The moonlight was obscured by dark clouds, and only the flames burning on the ground provided the only light source for this battlefield.
Near the “Rose Outpost” within the jurisdiction of the First Fortress, a chaotic battle was underway.
Unlike the previous villages that had no power to fight back, this place was clearly prepared.
Dozens of young female knights in silver-white plate armor, riding well-equipped warhorses, were fiercely fighting against the Black Dog Mercenary Group, which outnumbered them several times over.
“Maintain formation! Do not go deep alone! Spear thrust!”
A clear and calm, delicate shout pierced through the clamor of the battlefield.
The one issuing the command was a blonde girl riding a pure white warhorse.
Her appearance was as dignified as if she had stepped out of a painting, and her emerald-blue eyes maintained absolute calmness and focus even in the heat of battle.
The lance in her hand was like a silver viper, piercing through the throat or heart of a mercenary with every thrust.
Celia Cumani Aintree.
The Vice Commander of the Saint Alice Knights, known as the “Genius Chosen by the Goddess.”
Around her, those equally young female knights, though their faces bore the tension of being on the battlefield for the first time, still maintained a textbook-standard wedge formation under her command, cutting through the mercenaries’ chaotic defensive lines like a sharp scalpel, time and time again.
However, the battle situation was not optimistic.
Although the mercenaries lacked discipline, they had the advantage of superior numbers and vicious tactics.
They used hooked spears to trip the horses, threw sandbags filled with chili powder into the knights’ eyes, and even used captured civilians as human shields.
This left the young women, who had received orthodox knightly education and believed in honor and fair duels, feeling constrained.
“Despicable scum!”
A young female knight hesitated for a moment out of concern for the civilians being used as human shields and was dragged off her horse by three mercenaries.
“Noel!!”
Celia shouted anxiously, wanting to turn back to help, but more mercenaries swarmed up like hyenas smelling blood, entangling her tightly.
Just at this critical moment.
“Rumble!!”
The sky seemed to split open.
A terrifying wind pressure, accompanied by a sonic boom capable of tearing eardrums, pressed down vertically from above.
Both sides currently locked in melee felt as if an invisible mountain had smashed onto their heads; even the warhorses let out terrified neighs, their legs buckling as they knelt to the ground.
“What… is that?”
Celia struggled to lift her head, her emerald blue pupils contracting violently.
Within the rolling black clouds, a black shadow, massive to the point of being suffocating, slowly revealed itself.
Optical Camouflage deactivated at that moment.
The ten-meter-long steel magic dragon, silhouetted against a flash of lightning, revealed his grim and majestic true form.
Balthazar did not land immediately.
He hovered at a low altitude of twenty meters, his massive dragon wings beating slowly.
The stirred-up air currents blew the flames on the ground askew and sent everyone’s hair flying wildly.
His pair of dark red slit pupils swept over the ants below—who had stopped their slaughter and were staring blankly at him—with a playfulness akin to watching a show.
That golden-haired, tenacious, petite figure who, even when facing a giant dragon, was still attempting to raise her lance.
“In… ter… esting.”
A low laugh rumbled in Balthazar’s throat, a roar like metal grinding against metal.
“Regular army?… No… student soldiers?”
He saw through the reality of these knights at a glance.
Well-equipped and tactically sound, but on their gear, he could smell the greenness of those who had not yet been thoroughly baptized by blood and fire from far away.
However, this was perfect.
“ROAR!!”
A soul-shaking roar.
Balthazar suddenly folded his wings and smashed toward the ground like a black meteorite.
He did not attack the girl knights; instead, he landed precisely in the center of the group of mercenaries besieging Celia.
“BANG!!”
The earth cracked.
A dozen mercenaries who had just been clamoring to rush up and strip the female knight bare were instantly pulverized into meat paste by this destructive shockwave.
A mist of blood, mixed with broken entrails, splattered like raindrops onto the pristine white plate armor of the surrounding knights.
Celia only felt a wave of heat rush toward her face, and immediately after, that black steel titan slowly stood up less than five meters away from her.
The terrifying difference in size caused even the bravest of warhorses to let out a despairing whine, collapsing to the ground and trembling.
Balthazar lowered his head, his massive dragon head closing in on Celia.
Within that pair of slit pupils burning with hellfire, her pale face—which was still stubbornly refusing to bow—was reflected.
“You… are… very… brave.”
The dragon’s mouth opened slightly, spraying hot air smelling of sulfur onto Celia’s face, blowing her golden bangs into disarray.
“But… your… justice… is… too… rigid.”
Having said that, he turned abruptly.
