-Kakak! Kakakakakakak!
The ground shakes and if it weren't for the black specks rushing toward them from the horizon, they might have mistaken it for an earthquake.
"Argh...."
When the Alliance had gathered two hundred thousand troops, Imperial soldier Heizen had hoped for victory in the face of such a powerful force.
The Holy Knights, repelling the forces of Chaos with transcendent force, and the Kingdom's elite soldiers, slaughtering orcs alone.
Most of all, the presence of the Lionheart King, who had defeated Malus, the Demon Lord who had destroyed the Empire, was enough to give everyone hope.
But the sight of ten million enemies marching in unison was enough to inspire fear.
A black stain from the edge of the horizon dyed the entire world black until it reached the Temple of the Ten Thousand Gods.
[Listen]
A half-man, half-horse walked out from among the black stains. The messenger approached with a loudspeaker, his followers having betrayed humanity and chosen to become the devil's slaves.
[Foolish mortals, throw down your weapons and surrender now, and the Great Ones will have mercy on you──]
"Shut up!!!"
The demon follower didn't finish his sentence. With a shout, a spear flew from nowhere and plunged into his heart in a parabolic arc.
-Kwazik!
The javelin pierced through the demon follower's heart and landed on the ground. At the sight of the slain demon follower, the legion of demon followers at the head of the line become distorted with rage.
[Advance]
There was no negotiation. Demon Legion Leader Wolfhard, a former Imperial Prefect, shouted to his Demon Followers.
"Fire the cannons!!!"
-Bang! BANG!
-Bang!
The shells rained down like thunderbolts, threatening to bring down the walls of the Ten Thousand Gods Temple in one fell swoop, only to be deflected by an invisible membrane.
"…Empire bastards!"
Priests and knights spread out all over the Temple of Ten Thousand Gods, and the Legion Technique enveloped the entire city.
No ranged weapon, no matter how powerful, could hurt the Allied forces.
"I expected it. But we have many gifts for them!"
Wolfhard readied his catapult. Even if it was a catapult and not a cannonball, it wouldn't do much to wound that barrier.
But he was a former Imperial Prefect. He was the commander of the Empire, and he was preparing to antagonize the kingdom.
"Fire!"
This time, the catapult is pulled and something is thrown in unison.
"As long as there are holy laws, ranged weapons are…!"
The catapults exploded just before they hit the barrier, sending bits of meat flying.
Naturally, the soldiers who were covered in them soon realized their identity and gagged.
"Ugh…!"
"They'll be damned…!"
It was a decomposed corpse. Rotting and gassy and bloated… as if warning them that this is what they would become.
"Huh?"
It didn't end with a warning. The bodies exploded in the air, spreading a foul green mist.
"Do, poison gas!"
"Cover your mouth…!"
Corpses, enchanted with curses and corruption, exploded all over the walls. Poisonous fog began to spread throughout the castle.
"Ew, ew, ew!"
Soldiers fled from the fog. Those on the ramparts tried to climb down, and those below the ramparts tried to run into the city.
"Form up!!!"
Then, from all over the city, knights galloped on horseback. War Knights, knights of the highest rank, cleansed the poisonous fog from their horses and shouted among the soldiers.
"Hold your ground!"
"Hold the line!"
"Priests of Life cleanse the gas in the northeast first!"
They are veterans. Knights who had fought evil for so long that they knew what they had to do on the battlefield.
The soldiers follow them rallying around the knights as they're told and form a line against the wall.
Taking advantage of the chaos, they pushed through the siege weights and siege towers.
"Archers ready, artillery ready!"
Allied archers and Imperial artillerymen lined the ramparts, their arrows and cannonballs loading.
"Our weapons shall be a light of purification that pierces evil!"
At each rampart, a War Knight blesses them with the Holy Law.
Arrows are imbued with pure white light, and cannonballs are compressed into fierce flames.
"Send them to the netherworld!"
-Bang!
-Bang!
The arrows of light fired by the archers pierced the demon followers, and the purifying light burned them alive.
The shells that landed amongst the legions spread horrific flames, scorching everything.
They unleashed a barrage of ranged attacks of their own, stripping their opponents of their ranged weapons.
The legions of Demon Followers retreated, terrified at the sight of such an unreasonable display of warfare.
"Hold your ground."
Wolfhard didn't look at them. He slashed the throat of any soldier who fled more than three paces, forcing them to advance.
