Although rarely led to an agreement that would prevent the confrontation, before a battle, honor, and customs required a formal greeting between the leaders of both armies.

Kard's army was still lining up for battle, and the least expected by anyone in its ranks was for Elm's army to initiate a front charge.

"Where's your honor, Gendral Dural?!" —Gehan was the first to overcome the shocking scene that happened in front of him.

Both Kard's regular soldiers, Enolrod Bucar himself, and those men who had been forced to join the army, all of them were completely stunned.

"Honor is earned, not given away!" —in front of the thousand soldiers who were running straight for the Kard army, Gendral Dural replied to Gehan.

Exchanging words and allowing the enemy to prepare for battle were basic matters of honor for any warrior. However, there were situations where honor was superfluous; when facing beasts and when facing bandits. Beasts do not know honor, and bandits do not deserve to be treated with honor.

"Kill them, kill them all!!!" —even if he was not the brightest of the nobles, Enolrod Bucar understood the significance of Gendral Dural's sudden attack.

To the honorable Gendral Dural, Enolrod Bucar was no different than a bandit.

"Line up, line up if you don't want to die !!!" —pushed by the situation, Gehan rode fast to pressing his army to prepare for the impending enemy charge.

Strangely Elm's army did not have a single horseman, even Gendral Dural himself did not have a horse. At first Gehan saw this as an opportunity to personally kill Gendral Dural and make a name for himself, now that mattered little.

Even if it was a front infantry charge, Kard's army was just beginning to line up. In this situation, no matter the numerical advantage, right now Kard's army was like a blind, clawless dragon.

"Dammit!" —organizing an army in front of a rushing enemy charge was extremely difficult. This even without taking into account that a large part of that army had not the slightest experience in battle, and whose morale was practically non-existent, after all, the vast majority of those men were here after being practically kidnapped. “Horsemen, horsemen! may all horsemen charge towards the enemy! Whoever gets the head of Gendral Dural will receive his weight in gold! ” —in such a situation, Gehan was unable to find another solution.

Gold was a powerful incentive for any man other than a noble, barely hearing Gehan's words, the horsemen rushed towards Elm's army.

Being in charge of guarding the flanks and Enolrod Bucar during the journey from Kard, the horsemen of Kard were even more dispersed and disorganized than the rest of the army.

However, motivated by the promise of gold, the riders launched a disorganized attack.

Gehan stared bitterly at the disorganized charge of his horsemen. Being as scattered as they were, these horsemen did not have the slightest chance of achieving any favorable result beyond gaining some time. If by some lucky stroke they succeeded in killing Gendral Dural, then it would be a result only attributable to the will of the gods.

"Line up, line up if you don't want to... !!" —Gehan's voice stopped suddenly in surprise.

With a considerable amount of gold as a reward, it was not surprising that the entirety of Kard's horsemen charges in the direction of Gendral Dural. This was something Gehan was counting on, in his mind the Elm's soldiers would momentarily stop their charge to try to protect their lord. However, contrary to his expectations, only a handful of soldiers gathered around Gendral Dural to support him while the rest continued their charge.

"Archers, archers shoot !!!" —faced with the little result of his previous maneuver, Gehan panicked to what he considered his last hope.

Kard's archers were as scattered as the horsemen had been, so their shots would be like throwing rocks at a river current. Gehan could only hope that those scattered arrows would somewhat lessen the momentum of the enemy's charge.

At the bottom of Kard's disorganized army, a father and son exchanged glances upon hearing Gehan's order. Both were hunters from a remote village in the north, neither of them was here on their conviction.

"Father ..." —a young man who was not yet twenty years old had his forehead covered with cold sweat and his hands trembled with fear.

"We must do everything we can to survive and return home" —the father was in no better condition than his son, yet he forced himself to completely hide his fear.

"Yes... we have to go home, Erick is waiting for us" —the young man took a deep breath to calm himself. "And I must still confess to Mika..." —the young man murmured these last words to himself.

Father and son raised their bows and shot their arrows into the sky, there was no way of knowing if their arrows would take the life of some enemy when they fell, yet it was clear that each arrow they both shots was filled with hope, hope to survive and return to that little village on the edge of the dark forest.

Unfortunately for Gehan, the scattered arrows did not affect the enemy charge. The impetuous frontal charge finally caught up with Kard's disorganized army.

The screams of pain and the sound of swords striking the flesh filled the air. The wooden spears and shields showed little resistance against the iron swords, and although the rusty swords were more resistant, in the end, they ended up breaking.

With each swing of Elm's swords, a life was extinguished among the ranks of Kard.

The difference was not only between the quality of the team or the martial training but in morale.

