Chapter 24

Time flew by. A month passed in the blink of an eye.

Iron Lion Keep.

A sea of people filled the assembly grounds. War banners snapped in the wind.

Viscount Baroque, clad in gleaming silver armor, looked every bit the celestial general. Standing atop his war chariot, he gazed down at the fully armed knights with boundless pride and ambition.

"Move out!"

He drew his longsword and swung it forward. The army began its march.

________________

Ironwood City.

Clyris had finished her work at the factories. Early in the morning, she stood outside the city gates.

Rows of soldiers stood in immaculate formation. Each carried a long rifle on their back, their waists heavy with bandoliers of bullets and grenades. They wore dark green military uniforms—uniforms that now shimmered faintly with magical protection.

Charlo stood on a raised platform before them, his expression solemn. Davis had already departed with the artillery corps and the assault unit. The pre-battle mobilization speech fell to the Lord.

"Everyone! You have heard the news. Viscount Baroque in the west, along with every other noble lord in the Borderlands, is coming!"

"What do they want to do? It's simple—Robbery!" Charlo shouted, his voice ringing out.

"What do they want to steal? Your money! Your food! Your women!"

"Before coming here, most of you had nothing! You came to this remote frontier, worked hard to build a life, and finally enjoyed a few years of peace and prosperity. But now, they want to snatch it all away! Tell me, will you agree to that?"

"NO!" The soldiers roared in unison.

"Correct!" Charlo shouted back. "I won't agree either! We broke our backs clearing this wasteland, farming this land, and building this city to live the lives we dreamed of. By what right should we give it to them?"

"They are coming now. They are coming to strip us clean! They want to force you back into that life of selling your sons and daughters, of freezing and starving in the mud! But they do not know one thing: Even lambs will bite back!"

Charlo drew his pistol and fired a shot into the sky.

BANG!

The sharp crack echoed in every soldier's ears, igniting the flames of rage in their eyes.

The brass casing spun through the air, glinting in the sun before hitting the ground with a crisp clink, a sound that punctuated Charlo's declaration.

"Let us use our cannons and rifles to tell them: No one can ever take everything from us again!"

Clyris watched his back from the side. He looked tall and unyielding.

Today, he wore no armor. He was dressed in a black military uniform, with a long black coat hanging straight down, like a pillar that would never bend.

"Good luck..."

She whispered a blessing. Everything was ready. She hoped he would return victorious. Otherwise... it would be too disappointing.

___________________

After the speech, Clyris returned to the laboratory.

Alice was asleep, face down on her desk. The month-long rush to enchant thousands of uniforms had exhausted everyone.

Clyris didn't disturb her. She went to her own office, picking up her research notes and pondering a problem that had stumped her.

"One Light, One Dark, Two Wind..."

Different elements gathered at her fingertips, swirling and mixing, but she still couldn't find the entry point.

"It won't work! High-Rank runes must be engraved with mana. That means a mage is indispensable! But there are too few mages..."

Clyris frowned, dispersing the elements.

In this world, to become a mage, one must first sense mana. Only one in a hundred had the talent. That was why, back in the Age of Gods, humanity created the path of the Knight.

Knight cultivation required no magical talent. The initial stages only involved specific breathing techniques and physical forms, supplemented by medicinal baths to refine the body.

Upon reaching the Mid-Ranks, a Knight had to learn independently, refining their breathing technique to suit their unique physiology.

At the Fifth Rank, a Knight could naturally absorb ambient mana to replenish themselves. This was the threshold where mortal wave tactics became useless—killing mortals or low-rank knights consumed less stamina than the Knight regenerated naturally. They simply couldn't be exhausted to death.

The Sixth Rank was the peak of the Mid-Ranks. Here, the paths of Knight and Mage began to converge.

Both needed to merge their spirit with the external world to sense Nature. Mages had the advantage, as they sensed mana from the start. Knights, however, had to rely on years of medicinal enhancement and breathing exercises to temper their bodies until they could perceive mana directly. This step was notoriously difficult.

But at the High Ranks, all paths led to the same destination: Resonating with Nature, comprehending the Elements, and mastering an Authority.

"Sigh... how can I make ordinary people, or even machines, automatically engrave High-Rank runes?"

Clyris sighed, resting her chest on the table to relax.

Currently in Ironwood, Low and Mid-Rank arrays were engraved by machines operated by commoners. Large, simple equipment like the train used these arrays. For instance, the train engine only needed four arrays: Containment, Combustion, Drive, and Interrupt.

