C733
Valeria activated the record window, but no information appeared on the screen.
In a normal war, they would have already received information from an anonymous reconnaissance unit or assessed the approximate enemy forces from the air using fleets and dragons.
However, in this war, none of these actions made sense.
They had to keep moving forward, regardless of the danger lurking beyond the darkness.
The fleet resumed its bombardment, targeting the walls extending on either side of the open gate.
They knew that physical attacks were effective against the walls, so the fleet needed to break through them and secure a passage into the castle.
Scaling the heights was impossible.
However, as Jin approached the gate, he felt a growing unease.
The gate... it keeps opening.It seemed to be welcoming Jin.
With each step he took, the darkness of the gate increased. It was as if it allowed entry not of an enemy, but of an ally.
"Sir Jin," Ronil spoke.
Octavia and some members of the Spectre Corps had also descended to the ground.
"Speak."
"Would it be better to enter after partially destroying the walls? The gate keeps opening as if mocking us."
Before Jin could respond, a disturbing and heavy rumble echoed in the ears of everyone present on the battlefield.
Gwoo....
Like the mournful cry of a monster within a cave, it was a deep and eerie sound.
Jin and the others involuntarily looked up at the sky.
Is it the main cannon of Ram?
Has Lady Lynn failed?
The dreadful cannon was already adorned with enormous chaos.
The fleet immediately switched from bombardment to deploying protective shields.
Signals lit up in various locations, alerting them to sudden situations, and blue shields were formed.
The ground forces also adopted defensive stances centered around Jin, and Ram's cannon unleashed its massive chaos.
Phaaaa...!
Ram's bombardment struck directly at Jin and the fleet.
Five battleships that were there moments ago vanished without a trace, but the ominous pillar that eradicated them remained.
"The Fourth Flagship, Pistro, annihilated!"
"We need confirmation on the change of the Fourth Fleet's flagship, over 10 battleships destroyed...!"
"Enemy cannon reloading, projected impact point, 1st Kinzelo fleet!"
"The fleet cannot keep up with Ram's reloading speed!"
The Magicians of the fleet shouted frantically.
The fleet's protective shields were nothing more than paper sheets against Ram's main cannon.
The terrifying bombardment they experienced during the first assault was repeating itself.
Fear consumed the Magicians, who remembered the nightmare of that day.
Ram fired its second shot.
Not even Grenille, Kinzelo's flagship, could withstand Ram's main cannon on its own.
[Tsk!]
Fortunately, before the bombardment hit, Zephyrin positioned himself above Grenille, exhaling a sigh.
Unlike the first assault, Zephyrin wasn't pierced even when directly hit by the cannon.
There were reasons why Zephyrin had grown stronger, but it also meant that Ram's main cannon had weakened compared to the initial attack.
However, the weakening of the main cannon did not imply a decrease in total power.
"Main cannon switched to radial mode! Damage radius, the entire fleet...!"
Showers of black meteors spread like cobwebs, relentlessly striking all the airborne forces.
With each passing moment, battleships were destroyed, and dragons let out agonizing cries.
Bale soared into the sky, unleashing his golden powers, while Orgal deployed a shield that encompassed the entire airspace.
As Orgal's shield formed perfectly, the damage significantly decreased, but Ram didn't seem willing to allow it.
The reloading speed was increasing.
The airborne forces were already at a disadvantage due to the low altitude of the entire airspace from the start, and they had no room to spare.
If things continued like this, the airborne forces would soon face annihilation or near extinction.
A quick judgment was required.
Beradin gritted his teeth, alternating his gaze between Ram's cannon protruding from the clouds and the battlefield below.
It's difficult to retreat...
The barrier that Jin had broken through earlier has been restored.
'If we try to break through the barrier and retreat recklessly, the likelihood of complete annihilation is high.'
Beradin's gaze landed on the gate.
It remained open, extending the darkness.
Without them realizing it, the gate was now wide enough for the fleet to enter.
And although the impact of Ram's cannon had slightly altered the shape of the walls, they were still sturdy enough to support the fleet, incomparable to their previous state. ṟ𝔞ΝốＢЕŜ
"...Advance the fleet. We'll enter the castle. Also inform the ground forces."
Beradin's order momentarily startled the commanders, but they quickly prepared for acceleration.
Jin and the heroes on the ground intercepted Ram's continuous bombardments, reading the fleet's signals.
At the forefront, Kozec reached the darkness of the gate.
The battleships followed, disappearing into the darkness.
Indeed, Beradin's judgment proved effective.
