Down on the blood-soaked earth, hordes of Sarkaz were locked in a savage, chaotic frenzy. Swords clashed, arts flared, and brothers-in-arms tore into one another with terrifying malice, completely indifferent to the fact that they shared the very same bloodline.
In the scarred lands of Kazdel, a common heritage meant absolutely nothing. These mercenaries wouldn't dare trust their own squadmates, let alone a fellow Sarkaz. Even during a rare moment of peace over drinks, a veteran always kept a tankard in one hand and a unsheathed blade in the other.
In this brutal nation, no one put stock in a concept as fragile as friendship. Sentimentality held zero value when weighed against a fat sack of coin.
Right now, a dense vanguard of the Regent's forces found themselves pinned down behind a rocky ridge. The defensive camp ahead was unleashing an endless barrage of crude explosives, throwing them out like madmen driven by pure desperation.
"I heard the last bastard leading that squad was a complete lunatic, but this new captain isn't looking much saner," an enemy mercenary muttered, ducking beneath a ledge as a massive shockwave rattled his teeth. "What on earth is he driving his men so hard for?"
"Who cares?" his companion spat, peering over the dirt as a fresh wave of cannon fodder was blown into meat and shrapnel. "Maybe he thinks the Demon King will grant them a royal promotion. Or maybe he knows exactly what we'll do to them if they fall into our hands alive. That captain's head carries a hefty bounty."
A few seasoned killers squatted in the dirt, entirely unmoved by the slaughter of the frontline recruits. Their strategy was beautifully simple: use these expendable meat-shields to drain the camp's black powder reserves, then sweep in to butcher the survivors once the supply ran dry.
Similar calculations were being made across the surrounding ridges. Dozens of veteran raiders loitered just outside the blast radius, casually trading dark jokes as if the screaming men dying a few dozen yards away belonged to an entirely different world.
To them, those frontliners were just fodder—drifters who possessed zero specialized combat skills and joined mercenary bands simply to secure a miserable meal ticket. Every group kept a pool of these desperate souls on hand, feeding them just enough to ensure they would willingly march into the meat grinder when the time came.
"Hey... look up. What in the world are those things?"
A sharp-eyed Sarkaz suddenly pointed toward the heavens, breaking the casual banter. High above, a massive cluster of dark shapes was carving through the clouds, moving toward their position with incredible speed. Due to the staggering altitude, their silhouettes remained frustratingly vague.
The remark drew the attention of the surrounding squad. Shielding their eyes against the piercing glare of the sun, the mercenaries squinted upward, tracking the vast canopy of black shadows sweeping across the sky.
"Probably just a flock of wild fowl drawn by the stench of fresh blood," a raider grunted, quickly looking away from the blinding glare. "Since they're flying in a massive swarm like that, they can't be anything truly dangerous. I wonder how they taste roasted over a fire."
The surrounding men chuckled, entirely unconcerned. It was common knowledge across Terra that truly lethal, colossal beasts hunted in absolute isolation. Due to the scarce resources of the wastes, apex predators never gathered in vast numbers.
It was an rule forged through decades of survival in the badlands, but today, that hardwired instinct would prove to be their ultimate undoing. The simple reality was that these wasteland-dwellers had never encountered a power capable of taming an entire airborne legion.
Dismissing the sky, the mercenaries shifted their focus back to the trenches. Ahead, the frequency of the thunderous detonations was beginning to noticeably dwindle.
Believing that Hoederer's reserves had finally run dry, several impatient squads began uncoiling from their positions, eager to rush the trenches and claim the glory before the rest of the army could close the gap.
While the reckless younger fighters charged into the open, a few seasoned veterans were violently yanked back by their captains, forced to stay put beneath the rocks.
"Hold your ground, you idiots. You're still far too green," a scarred veteran sneered, watching the overeager raiders sprint across the mud. "The man holding that camp is a notoriously slippery bastard. Just watch."
A split second later, a roar echoed through the valley that completely eclipsed every previous blast. This time, the defenders hadn't thrown standard black powder—they had unleashed something infinitely more volatile.
Within the battered trench line, Hoederer cleaved his greatsword through an attacking Sarkaz, his chest heaving as he surveyed their remaining munitions. His expression was incredibly dark; at this rate, their salvaged hoard wouldn't keep the enemy at bay for twenty-four hours.
