Bab 274: 275. I Have My Battlefield.
Whether the rulers of the Northern Continent admit it or not, ever since humanity set foot on this world following the conjunction of spheres centuries ago, elven culture has seeped into every aspect of human life.
One of the most significant areas of influence is holidays and the calendar.
The ancient elves, by calculating the length of sunlight throughout the day, divided the year into eight elven months, with each month beginning with a festival.
When humans replaced the elves as rulers of this world, they perhaps sought to dilute the traces of elven domination. While they no longer openly used the elven calendar, these festivals have persisted to this day.
May Day, the first day of the Elven Month of Blossoms, is one of the most renowned festivals.
The Month of Blossoms is the most pleasant time of year, with temperatures neither too hot during the day nor too cold at night. However, tonight, in the city of Ellander on the central axis of the Northern Continent, that balance was broken.
"Whoosh~"
The wind howled furiously.
The closer the two witchers got to the hundreds and thousands of green lights, the colder the wind blew, carrying a chill that seemed to freeze the soul. In fact, Allen hadn't initially planned to act—not this early, at least.
After studying rituals for so many days, and recognizing the type of ceremony, he had intended to assist Vera in setting up a magical ritual.
It wasn't that he was afraid of battle.
After all, a magical ritual takes at least half a day to set up—three hours at a minimum. Having an extra hand, especially one who has studied and even performed this ritual, like Allen, who had reached level 5 in ritual studies, could certainly save a lot of time. However, after watching for a while, Allen noticed that while the sorceress used similar materials and the formation she was constructing on the ground looked familiar, there were subtle differences.
She had skipped many details and made some delicate changes in certain areas.
With Allen's level 5 ritual studies, he could tell that the ritual would still function as a magical ceremony, and it would save time, but joining in would be beyond his ability. He could help a little, but it wouldn't save much time.
At this point, one witcher capable of delaying the monster horde was far more valuable than an assistant for the ritual—and much more important.
"Are you ready?"Vesemir took a deep breath and shouted over.
Allen didn't respond with words. Instead, just like the knights before him, he rode his horse towards the wraiths. When he was close, he pulled on the reins with his left hand and turned. Then, with his right hand, he bent his middle finger and thrust it forward towards the densest group of wraiths.
Aard Sign.
"Boom!"
A powerful telekinetic wave pulsed from his palm, distorting the air as it traveled. The wraiths, floating mid-air like sheets of paper, twisted unnaturally and were blown into the green tide.
At that moment, Vesemir's Aard Sign hit the other half of the wraiths, blowing them away. In an instant, a large, fan-shaped gap opened at the front of the wraith tide. It took nearly twenty seconds before the following wraiths filled the empty space.
"It works!" Vesemir shouted, pulling on the reins to turn his horse, looking excitedly at Allen.
However, when Vesemir met Allen's gaze, he suddenly realized that his apprentice seemed... distracted?
What's wrong?
Was he attacked by a wraith?
"Allen!!" Vesemir yelled over the howling wind,"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Allen shouted back, snapping out of it. He glanced again at the semi-transparent interface in front of him.
"Ding! A main quest has been discovered: [The Specters' Revenge Festival]—Eliminate the Wraiths (32/1614)."
Main quest...
How long had it been since he'd seen that familiar yet distant term?
Allen vaguely remembered that the last main quest had been triggered at Kaer Morhen. But he had to admit, the rewards for these main quests—identification, tracking, conjunction of spheres, and the Witcher Corps—had all been incredibly useful. However, eliminating 1,614 wraiths...
The witcher glanced at the densely packed green ghost lights.
"Clang~"
A flash of blue light.
He drew Elsa, his silver sword coated with specter oil, and looked into the grotesque faces of the wraiths. After exhaling a puff of cold air, his eyes filled with fury.
Wasn't this exactly what he had intended to do all along?
In the next instant—
"Shhh~"
The sound of boiling water vaporizing echoed loudly. The silver sword Elsa slashed into the body of the nearest wraith. In from one side, out the other. Then, without the slightest pause, it cut into the next wraith.
"Ahhh—"
The wailing screams rose endlessly, one after another.
