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The battlefield is always changing. Nothing embodied that truism more than my own magitek knights turning their cannons towards me and firing off fireballs…

My mind was immediately thrown into disarray…

Exactly how am I supposed to dodge all those fireballs?! But if they are just fireballs… Maybe it’s not as bad as I first thought.

Heavensbreak!

The 72 plates of Heavensbreak formed up automatically into a giant shield. Just in time, too. As the last slice of Heavensbreak fell into place, the fireballs darkened the skies before me.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The explosions raged on unabated for five whole minutes before the dust began to settle around me. Flames scorched the lands, leaving nothing but a desolate wasteland as far as the eye could see.

While it might have seemed like I was in a bad shape, the truth couldn’t be any further. Lest one forgot, Wyrm was constructed with Red Dragon scales, and the one defining feature of such scales were that they could absorb Fire elements.

Forged with the same scales, Heavensbreak was unharmed by the barrage, even absorbing some of them in the process. Their scales gleamed that much brighter after what was supposed to be certain death.

Magitek knights all had their own mana limits. The mana cannons were mana intensive to begin with, let alone after having used a few barrages at the breach. At this point, they were spent and had to stop firing.

To the enemy, I was probably dead.

Technically speaking, the magitek knights could fire as much as they wanted thanks to their ability to absorb ambient mana in the air, but that level of replenishment wasn’t enough for such a concentrated barrage of fireballs.

“Oh my, maybe I shouldn’t have cut those corners during development, but that’s such a bother…”

Ferti’nier voice came in chiming, laced with the thickest sarcasm.

Hold on, Ferti’nier, what did I just hear you say?!

“Nothing. Your big sis wasn’t saying anything. Little brother, you must have heard wrongly. It’s actually sad. How can someone so young be going senile already? How about a hug to comfort you?”

Hmph. I know what I heard, don’t try to play coy with me. You thought it was a bother to implement a psychic defense system, that’s why you didn’t do it.

“Oh, that’s just hearsay, little brother. Your big sis said no such thing.”

Hah. And I thought you were a Lust Demon. Or did you change your Original Sin to Sloth?

“Mesmers aren’t even that common to begin with, even less so accomplished ones. To be able to control 90 pilots like that is even rarer. Your big sis just didn’t think you would bump into someone like that…”

So you did cut corners. Useless.

I blurted that out without thinking, but the moment I did so, I immediately regretted it. Ferti’nier wasn’t one to take a slight, no matter how minor, lying down…

“Oh… don’t be mad, little brother. Those brats are just under the temporary control of his Territory. Once you kill the mesmer, the control will come undone.”

I know that as well, but where is he?

“Above you, of course.”

Above me… She’s really being awful helpful today. Did her character change overnight? Or maybe she knows she messed up as well.

By now, the residual dust and rubble were gone, revealing Wyrm which was good as new.

“Impossible! After all that…”

A wizened voice gasped in surprise from above me. I looked up to find an old man hovering aboard a saucer-like magical tool. He was probably muttering to himself, but Wyrm was more than capable of picking up such anomalies.

That’s the mesmer? I guess there’s no one else other than him. If they were to bring too many, the plan would be easily exposed. And Ferti’nier herself said that he would be flying above me.

Still. That’s pretty high up. How cautious of him; he must have prepared for this ambush for a long time. I might not have even thought to look there if Ferti’nier hadn’t warned me beforehand.

“You think you’re safe just because you’re all the way up there? How naive… it’s time to pay for your crimes!”

Not wasting another word, I rushed at the old man with a surety completely at odds with the sense of safety he thought he enjoyed.

“Stop that thing!” Finally realizing how imminently dangerous my attack was, the old mage jumped back in fright, immediately commanding his enthralled magitek knights to try and stop me.

A second later, all 90 of the kids swarmed towards me without hesitation.

You think they can stop me? How futile. They aren’t as fast as Wyrm, and those mass-produced models aren’t capable of long flight.

Their lack of features was a conscious decision on my part, or rather, a conservative decision. I did not want the budget for each to go too high. Thus, they only had the ability to fly for short spurts.

I swatted away the closest magitek knight and sped on. Like a sword cleaving the sky, Wyrm took to the heavens unopposed, its target that old mesmer!

“Damned monster!”

