Awooooo!
The fused cryptid roared in the air and rained down relentless bombardments upon the ground below.
Each time a black sphere struck the earth, explosions tore through the battlefield, killing or maiming everyone caught in the blasts.
“Damn it! Do something!”
“It’s flying—none of our attacks are even hitting it!”
“Form a fire grid!”
“We can’t see a thing through the fog!”
The ground was nothing short of chaos and carnage.
While the fused cryptid continued its aerial bombardment, those below couldn’t land a proper counterattack.
It wasn’t that the mages did nothing—they tried to shoot the creature down with magic, but the monster leapt nimbly through the air, dodging every spell with ease.
Even when they filled the sky with a web of fire, the fused cryptid’s sheer speed made it useless.
To counter that, the War Mages pierced through the mist with flight magic.
If the creature wanted an aerial battle, they intended to meet it in kind.
But those mages quickly became the cryptid’s prey.
Even if they could fly, none of them could match a being that danced freely in midair, stepping on the wind itself.
Besides, even if one could use flight magic, most magicians had no experience with aerial combat, making them clumsy compared to fighting on the ground.
Maintaining flight while casting attack spells doubled the strain on their focus.
The brave ones who ascended into the sky never came back.
Their attacks were futile, and ascending toward the sky meant diving straight into the monster’s jaws.
Meanwhile, the cryptid gleefully swept the ground with its endless mana bombardments.
Who would have thought lacking an air force could be this suffocating?
“At this rate we’ll be wiped out! Fall back!”
“No! Hold your ground! Are you cowards, afraid of the Demon King’s subordinate?!”
“What, you want to die?! We need to retreat and come up with something first!”
Confusion spread through the command ranks.
Normally, Tarian—whose authority outweighed everyone’s—should have led them. But Tarian was currently locked in battle with Hans.
As a result, the ranks split apart—half insisting on fighting, half calling for retreat.
At this rate, annihilation was inevitable.
Whoooosh—
A sudden gust of wind blew.
“What was that?”
The wind moved, dragging the fog with it.
On closer look, it wasn’t an ordinary gust.
It devoured everything it touched like a black hole—pulling the thick fog to one side in a grotesque spiral.
At the center of that vortex stood a man gripping a sword.
The mist was being drawn into the tip of his blade.
Magic? No—it wasn’t magic.
It was pure swordsmanship. Swordsmanship so refined it distorted the surrounding airflow, pulling in the fog.
Once all the mist that had obscured the battlefield vanished, the man who had gathered it raised his head toward the sky.
“Hmm. Similar to the one I saw back then... but not quite the same.”
Lutus Wardot smiled playfully, recalling the stag spirit beast he had once seen in Rederbelk.
The fused cryptid’s face twisted.
Kraaaaaa!
With a roar, black spheres materialized around it.
Just as it was about to unleash them, Lutus moved first.
He thrust his sword, and a dense sphere of compressed mist fired toward the fused cryptid.
As the compression unraveled, the gathered fog exploded outward, instantly enveloping the cryptid and blinding its vision.
The creature, unable to see, dropped its spheres indiscriminately toward the ground—foolishly thinking it could wipe Lutus out by covering a wide area.
If Hans had been able to coordinate properly with Tarian, he would have shouted the moment he saw Lutus—ordering the cryptid to retreat at once.
But locked in combat, Hans had no such luxury, and the cryptid made the worst possible choice.
“Seems your brain’s even duller than before.”
Lutus’s voice came from right beside it—though he should have still been on the ground.
Krng?
Startled, the creature reacted too late.
Slash!
The thick fog split cleanly in two.
Within that sweeping arc, a massive gash opened across the fused cryptid’s body, spilling black blood in torrents.
It quickly regenerated and backed away, summoning more black spheres around itself.
“Better regeneration, it seems,” Lutus observed calmly.
Having leapt high into the air, he should now have been falling—but strangely, he wasn’t.
Gravity seemed to hold no power over him.
“Why? Did you think flight was the exclusive privilege of mages and yourself?”
Winds surged around Lutus’s entire body.