That thick, thorn-covered tail, like a siege hammer sweeping across an army, swung toward the group of dumbfounded mercenaries behind him with a whistling wind.
“SNAP! CRACK!!”
It was a symphony of shattering bones.
Just like sweeping up trash with a giant broom, with that single blow, at least twenty mercenaries were broken in half, or sent flying dozens of meters away like baseballs, smashing heavily into the rocks in the distance and turning into piles of mush.
Subsequently, Balthazar turned around and began his meal and slaughter.
This was a one-sided massacre.
The battle ended faster than anyone had anticipated.
The air was filled with a thick scent of blood and burnt meat.
The Black Dogs mercenaries, who had been so arrogant before, were now scattered debris across this wasteland, with only a few lucky ones managing to escape.
Balthazar did not pursue the last few terrified grunts who were fleeing.
He stood like a silent black statue in the mountain of corpses and sea of blood.
His dark red slit pupils did not look at the deserters, but instead stared with keen interest at the group of girl knights before him who, despite being scared to death, were still trying to maintain their formation.
[…Is this our end?]
Celia’s palms were slick with cold sweat as she gripped her lance.
Her warhorse was still snorting uneasily. Enjoying the story? Read on at novelping.com.
The pressure from the apex predator made her feel as if a giant boulder were pressing on her chest, making every breath incredibly difficult.
She looked at the black magic dragon before her, her heart filled with mixed emotions.
[How ironic… The defensive line we failed to protect despite giving our all was wiped clean by a magic beast in an instant.]
Her gaze swept over the mangled corpses of the mercenaries; on some of the bodies, she could even see the remnants of standard-issue armor from the Seven Shield Alliance.
Those were the “surplus military supplies” that greedy merchants and corrupt bureaucrats had sold to this band of bandits under the guise of “free trade.”
[Those big shots sitting in high towers drinking red wine… do they know? Every sword they sell might eventually end up cutting the throats of their own people. Or… do they simply not care?]
She painfully questioned her superiors and compatriots in her heart.
If not for those pot-bellied bureaucrats withholding the salaries of the border guards; if not for those nobles who only knew how to compare jewelry at banquets selling fine steel swords and chainmail to these Black Dogs scumbags for a meager profit from smuggling.
If not for that pig-like bishop, who, in order to suppress the Alicia Knights, deliberately mobilized most of The Order’s official knights and attached infantry to the Seventh Fortress under the pretext of protecting the Goddess’s reincarnation…
Celia bit her lower lip until she tasted a hint of rust-like blood.
She remembered the helpless look in Alicia’s eyes that day at The Order’s station, and remembered that friend, known as the Flower of the First Fortress, asking her in a near-pleading tone:
“Celia, only you can help me…”
“The Order’s influence is absolute, I have no choice but to…”
“I requested the nobles to protect the village, but they didn’t want to send troops at all. They said the Black Dogs were just ‘helping us clear out the remnants of the Dark Elves’!”
“But… those villagers are innocent! I cannot watch my subjects be slaughtered and remain indifferent! Please… take those willing to follow you and bring a little hope to those desperate people…”
[Hope…]
Celia looked around at the groups of junior knights behind her, who, despite wearing armor cobbled together from their respective families and having faces full of naivety and fear, were still firmly following her.
They came here because they admired the false title of “the genius chosen by the Goddess,” and because of that pure knightly heart that wanted to protect the weak.
But now, that “genius” could only watch helplessly as they fell into a desperate situation, and in the end, they had to rely on an unknown monster to bail them out.
And this monster might, in the next instant, come to finish them off.
[Can I really… bring hope to anyone? Or am I just leading them to their deaths, just to prove that the long-rotten Alliance still has a shred of dignity left?]
This deep sense of powerlessness and self-loathing made her feel even more suffocated than the giant dragon before her.
But as a commander, as the leader who brought these children into this hell, she could not show weakness.
“Gulp…”
Celia took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the fear and wavering in her heart.
She urged her warhorse to step forward a few paces; it was a knight’s etiquette, and also a final fantasy.
“…Thank you for your… assistance.”
She tried hard to make her voice sound steady, even though in the face of that massive dragon’s might, the sound was as faint as a mosquito’s buzzing.
“But I must confirm… are you an enemy… or a friend?”
Balthazar did not answer immediately.
That massive dragon head lowered slightly, drawing close to Celia.
In his pair of slit pupils that seemed able to see through the soul, the girl’s face—which was forcing composure but could not hide her grief and indignation—was reflected.
Subsequently, he spoke words that made her feel despair.
“I am… your… enemy.”