His frail constitution obviously wasn’t suited for close-range combat. Psychic magic was an obscure discipline to begin with, so battle tactics were hardly on their minds when developing.

The mesmer had no guardian available to him. All he had were whatever tools he had for emergencies. Like a defensive scroll, or a magical shield of some sort. Naturally, he threw out all that he had, even going so far as to use that saucer as a shield.

I could see the fear in his eyes. But even his myriad layers of defenses weren’t going to spare him from my wrath!

“It’s no use. Cast all you want, but nothing will save you from daring to control my cute little subordinates!”

Having created over ten barriers, the old mage looked more like a flying saucer than a human at this point. Yet if there was someone I wanted to kill, nothing could stop me!

“Crack! Crack! Crack!”

Wyrm shattered each of his barriers without resistance, my dragonslayer greatsword tearing through them like paper. All around me, the signature cracking sound of a barrier shattering filled the air.

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With Ferti’nier at the helm, the Heavensbreak plates dove into the blinding cloud of dust. All around me, the screeches of metal against metal rang out, clawing at my ears with a ferocity never seen before .

Three seconds passed, and the stone giant abruptly lunged out of the dust cloud. I ducked to the side with Wyrm, evading him as he slammed into a nearby wall.

A deafen explosion rocked the fort as a sizable chunk of the wall exploded forth in a shower.

It was a mighty ambush, but useless as long as it did not connect.

Back faced towards me, I found that his back wasn’t as severely damaged as I would have hoped. There were scratches, but despite Heavensbreak’s multiple attacks, his own defenses were too high for the plates to leave any sizable wound.

There’s no choice, then. Melee, it is.

This time, I did not wait for Ferti’nier’s advice before diving in with Wyrm. While he was still recovering from his previous attack, I swung my greatsword as many times as I could physically muster at his exposed back.

As an Epic weapon, even his fortified skin wouldn’t come out unscathed.

The stone giant seemed to have picked up on this as well. Rather than try to face his body around, he frantically crawled ahead, ramming through the wall and whatever was unfortunate enough to be in his path.

A great number of Ertalonese soldiers were sent flying, even two of my own magitek knights were affected.

“Meat, you ain’t escaping from your fate that easily. Little brother, chase it down, don’t let it get away!”

Yeah. Yeah.

The stone giant fleeing wasn’t lost on the troops present. Their flagging morale instantly collapsed when they realized their vaunted overlord reinforcement was trying to escape as well. To begin with, the volley of fireballs had taken a huge toll on their numbers; there were less than one thousand of them at this point. Their second wave of attack was only holding on under the premise of that overlord still being in the battle. As long as their overlord was active, victory was still possible.

However, even that was no longer possible. That overlord wasn’t even a match for me. In fact, he was desperately running for his life. While he might have taken out two magitek knights in the process, that wasn’t intentional. And even counting them as taken out was being generous. The magitek knight possessed unbelievable defenses. While the machine might have been destroyed, the pilots were alive.

“Eight of you, stay behind as a contingency. The rest of you are with me!”

I had eight of them stay behind to mop up the remaining troops and take care of the two kids. The two magitek knight hulls still had to be recovered, and the wall was still a concern. In the meantime, it was time to hunt.

In all likelihood, that fellow was heading towards his main camp. With the 90 remaining magitek knights, they should be able to handle the troops there. Just one volley of their mana cannons alone would cow the troops into submission.

“With the Commander!”

Unlike the Ertalonese army, the kids couldn’t be more motivated even if they wanted to. With the winds behind their sails, they roared their acknowledgement at the idea of charging into the enemy’s main camp.

The stone giant’s speed was admirable. But before the flight mode of Wyrm, he was at best average. As I led my team in pursuit, I made sure to continue peppering him with my shoulder cannons. Even if they couldn’t bring him down, I wasn’t about to let up.

However, it was about that time when the cooldown on his magical dome recovered. A half-dome materialized out of thin air, blocking the fireballs with its shimmering blue magicks. A series of explosions shook the ground around us. The air itself became noticeably hotter from the residual heat.

Our pursuit continued for another five kilometers. Throughout the chase, the stone giant didn’t seem as panicked as he initially was. In fact, he seemed to be leading us somewhere, and that somewhere wasn’t his main camp.