Kard's soldiers had been forced to fight, while Elm's soldiers fought to protect their own from the terrible future that Enolrod Bucar's hand could bring.

"They can't keep up that momentum forever... sooner or later they'll run out..." —Enolrod Bucar's entire body trembled as his skin was covered in an unpleasant oily sweat. "That useless Gehan!"

Faced with the total incapacity of his general, Enolrod Bucar opened the door of his carriage. His body was barely able to get through the small door.

"I will skin every last member of the family alive of anyone who dares to flee!" —if there was one thing Enolrod Bucar was highly efficient at, it was threatening and intimidating the weak. It was no secret that many of his servants chose suicide as an escape from torture rather than risk having their families suffer the wrath of the Lord of Kard for having escaped.

The demoralized hearts of the Kard soldiers shuddered, their bodies and minds are highly susceptible to Enolrod Bucar's threats. Any intention to flee suddenly left their hearts.

Die here or running away and condemning their families, the choice was easy for honest men.

As for those slags that would sacrifice the lives of their own without hesitation to save their lives, the situation would not allow them to try to flee. If those trying to flee were few, if they were lucky, they would be quickly killed by Enolrod Bucar's soldiers.

Gehan cursed Gendral Dural over and over, his only chance to escape Enolrod Bucar's wrath was for those horsemen to claim the head of the lord of Elm.

Unfortunately for Gehan, the cavalry's greatest advantage over infantry was the weight of the charge. However, in a disorganized charge and whose priority was not to ram all enemy, but specifically kill a particular enemy, there was only one possible outcome, defeat.

Driven by the vision of a mountain of gold equivalent to their weight, the horsemen focused entirely on Gendral Dural and instead of being comrades-in-arms with the same objective, they became rivals vying for an invaluable reward.

Using their leader as bait, Elm's soldiers surrounded Kard's horsemen and massacred them. Gendral Dural was not just any nobleman, he was a powerful warrior who had fought alongside King Ezar and consequently had hardly been injured.

"Enemy!" —amid the chaotic battle and just as Elm's soldiers were beginning to fall victim to exhaustion, a soldier's terrified scream pointed west.

Gehan and Enolrod Bucar's eyes widened, a small army of about five hundred men approaching from the west.

"Enemy!" —before anyone could recover from the previous vision, a new scream of terror pointed east.

A second army of just over eight hundred men was approaching from the east.

The two new forces moved under Elm's unmistakable banner.

"How is this possible?" —Gehan's fury was replaced by fear.

Enolrod Bucar simply trembled, the words did not come out of his throat.

"For Lord Gendral !!" —from the west, a powerful scream preceded a charge.

"For Lord Gendral !!" —a similar shout from the east caused another charge.

Among the two new forces that appeared, were several horsemen. It was evident what had happened.

Long before leaving Elm to face Enolrod Bucar, Gendral Dural had sent his entire cavalry to the various villages and farms in his territory to recruit volunteers.

Elm's army did not have mercenaries as Gehan and Enolrod Bucar had thought, but volunteers.

Even if these volunteers were peasants and villagers like most of Kard's army, the difference between them was too great.

These volunteers had the full support of their families and villages, so their weapons were of better quality.

However, the biggest difference was in motivation.

Kard's soldiers were forced to fight out of fear of Enolrod Bucar. Instead, Elm's volunteers fought by choice, their morale was continually fueled by their admiration to Gendral Dural and their desire to protect their own.

Gendral Dural's greatest merit had been calculating the exact time and place where he would meet Enolrod Bucar's force.

In terms of complicated strategies perhaps Gendral Dural was no match to Keldran Meden, yet he had also been a disciple of Ezar the Wise King. With no other preparation than ordering his horsemen to complete their recruitment task as soon as possible and to arrive at this location on an exact date, Gendral Dural had carried out a splendid flanking maneuver over the Kard army.

Kard's demoralized army had barely managed to contain a frontal charge, now, with a charge from each flank, anyone could visualize the outcome of the battle.

"W-we're leaving!" —faced with that vision, Enolrod Bucar ran to his carriage. The fear, his poor physical condition and his fat body tripped him, and as if the imminent defeat of his army was not enough humiliation, his face fell right on horse dung.

Enolrod Bucar's soldiers did not know how to react. They feared that, if they came to offer their help, they would be the first to feel the wrath of the lord of Kard.

"What do you jerks do?! Help your king!” " —Gehan, who was riding hastily in search of Enolrod, hurriedly dismounted to help him. Faced with this enormous failure, he would not miss the slightest opportunity to ingratiate himself with Enolrod. "Your Majesty, we must go, that scoundrel of Gendral Dural has discarded all his pride and honor to defeat us" —cunningly Gehan redirected Enolrod's anger towards Gendral Dural.

