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“My lord…”
“It’s a completely pointless battle to engage in.”

The head leaders of the Camelot troops came to me and tried to change my mind, but I simply shook my head lightly.

“That is truly amazing. I’m not sure whether to call your overwhelming courage simply foolhardiness though.”

Hearing Lucas provoke me further, I didn’t give much response in return.

“Then shall we begin?”
“Hm…”

I simply showed that I wasn’t willing to wait too long for the challenge to begin, to my slight delight, he gave a frown.

And with that as the sign, every single guild member of both the Shining guild and Camelot guild started to move aside from me.

It was a movement that had happened without anyone giving orders. I was concerned about the battle, but even when both sides were within engagement range, they simply fought with words instead of actually fighting. Whether they were allies or enemies, anyone could realize that this battle between me and the Crusaders would decide the outcome of the war.

Didn’t Lucas say that with his own mouth?

I whispered to one of my allied leaders nearby.

It would be great if a promise would make it come true, but…

With a bitter smile, I surveyed the enemies.

Lucas and The Crusaders both started to set up a formation. They weren’t actually expecting me to take up the challenge against them, as the hurried and messy way they set up their formation looked humorous to me.

The challenge had already begun anyways.

The range to the enemy was just enough as well. I was currently standing above them on the castle wall while they were on the ground below me.

“Heh!”

If I was Lucas, I would never have given myself a chance like this. But thanks to him not realizing this, it had become the greatest hope I was riding on.

“T… that’s…!”

It seemed they realized pretty quickly. However, the skill had already started activating. If they didn’t attack me immediately, then this skill would never be able to be canceled.

Unfortunately for them, they had no users among them that had ranged attacks. Though it was just a certain quirk of the Crusader’s, it was now the reason for their doom.

Soon a golden aura started to grow and expand out of me. Then I brought out the Excalibur wreathed in golden aura and put it to my lips.

I couldn’t keep up with the numerous system messages that instantly started appearing.

“Spread! Spread out!”

Lucas hurriedly yelled out as if he had finally figured it out. It was certainly not a bad order since it was definitely impossible to block it…

But they were too close to each other to safely dodge the Requiem attack.

“Aaahhh!”

Users that weren’t part of the Crusaders already started to run away even without having to hear Lucas’s shout, but the ones that were close to the Crusaders weren’t lucky.

Then, the shining golden doom was prepared for them all.

Shouting out the activation word at the same time as I stomped my foot down, I drew a cutting slice with the Excalibur towards the enemy formation.

B-B-Boom!

With the powerful sound of explosions, even the screams of pain were drowned out as I completely annihilated the Crusaders that were in my path. As the epic skill power was about to end, I pulled out two high grade potions and downed them right away.

I was given an ‘invincible’ status for 2 seconds whenever I complete the execution of Requiem, but if I were to drink a potion right at this moment, I had a very high probability of dying afterwards.

I’d experienced this twice now in the past, so I realized the problem and decided to put in a moment to drink down a few potions before completion of the skill even if the final part of the attack skill would be lower in damage output.

In Blue Sky, potions didn’t necessarily refill your health right away. The healing potency was spread out over time, and the amount of recovery and duration differed from each grade of potions. But if you were to drink down the potion ahead of time even if you were at full health, it meant that the amount of health being refilled would allow you to take at least one direct attack from an enemy even if you suddenly had low health and was waiting for it to refill.

Swoosh-!

A flash of metal as well as the sound of metal slicing through the air rang out. Just as I expected, the moment my skill had been executed, the enemies all jumped in to attack me.

Had I been caught off guard it may have been different, but since I was prepared for their attack to commence right afterwards, I was completely ready for it. I bent my body slightly as I dodged their attack, while using the same momentum to use my knee to deliver a blow to the enemy’s stomach.

“Kgh!”

I used the moment they used to wobble and cough in pain as a chance to swing my Excalibur down on them.

Slash…

A death without so much as a scream to go with. But soon afterwards, one of the Crusaders who had come back to his senses after seeing the devastating and brutal murder of his comrades came at me with both anger and fear in his eyes.

They must have realized it by instinct as well. That I won’t be able to execute such a powerful attack again and that they shouldn’t give me any distance or space…

“Don’t give her time to drink a potion!”

And their leader, Lucas was still there as well.

“So you’ve finally decided to lift up your big butt to come and fight me?”
“Only I’d be able to defend against your sword even for a short moment, after all.”

