Chapter 140
"Captain!"
A desperate voice called out from behind, but before he could fully grasp its urgency, Heinikel was already barreling toward his lord.
As the leader of the knights, it was behavior that could be deemed disqualifying, and it was a foolish act to jump into a battlefield dominated by high-level fighters with his clear insufficiency.
The person he wanted to save had already suffered severe injuries, and his charge might even disrupt his own allies.
If his mind had been clear, he might have cursed his own pathetic actions.
But at that moment, he was blind to everything but his goal.
"My lord!!"
His beloved steed, empowered by the Force, was accelerating to a speed even he had never before experienced.
The bomb bow, intended to be used only in the direst of circumstances for self-defense, rapidly emptied its magazine, firing ten arrows in quick succession and creating a storm-like force directed at the enemy superhuman.
If he could divert the superhuman's attention to himself for even a moment, the grand duke would be able to save their lord.
This was followed by illogical hope and ridiculous actions.
However, perhaps the heavens acknowledged his desperation, as arrows glowing red from two completely different angles flew toward the enemy in quick succession.
"What?!"
He was startled to see thirty bomb arrows miraculously collide at the same point and consecutively explode with a force that even the superhuman couldn't ignore.
"Now!"
That small miracle provided an elderly knight with just enough of a gap to save his lord.
Crack.
Ailen finally let out a sigh of relief when he saw that the superhuman, who had been overwhelmingly pressing Logan to the edge of death, was now distracted fighting another enemy from behind.
He then crushed the emptied bomb bow under his foot, ensuring it couldn't be captured and analyzed by the enemy.
Only then did Ailen turn his gaze to the one who had fired the bomb arrows at the same time as him but from a different direction.
"Good timing."
"It's nothing."
What an uninteresting fellow.
A younger man with unique red and blue eyes, a real prodigy who reached mid-level Force user status in just a few years despite his young age, and for some reason, he had been giving Ailen attitude since he joined the knight squadron's training.
'I'll have to talk to him about that someday.'
But now was not the time for such things.
"Both of you! Cover me for a moment!"
Clayton shouted urgently as he raised an 'unfamiliar staff', emitting a 'gigantic and strange' energy.
In that moment, Ailen and Viktor's attention was drawn to him, and the atmosphere of the battlefield began to change.
* * *
Immediately after spotting the Kallian army.
"Use it, Clayton!"
"What?!"
Clayton caught the object Logan threw to him in confusion.
An artifact that once allowed Roger Bifrost to perform magic far beyond his own abilities.
Even the mana it radiated was at least a 5th Class.
Under normal circumstances, it wasn't something to accept so readily, but the situation was different now.
Logan had started a collision course with an unplanned superhuman.
"Master! The grand duke is...!"
"I see it!"
At Victoria's scream-like shout, Clayton hastily drew up his mana, and the staff amplified that power with a vigorous vibration.
And at that moment, Clayton realized how Roger Bifrost had been able to cast such tremendously powerful magic.
"What? Is this possible..?!"
The effects of spell acceleration, mana amplification, and mana efficiency improvement inscribed on the staff were successively applied, raising Clayton's magic to incomparable levels.
'It might be possible?'
For an Earth circle magician, it felt like he could now use 'that magic', which would serve as a pathway toward the superhuman.
'No, it's definitely possible!'
With a clearer mind than ever, he perfectly controlled the overflowing mana.
As a result, Clayton was just able to hit the perfect timing.
"Gravity Control!!"
The 6th circle magic was cast as ideally planned in his mind.
Although it was partly enabled by the power of the artifact...
'Someday...'
It was a primary reason why magicians greatly preferred staff artifacts of equal or higher capacity.
Clayton smiled with hope as he felt the power of the artifact, and the result was clearly reflected on the battlefield.
Wiken Kallia had to swallow a groan as a heavy mass suddenly pressured his entire body, feeling as if his body weight had multiplied by dozens or hundreds.
The heaviness would have crushed any ordinary person or even a knight of moderate skill, spewing blood.
That weight disrupted his balance, sending him crashing.
Boom!
As the upstart plummeted, aiming a finishing blow that ridiculously missed its mark.
Crash!
"Damn!"
