Chapter 53: Polar Opposites

"Damn it, why do these wild fishmen never end?"

Archmage Sharlene, the first human champion to join Isolde Winter’s banner, complained as she unleashed a strengthened Ice Spike on the fishmen swarming toward her.

The moisture in the air dropped in an instant, and countless shards of ice turned into a whirling frost storm that froze every fishman within a few meters solid.

Most of them were encased in ice and could not move.

The few lucky enough to still move were no better off. Once their wet, elastic, slimy skin was frostbitten, every motion tore at their own bodies.

Many fishmen took only two steps before great sheets of skin ripped away, exposing the flesh and blood vessels buried beneath.

Thanks to Sharlene, the whole battlefield turned grimly bloody.

"I’m not sure..."

"But are fishmen really this aggressive?"

Beside her, a knight in plate armor with a longsword rushed in right after the Ice Spike, leading a dozen squires toward the fishmen who could barely move, and began to cut them down.

He was the second human champion Isolde had gathered, Sir Krito.

"Aaargh!" "Aaargh!"

With a few screams, the dozen fishmen lost their heads, and the heads rolled across the ground.

But that was far from the end.

"Careful!"

Isolde, far away in another realm, cut off their complaints. Through the scrying link, she quickly marked a stretch of land in the sight of Sharlene and Sir Krito.

"I’ve marked the shore around there. It looks like more fishmen are coming ashore. And from what I can tell, the Fishman Ancestor is commanding this wave!"

"To send a tide of fishmen this large at once, only the Ancestor could have done it."

At the words Fishman Ancestor, the faces of both Sharlene and Sir Krito changed several times.

The Fishman Ancestor was likely the strongest and oldest fishman in the whole region. Its appearance usually meant the number of fishmen attacking the colony had just grown by an entire order of magnitude.

And Isolde’s judgment was right.

On the muddy lakeshore, more and more fishmen were coming ashore.

And behind them, a true "big one" was closing in step by step on Isolde’s colony base, which had stood for less than a day.

It was nearly six meters tall. Its thick muscles and heavy scales gave it defense even greater than a knight’s plate armor.

With a body like that, it was hard for outsiders to connect it with the small, weak "fishman."

"Oh, heavens."

Watching the giant come closer, Sharlene groaned in pain.

"Shouldn’t we give up this base? My dear lord... my lord?"

Isolde fell silent.

Stubborn as she was, she knew that if she abandoned this freshly built colony, her losses would be enormous. Because a brand new portal had been built along with it.

"No!"

Isolde said firmly.

"We will hold this place. We must hold it!"

"Hold on a little longer. I’ll gather more reinforcements as fast as I can!"

She had only just arrived on the continent, and already she was being forced to pay a huge price to hold her base. She might not even hold it. It was an ending she had never imagined.

Facing this scene, Isolde was strangely reminded of something.

"This chaos, this suffocating feeling... Koda, it feels so much like the time I stood against you!"

* * *

While the other lords were all fed up with attacks from the natives of the continent, what was Koda doing?

The answer was that he was also at war with the natives.

But there was one small difference from the other new lords.

Koda was not being attacked at all.

He was the one attacking the natives.

"Great lord, it’s just ahead!"

In a dark tunnel wide enough for dozens to pass, a dwarf held on a chain by a Taskmaster cried out excitedly!

"Just ahead! Kill the guards and you will have the road to the dwarf kingdom!"

The dwarf was so excited that his voice was far too loud. It echoed through the entire dark tunnel.

So a crossbow bolt was quickly loaded.

In the dark, a pair of bright eyes aimed at the cursed traitor and fired.

"Master Taskmaster, you promised me that if I helped the great lord find the road to the dwarf kingdom, I would be freed and become a new overseer, didn’t you?"

The Taskmaster had only just nodded and had no time to speak.

The dwarf who had sold out his own people for his own greed had his head blown apart by the bolt.

His corpse collapsed in the dark, twitching.

The Taskmaster holding his chain grew excited. While the other demons rushed at the dwarf guards at the end of the road, the Taskmaster swallowed the corpse in one bite.

"A pity. This soul can’t be gathered now."

Koda, directing the battle, saw it all.

But he felt no pity, because he knew there was no room for pity in war. Or rather, he did not know what pity was.

All of his attention was on breaking through this passage.

If he broke the guards at its end, he would gain a very important road.

The road to the dwarf kingdom!

Koda no longer cared about gaining one or two towns. What he truly wanted was to look upon an entire kingdom!

Unlike the early struggles the other lords were facing, Koda had chosen to strike first and change the shape of the continent himself.

Because unlike those new lords, Koda had never thought of getting what he wanted by any means other than war.

What he held in his heart, what he truly craved, was war itself!

In the dark tunnel, above the heads of countless demons, a pair of thin pupils snapped open and looked ahead.

Because at the end of the passage, something had appeared that might change the whole campaign!

---

On the eve of the demons breaking through the tunnel defense.

"Demons, it’s the demons!"

"Those damned demons are swarming us again!"

"Follow me, my dwarf brothers! Kill these cursed monsters, every last one!"