He answered my provocation easily.

Now I definitely felt the sense of a great leader coming from him. It was my pet theory that all guild leaders who lead guilds of this size were always the type to lead by example, and it seemed right here as well.

If he had come out like this in the beginning, the tide of battle would have been tilted to their side just like I had presumed it would be. Well, the past didn’t really matter now, and right now I knew that while I was happy for him to be involved directly in the battle, it would also be a tougher battle for me.

Now, the Crusaders would be attacking me with Lucas as the center. Though I was glad that they didn’t have any healers by their sides, if I didn’t land a precise singular strike on Lucas that killed him in one hit, he would easily fall back to the Crusaders if he was wounded, and the Crusaders would defend him while he recovered. It meant that this skirmish was not in my favor.

“Haaah!”

Yelling out a strange shout, Lucas rushed towards me. If he was activating an active skill that only looked flashy in the guise of attacking me, I would have called him a fool but it seemed like he certainly had his share of battle experience since he wasn’t doing such foolish things.

Clang!

With a loud sound of steel clashing, my sword and Lucas’ met. Of course, as I had an overwhelmingly higher level and stat, it meant that I was able to easily defend myself against Lucas’s attack while on the other hand, Lucas must have felt my power vibrating through the sword as he was trembling and barely holding onto the sword with two hands.

“Everyone, support Lucas from the side and behind!”

Though the tactic was thought of in an instant, the Crusaders who realized the situation knew what to do and started to attack me from all directions.

At this rate, I’d have to give up on trying to save up on my mana usage. I turned on my [Wind Walk] as well as [Force Blade] skill right away and dodged the attacks that the Crusaders began to make.

Though they were miles above in their attack speed than others, they were all warrior classes meaning that they didn’t have particularly high dexterity. I wonder just how many of them had actually higher dexterity than me? My dexterity stats were on par with most high level assassin class users.

But though my dexterity was high, it was certainly difficult to avoid every single attack coming from all sides as I had to make sure my controls were on point in dodging everything. If I were using one sword and shield I might be able to block some of them, but there was a limit to how much a two-handed sword user could dodge and block.

Therefore the actions I took most often were to use the enemy’s body to block the attack coming from another enemy.

“Die!”

Sometimes one of the enemies who had lost their sense of calm and control would try to recklessly stab me from a direction I didn’t expect. There was an enemy trying to do the same right now but I wasn’t willing to let his simple reckless attack connect with me.

Dodging his stabbing attack with ease, I moved to the place behind his back so that I would block another enemy’s attack by using his body as a shield.

But since they were allies, the enemy who was struck by another didn’t take any damage, though I still used it to my advantage by simply spinning around his body and easily taking down enemy Crusaders with my sword.

“Damn it, you idiot! Come back to the formation! I can’t attack properly!”
“Who’s the b̲a̲s̲t̲a̲r̲d̲ that’s being played with?!”

The Crusaders yelled out their complaints, but I wasn’t willing to let go of this foolish enemy that was like a plaything in my hands that I used efficiently.

If he were to attempt to join their formation again, I would appear in front of him and do a feint attack, looking as if I was going to attack him for doing so. He would then go into a defensive stance, and the enemy’s formation in the meantime was naturally open to let him in. I would then meet their open formation with my actual attack.

“Ah damn it! Front lines, just execute your attack skills! Everyone, cover them!”

Lucas yelled out his orders to his troops, losing his cool in the endless attacks I was dishing out.

Then again, in a chaotic situation like this, it was useless to send a whisper so what he did was probably the best thing to do in this situation. The problem was that because of how I was holding one of the Crusaders as a hostage to help me maneuver around their attacks, they needed to keep an eye out for both me and the Crusader.

Compared to regular attacks, active skills needed the user to be at a slightly different stance, and the stronger skill required bigger movements to activate it. If you were a veteran, you’d always be able to tell the difference between a regular attack and an active skill. On top of that, using active skills would leave the user completely vulnerable for a few seconds.

“Aaargh!”

As usual, I continued racking up the kill count using those vulnerable moments and with how the Crusaders were studying my every move, they knew that I wouldn’t dare use an active skill attack due to how little free time I have.

For a moment, the enemies hesitated to attack. It seemed like they had come to a conclusion that attacking any further while I was still holding a hostage was completely useless.

“F̲u̲c̲k̲ off, you’re telling me to just die?”