The noise of the hard landing followed, and even the superhuman staggered under the shock.
Thump.
As the young enemy, his lips soaked red with his own blood, stumbled, Wiken felt a strange lightness compared to his own weightiness.
That disparity confirmed his suspicions about the current situation.
'Magic!'
Certainly, a sophisticated spell that was hard to notice even for him.
Going against the invisible force was in vain, as it stubbornly refused to disappear.
"Damn it."
Thud. Thud. Thud.
His movements, known as the Storm Sword or the Master of Wind, were unimaginably clumsy for him.
Even employing his aura, the intangible force clung tenaciously without fading.
A clue indicating that the source of this constrictive power wasn't even close to his body.
'Impossible!'
Although he hadn't encountered such strange magic many times in his life, the few experiences allowed him to guess the situation.
A magic that even affected superhumans.
An intangible force that didn't easily dissipate even with aura.
These two facts pointed to only one conclusion.
'6th Circle Magic!!'
Only multi-attribute magic, wielded by the power of magic force exceeding mana, could exert such strength.
"A mage?!"
Wiken's face turned to stone with the unexpected obstacle, but the enemy kept shouting.
"I'll take down the superhuman! Sweep away the rest!"
Even if his movements slowed by the mage's magic, the brat would never be able to take him down.
The gap between aura users and force users was insurmountable.
Unless he was so exhausted that he could no longer sustain his aura, there was no way he could lose.
But.
His grand plan had gone awry from the start, involving him tearing through the formations, enabling the knight squadron to plunge into the enemy's ranks like a wedge.
'No! We can't sustain this much damage...!'
Was it a mistake to rush here desperately at Roger Bifrost's stringent request?
The regret of not bringing the main forces was acute.
The Maccalin army, already boasting combat prowess that easily dismissed the difference in firepower due to their new weapons.
'I cannot be tied down here!'
That calculation fueled his anger.
"Damn it! Stop running and fight me!"
However.
Boom!
The enemy, who had forcibly breached his ranged attack and leaped forward, uttered an absurd word.
"Order your troops to pull back. Lord, we have no intention of continuing this war!"
A formal tone that didn't fit the battle was met with a simple answer from Wiken.
"Nonsense!"
Whirring.
If he couldn't beat the enemy with speed, he would contend with the total amount of energy he wielded.
The wind blades he produced with his overflowing elemental power might not match his own aura-infused sword, but they should be enough to overwhelm that upstart.
Until he saw the enemy's gigantic golden greatsword.
"Damn it!"
Crash!
Step. Step.
The adversary stumbled from the impact, but Wiken could hardly aim for such an apparent vulnerability with his slow movements.
'Damn it!'
Sustaining combat by wrapping his body in aura was also demanding for him.
If the battle continued like this, in the worst-case scenario...
'No, no, I can't.'
Wiken's own pride violently crushed a dire premonition as the enemy seemed to read that fleeting expression.
"If you refuse out of pride, prepare to die first!"
"Ha. Ridiculous..."
"Knights, form up! Aim for Wiken Kallia first!"
"Yes!"
It seemed like a long time had passed, but his own knight squadron had yet to arrive.
The pale-faced enemy, his golden Force blade swirling around Wiken, embraced him from all sides.
"I'll hold you down, destroy him!"
"This madman...?!"
Whirring.
The wind aura easily pushed back the pressure of the golden Force blade.
Crack.
"It's useless!"
Even with his pale face, the enemy didn't retreat easily.
That's when Wiken Kallia's movements, previously light despite bearing hundreds of times his weight due to gravity control, drastically slowed to the point where even an average knight could catch sight of him.
"Knights, charge!"
Thud, thud, thud, thud.
At that moment, his towering pride finally knelt before reality.
"Fine! I accept your proposition. But you must stop your attacks first!"
A ridiculous condition during wartime, even to his own ears.
But his superhuman pride caused his tongue to wag involuntarily.
'This damned...'
His face froze over as he spoke those words.
"All troops, cease fire! Hold off on the attacks!"
When he actually agreed to the ludicrous terms, Wiken shouted in a voice laced with the wind's power, carrying it to his army, which was still charging from afar.
The sudden battle, just as abruptly, came to an end.