The Greatbow Sylphid was a treasured relic said to be wielded only by the archers of the Stendal bloodline. The bow, stretching nearly two and a half meters, was both firm and absurdly elastic, while its string—finer and tougher than an Arachne’s silk—required superhuman strength to draw.

Legends surrounding this ancient weapon were countless, but among them, one characteristic stood out above all.

When Robin pulled the string with his right hand, a colorless, transparent arrow materialized in the empty air along with the creak of the tension being tested to its limit.

It wasn’t named after the Spirit King of Wind for nothing. The bow gathered the surrounding air itself, condensing it into arrows stronger than any Aura Arrow. And when imbued with the wielder’s Aura, their destructive power increased severalfold.

The air distorted before him as the wind cleared a path for the shot.

“Windflow Arrow, Rapid Tempo: Roaring Gale Arrow.”

A bow that nullified air resistance unleashed a storm. A “tempestuous storm” referred to the clash of violent wind and raging waves. That was exactly what Robin’s arrow became.

The moment it left the bowstring, it transformed into a tempest, shredding everything in its path. Even a Master would not survive a direct hit unscathed.

Cedric, thrilled to finally face an Aura Master of the bow, stepped forward boldly, drunk on the thrill of power and speed.

“Now this is fun! Stay out of my way!”

Valter didn’t even have time to stop him.

The Roaring Gale Arrow screamed toward Cedric’s chest from twenty meters away, eager to tear through his heart. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

“Come!”

With a cry of exhilaration, Cedric swung his sword down. Steel met the storm head-on. His hair whipped like a wolf’s mane as the bluish-gray Aura flared, splitting the maelstrom apart.

Even the arrow at the heart of the vortex was no exception. With a single descending slash, the Roaring Gale Arrow was cleaved cleanly in two.

Even halved, the storm’s remnants ripped past Cedric, carving two deep furrows in the ground behind him—like twin scars left by a serpent the size of a house.

“Good. I like the feel of that,” Cedric muttered, touching his tingling wrist, his grin only grown sharper.

Above, Robin met his gaze from atop the wall, smiling back with equal ferocity. It was as if their thoughts had connected. The killing intent of two Masters collided in midair.

“Windflow Arrow, Ultra Rapid Tempo: Cutting Gale Arrows.”

This time, it wasn’t one shot—it was a barrage. Robin’s right hand blurred, his bowstring snapping forward faster than the eye could see. A storm of arrows rained down, all loosed by one man.

“Cheap tricks!” Cedric snarled.

“Don’t take him on alone!” Valter shouted. “That bastard’s three times stronger when you can’t close the distance!”

The two Swordmasters advanced, cutting through the downpour, but leaping to the wall was impossible now. Robin had entered his full rhythm. Within fractions of a second, he loosed dozens of arrows; within ten seconds, nearly five hundred. Each one absurdly fast, each one deadly sharp.

They could defend if they focused solely on blocking, but pressing forward meant braving hits they couldn’t avoid.

And while the Swordmasters were pinned down, the shattered force-field barrier began to reform. Even when broken by Aura Blades, its power source remained in the magical circles within the wall. Destroying the surface layer did nothing if the energy core remained intact, as it would simply regenerate again and again.

Worse, the barrier amplified Robin’s arrows. Once it was restored, no one would be able to take another step closer.

Watching the fight several kilometers away from the fortress, Grania, his body still far from healed, raised his staff.

“Sigh... Making this old man work again, are you?”

The surge of mana made his head spin, but a Master’s focus did not waver for something so small. In seconds, the Grand Mage’s mind ran through hundreds of calculations and completed the spell’s formula.

The name of that spell was Meteoric Burst. A degraded variant of the ninth-tier spell Meteor Strike was weaker in form, but nearly equal in destructive power.

The principle was simple: compress the minerals within the earth into massive projectiles, teleport them high into the sky, and then send them plummeting along a precise trajectory. Add the maximum gravitational acceleration, and it made a magical bombardment capable of dropping tens of tons of rock upon a target.

From far above, an artificial meteor began to fall toward the fortress.

“What?!”

Robin noticed it first and fired, but even his Roaring Gale Arrow could only slow it slightly. The immense mass, combined with overwhelming acceleration, was far beyond what even an Aura Master could counter.