Realizing that, I sped up Wyrm to its limit to try and chase him down this instant.

Dragonslayer greatsword in hand, I pointed at the stone giant and commanded, “Maintain artillery fire on the enemy, I’m heading in.”

“Understood!”

With the order given, the kids slowed down their speed to maintain a long distance from the stone giant before firing off their shoulder cannons.

With over 90 magitek knights lobbing fireballs his way, even that magical dome was only able to hold out for a few more seconds before it shattered and dissipated in the air. The remaining fireballs landed squarely on his back.

“Cowards! Fight me fair and square, if you dare!” The stone giant yelled angrily, though he didn’t seem all that hurt by their attacks.

I was already in the process of preparing for a dive when I saw a golden opportunity to shake him further.

“Idiot, what do you think soldiers are for?!”

The moment those words left my mouth, a surge of psychic energy hammered into me, encompassing my armor and the kids as well.

What’s going on? Where did this psychic field come from?

I immediately asked myself, but it was then that a voice started speaking in my head in a slow, soothing tone.

“Submit to me… be my slave… do not resist… If you do, your brain will implode… submitting is the only way…”

Unfortunately for the owner of that voice, psychic suggestions like that were useless, Territory or no Territory. With the bloodline of the Lust Demon and the Illusion Demon in me, my psychic defenses couldn’t be any stronger. Especially not when I had a Devil King residing in me; what was an overlord before that?

Even a Demigod might not be able to work his magic on me. And there was no way anyone would allow a mesmer to reach that level. This mesmer being an overlord was an oddity in itself.

I wonder how the Ertalonese king hid such a powerful mage and allowed him to become an overlord.

However, just because that mesmer’s suggestion did not work on me, did not mean the kids were okay…

As the effects of the psychic Territory washed over them, their barrage fire stopped. Instead, their cannons turned ominously towards me…

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So he’s the one who cast that barrier… I thought it was some barrier mage hiding amongst the troops that did it.

“Don’t just stand there, keep pressing the attack, little brother. Doesn’t matter if you use those mana cannons, just don’t stop attacking!”

Her reminder immediately jolted me back to reality. Her hint made me notice that, while the dome might be covered in cracks, they were visibly mending at an appreciable rate!

S̲h̲i̲t̲. I need to break that spell, quick.

With no time to waste, I summoned forth a 3.5 meters greatsword with a wave of my right hand.

Then like a great warrior of old, I raised the greatsword up high and brought it down on the stone giant.

Yet the stone giant was no slouch either. While it might have towered over me at ten meters tall, it wasn’t slow at all. It wasn’t fast as lightning, but it was only a smidge slower than Wyrm.

It was now or never. I had just dodged his palm strike barely and swerved to his back for a strike. Fully intending to end the fight now, I aimed right at his head!

“Crack…”

The mending barrier immediately shattered upon impact. However, just when I thought the dragonslayer greatsword would reach him, the stone giant spun around at unbelievable speeds to strike at me with his palm.

A sonic boom exploded in the air around me, his palm strike bearing down on me with a frightful wave of air pressure. I knew I couldn’t meet that headon and quickly tried to pull back my strike with a spin and backstep.

Phew… that was too close…

“His barrier requires time to reform and he dares not take a strike from your dragonslayer greatsword, so he rushed to counterattack. Little brother, your Wyrm still isn’t sturdy enough to survive a full blow from an overlord, it would be better if you use your mana cannons instead. As long as his outer defenses are broken, Heavensbreak can finish the job in an instant.”

As always, Ferti’nier was ready with her sagely advice as my personal “grandpa mentor”. This battle was no different. I had considered summoning my lioness, seeing as it had the ability to kill an overlord as well. But this was a battle to showcase my magitek armor, thus I gave up on that plan.

Now was the time to tell the world: the age of magitek has arrived!

In a lot of ways, this shield-wielding man was a bad match for Wyrm. My strongest weapon against overlords was that I had Pseudo-Territory Resistance. However, that only worked if the Territory exerted an external influence on me. Self-enhancement Territories were not affected at all.

But that did mean I was helpless either. Battles at this level were a matter of skill, too. And I still had cards to play that weren’t tied to Wyrm.

Regardless, now was the time for action. I opened up my shoulder compartments once more and launched a barrage of fireballs.

