The combined legion of the Revolution Army and the Kingdom of Ferma, numbering nearly thirty thousand, thundered across the night plain.

Two powers that had snarled as if they could never coexist had finally sheathed their blades under the Church’s mediation. “Mediation” may have been a stretch for this negotiation, but the fissure between the people of Ferma and the Empire ran far deeper than such semantics. Had it not been for the coercive leverage of force, neither side would likely have accepted any compromise.

Irexana, hearing the news belatedly, couldn’t help but admire it and expressed it honestly.

“You have a remarkable eye, Hero. You’ve managed to reach a compromise at a level that preserves Valter’s pride and Ferma’s honor.”

“Huh...?” Leon looked bewildered, as he didn’t fully understand how things had unfolded, even though he’d set them in motion.

After all, the Hero had no taste for political calculation.

Irexana laughed pleasantly. “Hahaha! Of course, I expected as much.”

Cardinals of the Holy Church were people who had endured decades—often a century—of austere hardship and had met every kind of human in that time. Reading a person was trivial to them. It was even easier with someone young and sincere like Leon.

He had only acted on what he believed to be right, Irexana thought.

Suppressing pointless slaughter—even by force if necessary—had produced the best outcome. That was a hero’s duty: to make ideals tangible where mere wisdom disguised as prudence could not.

The other Cardinals seemed to reach the same conclusion and exchanged soft, satisfied smiles. El-Cid, however, sounded skeptical.

—It’s like the net of a sleeper catching a fish.

Is that... good? Leon asked.

—Man, you really are dumb.

El-Cid breathed a long sigh before falling silent.

Dawn was already breaking on the far horizon. As the sky brightened, the landscape became visible without torches. The thunder of tens of thousands of hooves ran like a force tearing the clouds apart.

Then, shouts rose from the vanguard.

“The Capital! It’s the Capital, Calelum!”

Leon turned in the direction of the cry, and his eyes went wide, hardly able to believe what he saw.

An absurdly tall, massive curtain of a wall rose on the horizon. Simply gazing at it distorted one’s sense of scale.

“It still stands. That dreadful wall,” Irexana murmured in a voice heavy with something unlike surprise, and Adela followed with a cutting remark.

“They say over a million slaves died building that pale wall? Calling it ‘White Peak’—what a pretentious name. ‘Corpse Mountain’ or ‘Blood Barrier’ would be more fitting.”

“A million?” Elahan asked, aghast.

“It’s true, Saintess,” Irexana replied, nodding before he explained the grim truth. “The figure was tallied with not an ounce of exaggeration. The Empire, at the time, confiscated the rights of prisoners whose ransom had gone unpaid and forced them into brutal labor.”

Old records described hellish conditions—barely fed, barely clothed, and barely alive. The sick and wounded were disposed of on the spot, thrown over cliffs. Those who survived and returned were less than a fraction of a percent of the total workforce.

“What monstrous thing to do...! Even as a victor, there must be lines of humanity one should not cross!” Elahan whispered, folding her hands in a prayer for any lingering spirits to find peace while the Cardinals smiled gently at her heartfelt lament.

But while Leon’s group and the Church exchanged a sombre camaraderie, the two armies’ commanders trembled. Although they had just laid their eyes on the Capital, Calelum had already dispirited them. Those schooled in military tactics could gauge the difficulty of a siege with a single glance at a fortress. Marquis Valter stared at Calelum’s white walls as if struck.

“Damn those imperial bastards! They built that citadel on our blood!” Valter shouted in anger.

It was simply impregnable. Even with ten times the force they had, they might not breach it; even unleashing all their siege engines might not tear down a single layer of wall.

The White Peak was fortified beyond reason. The famed Alger Fortress at the border—reputed for being virtually unassailable—looked like a mere garden fence compared to Calelum’s barriers. The walls rose over seventy meters, backed by several deep moats, and openings along the curtain were obvious emplacements for batteries or counter-weapons.

Even the soldiers who had charged across the plain with storm-like momentum lost their will after a single look at the walls.

“If the walls are that absurdly massive, there should be a few weak points somewhere. Hasn’t anyone identified any?”

“Impossible. Since its founding, there’s never been a single siege on Calelum...”

“Fantastic. So they built something literally impossible to breach?”

Among the commanders huddled together in frustration, one finally spoke up.

“What about magic? Master Grania, I’ve heard a grand mage’s strategic spells can collapse small mountains.”

