His heart hammered violently, the rush of wind in his ears unable to drown out the booming engine within him.
The emotions surging from deep within him were inexpressible.
Indescribable!
Ineffable!
Unobservable!
Su Ya wondered if he was scared? No, it felt more like excitement than fear, and more like boiling blood than excitement. More intensely, it was like the primal urge he felt as a child, grasping a tree branch he'd picked up from the roadside for the first time.
Complex emotions drowned out the screams and all other sounds,
Finally—
They dissolved into stark, desolate lines.
Only one emotion gradually remained deep within him:
Greed.
Su Ya wanted to live!
He wanted more,
More and more!
For nineteen years, he had yearned for a stage, for a world where he, a wild flower from the roadside, merely mimicking others, could also blossom and shine.
His innate physical talent shouldn't be buried beneath countless tedious, monotonous calculations and endless socializing and forced smiles!
The talent his body possessed—the ability to discern in an instant, to replicate an identical action rapidly, as if born to be a peerless forgery—was now on full display:
Discern!
Replicate!
Surpass!
And then,
To make the world roar and fall for his astonishing deeds!
Common sense dictated that Su Ya should have heeded Merlin's advice.
But,
No matter what,
His life was his own. Su Ya couldn't gamble his life on Merlin, who appeared harmless but was clearly a master of crazy ideas. This bird-brained person would just decide on a whim to stake their lives on a completely unreliable plan.
The key was: she didn't care about her life, but Su Ya did!
Su Ya was someone who cherished his life deeply. There was no logic or excuse for it; he simply didn't want to die. And this very emotion could unleash a powerful force he hadn't even realized he possessed—
In just five short verses of chanting,
Su Ya observed, discerned, and memorized the marching routes of each unit within the ten-thousand-strong army before him.
The straightforward routes of the main forces—the Macedonian Phalanx Legion, Light Infantry, and Companion Cavalry—were naturally easy to grasp.
More importantly,
Within his observable range, Su Ya memorized the routes of all 116 Macedonian Tamarchi units, whether in three-person squads or temporarily splitting into one or two detachments for reconnaissance.
All this intelligence unfolded in his mind, forming an intricate pattern like a blooming flower, each line of this flower representing a reconnaissance cavalry's path.
From this,
He cross-referenced and found the marching route of the Tamarchi squad he was impersonating—
From the royal banner in the central army, it split at a midpoint, fanning out in a Y-shape. One branch headed towards the top of the hills where Su Ya's trench was located, and the other extended to the right.
Furthermore, he calculated the time it would take for the two Macedonian Tamarchi to overlook him, reach the hilltop, and the time it would take to kill the two Tamarchi.
Now,
The captain of this Tamarchi squad had already returned to the midpoint, sensed something was amiss, and changed course to the left.
And the time he would arrive—
"5."
"4."
"3."
"No, what are you counting, ahhhhhh!?" Merlin stared with her gem-like, rosy-red eyes, letting out a frustrated marmot-like shriek.
Su Ya fiercely yanked the reins with one hand, halting the horse. As he slightly pressed his calves against the horse's flanks and pulled the reins to the right, his other hand, holding Merlin's hair, swiftly stuffed the strand into Merlin's mouth to gag her.
"Mph!"
The horse immediately swerved to the right, turning sideways.
"1!"
The last number dropped.
Su Ya spurred his horse forward along another route where two "petals" overlapped.
Ahead and below,
A man in a black bodysuit, wearing leather armor, with long red hair and a sinister face, galloped past Su Ya, brushing shoulders at a distance of less than three meters!
From the corner of his eye, he saw Su Ya's silhouette as he turned his head to look in another direction, then his back.
He saw the relatively clean back of Su Ya's leather armor.
He saw the bouquet of white roses Su Ya held in his hand.
He saw Su Ya gallop towards another reconnaissance path, entirely different from his own, which should have belonged to the Forty-Second Squad.
He was somewhat puzzled; the figure felt vaguely familiar.
But he didn't dwell on it too much,
After all, this person's direction belonged to another squad, and there were many people of similar build in the army. As a temporary worker, he couldn't possibly recognize them all.
As for why he was holding flowers?
Perhaps he picked them on the spot, wanting to give them to a girl in the logistics corps following the Conqueror King's army after the war, who knows?
In less than a second,
Su Ya brushed past this professional assassin.
Soon,
The red-haired man with the sinister face galloped up the slope.
The surroundings were eerily quiet.
There were no sounds of Tamarchi recruits joking around or the thud of warhorses galloping.
Only the faint whinnying of two horses.
The man named Shugus sensed something was wrong.
He continued forward.
The amplified five senses of a professional assassin allowed him to distinguish the scent of blood, mixed with horse dung and grass roots, from dozens of meters away. And it wasn't just one person's blood; it was three people's.
And the direction the scent came from, and the scent of blood on the knight he had just brushed past,
Were identical!
Seconds later, he reached the trench and saw the three bodies within.
Two of the bodies were his own new recruits.
Last night, they had respectfully brought him a plate of homemade moussaka, hoping to learn the application of the [Swift Step] combat technique from him, saying the peculiar footwork was like a dance from their homeland that girls would surely love.
Shugus's face completely chilled.
He remembered,
Roses bloom in May-June and September-October.
And now—
It was August.
Not even a bud had grown!
"Giddy up!"
Su Ya exerted all his might, furiously squeezing the horse's flanks, roaring and trembling as he pulled the reins to the left.
Merlin pried open his hands, which were shaking like a sieve.
Her face finally showed an expression of terror,
But deep down, she wasn't sure if it was terror or exhilaration.
When she mischievously placed Su Ya in this Russian roulette, where nine out of ten chances meant death, Su Ya, as a temporary companion, had dragged her along,
Dragging her back onto this abyss of mad gambling, where death was almost certain!
Now,
Even at the cost of overdrawing her magic, she couldn't escape alone,
Because Su Ya had once again changed their path.
He was charging madly towards the Macedonian royal banner!
She was now completely trapped within the Macedonian army's formation. Under the magic-dampening effect spontaneously generated by the formation, her magic level and remaining reserves were insufficient to maintain an illusion throughout the entire battle.
And now,
They were about to directly face the knights guarding the path to the central army!
"Who are you!?"
Two knights guarding the outer flanks of the central army frowned, looking at Su Ya, who was madly galloping towards them, holding flowers. As they drew closer and saw Su Ya's face, their expressions changed slightly.
"Knight, what have you encountered!?"
"I have urgent military intelligence to report to the general!"
"It concerns the whereabouts of King Uther's son, Arthur Pendragon, the future King of all Britannia!"
"I don't have much time left!"
"Get out of the way!"