Yet that did not deter the stone giant at all. He continued peppering me with palm strikes and stomps. From a distance, our battle looked like an oversized man trying to swat away a bird, even though that stone giant wasn’t at all slow.

As my barrage continued, Ferti’nier’s hypothesis of his defenses soon bore fruit. The magical dome from before was most likely a measure against my magical attacks. Correspondingly, it was weak to physical attacks. Without that dome to protect him, his own metallic skin wasn’t able to bear the brunt of my magical attack.

On my end, the barrage of fireballs had taken a huge toll on my reserves. Had it not been for the fact that this entire suit was powered by an overlord dragon’s crystal core, I would have ran out of gas already.

Each fireball’s power wasn’t high, but when they constantly struck at the same spot, even the stone giant was beginning to feel the heat. There wasn’t a single spot on his skin that wasn’t scorched.

Three minutes into the battle, he was finally beginning to slow down.

But just when I was feeling confident in my kiting tactics, that blue dome sprang to life once more, blocking the dozen or so fireballs still rushing towards him.

I take it that means his cooldown is up… what a bother.

At a glance, his dome was able to fend against magical attacks. But it wasn’t very flexible. Even if the dome did not hinder himself from leaving its protective radius, re-adjusting the position of the dome wasn’t that easy. It took a whole three minutes for it to be deployed again. And as long as I could break the shield, I had three minutes to pepper him with magic.

Having realized that weakness, I ducked in with Revolution Slice, dodging his palm strike in the process. Nearby, his own troops were sent flying by the missed attack…

At the same time that I dodged his attack, I landed a heft strike against the stone giant’s blue dome. A crack swiftly snaked across its flawless exterior. Sensing the damage, the stone giant promptly tried to stomp on me.

I ducked underneath once more with Revolution Slice and landed another strike on the dome.

One after another, I spun around the massive dome, landing strikes while dodging the attacks that flew out. Each slice created a deafening crash, before finally an explosion occurred and the sound of falling glass filled the air.

Defenses destroyed, the stone giant wasted no time at all in trying to flatten me with his entire body. My surroundings immediately darkened and I could tell I had to get out right now!

“Boom!”

A massive earthquake soon followed. The walls of the fort seemed to jump off its foundations for a second there, and the world seemed to have turned upside down.

This was the first time he had attempted a full-body attack, and it was most likely meant to be a surprise move.

Unfortunately, I was a veteran of certain video games. And every gamer knew that a stone giant always had a move like that.

Ignoring the cloud of dust and rubble around me, I quickly sent out the 72 plates of Heavensbreak for a coup de grace!

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Was there anything more shocking than killing an overlord? Naturally. Like killing a Demigod…

But that’s enough daydreaming for now, there’s still a battle to be fought… and some well-deserved shut-eye afterwards.

Upon slaying the no-longer hidden -and no longer alive- experts, Heavensbreak did a quick turnaround towards me. Standing with his shield raised before me, the blonde man practically jumped with fright when he noticed them flying right in his direction. He panicked and raised his shield above his head, yelling, “Territory: Guardian of Earth!”

As his Territory activated, the emerald on his shield began to emit a blinding light. A craggy layer of rock materialized out of thin air, forming a protective skin on every nook and cranny of his skin. Yet the rocky growth did not stop there. In less than three seconds, his size rapidly expanded till there was naught but a massive ten meters tall rocky giant before me…

His body was covered in a glowing orange stone, similar to magma, but there was a noticeable diamond-shaped indentation in the center with a shield embedded. The very same emerald-studded shield he raised above his head.

“Fortitude of Stone!” A sonorous voice rang out from the stone titan. The magma around him instantly turned into a silvery gray metal that could only be described as impenetrable.

It was at that instant that Heavensbreak collided into his newly fortified skin. Like a deadly chainsaw, the 72 plates sliced circles around him with such force that sparks filled the air.

In just one attack, the otherwise flawless metal layer was etched with massive cuts across its entire length.

“Little brother, your opponents seem to have employed a Territory skill with a high physical defense, we can use a magical attack to counter that.”

A Territory skill?

“That’s right, a skill which an overlord creates from his Territory. A further distortion of the world’s laws, thereby enhancing the effects of the original Territory… A natural evolution when one learns how to manipulate the laws of the world.”