"Let the siege begin!"
Hundreds of siege towers rushed in, each with a hundred thousand demonic followers.
"Snipe the siege towers!"
The holy law of the knights rained down on the approaching siege towers.
Thunder crashed from the sky, waves rolled in from the dry air, and a massive pillar of fire slammed directly into the siege towers.
Dark knights rained down on the unharmed ramparts as the warlocks counterattacked, and giants made their way to the ramparts, taking the arrows in silence. Tree roots sprouted from the giants, choking them and dragging them underground.
"Ugh, ugh...."
This is no ordinary war. Wolfhard, in command of the first wave of troops attacking the Lionheart Alliance, feels like he's fighting a natural disaster instead of an army.
"Damn…!"
Half a day into the battle more than half of the four hundred thousand legionnaires of demonic followers in the vanguard had died.
Electrocuted, blown up, killed by verbs, blown up, crushed, drowned, crashed to death.
So much death loomed before them that they knew it was a miracle of the gods, blessing only one side to the point of absurdity.
[Poor thing]
It was then that a chill ran down Wolfhard's spine at the sight of the great shadow.
"Great One!"
Wolfhard immediately dropped to his knees and assumed a posture of submission. He had once made a pact with the devil, but in the real world, the Archdemons were all monsters.
If the Holy Knights are a disaster that cannot be defied, these are pure evil with unending malice.
The Caster of Prajna, a disciple of Caracael, the Demon Lord of wisdom and inquiry, pierces Wolfhard with his six-pronged gaze.
[That's a lot of troops]
"Uh, that's just the first round, the results are still…!"
[When we kill one soldier, our side loses a hundred; convince them of this reality]
"So, it's a war of attrition!"
Wolfhard's words caused the Archdemon to stop the arm that was stretching towards him. He hurriedly shouted out his strategy.
"We outnumber them fifty to one, and with the exodus of the northern army that gap has widened, so I plan to wear them down with a wave of worthless demon followers!"
Demon followers are trashy half-demons who never became demons but they would be enough to exhaust and wear the enemy down.
What Wolfhard hadn't anticipated was how quickly the legions of Demon Followers melted away.
[He wishes he had hurried]
Wolfhard was not sure of the Demon Lord's intentions. Their opponents are the Holy Knights and the army is led by the Guardian of the Grail.
It would be safest to take it slow and steady, even if it meant heavy attrition.
[Rally the elite and bring in the slaves, he will back you up]
"...Yes, I see!"
Wolfhard bowed low, realizing the implications.
Ever since his contracted Archdemon of destruction and murder had fallen into the hands of the monstrous orcs on the eastern front, he'd known he could be eaten alive at any moment.
To survive, he must prove himself useful.
* * * *
The bombardment of the battlefield could be heard from where they were.
Ha-ri casually turned her head toward the battlefield and was struck with a stick.
"Agok…!"
"Never mind. This place has nothing to do with you."
How could she hit her so precisely on the head without even seeing her?
"You should get out of here. It'll be over faster than you think."
"Yeah...."
Ha-ri left the room, heart pounding and clutching the aquamarine bracelet on her wrist, and glanced at Chun So-yeon, whose eyes were still closed.
"What is she doing anyway?"
"I told her to."
"????"
Isabel's unintelligible words slipped through her fingers and she left the Temple. The war that started half a day ago is still being held at a leisurely pace by the city walls.
"Gunnar said he could finish it in a day or two...."
The problem is opening the gates. Beatrice is unable to open the gate because the Lord of Wisdom, Caracael, is interfering with it.
'Your Majesty, can you really defeat the Lord of Wisdom?'
A Demon Archduke alone was such a monster, but how powerful was the Lord of Wisdom?
The reason she was so relieved was purely because in the original history Leon is an epic hero who has defeated Malus, Lord of Chaos, Dothradon, Lord of Pleasure, and Caracael, Lord of Wisdom.
He's already defeated the Lord of Wisdom, and Ha-ri thinks it'll be easy to defeat him again. ....
-Kaaaaaaaah!
Ha-ri stares blankly at the sky that fills her vision.
There breaking through the clouds, crashing into the planet with flaming tails.
"Ah."
Something was wrong. No, she couldn't believe it.
Meteors were filling the sky.
It was stellar doom that could wipe out continents, nay, planets.
How was the king able to defeat such a monster?
