dodged the blast, the pressure from the explosion was palpable. As the shots missed me, they were turned into friendly fire, and several of my own comrades, about seven, were vaporized.

The first line of enemies numbered about 65. After slaughtering half of them and dodging the second artillery shot, the cavalry was now speeding toward me.

The distance was about 60 meters. The 20 cavalrymen, ignoring whether any of the first line survived, looked determined to trample everything in their path.

Of course, the survivors were already scattering, trying to escape the cavalry's oncoming charge.

But that didn’t worry me too much.

I spotted weapons scattered on the ground.

"Pray for those who haven't died yet, for the pikes they dropped."

Weapons dropped by the dead vanish in about 5 seconds, but those dropped by the living remain.

I picked up one of the pikes from the ground and locked eyes with the user at the forefront of the cavalry, now only 50 meters away. I could see the fear clearly in their eyes. Only the artificially created warhorses, reflecting light off their armor, charged forward fearlessly.

I put strength into my right hand gripping the pike, stepped forward with my left foot, and rotated my waist.

The pike vibrated like a fish and left my hand. Less than a second later, a terrible sound rang out as the pike pierced the horse’s chest. It didn’t end there. The force was so great that the pike exited through the horse’s rear, continuing to pierce the head of another cavalryman’s horse.

Naturally, the cavalryman following the horse was right behind it.

"Ahhh!"

"Ugh...!"

Crash!

The horse, pierced by the pike, died instantly, and the rider was thrown to the ground at a speed of 50 km/h. That wasn’t the end of it, though. The pike that had shot out from the horse’s rear struck another cavalryman and their horse, sending both to the waiting screen.

It was a one-hit, three-kill move, something unprecedented in human history. However, by now, I had already wrapped my tail around the second spear, wielding it like a javelin and bending it into a sharp angle.

The second spear flew through the air.

Of course, the cavalry didn't stop their charge. They had to endure me throwing two spears consecutively, and as a result, the 20 cavalrymen were reduced to 14, with the remaining cavalryman getting kicked in the face as I jumped and wrapped my tail around the horse's neck.

It took only 7 minutes for the first wave of nearly 100 users to be shattered into pieces.

"…Wow."

"Wow, but I think this is the first time I’ve seen a successful hit on Eugene."

"You blocked a horse’s rear kick head-on?!"

By the 15th minute of the battle, when the 300-user alliance had been reduced to around 130, the intensity of the fight hadn’t died down. But with the tempo slowing, the viewers finally had the chance to reflect on the situation—and the most impressive moments were Eugene’s incredible spear-throwing power and her defense.

She allowed several of the cavalry’s attacks, which cost them their lives, including one such powerful horse rear kick that, if it landed, could have killed the horse in one shot. Eugene was pushed back several meters by the force, but when it hit her arms, only a large bruise appeared, with her bones unharmed.

Her physical capabilities far exceeded human limits.

But to back that up, she needed a body that could endure just as much.

"...That was the most painful thing I've experienced recently."

Naturally, the user who had dealt the blow didn’t fare so well.

Eugene jumped off the ground, leapt onto the horse’s saddle, and delivered a knee to the rider’s head, killing them instantly.

Yet, this time, the outcome of the battle was still uncertain. Unlike before, the users had learned to sacrifice their lives more effectively. The relentless suicide charge of the cavalry reserves, disregarding their own lives, had been effectively wearing Eugene down.

But still, despite all that, the 50 cavalrymen couldn’t incapacitate a single limb of Eugene’s Ouroboros-like power. They were sent to the waiting screen with F grades, and now, the real fight to cleanse blood with blood had just begun.

"Charge! We have no such thing as casualties!"

"Hold them! Hold them off! Archers, retreat and make a beehive out of them!"

"Armstrong cannon, please, please... let us fire it! Just one more shot!"

My body was covered in wounds, and arrows had pierced both of my shoulders and arms.

My leather armor was practically torn to rags, and the blood dripping from my arms onto the tomahawk and hammer was golden.

Yet, in my eyes, the blue light didn’t fade. On the contrary, it burned brighter, fiercer than before. It was a fight to the death. I was determined to crush every user standing before me, and no wound on my body could stop me.

From 130, to 90, to 50, and now, I could count the remaining users with my two hands.

Covered in the blood of 300 users, I climbed to the top of the hill, now stained golden, and faced the last 10 users, all of them holding their weapons.

With weary expressions, yet unshaken, and intent to kill.

I raised my weapons.

Swish.

Honor, and glory.

The English words engraved next to the name Eugene shone ominously as the weapons I wielded cut through the air. But it didn’t last long. The viscous golden liquid soon covered it several times.

The final effective strike from the last 10 users was a dagger, lodged into my back.

After pulling it out, I breathed heavily at the top of the hill, despite the intense heat.

The silence didn’t last long.

With a sudden explosion, the uncharged Armstrong cannon fired a single shot into the hill below, creating a huge explosion and fireball on impact.

"...Ha."

I laughed wearily, as the last remaining user, in a state barely hanging on, walked out from the destruction, several hundred meters away.

With a single breath, I knew exactly what they were about to say.

"How about a little dance, Eugene?"

They sure like to dance.

I lifted the axes and hammer stained with the blood of 300 users, and began to close the distance between me and Lorentina, who was slowly approaching.

The climax, and the ending, were drawing near.