So a more advanced usage of the Territory and the laws of the world.

“Exactly, the fact that this human has managed to comprehend and develop a skill means he’s an elite even amongst overlords. His soul is worth at least 500,000 mortal souls. Don’t let him escape him, your big sis is eating good tonight!”

You say that… but killing and just defeating the man are two different concepts entirely. Both would shock the world and achieve the result I need… For the sake of the Western Human Realms, and turning magitek armors into a mainstream weapon of war, you will be my sacrifice!

And given our hostile relations with his employer, there’s no reason at all to show kindness towards an enemy. Even if I am only under the King’s temporary employment.

“Little brother, leave the small fries to your big sis, just focus on the big one over there.”

With the prospect of souls to be harvested through Heavensbreak, Ferti’nier had been more than enthusiastic in her job. As of now, her results alone in remotely controlling those plates had exceeded those one hundred magitek knights. It was only in such situations that this greedy she-devil ever showed such efficiency.

I sighed inwardly then focused back on the ten meter tall giant, still adopting a defensive stance as before. “I’m sorry, but I will need you to die today.”

“Cowardly cur, the only one dying today is you!” The stone giant’s sonorous voice rang out once more. At the same time, he raised his right feet. “I will flatten you to pieces!”

The giant’s foot was large enough to cover half a magitek knight, which was already an astonishing three meters in its own right. I knew I couldn’t meet that attack head-on, so I quickly ducked to the side with Wyrm.

Its foot immediately left a giant crater where I was mere seconds ago. Even the ground around us began to quake, causing the other ordinary troops nearby to lose their balance in the process.

I took to the skies immediately, but the stone giant seemed to have predicted this move as a pair of rapidly growing palms slammed in from the sides.

“Bang!”

Even the air around me was shaking from the impact. Still recovering from the first shockwave, those ordinary troops were immediately buffeted by a deafening sound wave, forcing them to cup their eyes in pain.

Thankfully, my quicker reflexes allowed me to dodge his lumbering attack. I skirted around to the stone giant’s back, shoulder compartment opening with an audible click, and mana cannons blazing with magical energy.

A second later, dozens of fireballs flooded out of the cannon arrays. Wyrm’s own cannons had been modified with the Fire element, just like the other mass-produced magitek knights. It could now fire off mana shots and fireballs. Furthermore, the speed at which I could fire those attacks were incomparable to those mass-produced models. In just one second, dozens of fireballs had been fired. This withering barrage continued for fifteen seconds until the whole stone giant was covered in explosions and residual smoke.

Within those fifteen seconds, troops from both sides had tacitly agreed to back away, lest they were caught in our apocalyptic battle.

Firing off those fireballs non-stop was going to be a huge burden on mana, thus when I felt that enough was enough, I willed the cannons to stop. However, the smoke generated from my barrage had left a smokescreen, stopping me from assessing the aftermath of my attack.

According to Ferti’nier’s assessment, that “Fortitude of Stone” should be a physical defense skill. In other words, its magical defense shouldn’t be all that high.

Even so, I had no illusions that a round of cannon fire could kill off my opponent; he was an overlord.

Just as the explosions started to die down and I began observing the smoke, a rocky hand shot out of the smoke towards me!

The stone giant had nearly caught me off-guard again… but my impressive reflexes, coupled with the fact that I was already expecting an attack, allowed me to dodge it at the last second, barely grazing its fingers.

Having failed with that attack, the stone giant took a lumbering stride out of the smoke. But before its entire body had even left the smoke, a blue dome of magic, covered in cracks all over, materialized around him. It was the same dome that had protected the troops from my magitek knights.

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“With me!”

I dove from the heavens like a blazing comet, carried on the magical wings of Wyrm, striking the dome-like barrier of the Ertalonese army below me.

Already on the verge of collapse, the barrier shattered like glass upon impact. Yet Wyrm continued plunging ahead. All it took was one more second and that army would have been done for.

However, that second never happened. A meaty shield had risen to block my progress!

It was a man raising a shield in hand that stood before me and my goal. A ten meter radius around us had been blown clean from the sheer shockwave of our clash. Outside, the soldiers that were thrown away by the sheer forces generated fared only marginally better than if they had just been struck.

