Farmboy becomes King with the Lust System Chapter 261: Elise’s disobedience 2

Her concentration was absolute, her focus on mending wounds, hauling struggling cadets back to their feet, and propelling them onward before despair could take hold.

Tirel's deep, resonant laughter echoed behind her even as her flames annihilated an enemy soldier in mid-stride.

The tempest raging above intensified. Arrows flew with greater velocity, shields vibrating under the relentless barrage. Each impact reverberated like thunder in their ears. The cadets groaned, pressing closer together, attempting to shrink themselves beneath the onslaught.

One boy, not quick enough, was struck in the thigh by an arrow. He collapsed with a choked cry before Elise could reach him. She surged forward nonetheless, sliding through the mire of blood and mud, her palms already radiating light. She didn't pause until the arrow was dislodged, the bleeding abated, and he moaned, attempting to rise.

Another fell.

Then another.

Her hands trembled. Her chest heaved, her lungs burning as mana flowed from her in desperate torrents. Her hair, damp with sweat, ash, and the lingering smoke from Tirel's firestorms, clung to her face. Her arms ached from the exertion of channeling so much power so rapidly, but she persisted.

She couldn't stop.

Not while Jae stood firm at the vanguard, holding back the enemy tide with fire and sheer defiance. Not when the cadets surrounding him required her to knit their bodies together faster than the war could tear them asunder.

Her steps wavered once—just a single time—but she compelled herself onward again.

And still further forward.

Arrows hissed through the air, blades clashed nearby, and the very night seemed to shriek, yet Elise pressed on.

Jae finally caught sight of her.

His crimson eyes pierced the smoke and flames, narrowing the instant they fixed upon her slender form kneeling in the blood-soaked earth. Ember Step ignited beneath his boots, propelling him across the shield line in a blur of smoke and sparks. His blade descended in a clean, searing arc, bisecting a raider who had breached the cadets' defense. The man toppled in two blazing halves before his scream had even concluded.

Another arrow whistled toward Elise. Jae reacted instantly, his flaming sword angling upward with practiced grace. The shaft met the flat of the blade, shattered, and disintegrated into embers from the intense heat.

He loomed over her, flames dancing along his arms and shoulders, his voice low and dangerously sharp. "Elise. What are you doing here?"

Her usually timid gaze lifted, yet it held no waver. It was steady, a composure that surprised even herself. Sweat plastered dark strands of hair to her forehead, her hands still pulsed with mana as they cradled the side of a bleeding cadet. Her voice, though quiet, carried with a firmness that cut through the surrounding din.

"Keeping them alive," she stated. "You can't hold the line without me."

For a rare moment, his habitual smirk faltered. He felt the urge to retort, to physically pull her back, to force her to the rear where she ought to be. But he could not disregard the evidence before him—her face smudged with dirt and sweat, her lips trembling with exhaustion, yet her eyes remained resolute. The same unyielding tenacity that blazed within him now burned within her as well.

His chest rose with a deep, sharp inhale. He let out a sigh, running a hand through his hair, sending sparks cascading from his fingertips like embers dislodged from a torch. "You're insane."

The smirk returned, subtle but undeniable, curving the edge of his lips. "Stay close. I'll ensure you don't regret it."

Then, the sky darkened once more.

The arrow storm intensified, faster, heavier, striking shields with such force that wood splintered and men groaned under the impact. Steel tips plunged into mud and flesh alike. The very air seemed to cry out as they rained down, and cadets instinctively ducked lower behind their battered defenses.

Elise immediately dropped, her knees sinking into the churned earth beside another cadet whose leg had been mangled by a volley of arrows. Her hands glowed intensely, trembling as they channeled mana into torn flesh and ruptured veins. She breathed rapidly, her breaths ragged, as if each wound she mended was a separate gash upon her own being. Her vision flickered at the periphery. Her body quaked with the immense effort. Still, she did not cease.

She could not cease.

A raider perceived her vulnerability. He surged past the wavering front line, his blade gleaming ominously under the moonlight. A snarl contorted his features, his eyes fixated on the small, defenseless healer bent over her charge. Elise's head snapped up, but it was too late. The assailant's sword was already raised above her.

It descended.

Fire erupted.

Jae materialized, moving with the speed of a living flame. His Dragonfire Blade intercepted the raider's strike mid-swing, the collision erupting in a blinding shower of sparks. The heat flared with such ferocity that it distorted the raider's steel, the weapon softening and melting as though plunged into a forge. Flames greedily climbed the raider's blade, then his arms, consuming him until the weapon fractured in a burst of molten fragments.

Screams erupted from the raider as he clutched his burning skin, stumbling backward in sheer terror and agony. He didn't even manage two paces before Jae's incandescent form became a blur. With a single, devastating blow, the man was slain, reduced to scattering ash where his body had stood.

As Jae turned, the low flames surrounding him once more outlined his silhouette in a fiery aura. His gaze, directed at Elise, softened slightly. Her face was deathly pale, her lips parted in a mixture of shock and utter exhaustion.

"I told you," he stated, his voice calm, the inferno around him crackling more intensely than the sounds of the ongoing battle. "Stay close."

Elise's lips quivered. A dozen retorts pressed against them—words of defiance, pleas of self-sufficiency, the fervent argument that she could handle herself. Yet, not a single one escaped. Instead, what finally emerged was faint, seemingly fragile, but unmistakably clear.

"Thank you."

Byun's voice sliced through the din of conflict, sharp and dripping with smugness. "See? I had a feeling the farm boy had some kind of knight-in-fiery-armor routine hidden away. Be careful, Jae—keep pulling her from the flames like this, and she'll start expecting it every single day."

As his words fell, shadows whipped out, dragging another soldier facedown into the unforgiving earth. Byun offered a wink in Elise's direction, his grin uncontainable, even amidst the chaos of the storm.