He hovered effortlessly in the air, upheld by sheer tempestuous force.
Kraaaah!
The fused cryptid roared and fired beams of black mana—five dense pillars aimed straight at him.
Lutus merely swung his sword lightly.
His swordsmanship unfolded.
Before the beams could reach him, they bent away, twisting into empty directions.
As the cryptid faltered in confusion, Lutus’s figure shot toward it like an arrow.
With a violent gust swirling behind him, the fused cryptid charged as well, cloaked in black mana, horns thrust forward like an enraged bull.
“I’ve already seen that one before.”
Lutus sidestepped easily and leapt onto its back.
Before the cryptid could dispel him with wind transformation, Lutus’s blade came down.
Clang!
The fused cryptid’s massive body crashed into the ground.
Standing atop the fallen creature amid the rising dust, Lutus planted his foot firmly on its back.
Those who witnessed the one-sided battle were left speechless.
The monster that had given them such trouble had been subdued by a single man.
Even if that man was Lutus Wardot—the strongest sword in the continent—this was beyond comprehension.
“Well now.”
Lutus stepped off the creature’s body.
Its whole frame trembled with surging black mana.
“Reinforcements! Reinforcements have arrived!”
Following Lutus’s appearance, paladins and priests from Bretus poured onto the scene.
Lutus clicked his tongue.
“Tch. I detest being watched like this.”
Still, recklessly acting on his own could create political ripples throughout the Empire.
As much as he disliked admitting it, Salesin now gripped the entire continent in his hand, ruling it as he pleased.
For now, showing cooperation with the Crusaders against the Demon King’s army was the best option.
In Lutus’s line of sight, the cryptid began to rise again.
He smirked.
“Tough one.”
Despite the damage, the creature’s eyes still blazed with burning hostility.
Lutus’s grin widened as an idea came to him.
“Everyone, back away. Stay here and you’ll be caught up in it.”
“Wait, Sir Lutus—what do you mean by that...?”
A paladin assigned to monitor him tried to object, but Lutus didn’t bother listening.
“You expect me to hold back against that monster? I have no such intention.”
“But our allies are still—!”
“That’s why I said to get out of the way. Ah, and for the record, I did warn you.”
Without waiting for further protest, Lutus charged straight toward the fused cryptid.
And then—
At the heart of the already-ruined Second Gate City, a gray tempest erupted.
* * *
“Tsk.”
Alex let out a sigh as he gazed from the First Gate City at the enormous ash-colored dome clearly visible even from afar.
“So the old man showed up too, huh.”
It was obvious whose technique that colossal vortex belonged to.
Lutus Wardot’s secret sword art — Tempest.
The dome, a full kilometer in diameter, stopped expanding and spun rapidly in place.
“So that’s the power of the famed solo-numbered Gladius Arts, [Jet Stream].”
A Gladius Arts — the secret weapon that allows a knight to display his power to the fullest.
That was why such weapons were granted only to the most seasoned, highly specialized knights.
Alex brushed the sword hanging at his waist with a casual hand.
Of course, he had brought his own Gladius Arts in preparation for battle.
Having money made such things possible.
“Old man, I get that you’re trying to put on a show, but that’s not how you do it. You sure it’s fine to reveal all that to me?”
Alex’s eyes never left the swirling gray dome of the tempest.
That storm was Lutus’s swordsmanship.
Which meant, to Alex, it was nothing more than a technique to observe and analyze.
His eyes broke it apart piece by piece—disassembling its structure, process, and outcome.
Just a little more.
A little more, and he could make it completely his own.
At that thought, a white flash blazed in the distance.
“Tch. And right when it was getting good.”
Alex leapt backward instantly.
The building he had been standing on just moments ago was struck by the flash and crumbled into rubble.
Landing on the rooftop of another building opposite, Alex let out a whistle.
“Quite the entrance. I figured they’d show up any time now.”
As he muttered, figures in black uniforms appeared across the nearby rooftops.
Each of them immaculate in attire, with cold, expressionless faces fixed on him.
“The Nightcrawler Knights, huh.”
One glance at their black uniforms was all it took for Alex to recognize them.