Dozens of hopeful eyes turned to Grania. But as if he’d anticipated that suggestion, he shook his head with a detached, almost weary look.

“Impossible. Calelum’s walls are packed with special alloys that disrupt magic, and they’re embedded with more than a hundred self-sustaining defense spells. Four grand mages might be able to work together to shatter those defenses, but it’s just me here.”

“At that level, the maintenance cost must be astronomical...”

“It likely exceeds Ferma’s entire national budget. No, it definitely does.”

That was the might of the continent’s greatest empire. Even in ruins, torn apart by the Evil Order and civil war, the Imperial Capital Calelum still embodied the Empire’s supremacy.

And Grania wasn’t finished.

“One more warning. Calelum’s walls are equipped with a force-field barrier. It’s normally inactive because of the energy cost, but right now... I’m sure it’s running.”

“Force-field?”

“Yes. The barrier uses the wall as its axis, accelerating anything leaving from inside and repelling anything trying to enter from outside.”

When he added that even siege catapults couldn’t pierce it, the commanders were struck dumb. How were they supposed to attack something like that? If cavalry and chariots charged those walls head-on, they’d be slaughtered instantly. Even ranged attacks were useless.

Seeing their barely contained frustration, Grania offered a small concession.

“But force-fields aren’t invincible. It consumes power every time it deflects or accelerates an object. The range is so massive that the energy drain must be immense. Once the real fighting starts, it won’t last more than a few days.”

Even so, none of the commanders’ faces brightened.

“‘A few days,’ hammering away at that wall...”

“We’ll lose three, maybe up to five thousand men.”

“There’s no helping it. No point in talking this to death when there’s really only one thing we can do.”

“So it’s decided.”

Both armies’ commanders inevitably reached the same conclusion. If staying put changed nothing, then they’d spill blood to open a path forward.

The vanguard units of the Revolutionary Army and the Ferma army began to move.

***

“It’s begun,” Irexana said.

Leon, the Cardinals, and the Holy Iron Inquisitors watched from a distance as the two forces advanced.

To begin a siege with a small elite force wasn’t just reckless—it was suicide. Their role was not to storm the fortress head-on, but to exploit the weaknesses created by the two armies’ frontal assault and deliver wounds the enemy couldn’t recover from.

“Many will die...” Leon murmured.

“Yes,” Irexana replied.

No one denied it. The seven of them and the sixty Inquisitors gazed silently at the fortress.

The Imperial Capital was a bastion of blood and gold, perfected at the height of the Clyde Empire’s reign as conqueror. Even the dwarves of Jugend, with all their craftsmanship, would not claim to have surpassed it.

A fortress that had never known defeat—in fact, never even been challenged—was about to face its first siege.

The thunder of thousands of cavalry charging shook the ground. The earth quaked beneath them, the sound like an earthquake, and like a storm made of steel.

The two armies split into distinct flanks, not as allies, yet not hindering one another either. In perfect formation, the riders drew their bows from their saddles.

Before long, the walls of Calelum loomed close.

“Loose your arrows!”

At the roar of the command, a storm of arrows rose skyward. Every archer among them was elite, drawing longbows with practiced ease.

The seventy-meter walls were a colossal obstacle, but not insurmountable. The rain of arrows soared upward, gravity-defying, descending toward the defenders atop the ramparts—

“Urgh.”

—or at least, that was what should have happened.

The moment the arrows crossed above the white wall, the air rippled like water, and every shaft was deflected away. Thousands of arrows were rendered useless in an instant.

Then, Calelum answered. The sound of a barrage of arrows was sharp enough to chill the spine.

The defenders loosed their countervolley, and as their arrows passed over the wall, they blurred—not vanishing, but moving so fast they distorted the eye. Their downward momentum, boosted by the force-field’s acceleration, turned each arrow into a spear of destruction.

“Agh!”

“Gaaah! M-my armor!”

“My shield couldn’t block some arrow?!”

The power of an arrow came from its speed and weight, and though these were ordinary arrows, the doubled and tripled velocity made them punch clean through a refined plate. A counterattack that should’ve inflicted barely a dozen casualties left hundreds of cavalrymen dead or unhorsed. It was a vivid demonstration of how deadly the Imperial Capital’s force-field defense truly was.

Even so, the cavalry did not retreat.

“Don’t show your backs! We’re already in their range! If you don’t want to die, keep attacking!”

Their charge had lost momentum, but arrows and lances once again flew toward the white wall of Calelum.