Towering above the blonde, short-haired man with a shield, I sized up my new opponent. He was strong, or rather, he was pure muscle, like his head itself was just an extension of his chest muscles.

His shield seemed to be of excellent make. The fact that it was still in pristine condition after our cataclysmic clash was no better proof of that.

It was diamond-shaped, and was as tall as a tower shield, being able to cover the greater part of the man. From tip to tip, it was a pure hue of yellow, lustrous like fine jade. In the center was a fist-sized emerald cut and set mimicking the shield it rested in. Even from within Wyrm I could sense the abundance of Earth energies coming off it.

Without a doubt, that shield was an Epic shield, bearing the same miraculous abilities you would expect of one.

“Such a marvelous construct, never would I have expected that someone would be able to stand up to me thanks to mere armor.” The blonde man spoke up first. His stance was relaxed, as if I wasn’t even an enemy worth mentioning.

Likewise, I wasn’t one to put much stock into the words of an enemy, especially since the kids were already charging behind me in their magitek knights.

“Hold the breach, leave this guy to me!” I barked curtly before rushing at the man.

Yet just as I took off, the metallic plates of Heavensbreak burst forth in a fan. And like a knife in the dark, the enemies the kids were rushing towards were already beheaded by a scarlet rhombohedron.

Eh? What’s going on with Heavensbreak?

It was at that point that a bunch of higher-starred warriors of the Ertalonese army rushed out from their hiding spots and attacked the magitek knights.

Just from their abundant aura, I could tell that these were at least six-stars, with some even being eight-stars!

S̲h̲i̲t̲… those aren’t opponents the kids can handle right now. Let alone handling, they will just get slaughtered in an instant! Crap!

I should have realized earlier that if our enemy even has an Epic shield-wielding warrior on their side, they must have higher-starred warriors in their ranks as well!

But just as I started to panic, another miracle happened.

The 72 metallic plates of Heavensbreak did a roundabout turn and flew at every one of those warriors, and under the disbelieving eyes of that arrogant blonde warrior, his vaunted elite troops were slain by their stealthy attack…

Just like that over thirty lifeless heads now decorated the silent battlefield with an ominous roll. Their stumps of a head spurted blood like a fountain. Each of the slices came from the back and were executed with surgical precision. Even their unfortunate victims had looks of shock on their faces when they suddenly realized they were dead.

At the last second, their body instinctively told them that their life was about to end. However, that was no use. Because Heavensbreak was too powerful!

How the tables had turned on the blonde man. What was supposed to be a slaughter by their side turned into a one-sided victory for us. Even now, his eyes were popping out of their sockets from the surprise he felt.

But he wasn’t the only one that was stunned, I was as well.

Heavensbreak had acted completely independent of me. I had no part in this slaughter, and even my special technique of remotely controlling objects simultaneously hadn’t reached such a level yet…

“Little brother, don’t just stand there, hit him.”

Suddenly, a familiar voice rang out in my head.

“Big sis… So that was your handiwork with Heavensbreak?”

“Of course it is, who else but your big sis would help you? Your big sis over here knows your desire to protect those brats, but there’s no need to thank her, that’s just how great of a sister she is!”

Hah, you think this is the first day I’ve known you? You just want those souls.

Despite my words, I was genuinely surprised that Ferti’nier was behaving so well since the start of this war. With how many dead there were here, I had heard nary a peep from Ferti’nier about harvesting them. Souls dissipated quickly when exposed, but they were still harvestable near the time of their deaths.

In all likelihood, she was concerned about keeping my identity secret. Tampering with a human soul was a capital offense in the human realms, after all. Munching on a couple of souls in secret was one thing, openly doing so was just madness. In fact, this battle would instantly turn into two kingdoms working together to get me…

However, if she was the one to kill them with Heavensbreak, matters were different. Since her will was controlling those plates, she could harvest the souls through them as well. That way, no one would be none the wiser of her duplicity.

“Oh my, our little brother has really gotten smarter recently. But don’t worry, your big sis knows to be discreet.”

Discreet or not, I had no choice but to believe in her.

“Let’s take care of the enemies first. An overlord soul is worth a hundred thousand of these mortal souls, so start hitting him!”