The ominous castle acted as an umbrella, protecting the battleships as they entered.
When the fleet, dragons, and ground forces had fully entered the castle,
Only about 70% of the remaining fleet and dragons were left.
It hadn't even taken 10 minutes for 30% of all airborne forces to vanish.
The allies outside looked at the gate, their eyes momentarily dazed.
Inside, there was only the same darkness as when they entered.
It gave them the feeling of crossing some sort of boundary.
A boundary that connected the mortal world with the world of the evil god.
However, the relentless noise and vibrations caused by Ram's cannon continued to resonate from within.
In other words, the temporary alliance had escaped into the evil god's castle from that bombardment.
The allies couldn't help but feel a deep sense of humiliation for pleading for mercy from the enemy as much as for asking for it.
Inside the castle, it was possible to visually confirm the structure, unlike when observed from beyond the castle gates.
It was a vast space where the size of the castle could truly be felt, an immense cavity.
Although the entire fleet had entered the interior, there was no sense of claustrophobia at all.
It gave the impression of being in the middle of a plain rather than inside a castle.
"It seems much larger than it looked from the outside."
"Why would they create such a spacious area?"
"They were already bombarding us from outside. If we stayed out there, their artillery would have killed us. To avoid that, we had no choice but to enter the enemy's castle."
As the allies looked around and made their remarks, suddenly, the roars and vibrations coming from outside, caused by Ram, ceased.
The castle gates had closed.
"Ah!"
"Ugh!"
And as soon as the gates closed, the knights with lower resistance and the Magicians among the allied forces began to scream.
A psychic attack.
The mental assault of the evil god that had been pressing on all the forces had infiltrated the minds of the allies.
Many collapsed within the fleet, even the dragons twisted their bodies and fell to the ground.
The absurdity of facing a god continued to unfold.
The only fortunate thing was that those with a certain level of willpower were unaffected, as demonstrated by the fact that Rosa had been struck during the previous internal battle.
At that moment, regardless of willpower or resistance, Rosa unleashed indiscriminate psychic attacks.
[If we had come here without winning the previous battles, we would have already been annihilated.]
Orgal said to Jin. In his eyes, he could faintly see the light that enveloped Jin's body in this darkness.
For the lower beings, it was an invisible light.
[It's more like a kidnapping, but since there has been an invitation and a welcoming ceremony, we must obey. We need to quickly attend to the incapacitated personnel and move forward. I'm sure everyone feels it, but if this fight drags on, we have no chance of winning.]
His words were accurate.
The mere act of standing still caused people to suffer mental blows, and it was a waste to even pause for a moment.
But where should they go?
Finding a clue wasn't easy.
The interior was so vast that it felt empty, truly like a plain with openings in all directions.
They could be attacked from any side.
In the worst-case scenario, enemies could converge from all sides at once.
Everyone's gaze turned to Jin.
As if they were naturally drawn to the light in the darkness.
With his eyes closed, Jin read the chaos.
Although all directions were filled with intense chaos, an even denser energy surged from the center.
Without hesitation, Jin began to move, and the allied forces followed him.
Every hundred steps, more personnel collapsed due to the mental attacks.
Simply by moving forward, people became entangled in their individual struggles.
They advanced for about thirty minutes.
By then, the chaos army hadn't attacked the allied forces.
Instead, Jin and the allied forces stopped advancing and suddenly found themselves staring at a cliff that appeared before them.
They couldn't fly over it, just like when they attacked the fortress wall.
When Bale and Zephyrin tried to fly, the moment they attempted to pass over the cliff, something seemed to drag them down, and their altitude rapidly decreased.
They almost fell below the cliff without warning.
There was nothing beyond the cliff.
They had to descend below the cliff for a new path to form.
The interior of the Evil God's Castle was a structure that strictly connected only with the underground.
Jin looked below the cliff.
They’re trying to drag us deeper and deeper...
It was like a swamp.
In Jin's thoughts, Rosa was dragging the allied forces to the lowest point in the world.
It was as if they had to reach that point to face her head-on.
"I'll go down first to check."
Jin said as he unsheathed his sword.
"I'm not sure if it will be possible to send a signal from below, so if there's no contact after 10 minutes, the remaining high-ranking forces should enter one by one."
Normally, if it weren't Jin,
The allies would have suggested being more cautious in the face of danger.
But in this war, Jin's judgment was absolute, and no one could open a path that he couldn't.
As Jin began to descend the cliff, his comrades watched his back.
For some reason, the thought of Jin falling into a trap didn't cross their minds.
Whatever awaited him below, it didn’t matter.
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