Only the Drive and Interrupt arrays were complex. The Containment and Combustion arrays were simple enough to be engraved on guns and cannons. A massive locomotive had plenty of surface area to accommodate the simpler, larger Low-Rank versions.

But small, complex items required High-Rank runes. Take the uniforms—there wasn't enough surface area on a jacket to fit a standard Defensive Array. It had to be done with compact High-Rank runes.

Furthermore, anything requiring massive mana output needed High-Rank runes, as Low-Rank arrays couldn't handle the throughput.

She lay on the table, bored, playing with a magic core in her fingers.

A magic core. Condensed mana from a magical beast. Similar to a mana stone, but more volatile.

Mana stones were a balanced aggregation of various elements. Magic cores were condensed by beasts, usually containing only one or two elements. They were extremely pure energy sources.

Energy source... Mage... Rune...

Eh!?

She froze. Her fingers tightened reflexively, crushing the magic core.

CRACK!

Fire and Wind mana leaked from the shattered core, sending a hot breeze across her face.

"Alice!"

___________

Border of Ironwood Territory.

Viscount Baroque led the advance. The forces of the five Viscounts marched in a long snake formation.

Further ahead, the ten Barons fanned out in a semi-circle centered on Baroque, acting as the vanguard scouts.

This army of over ten thousand men stretched for a full five kilometers, a grand and imposing sight.

The Hilltop.

In the trenches dug into the distant hills, soldiers lay prone against the breastworks, their rifles aimed at the brightly bannered knights approaching below.

Behind the hill, mortar pits were dug and ready.

On a higher slope to the flank, the 75mm Field Guns were already zeroed in.

"Steady. Let them get closer," a platoon leader whispered, calming the machine gunner beside him.

"Sir, the enemy is within one thousand meters!" the gunner said nervously, his finger hovering over the trigger.

"Wait!"

The two Barons in the lead didn't realize they had walked into a death zone. They chatted and laughed on their horses, completely at ease.

"Five hundred meters! Sir!!"

"FIRE!!!"

At the command, every soldier pulled their trigger simultaneously.

RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT...

In the blink of an eye, blood mist exploded from the majestic knights. They were turned into sieves before they could even scream.

The two leisurely Barons were the priority targets for the two heavy machine guns. Long tongues of fire swept over them. The .50 caliber armor-piercing rounds shattered against their enchanted armor, failing to penetrate fully.

Clearly, against noble armor forged by supernatural artisans, even heavy machine guns lacked sufficient punch.

But it didn't matter. The 75mm Field Guns and 80mm Mortars were next to speak.

Following the dense rattle of gunfire came thunderous booms.

A dense volley of 75mm armor-piercing shells enveloped the two Barons who were preparing to charge. Meanwhile, mortar shells rained down on the knights behind them.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The two Barons were struck directly by the cannon fire. They were blown to pieces instantly, man and horse reduced to fragments.

The knights behind them were flipped and thrown by the mortar blasts, falling into chaos.

Further back, Viscount Baroque still didn't know what was happening.

Deep Rear.

The barrels of the 150mm and 200mm Howitzers were elevated high. Shells and propellant charges were rammed home, and the breeches locked shut.

"FIRE!!"

With earth-shaking roars, the shells left the barrels, screaming through the sky toward Viscount Baroque.

"What is happening? What is that noise up ahead?"

Still clueless, Baroque summoned a knight. "Go up front and see what's going on!"

"Yes, My Lord!"

The knight accepted the order, but before he could even raise his whip, a high-pitched shriek tore through the air. And then...

BOOM!!!

A 150mm High-Explosive shell landed right in front of him!

Viscount Baroque saw a blur flash into the ground. Then, his loyal knight was blown away, armor shredded by the violent mana and shockwave. A Fourth-Rank Knight died instantly before his eyes, leaving nothing but a crater as deep as a man is tall!

"NO!!!"

Before he could react, more shells fell. The earth shook and the mountains trembled. Every thunderous blast signaled death.

"Ambush! Hold formation!!"

Viscount Baroque screamed, but his voice was swallowed by the explosions.

"Damn it! What are these things?!"

Before he could turn to rally his troops, a 200mm shell landed nearby...

"BOOM!!!"

The ground for fifty meters around heaved upwards...

The shells continued to fall without pause. Each one brought indiscriminate death to everyone within a thirty-to-fifty-meter radius, whether they were commoner auxiliaries or supernatural knights!