Yes, yes. You don’t have to tell me twice. It’s not like I can spread the fame of our magitek armors by just being nice to him. And what else would be more shocking than slaying an overlord?

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A single volley later, over a thousand of our enemies were slain!

With that, the battlefield descended into an eerie silence; not only were our enemies stunned, even our allies were just as shocked.

The members of the Magitek Knight Corp were similarly frightened by their horrifically effective volley. Despite learning about the power of these mana cannons prior, mere numbers lacked the sheer gravitas that a thousand blown up corpses provided.

Unlike their dead comrades, the three-star soldiers remaining had the ability to wrap their Fighter’s Aura around themselves, giving them a much tougher defense compared to the two-stars.

While a two-star was still able to enhance his body with his aura, that only made him stronger than an average human. Perhaps one single fireball was manageable, but what about two? Three? With how concentrated our carpet bombing was, they stood no chance at all.

As the dust settled on the battlefield, those that were fortunate enough to be outside of the volley’s range knew to escape while they still could, lest another came right after…

“Tell the commander here, the stragglers on the walls are his, I will bring my men to the breach. And depending on the situation, I might even launch a counterattack.” I grabbed a passing soldier and relayed the message. Then without waiting for an answer, I raised my hand and yelled, “Forward!”

Step by thunderous step, our massive metallic frames began to march forward. Even with each magitek knight weighing over a ton, one could almost mistake them for actual human knights thanks to their humanlike movements. Even their orderly formation, a result of those eight days of training, served to further reinforce this imagery.

“Boom…boom … boom…”

Wherever we went, a tiny tremor would shake the lands, like drumsticks striking a massive battledrum. Even from a distance away, our sonorous warsong brought fear into the hearts of the invaders. No amount of preparation or gear could prepare them for the doom that gripped their hearts like a vice.

The soldiers before us parted way without exception, even those who were desperately trying to flee mere moments ago.

Our message was clear: wall or no wall, we still held the cards in this battle.

“Perhaps they are the secret weapon of this fort?”

“Still… are they even human at this point?”

“Can a human even be that tall?”

“That doesn’t matter, we have the advantage now!”

“Reclaim the wall!”

“Chase away the invaders!”

Having recovered their morale somewhat, the soldiers began to rally around their metallic saviors. In that sense, calling this the Messianic Knights series was quite apt… But still ostentatious…

The brats riding these metallic constructs basked in the admiring gazes of the soldiers until…

“Prepare the next volley! Our target: the breach ahead!”

I promptly brought them back to reality. Thankfully, those eight days of drilling them had left them… sensitive to my commands. All it took was a single bark and they were dragged back to their senses.

Just in time, too. The enemy hadn’t, in fact, given up on attacking and was already preparing for another charge.

To be honest, I would have had a harder time blasting them if they had chosen to charge right into the fort when they had the chance. Instead, they chose to secure the walls over routing their enemies. It was a sound decision with pros and cons, and one that would have worked for sure had it not been for my sudden interference.

They had gone through the effort of staging an elaborate siege on the north wall, hired an overlord to blast a forbidden spell at the wall, all for naught. Now that they had the ineviable of trying to reclaim the advantage by sending more of their troops into the meat grinder.

Unfortunately, this second wave was doomed to failure from the start. With a single raise of my hand, another volley of fireballs came raining down on them.

Yet the same death and destruction did not happen. At the very instant I expected the fireballs to strike, a blue dome of energy surged forth, shielding the soldiers beneath from harm.

Like raindrops to an umbrella, the fireballs pelted the blue dome, causing minute ripples all over the thin layer, but ultimately failing to breach the dome.

A stalemate had been achieved, but not for long. Over a thousand fireballs had been launched, and only half had landed thus far. By the midway point, cracks began to appear as the accumulated damage began to overload the spell. Once the thousand mark had been crossed, the dome finally gave in, shattering like a pane of glass.

Even so, I did not order a third wave of fireballs; the fuel for those mana cannons was limited and I did not want them to be spent in just the opening phase.

It was time for me to act. Like a fiery arrow, I dove into the collapsing dome with Wyrm, yelling mid-air, “Charge!”