* * * *
Sixteen hours after the battle began eight doomsday lights shine across the night sky.
Caracael, the Demon Lord of Wisdom, in other words, the lord of all multiverse magic, and the greatest of them all, across dimensions.
[Interpreting planetary orbit. Initiating parallel connection, coordinate derivation.]
He attracted comets that should have passed this planet by now, and it goes without saying that it is the highest form of magic.
It's no wonder that celestial intervention is called a miracle but he attracter eight of them, one on each finger.
Eight fingers out of his twelve intervene in meteors.
[Initiating precision guidance. Automatically activating protective magic when struck. Strike with guided points.]
Magic is imprinted on the world and an unprecedented grand ceremony unfolded in the land centered on the land where he sits.
An enormous magic circle, over 32 kilometers in diameter, spreads across the land and sky.
[....]
[Great Master....]
In the face of such unprecedented magic, even the Archdemons are nervous and uplifted. They cannot hide their emotions at the miracle carved into the night sky.
Since the beginning of the universe, there has never been a greater wielder of magic, nor a sage who has composed a better formula.
The magical powers inscribed in the circles roar like a storm, and the earthly circles glow brightly as they connect with the celestial bodies.
Each one a miracle that even the Archmages, the Casters of Prajna, cannot duplicate.
Look up, lowly creatures.
This is the master of magic.
The only Archmage among the Immortals.
The originator of an evil older than divinity.
Caracael.
Archmage of the Planes. The greatest of sages.
[I will leave nothing of you behind, crushed by the weight of the heavens.]
The cataclysm that marks the end of the planet descends through the atmosphere.
It was a reality so terrible, a reality that would make even the demons on their side turn away.
Gods.
Protect us.
At that moment the eyes of the Allied troops, screaming at the nightmarish reality, turn to a place at the front lines of the siege, to a watchtower on the ramparts.
There, a golden one holds a sword.
It is the white of a goddess with a pure white mane.
The goddess's gift to the greatest Grail Guardian of all times.
A knight with a Lionheart, golden gauntlets over his white skin and on the back of a noble beast that had never been ridden by anyone else, flashes a holy lance.
"Burn. Flame of all battlefields."
At that moment, all the flames of the world erupt in a fierce blaze, a flame so fierce that it threatens to cover the world.
"Lord Vulcanus?"
Someone called out. But in front of them is an agent of the All Gods.
[Intervening in the flames?]
Caracael marveled at the power of this 'God Punisher'.
It interferes with all the fires of the world. It's amazing that it's not just size or destructive power, but the concept of actually interfering with "all the flames of the world".
And where the fiercest flame in the world burns meteors are breaking through the planet's atmosphere and falling to earth. The meteors, which would normally be incinerated upon entering the atmosphere, are protected by the magic of Caracael. It is called a
──■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■
burns more fiercely as a mere spark from atmospheric friction was transformed into a divine flame.
"The star burns!"
It was a flame so huge that can be seen from the ground engulfing the falling stars and the melting stars shrinking in size in real time as Leon calls out.
"Loxley…!"
"Yes, Your Majesty!"
The copper-armored knight at Leon's side obeys and Leon turns to him.
"Shoot down any pieces that might damage the Temple of the Ten Thousand Gods. We don't need to worry about the uninhabited lands."
"On my mark!"
Loxley's holy sword slipped from its sheath. His holy sword glows a brilliant gold.
He was the Holy Knight of the Sun and Judgment but with the sun no longer rising, he brings a new sun to this night sky.
Divine Punishment
Above the Temple of Ten Thousand Gods the rising sun absorbs the flames of a falling meteor in an instant.
Sensing that his sun has absorbed enough thermal energy, Loxley points his sword and shouts.
"Inquisitor of the Lionheart Loxley punishes ugly malice!"
Sunlight shoots toward the falling meteor fragments. The fierce light becomes a terrible heat wave of its own, piercing through the falling pieces.
-Crack, crack, crack!
-Boo, fire, fire, fire…!
In the process, the demons and their followers exposed to the sun's flare melted.
The Grail Guardian and the Holy Knight.
Looking at the two monsters in front of him, the Wisdom Lord smiled.
[Enough with the greetings, I suppose]
Twelve fingers began to spew magic.
Once more twelve comets entered the planet's orbit and in response the guardian who controlled the flames of the battlefield also raised a sun.
This was a battle of monsters.