The interrogation at the mountain camp had yielded a chilling truth: the shadow of a traitorous Beast King was looming over the world, pulling Drel's strings from the darkness. But while the Demon King Clen and Alicia had unraveled the mystery of the "Hollow Shell," the gears of war had already begun to turn with a relentless, mechanical grinding.
As the morning sun climbed higher, the peaceful stillness of the peaks was shattered by the rhythmic thud of thousands of boots. The Boret Army had begun its final march toward the fortified city of Hiderat. Leading from the front, draped in the dark aura of his kinetic magic, was General Drel. His presence alone was a psychological weapon; as he approached the city walls, the confidence of the defenders withered like grass in a drought.
Inside Hiderat, the atmosphere was one of frantic, disorganized terror.
"They're here already?!" a young scout shrieked, his voice cracking as he looked out at the sea of steel approaching the gates.
"Hold the line! Don't let them break through!" the captains roared back.
But the words felt hollow. With the King absent, the chain of command was a frayed rope. Orders were barked and positions were taken, but a heavy shroud of doubt lingered behind every soldier's gaze. They were fighting for a throne that felt empty, against a man who seemed to have transcended humanity.
---
Meanwhile, back at the mountain camp, the "interrogation" had taken a tactical turn. Alicia and Clen had finished tying up Naie, the elite mage whose specialized magic had been so easily neutralized by Alicia's raw power. They stepped back into the shadows of the treeline and waited. To an outside observer, it looked like they were leaving a prisoner behind. In reality, Naie was the bait in a much larger trap.
Naie, desperate and sensing a momentary lapse in her captors' attention, began to struggle against her bonds. She was a wizard of high caliber; it didn't take long for her to untie herself. Believing she was making a miraculous escape, she immediately tapped into her innate magnetism. With a surge of mana, she lifted herself off the ground, her body becoming a living conduit for the earth's polarity as she began to fly toward the horizon.
High in the air, Naie looked down with a predatory grin. Her eyes locked onto an open iron carriage parked near the edge of the camp. Inside, she could see the nurse Nelluru clutching the royal baby, Luna.
"The master will not be happy if I don't carry the prince home," Naie hissed to herself, her ambition overriding her fear.
She extended her hands, her magnetic power locking onto the heavy iron frame of the carriage. With a violent pull, she dragged the entire vehicle into the sky with her. It was a heavy burden, but the thought of the reward waiting at the Boret Kingdom gave her the strength to soar. She began dragging the carriage toward the heart of the war, unaware that she was delivering her own destruction.
Inside the carriage, the heavy door hung open, swaying in the high-altitude wind. Naie was focused on the horizon, her back to the interior. She didn't see that Alicia and Clen were already sitting there, calm and unbothered by the sudden flight.
Alicia stood up, the obsidian blade of the Abyss singing as it left its sheath. She placed the cold edge of the metal against Naie's throat from behind.
"Keep flying," Alicia commanded, her voice as sharp as the steel. "Take us to Hayden. Take us to the war."
Naie's heart nearly stopped as she realized she had been played like a fiddle. She wasn't escaping; she was acting as their personal transport. Trapped in the sky with a Hero and a Demon King, she had no choice but to keep her magic focused on the iron, steering the carriage toward the smoke rising from Hiderat.
---
The moment the iron carriage descended toward the gates of Hiderat, the world beneath them exploded. The siege had begun in earnest.
Steel crashed against steel with a sound that echoed through the valley like thunder. Magic tore through the air in streaks of jagged lightning and plumes of alchemical fire. Soldiers fell in waves as the two lines collided in a brutal, bloody mess. The Battle of Hiderat had officially begun.
Drel did not hesitate. He stepped forward like a god of ruin, his kinetic force parting the defensive line as if it were water. He struck down anyone in his path with a singular, terrifying efficiency. With every swing of his artifact, the defensive line fractured further, the stones of the city itself beginning to groan under the pressure of his presence.
Alicia leaped from the still-hovering carriage, her boots hitting the blood-stained earth with a heavy thud. She sprinted through the chaos, her eyes locked on the Dragon Slayer.
"This isn't justice!" she shouted over the roar of the dying. "People will die for nothing but your ego!"
Drel looked at her, his expression calm, unmoved by the carnage surrounding him. "Justice is a word for the weak, Alicia," he replied coldly. "Strength decides what is right. Strength decides who survives to write the history books."
They clashed. The obsidian blade met Drel's kinetic wall in a shower of sparks that blinded the nearby soldiers. Alicia fought with everything she had, her movements a blur of Abyssal "Waterfall" strikes, but she struggled to keep up. Drel moved with a terrifying weight, his strikes pushing her back inch by inch, forcing her to give up ground she couldn't afford to lose. He wasn't stopping, and he wasn't tiring.
Around them, the battle spread like a plague deeper into the city streets. Fire began to lick at the rooftops, and the once-proud walls of Hiderat began to crumble under the relentless bombardment.
Nelluru stayed behind in the safety of the iron carriage, observing the chaos with wide, terrified eyes as she held the baby. Beside her, Clen stood perfectly still. He watched the lines break and the fires rise with the detached interest of a scholar. He didn't step in. He was waiting for the true enemy to show their face.
---
As the smoke rose and the path forward became choked with rubble, Clen pointed toward a massive, ancient stone wall that was blocking their intended exit route toward the heart of the kingdom.
"Push this wall down," Clen commanded, his voice barely a whisper against the sounds of war.
Nelluru looked at him, her face pale with confusion. "Me? Push down this wall? Clen, it's three feet of solid granite!"
"When I healed your body in the forest, I didn't just mend your skin," Clen explained calmly, his golden eyes fixed on the stone. "I gave you the strength necessary to protect Luna. I condensed the muscle power of a Mountain Troll into your small frame. Your speed and raw power are now beyond anything human. Just think of nothing. Don't calculate the weight. Just push with all your might."
Nelluru looked at her small, trembling hands, then at the massive wall. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes to shut out the screams of the battlefield. She stopped thinking about what was possible. She placed her palms against the cold, rough stone and shoved.
With a thunderous crash that momentarily silenced the entire battlefield, the massive wall didn't just break—it collapsed like it was made of dry sand. The debris flew into the air in a massive cloud of dust, clearing the path instantly.
On the other side of the wall, a group of Boret soldiers were nearly crushed by the raining stone.
"A stone is falling! Fabio-sama, watch out!" one soldier screamed, diving into the dirt.
A massive boulder hit the ground right where their captain had been standing a second before, creating a blinding cloud of grit. When the dust finally cleared, the soldiers looked around in absolute terror at the sheer destruction of the fortifications.
"Was that a scream?" one asked, his voice shaking as he gripped his spear.
"Just your imagination," another replied, though his own knees were knocking. "I… I meant to clear these stones anyway to make a path for the vanguard."
They peered through the jagged, new opening in the wall, expecting to see a siege engine or a monster. But the path was empty. Nelluru, Clen, and the baby had already moved through the breach and vanished into the smoke of the inner city.
The war was still raging, the air thick with the scent of ozone and blood. This fight… was far from over.