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Some of the troops had already begun deserting their posts by the time we arrived in the fort. As they frantically fled, they clashed with their reinforcing comrades who were just as frantic in rushing to the battlefield. Chaos ensued, and no amount of executions or punishments were able to stem this slowly growing tide of hopelessness…

In contrast, the enemies weren’t in a hurry to chase down the deserters. Rather, they were meticulously taking up positions along the remaining wall sections.

True to the name as the “Iron Wall of Andassis”, the soldiers manning the surviving sections of the wall were still holding strong, in part due to the fort’s impressive history, and in part due to the General’s own charisma.

The title of “Iron Wall” wasn’t just given in vain. Every brick of this fort had seen wars where the numbers dwarfed this current assault. Yet the fort stayed strong throughout. In some sense, the walls were a symbol to the soldiers that manned it. Thus when the wall fell for the western defenders, their morale crumbled along with it. With how sudden the whole attack was, there was no way for any of them to prepare for the mental shock. Thus the western section swiftly spiraled out of control.

From the very beginning, they weren’t even on equal grounds with their enemies. Without a wall to hold the enemy back, there wasn’t even a chance of victory. Those who tried to resist were cut down without mercy.

In a normal army of the Western Human Realms, a soldier would roughly be a one-star. A section leader of ten would be a two-star. Yet the soldiers invading this breach were all at the minimum a two-star.

The enemy had only focused on the northern section of the fort thus far, giving the illusion that their main encampment and forces were in the north. Naturally, Cleoz knew that wasn’t an indication that the enemy would never attack from other walls. He had even stationed some experts on the other three walls as a precaution. Even so, the worst came to pass, and his precautions proved insufficient.

After all, what were a few experts to do in the face of an army?

It was clear now that the northern assault was actually a front and cover for the assault on the west. With this ambush, they were hoping to breach the fort and take down their enemies swiftly!

Our arrival was more than timely in that case. Not that this was all planned… the General simply decided to throw whatever he had at the wall to buy time for reinforcements. He wasn’t expecting us to do much in this situation; we were the newcomer knight order perfect as sacrificial pawns.

Unbeknownst to our dear general, our numbers might have been small, but we were more powerful than any old six-star warrior!

Not that any of those brats could actually beat a six-star warrior in a one-on-one battle…

There was still some distance towards our target, but I could already see that the owner of the remaining western walls had changed. Wherever I looked, I could see the insignia of the Ertalon kingdom emblazoned on the soldiers. With the occupation of this section, the enemy was starting to shift their main forces towards the breach.

In contrast, the reinforcements from our side had difficulty even approaching the area thanks to the deserters causing chaos.

“I’ve heard that this fort is quite sturdy,” I suddenly asked the soldier beside me. “I’m sure the walls are still sturdy enough even with that breach, but what about the inner section of the fort?”

“It should be just as sturdy…” the soldier answered without much certainty. “Other than this instance, the fort had never suffered such severe damage.”

“That’s good then.” I summoned Wyrm to my side and began commanding my new subordinates. “Prepare the mana cannons. The target: the enemy at the breach.”

After eight days of training, while the kids might still have difficulty pulling off some complex maneuvers, coordinated attacks were no problem at all.

A series of clicks rang out around me as their shoulder plates opened up to reveal the deadly weapon within. The air around started to heat up as mana began to coalesce.

“Engage carpet bombing… Fire the first volley!”

Having gone through some modifications, the mana cannons on the magitek knights had been infused with Fire elements. Sphere after sphere of fiery mana blasted out of their cannons at an impressive rate of two fireballs per second. The entire barrage lasted a whole ten seconds before they finally stopped!

The unending rain of fire took to the skies in a parabolic arc towards the area where the troops fought each other in a deadly charge. The battle was at its peak right now, thus when the Ertalonese soldiers finally noticed the heat above them… it was too late.

The poor soldiers raised their heads only to find death staring back in the form of a dazzling fire storm from the heavens. Countless fireballs rained down upon them like a deadly fireworks display, exploding the moment they came into contact with something…

This entire attack used the most basic of controls for the magitek knight. Something even these kids could pull off after eight days of training. I made sure to teach them the operations of their mana cannons, allowing them to pull this attack flawlessly.

With how dense the bombing was, there was maximum coverage over the target area, all the while ensure that none of the fireballs impacted each other. A huge swathe of soldiers were wiped out in this first volley. Anyone that wasn’t a three-star had been burnt to a crisp…

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