The highest nobility of the Empire gathered in front of the Imperial Palace.
At the forefront stood Cariosa, accompanied by a knight carrying the White Shark banner.
“That armor suits you well. Yes. You must have been waiting for me?”
She wore a coat made of ray leather over shark-scale-like plate armor and had two magical swords at her side.
As she smiled like a carnivore, sharp shark teeth glimmered in the darkness.
Her vertically slit pupils and thin lips trembled as if ready to burst into madness at any moment.
“That is…”
I looked at her and the faces gathered behind her, forcing a wry smile.
“Friend, I have arrived. Sorry for being late.”
Sword Master, Duke Seberik of the North.
“You don’t need to thank me.”
The head of Purioaito, who had led the Sky Knights, Signain.
“…I am different from you.”
The head of Gremoryus, who brought the Golden Knights, Grace.
“I hope we have something to do.”
Duke Caesar, leader of the assassins and the harbingers of fear, who brought the assassins and the dread falcon cavalry.
“The airships are prepared, but it seems you have no intention of escaping on them right now.”
Marcus, who led the mechanical knights and was clad in mechanical armor, added.
Cariosa pressed close to me, resting her arm on my shoulder.
It was a very natural movement.
“All sorts of demons and Infiltrators have swarmed here.”
“Haha.”
“It seems a bit hard for the Imperial Court to suppress this alone. Should we Great Lords lend a hand as vassals?”
“Hahaha.”
Calculations spun rapidly in my head.
Nothing in this world was free.
For the past month, I had been negotiating to get them to swear loyalty to me.
The compromise plan that everyone might not be satisfied with but could at least acknowledge was completed just last night.
Yet here I was, reaching out to them again in this situation?
I had no idea what more they would want in exchange for the bl**d of my soldiers.
They would plan to s*ck the royal family dry.
No doubt they wanted not just gold coins but rights, mines, and land from the Empire.
And considering the money required to rebuild the totally destroyed capital, reaching out to them here could result in the royal family becoming a mere shell, dragged along by these Great Lords.
Some might argue about my concerns while people were dying.
But it was my job to consider such things.
If the Imperial family ended up being dragged along by the Great Lords, Jayrilis’s plan to thoroughly root out Infiltrators through national connections from the very beginning would falter.
Building a major city would take about five years, but reversing such an agreement could take decades. Frankly, it might be less of a loss to let the citizens leave and then bombard the city, building anew afterward.
“No. Cariosa. It’s fine. We can handle it, so you might as well go up on the city wall and watch.”
“Too many people are dying for that to be acceptable, right? Look, another elite soldier just fell.”
“I can’t see them.”
“See? You have hurt eyes; how much worse must the soldiers be? We’re helping, so just accept it. My White Shark Knight squad has been trained by fighting the Undersea People every day. We can sweep those Infiltrators away in no time.”
Cariosa smiled at me from my left.
Duke Seberik approached on my right and placed a hand on my right shoulder.
“Duke Valencius.”
“Seberik.”
“Our North does not desire more than a safe harbor. Do not hesitate to ask for help.”
Cariosa raised her voice from my left.
“Safe harbor? You’re not talking about seizing it from me, are you?”
Grace, clad in black iron, stepped forward and pointed a finger at me.
“People are dying, and yet Your Highness is still only calculating the pros and cons!”
Genuine anger lingered in her voice.
I forced a shameless smile, lifting my powerless lips.
“Can’t regret it later when the treasury is empty?”
“People must survive for the treasury to refill.”
“If the treasury runs dry, then a swarm of sharks will come and take even that treasury away. How would you fill it again?”
Cariosa giggled.
I sighed deeply and said, “The situation is urgent. Having arrived, I can’t chase you away, and I can’t question self-defense in a disaster scenario. But I will officially deny all your participation and achievements as Great Lords.”
Since bl**d has been spilled, I had to give them something.
But don’t think about wiping me clean.
That was the implication.
Cariosa licked her lips with a predator’s smile.
“That’s the spirit.”
Fortunately, she seemed to understand.
She seemed to focus on me unusually intently, but it was probably just a misconception.
Probably.
“k*ll them all! Leave no one alive!”
Cariosa charged out, shouting like a pirate from a fairy tale.
With each last ray of moonlight, the scales of her plate armor sparkled like a school of fish, and from the thick belt tightly strapped to her waist, the light of mana shone.
The belt was enchanted with magic, becoming even stronger under the moonlight.
The sea men from the East, following the most ferocious White Shark, charged with the bloodthirsty sharks, clad in plate armor.
“Grahaaha!”
“Get out of the way! You monster bastards! The daughter of the storm, the descendant of Summerlin, the lord of the Eastern Sea, the conqueror of the Three Isles, the disaster for pirates and the Undersea People has arrived!”
Blocking their path was a transformed Infiltrator in the form of a fire-breathing wolf.
“Awwooo!”
It stood shoulder height to a four-story building and was 30 meters long, with four scorpion tails and a gaping snout with a spring-like double jaw peeking out.
“Throw!”
Swoosh!
The Eastern warriors threw their spears, tipped with scales.
With spells enhancing sharpness, toughness, and piercing, the spear pierced the Infiltrator’s limbs, and the Eastern warriors ran in all directions, destabilizing the Infiltrator’s balance.
“Pull!”
Thud!
The shark swarm’s limbs tightened, and the Infiltrator wolf toppled like a deer on ice.
“Keng! Keeen!?”
As the fallen Infiltrator was down, a knight from the East rushed out.
Thwack, thwack, thwack!
The knight who had been leaping from ship to ship fought with incredible agility, and even in armor weighing dozens of kilograms, he soared through the air, landing atop the Infiltrator’s head.