"That dirty bastard! In the end, it's just rubbish!! ”

Gendral Dural had attacked without offering his enemy the time necessary to prepare, he had put aside the formal greeting and contrary to his words, he even resorted to forced recruitment. Gehan subtly misrepresented everything that had happened to avoid the guilt of defeat.

Leaving behind their supply wagons and the entirety of the soldiers they had recruited, Gehan and Enolrod Bucar hastily left the battlefield.

"Damn Gendral Dural..." —Despite his incompetence, Gehan continued to curse Gendral Dural for not acting as he expected.

Even if he had managed to avoid Enolrod Bucar's wrath, Gehan knew that the outcome of this battle had a lot to do with his complacency. He never expected a frontal charge from an enemy that he exceeded in a 3 to 1. Seeing that the enemy did not have horsemen, he did not think too much about it and above all, he never expected to be attacked by the flanks.

His lack of foresight in not sending scouts to his flanks had probably been the most fatal of his mistakes.

As Enolrod and Gehan hurried away, his army finally received the two side charges.

"There is no reason to continue fighting" —in the middle of the chaotic battlefield, Gendral Dural addressed those words to a man holding a rusty sword in his hands.

"I lost a son today, if I can use this life of mine to protect my other son, then I have more than enough reasons to continue fighting" —the man tightened his grip on his sword.

“If you still have a child, then live to see him again! Why fight a losing battle? ”

"Isn't that what commoners we always do every day, fight battles that we can never win against the nobles?" —the man swung his sword at Gendral.

The rusty sword struck against Gendral's mighty sword, the sound reverberating around both men.

"Just drop your sword and go back to your family side!"

"And condemn my last child and my village to suffer the wrath of Enolrod Bucar? There is no way I will choose that path! ” —the man swung his sword at Gendral again.

The rusty sword struck again against the sword, and to the rhythm of that sound, some cracks were drawn on the sword.

"There is always another way!"

"Will you march to Kard and free us from the tyranny of Enolrod Bucar?" —the man attacked again. "Can you protect us all from this madness that fills the hearts of the nobles?" —the rusty sword struck the sword again. "I'm only trying to protect my son and my people!" —the man did not back down and continued to attack.

Gendral could only helplessly tighten the hilt of his sword. Marching towards Kard would only cause more deaths, in addition to that, it would only be the beginning because there were also Tolm, Oan and Urda.

If he takes the first step, Gendral would be forced to walk that path covered in blood and death to the end.

"If you want to help us, then let us cut off your head!" —the man intensified his attacks regardless of the fragile condition of his sword.

That was the only way Kard's soldiers could return home, taking Gendral Dural's head with them.

"I cannot die and leave my people at the mercy of the ambition of the other nobles!" —if Gendral died, Elm would fall into the hands of one of the other feudal lords, who would not hesitate to squeeze the inhabitants of the region in favor of his campaign for the throne.

"Then fight as we do!" —in front of the blow that supported those words, Gendral was pushed back.

It had not been the force of the impact that had driven Gendral back, but the weight of those words. Kard's men continued to fight despite having lost the battle to protect their families, faced with that kind of conviction, Gendral felt ashamed of himself.

He was in this place fighting to protect his people, how come he ended up dismissing the conviction of these men?

"Your Majesty, it seems that I still have a lot to learn" —Gendral took a deep breath and renewed his conviction.

Gendral Dural's atmosphere underwent a profound change, and the man shuddered to realize it.

The looks of both met, there was no need for more words. Everything that could be said had already been saying.

Gendral charged straight at the man.

The man raised his sword to block the attack, however, his rusty sword was unable to contain the force of the sword and ended up breaking.

The sword descended on the defenseless man making a deep cut on his chest.

The man fell to the ground bathed in his blood.

"Erick..." —when the light in his eyes faded, the man raised his hand to the sky.

"Enolrod Bucar, no doubt you will be the first of us to taste the wrath of heaven..." —Gendral leaned down and closed the eyes of that brave man who had chosen to die to protect his own.

This man's conviction was not a unique case, driven by fear of the threat made by Enolrod Bucar, Kard's soldiers refused to surrender and continued to fight to the end. They did not even realize that their General and their Lord had already abandoned them.

In the minds of the vast majority of these men, dying here was the only way to protect their families.

In contrast, Elm's soldiers did not hesitate to please their enemies. His battle was also to protect his own.

The result of the clash of these two convictions that ironically were the same in the end, that was a carnage.

There were no survivors among Kard's soldiers, and although there were numerous casualties among Elm's ranks, the victory was cheerfully celebrated. They had not defeated the enemy, they had protected their own.