Though none of them said that to him directly, it no longer mattered whether I left the hostage alive as the enemy forces were no longer trying to attack me. He must have realized that fact and yelled out in a confused terror, but there was no reply from anyone.

It was a harsh judgment, but I would have also come to the same conclusion. He was simply a piece of baggage for me now after all. The hostage dropped his sword, shocked by the decision of his allies.

“Shining will fall to ruins! Damn you a… Argh!”

And with that, I cut off his head in a clean strike. Though it could have been a bit useful to keep using him for lure and distraction, cutting down enemy morales this way was useful as well.

“What are you all doing!”

The Crusaders were all standing there shocked by my action for a moment, and Lucas roared at them angry that they weren’t doing anything.

But of course, it was too late for them.

Yet another calamity tier skill was executed through my Excalibur. They’re really slow folks, aren’t they?

The scenery that was left behind after the blue wave passed them was very violent. The ones that had little health left all died immediately, while others that didn’t die kept drinking health potions trying to stay alive from the blue flames that burned their body.

Those that weren’t in the direct line of damage from my attack were doing better. Among them included Lucas, which disappointed me a bit.

As I had completely run out of mana with that attack, I quickly down a mana potion. The Crusaders who were many in numbers were cut down quite a lot.

“This is insane. Even though I and the Crusaders are working together, we still ended up like this.”

Lucas laughed bitterly to himself, voicing out the disappointment of his forces.

“It may have ended differently if you were a group of assassins or mages, but for Crusaders who were made up of the same classes as me, it was actually easier for me to take you all down.”

While cutting down the Crusaders who were still busy putting out the blue flames on their body, I kindly explained why I was so superior in this fight.

The enemy forces have practically fallen apart now that their formation was broken. The only reasons they were still fighting were because of their petty pride as Crusaders as well as the fact Lucas was still with them.

“Though the number of Crusaders reached up to 200, there were only 10 that would have been able to directly harm me. If your group had healers or ranged magic users, then I wouldn’t have achieved a victory this easily.”
“You may be right, but it seems like your dodging skills alone may have been enough to decide this battle in your favor.”

It seemed like they were shocked by how great I was able to dodge, though I was clenching my buttocks real hard all throughout those moments. If they also experienced 5 long years of hunting monsters without drinking many potions at all, they wouldn’t say such things.

Well, I couldn’t really say anything since it was the synergy of experience, great equipment and high level that allowed me to emerge victoriously.

“Now then, will you continue to fight?”

I asked with a smile on my face, his tone sounded as if he knew he had already lost.

“I’m sure that the aggressive takeover taking place at our sponsor company was your planning, is that right?”

Ah. It seemed like the request I’ve left to Butler had been going well. The best tactic in war was to starve out the enemy forces by getting rid of their sponsors, so I decided to aim for my company to attempt a hostile takeover tactic over the main sponsor companies of Shining and Chaos.

My family name had vast enough wealth to attack both large corporations at the same time, and it seemed to be working effectively as well.

“I will not deny your claim.”
“If I were to surrender, will you take us in?”

Damn it. This was no different than him threatening me. If I were to reject his offer then all of the Shining guild forces surrounding and watching us would immediately attack me, and even though the Crusaders did lose a lot of forces and were in tatters, it seemed like there were still fifty to sixty of them left.

“So you’re saying you want to put your guild under the Camelot Alliance.”
“That’s right.”
“The territories that your guild owns may become redistributed, and the vested rights that the Shining guild has may fall apart completely.”
“I will accept the results. Those that don’t follow me loyally will quit the guild anyways.”

I nodded my head. It was Lucas that was surrendering here, which didn’t include all the officers of the guild. But still, with his title as guild master, he will be able to bring a large number of lower-ranked members with him when he joins our alliance. For the Camelot Alliance which had a critical lack of personnel, it was a very favorable suggestion.

“It’s such an unconventional condition that I feel worried about accepting it.”

As I displayed my honest opinion about it, Lucas smirked.

“Hmph. I’ve already declared it so. I didn’t support this war in the first place anyways. It was the work of two sub-guild leaders, and I had nothing to do with it. However, I couldn’t give voice to my opinion back then so I guess it was my fault for not speaking up that it had come to this.”

I nodded my head. I’m sure there were many private things happening within the Shining guild that I have no idea about.

“Lastly, you were the one who had brought about this war, Artoria. I wanted to say that your influence has a profound impact on the whole server.”