Swoosh!
The Eastern knight swung a blue mana blade, severing the Infiltrator’s head.
“I got one!”
“Well done!”
“I caught one here too.”
“Me too!”
Cariosa pranced about leading them.
She wielded the fierce magical sword Storm and the slender magical sword Gentle Wind.
“Ah-ha-ha-ha!”
The Infiltrators touching her were all cleaved to pieces, meeting their deaths.
“Screech!”
A giant spider, as big as a house, charged at them, spewing poison and webs.
Swoosh!
Cariosa kicked off the ground, cleaving the spider in two, and rushed beyond it.
“Let’s go, everyone!”
“Yes! Your Highness!”
Seberik Hyacinth Septentrions watched this scene with a faint smile.
A lively sense of competitiveness rose on his glacier-like cheeks.
“I thought only our northern knights were valiant, but perhaps that’s not the case.”
Thud!
His aide, Lysena, standing by his side, neatly tied her black hair and urgently advised him.
“Don’t overdo it, and try not to attract too much attention.”
“I know, Lysena.”
Thud!
“Ensure you take down enemies at least twice. If you take one down in one hit, they will be on their guard. Just be slightly stronger than Duke Cariosa, not more than that.”
Thud!
Seberik turned his gaze to observe the giant Infiltrator approaching the Imperial Palace.
“Uorr!”
The giant had purple skin and six tentacles sprouting from its back, with dozens of people clawing their way up its neck, screaming, and it was as tall as a ten-story stone building.
“That seems difficult.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I want to show off in front of a friend.”
Seberik swept back his deep-sea blue hair and walked out.
“I’ll take it.”
The black iron knights of the Imperial Court, who were being pushed back, recognized him and gasped.
“D-Duke Seberik?”
“Sword Master!”
In his hand now stood a longsword made of northern silver.
Swoosh—.
The longsword was sharp as ice, and as it cut through the air, moisture froze along its trajectory.
The temperature around the black iron knights and platinum knights distinctly dropped.
Whoosh!
Seberik’s sword flared with a dark blue light.
The platinum knight’s mouth gaped open in awe.
“…Aura Fire.”
Seberik smiled as he raised his sword.
Swoosh!
The blue light of the aura surged skyward along the path of the sword, and a whirlwind enveloped the area, creating a snowstorm.
Thud!
The Infiltrator that had been approaching to crush the palace was cleaved in two from groin to crown, collapsing onto the ground.
“Really, such extraordinary individuals. I should hurry up and step up my game too.”
“Indeed. It’s a relief that Duke Cariosa isn’t turning her attention westward.”
Signain and Grace, the two female Great Lords, chatted softly as they observed the battlefield.
Their voices were calm, but their gazes were cold.
The Sky Knights and the Golden Knights, following their orders, headed toward the south gate and west gate, assisting with the evacuation of citizens and securing the main road.
“One big guy over there!”
“Deploy the knights!”
“It’s heat-resistant. Bring in the freezing specialists!”
Grace looked at Signain with a look of surprise.
“I didn’t expect you to volunteer to assist in the evacuation.”
Signain spread open her fan to cover her mouth.
To hide a blooming smile.
“This is an important battle as well. Moreover, we can’t have our knights bleeding for the subjects of another. Rather than charging headfirst into the colossal demon, it would be less costly to provide them with some rough support.”
“You’ve truly twisted things around.”
“Assigning value to life is our job. I might not, but you are a relatively close Great Lord to the Imperial family. Who knows when Duke Helena might come charging in with knights. Learn to minimize losses while making a show of your importance.”
Grace neither nodded nor shook her head.
“I’m the lord of a mining town. Unlike you, I’m not a born warlord.”
“Well.”
“So my battlefield isn’t out here but on paper. I’ll forge treaties and agreements, creating alliances of goodwill. I want to live in a peaceful world armed with great power. Duke Valencius and Emperor Jayrilis will want my cooperation.”
“Let’s see whether that will be the seed of disaster or the seed of revival.”
They ended their conversation and returned their gazes to the battlefield.
“The cleaning on 3rd Street is done!”
“Engaging in 5th Street now!”
“65% of the residents’ evacuation at the south gate is complete.”
Hopeful flames were slowly beginning to flicker.
*
“This cannot continue. I’m sure you are well aware of that.”
Chiiing, Chiiing!
Marcus issued orders to secure the central road to the mechanical knights and the magic artillery unit.
He rolled his mechanical arm and his uninjured eye separately, using his mechanical arm to survey the demon holding out at the city center and his healthy eye to observe Valencius.
“If that guy emits another mental wave, we’ll have to do this all over again. This time, it will even be from outside the city walls. It’s a fight that does not end until we bring him down.”
“Marcus is right. We must go.”
Matheos agreed to Marcus’s opinion, albeit reluctantly.
Having taken hands once with both Marcus and Valencius and given them a smack on the back of the head as a saint of the church, it was uncomfortable to view both of them at the same time.
Valencius nodded and looked up at the sky.
“I’ll wait just a little longer.”
Matheos thought he was still noticing the magical realm where the emperor had vanished, but Valencius’s gaze aimed higher.
Whirrrrr—.
A humid breeze swept in.
From the sky, a massive, pitch-black mass floated closer, obscuring the moonlight and starlight.
“Duke. Now.”
Yellow and blue flames flickered and charged from within the monstrous thundercloud.
“That—”
Boom!
“Yes.”
The energy sensed there was enough to threaten even Marcus, once called the most dangerous Great Lord from the West, Saint Matheos, Sword Master Seberik, and the conqueror of the East, Cariosa.
“When Sister Sorelazie comes down, that’s when we will charge.”