Green fireworks blossomed behind the witcher as wraiths evaporated. At the same time, similar fireworks ignited on the other side of the wraith tide, as if in harmony. In this way, Vesemir charged ahead while Allen followed closely behind.
On the opposite side of the knights, they began trimming down the green wraith tide, like cutting weeds, to prevent the wraiths from dispersing too far. This kept them tightly grouped together, making it easier for the witchers to use the Aard Sign to effectively push back the enemy.
Moreover, unlike the knights, although the horses they rode weren't theirs and lacked some coordination, both witchers had already drunk Cat's Eye potion as soon as they mounted.
Not only could they now see in the dark…
Their powerful physiques and expert swordsmanship allowed them to control their horses with precision, dodging the wraith's attacks at incredibly close distances.
The witchers swept past the eerie green lanterns, the wind howling, while the half-real, half-illusory muscles of the wraiths were clearly visible. Then, the high speed of the galloping horses meant the two barely had to exert force.
With just slight adjustments in direction, their specter-oiled silver swords sank almost entirely into the wraith's bodies. Most of the time, the creatures didn't even have time to react before they were slain with a single strike.
On the other side, the knights, who had drawn many wraiths away, noticed the witchers' rampage and, with their spirits lifted, cheered loudly, "Victory! Victory!"
After charging up a small hill, they turned and charged toward the wraiths once again.
"... [The Specters' Revenge Festival]—Eliminate the Wraiths (39/1614)."
"... [The Specters' Revenge Festival]—Eliminate the Wraiths (84/1614)."
"... [The Specters' Revenge Festival]—Eliminate the Wraiths (193/1614)."
----------------
With the coordination between the witchers and the knights, the wraiths, after all, were only low-level monsters with no intelligence. The kill count in Allen's peripheral vision rapidly increased. With both sides working together, the distance between the wraith tide and Vera's ritual circle visibly slowed. Everything seemed to be going well.
But…
Could it really be that simple?
"Ahhh—"
Another wraith let out a scream.
A green firework exploded. Suddenly, Allen found himself facing an open field. They had reached the back of the wraith tide.
"Awesome!" Vesemir laughed heartily as he pulled on his reins, bringing his horse to a stop. "I've never had such fun killing wraiths before."
Immediately after.
Clink clink!
Amid the sounds of bottles and flasks colliding, the Witcher master excitedly pulled out a bottle of specter oil and began coating his silver sword. Though Allen also pulled out his own sword oil, his expression was far less joyful than the master's.
He opened the task panel with his thoughts.
"Main Task: [The Specters' Revenge Festival] Kill Specters (473/1614)."
The progress was good, but Allen's hesitant and displeased expression wasn't because of the main task's progress.
It was because of...
[Hunting Task: Specters I (Kill Specters 47/100).]
As the main task's kill count continued to rise, the specter hunting task was also silently making progress. And once the hunting task was completed, an uncontrollable conjunction of the spheres would occur. After a violent tremor, a large monster was almost guaranteed to be summoned.
The Wild Hunt had only just left—would a conjunction of the spheres attract them back again?
Vera was still setting up the ritual. Would the earthquake caused by the conjunction undo all their hard work?
Moreover...
Although it was nighttime and he didn't have to worry about the conjunction being seen by humans, he had no clue what kind of monster might be summoned.
What if it was a monster that could command ordinary Wraiths?
Over a thousand specters without a leader were completely different from over a thousand specters with one, and that would almost certainly lead to Ellander's fall.
Huff huff!
The warhorse beneath Allen snorted wearily, breathing heavily. Countless thoughts flashed through his mind.
At that moment...
"Why are those Ellander knights retreating?"
The Witcher's hand, paused mid-motion while applying sword oil, looked up toward the other side.
In the eerie green glow, the knights were like a surging dragon, speeding toward the direction of the monater hunting army.
Allen opened the task list again, glanced at the main task's progress, and sighed: "They've run out of specter oil."
------------------
During the earlier charge, Allen had switched out a bottle of sword oil midway, killing thirty-five specters.
Vesemir had used two bottles of sword oil as well, though since he wasn't burdened with the hunting task, he probably killed more than Allen. So, after tallying it up, the hundred or so knights, each with two bottles of sword oil, had actually killed fewer than four hundred specters.