“Meeting you lot under gloomy skies like this—it’s downright chilling. If it were midnight, I might’ve pissed myself.”
Even at his joking remark, the Nightcrawler Knights said nothing.
They simply stood in silence, as though waiting for an order.
Alex’s eyes calmed.
‘Hmm. As expected of the famed knights. Not a twitch.’
Even with his teasing tone, they didn’t so much as flinch.
No wonder they were under the Security Bureau—they were unnervingly rigid, almost to the point of exhaustion just watching them.
Then came the sound of footsteps—measured, confident.
A woman with long white hair appeared.
Black uniform, hair cascading to her waist.
Her sharp features and commanding presence were like a lion’s roar given human form.
‘Terrina Lionhowl.’
Alex’s eyes trembled slightly as he beheld the Lord Protector of the Empire.
But it wasn’t Terrina herself that shook him.
It was the woman standing beside her.
“Alex.”
Enya gazed up at him on the rooftop, her eyes complicated and conflicted.
Her finding him here said more than any words ever could.
Beside her, Lloyd pushed up his glasses and spoke.
“Enya. Don’t forget why we’re here.”
Enya bit her lip.
“...I know, Senior.”
“The man before us is a subordinate of the Demon King. And if he’s guarding this city alone, we must assume he’s extremely capable.”
Terrina did not underestimate Alex.
A man standing alone in the First Gate City couldn’t possibly be ordinary.
The explosions rumbling from the city’s other side already made it clear how fierce the ongoing battles were.
“I’ll ask once,” Terrina said evenly.
“Do you intend to surrender?”
“Surrender? I’m part of the Demon King’s army, aren’t I?”
Alex let out a short laugh of disbelief.
“And if I did, you’d accept it?”
“By wartime international law, you’d be treated as a prisoner.”
“That’s Imperial law. Bretus doesn’t have such laws.”
Terrina couldn’t refute that—because he was right. Bretus wouldn’t.
“Well then, facing the Lord Protector as my first opponent isn’t too bad.”
With that, Alex drew the sword at his waist.
Even under the overcast sky, its silver blade gleamed faintly, clearly no ordinary weapon.
Intricate runes lined the blade’s edge.
“A Gladius Arts, I see.”
“Well, I am a knight, after all—sort of. Dropped out halfway, but still.”
“...Yes, I heard about you. The most gifted cadet of your class, yet unrecognized because you were a commoner. If you’d become a full knight, perhaps the Empire would’ve gained another Master.”
Enya flinched at Terrina’s words.
The memory still hurt.
“To have such talent and yet side with the Demon King. Did you hate the Empire that much?”
“Hahaha. What a funny question. Did I hate the Empire for persecuting me as a commoner?”
Alex laughed, clutching his stomach.
Then his smile vanished.
“No. I hate the whole world.”
* * *
The shift in his aura was instantaneous.
The well-trained Nightcrawler Knights all flinched at once.
So did Enya Joinas.
She had only ever known the Alex who smiled and joked. The expressionless face she now saw was utterly foreign to her.
“Alex, you—”
Before she could finish, Alex cut her off coldly.
“You came all this way just to make small talk? Whoever thought that was a good idea can get lost. Not worth my time.”
No one answered.
“See? You all know. There’s no talking our way out of this. We’ve come too far. There’s only one thing left.”
Alex swung his sword loosely in the air.
His posture looked careless, but the killing intent radiating from his blade was anything but.
“...So be it.”
Terrina exhaled and reached out a hand.
From the ruins of the collapsed building where Alex had first stood, something shot upward into her grasp.
Thoom!
It was a massive greatsword—larger than Terrina herself.
Just its blade alone stretched nearly 2.3 meters long.
A weapon commonly known as a Zweihänder.
It didn’t match the sharp twin-blade style Terrina usually displayed, but in truth—this was the weapon that best expressed her true swordsmanship.
Gladius Arts, Solo Numbering.
[Giant Killer]
Lifting the menacing blade, Terrina charged at Alex.
“That’s more like it.”
Alex’s face remained impassive as he met her head-on.