He turned his gaze toward a white-haired Sarkaz girl who was cackling with unbridled glee, screaming curses at the enemy while tossing customized packages into the fray. She held a crude remote detonator in one hand and a wicked trench knife in the other, her crimson eyes wide with the raw euphoria of slaughter.
"W! Stop hoarding your personal stash! Unearth those homemade toys of yours and plug the gap!" Hoederer roared, fending off another charging raider.
"Huh? What did you say?" W blinked, her crazed laughter cutting short as she glanced back at her captain, her mind still entirely consumed by the music of the explosions.
Seeing her dazed state, Hoederer gritted his teeth and barked the command a second time.
"Are you absolutely certain about that?" W's lips twisted into a manic grin, though her tone carried a mock hint of hesitation. "Those experimental batches are completely unstable, you know! If I detonate them here and that horned woman tries to skin me for it later, you're the one standing between her daggers and my neck!"
Despite her words, her boots were already moving, sprinting toward a concealed crate to drag out her volatile prototypes. It was glaringly obvious she had been itching for an excuse to unleash them all along.
"I will handle the bureaucratic fallout regarding the supplies. The rest of your idiocy is entirely on you," Hoederer replied coldly. He knew exactly how unhinged the girl could get; there was no universe where he would willingly take the blame for her personal madness.
"Tch, what a boring, rigid man..." W pouted, tossing a heavy bundle over the parapet. As she turned back to scan the horizon, her eyes suddenly locked onto the clouds, widening in pure, childish fascination. She dashed over to Hoederer's side, tugging violently on his armored shoulder. "Hey, Hoederer! Have you ever heard of a breed of bird that grows massive bat wings? And do those things normally fly around in giant military formations?"
"What absolute nonsense are you—" Hoederer began, assuming the girl had finally lost the last of her sanity. But something in her expression forced him to stop.
He snapped his gaze upward.
The distant black specks had completely vanished, replaced by an avalanche of colossal, terrifying predators diving straight out of the sun. It was a species of prehistoric monster he had never seen in any text, their massive leathery wings cutting through the gale as they plunged toward the earth.
A heartbeat later, a cataclysmic roar of dragon fire rent the air, completely obliterating their senses. The sheer, localized force of the acoustic wave turned their ears entirely numb, rendering the screams of the dying and the frantic shouts of their squadmates completely silent.
All eyes locked onto the valley ahead. A massive swath of the advancing army had simply ceased to exist.
The landscape itself had been violently rewritten; where a network of steep dirt ridges had stood a moment prior, there was now nothing but a molten, smoking crater of ash and glass.
The charging Sarkaz mercenaries? They had been reduced to cinder before they could even process the shadow falling over their heads. Hoederer stood frozen in the trench, his knuckles white against his blade, half-convinced he had fallen victim to a mass illusion spell.
"Do you know what those things are, Hoederer? They look like an absolute blast!" W cheered, her eyes sparkling as she watched the surviving enemy forces break into a frantic, panicked rout. The terrifying beasts were already wheeling through the air, systematically tearing the hostile command camps to splinters.
"What gave you the ridiculous impression that I would possess historical data on an airborne legion?" Hoederer muttered, his voice entirely hollow.
"Well, you're the one who's always hunched over those useless books! If I can't ask the resident scholar, who else am I supposed to turn to?" W shrugged, her tone completely casual as if they weren't standing beside a freshly created crater.
"Good day, gentlemen. I was hoping to verify your allegiance—you are the contract vanguard holding the line for Babel, correct? I certainly hope I haven't landed in the wrong sector."
A crisp, melodic female voice drifted down from above.
The mercenaries spun around, weapons raising in an instant reflex as a massive, silver-scaled wyvern gracefully touched down onto the blood-soaked dirt.
From the beast's back, the Saintess lightly vaulted down to the earth, offering them a polite, reassuring smile. Hoederer and his crew stared in absolute, dumbfounded silence—not just at the legendary figure standing before them, but at the fact that she had brought a small, chubby child to a brutal battlefield, who was currently and very loudly chewing on a dense loaf of black bread.