They bounced away just as before, the barrier unbroken, but the attack wasn’t meaningless. Thousands of projectiles had to be deflected, and that meant a massive energy drain. It was a battle of blood for mana.

But one man ignored the strategy entirely and charged forward alone, his horse galloping straight toward the wall.

“Hah. How boring.”

The name of the lone rider against the fortress was...

“Cedric?!”

Marquis Valter, realizing the man’s reckless charge a moment too late, broke formation and raced toward the wall alongside him.

His brow twisted into fury as he shouted, “What the hell are you doing, you mad dog! This isn’t your playground!”

“Sorry, but I do whatever I want. I don’t like this slow, dragging excuse for a battle.”

“And what exactly are you planning to do?”

“That barrier’s the problem, isn’t it? If I smash it, won’t that solve everything?”

Valter hesitated for only a second before making his decision. There was no stopping this man. Words wouldn’t work on someone like him. Then, he had no choice but to join him.

“Fine! Then I’ll indulge that arrogance of yours!”

Two Swordmasters charged headlong toward the massive wall. A storm of arrows poured down on them, thousands strong—but no matter how fast the force-field accelerated them, they were still just arrows. Against men who could twist natural law with will alone, they might as well have been pebbles.

Without so much as swinging their swords, the two tore through the rain of arrows. Using their horses as a springboard, Cedric and Valter leapt seventy meters straight up toward the wall.

“Let me cut you down,” Cedric murmured, drawing his blade as he leaped. “Ten Thousand Severing Strikes.”

His Aura Blade, which cut and severed whatever lay in its path, flared across his sword in a brilliant blue flash. The slash capable of cleaving even intangible concepts was focused on a single spot.

Valter’s Aura Blade, in contrast, was explosive.

“I’m gonna blow you up!”

His Aura, of the Explosion attribute, intensified to its limit, vaporizing the air around him. The flame rose over his blade in the shape of a dragon, vast and terrifying.

The fire dragon born from Valter’s sword roared, and the two Aura Blades collided with the force-field barrier.

Cedric’s sword tore open a crack in the shimmering field, and Valter’s dragon surged into that gap, expanding within it. Like driving a wedge into a stone and pouring water until it splits cleanly apart, their joint strike perfectly exceeded the barrier’s endurance.

A shattering sound rang out as the force-field disintegrated. No matter how powerful, it was still only a system of force. Against Aura Blades, whose very nature broke such rules, it had no chance of holding. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

Having shattered the barrier, Cedric and Valter rode their momentum, preparing to land atop the wall. Then, a storm suddenly howled down on them.

“Not a chance.”

Both reacted instantly, abandoning their landing to brace for what came rushing at blinding speed. Arrows.

“Windflow Arrows, Ultra Rapid Tempo: Crosswind Blades.”

Not one but eight arrows tore through the sound barrier, each splitting into four, all aimed squarely at Cedric and Valter.

“What the?!”

“No... it can’t be!”

Cedric’s voice was filled with awe; Valter’s eyes widened in shock. Their reactions were different, but their responses identical.

Deflecting four wind arrows each, the Swordmasters crashed back to the ground seventy meters below. Cedric looked exhilarated, while Valter glared at the top of the wall in disbelief. There stood the archer who had fired them—the Bowmaster.

“Robin! Why are you...!”

“It’s been a long time, Valter. I didn’t want our reunion to be like this.”

The man’s face was smooth and clean-shaven; his features refined like a noble’s. Robin El Stendal, one of the Clyde Empire’s Masters, answered calmly to the call.

If Dayton’s Blanc family was known for their spearmen, then the Stendal family was the name synonymous with archery.

“‘Long time,’ my ass! Why are you standing up there?! Do you even know who you’re siding with?!”

Robin kept quiet, but Valter continued.

“Robin! You’re a bastard of the Empire, sure—but you’re not fool enough to side with the Evil Order! Drop your bow right now! If you surrender, I swear on my name I’ll spare your life!”

The Bowmaster gave a faint, bitter smile. Valter of Ferma was a man known to be rigid, unyielding, and often branded obstinate, yet it was his very integrity that earned such misunderstanding. If he swore by his name, he meant it.

Robin, however, could not accept that mercy.

“I’m sorry, old friend. That’s not possible,” he replied as he raised his family’s treasured bow, Sylphid, and aimed it at the two Swordmasters once more. “Because it seems I’ve become foolish after all.”

With eyes as hollow as a dead man’s, the Bowmaster slowly drew his bowstring.