One bottle of sword oil killed two specters.
This meant that the knights had seven times fewer kills than the two Witchers.
But Allen understood.
Reality was not a game.
As miraculous as specter oil was, it was still just oil applied to a sword.
It could be blown away by strong winds, accidentally wiped off on the horse's hide, or simply lose its effect due to countless unintentional contacts before ever striking a specter.
Given the knight's physical and mental conditioning, and their long-developed habits in sword fighting, only the front third of their blades would ever make contact with the specters during an attack.
The other two-thirds were almost useless and were quickly consumed by various factors. Moreover, a single bottle of sword oil lasted several charges before being depleted, which greatly increased wasted usage.
When all was calculated, it was remarkable that the knights, who had never used sword oil or fought specters before, could kill two specters per bottle of oil—already an overachievement. But Allen and Vesemir were different.
They had used specter oil many times and had hunted a large number of specters before. They could kill one specter with a single strike, using two bottles of specter oil per charge. Their incidental losses were kept to a minimum.
But...
Allen sighed and gently shook his head. There was no way around it. Over sixteen hundred specters—they couldn't hold them off and buy time with just the two of them. Even now, the number of specters following behind the knights was five or six times the number chasing after Allen and Vesemir.
As for fighting without specter oil, using steel swords to draw the monsters' attention, that would be a waste of manpower and resources. In the end, if it bought them more time, it could still be considered valuable. But during their time at Beauclair and Hudson Viscount's abandoned castle, Allen had noticed something.
Although specters lacked intelligence, when multiple specters gathered within a certain area, they always attacked the person who inflicted the most damage. Otherwise, they would target the largest group of people, with an almost hive-like behavior.
In other words, if the knights didn't cause enough damage, only a small portion of the specters on the outer edge would be drawn away.
It would be pointless.
So...
What should they do now?
"The specters are following the knights, heading toward the ritual!" Vesemir's sudden shout interrupted Allen's thoughts.
Allen looked toward the direction of the knights. Perhaps because the repeated charges had exhausted their horses, the knights were moving much slower on their way back. A massive swarm of specters, carrying their eerie green lanterns, was right behind them, and they weren't far apart.
Maybe because the knights were now moving in the same direction the specters had been advancing, the swarm seemed to be picking up speed.
The next second...
"Knights! Turn back!"
Allen heard the lead knight, Arthur, raise his sword and shout. Clearly, he had noticed as well and was trying to get the knights to turn around and lure the specters away once more. But without specter oil to cause damage, it was hard to say how many specters they could actually attract.
In the meantime, the monster hunting army, now positioned and gathering more specter oil, couldn't possibly get there in time to resupply them.
It seemed like a dead end.
The eerie green tide was getting closer and closer to Ellander. From Allen's vantage point, the swarm of specters seemed as if they were about to engulf the Scavenger army gathered around the bonfires, with some already beginning to stir uneasily. It felt like a storm-tossed ocean, on the verge of swallowing a fragile fishing boat.
Vera, still working on the ritual, and Mary, who was helping her, were like two tiny grains of sand, working behind the Witcher army. Once the boat was swallowed, they would be next. Finally, the green wave would crash over the rocks, snuff out the lights of Ellander, and turn it into a dead city.
The Specter's Revenge Festival...
The name of the main task suddenly surfaced in the Witcher's mind. He clenched his fists and shook his head violently to dispel a grim thought, staring hard at the approaching green tide.
What to do?
What could he do?
His mind raced.
Within two seconds, Allen shouted to the equally unsure Vesemir: "Master Vesemir, go to the knights and lead them in a charge at the specter swarm..."
The Witcher master instinctively spurred his horse toward the knights as Allen had said. Only after a moment did he realize something was off. He turned and shouted back: "What about you, Allen?"
The Witcher took a deep breath, glanced back toward where they had come from, and softly said: "I have a battlefield of my own..."
....
📢20 advanced chapters on p@treaon📢
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276. Conjunction of the Spheres—Wraiths.
277. The First Battle of the Divine Sword Balmur.
278. White Light and Frost.
279. Please Make Way.
280. Settlement of the One-Eyed Wraith Extermination Rewards.
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