Meteoric Burst struck Calelum’s wall before anyone could blink and exploded. A deafening blast ripped through the air, followed by a shockwave so immense that even soldiers stationed nearly a kilometer away had their eardrums ruptured. Well-trained horses reared and screamed in terror, their formation breaking apart.

It was a meteor—no other word for it. The phenomenon the Grand Mage had created was indistinguishable from a natural disaster.

One of Ferma’s knight captains, who had reflexively drawn up his Aura in time to protect his hearing, pointed frantically toward the point of impact.

“L-look there!”

The walls of Calelum—the fortress once thought to be unassailable—had partially collapsed in ruin. The force-field barrier, which had just begun to regenerate, shattered again.

“Now! If not now, we’ll never break that damned wall!”

The captain, drunk on the moment, charged forward without a hint of fear, and the knights under his command spurred their horses in response.

No matter how disciplined a cavalry unit was, they were still ordinary soldiers, nothing compared to knights, each of whom was an Aura User worth a hundred men. The Meteoric Burst had leveled everything within several kilometers, but the knights had already shaken off their dizziness.

“Throw your speaaaars!”

The knights pulled javelin launchers from behind their saddles, fixed short spears onto the ends, infused them with Aura, and hurled them with all their might. A javelin launched from a thrower struck three times harder than one thrown by hand.

Hundreds of spears embedded themselves into the cracked sections of the wall, creating footholds—small as a handprint in the grand scale of the fortress, but enough. The wall, now bristling with spears like a hedgehog’s spines, no longer seemed utterly impossible to climb.

“Follow me! We’ll take the wall here and now!”

The captain leaped, using the embedded spears as steps, and in seconds, he scaled the seventy-meter wall. If it had been a smooth surface, perhaps it would have been impossible—but to a knight, even jagged terrain could be sprinted across as if it were level ground.

Following their leader, the knights ascended the wall and finally set foot atop Calelum’s ramparts. Naturally, the defending soldiers swarmed to meet them, surrounding them on all sides.

But why would knights, seasoned in countless battles, fear mere foot soldiers?

“Out of my way, you imperial maggots!”

With a single sweep of his sword, the captain sent several heads flying.

Just using Aura Sword and not Aura Blade gave his strikes enough power to cleave through steel armor like paper. No ordinary soldier could hope to stall a knight.

That was common sense. Well, it should have been common sense.

“Huh...?”

However, the soldiers whose heads had been cut off didn’t fall. Even headless, they thrust their spears forward toward the captain’s chest.

Startled, his ingrained combat reflexes took over. With a horizontal slash, he cut through the spear shafts and staggered back several steps. However, the terror of what he was witnessing—the impossible—made him forget the difference in strength.

“U-undead?! No... I don’t sense any of that energy!”

“Captain! Even after destroying the brain and heart, they’re still moving!” a knight reported.

“Then sever their limbs! Focus on taking the wall first!”

Despite the chaos, the captain’s judgment was razor-sharp. They had scaled seventy meters of stone, and there was no way they’d give it up now, not to these abominations.

However, the soldiers of Calelum, even with their limbs severed, continued to crawl and flail. As grotesque as they were, they were perfect for stalling. Even the knights, far superior in strength, had to expend several times the usual effort to advance.

“As expected of Ferma,” Robin murmured, watching the scene unfold. “Truly fearless men.”

Then he turned his gaze forward again. Failing to prevent their breach was a mistake as an archer, but he had a fair excuse. Two Swordmasters stood before him.

“This is your last chance! Surrender, Robin!” Valter roared.

His body was marked with countless arrow wounds, but though several had struck as he closed the seventy-meter gap, not one had been fatal. It was a battle of two against one. The outcome had been decided from the start.

“Again, I refuse. I cannot surrender.”

As Robin raised Sylphid again, Cedric smirked, his excitement already fading.

“You mean to fight two Swordmasters at this range?”

“It is not the way of warriors to quibble over advantage or disadvantage. Surely you understand that?”

“A bowman preaching the way of the sword? Don’t make me laugh.”

“Close combat isn’t the whole of martial arts. Your outlook is narrow.”

Cedric didn’t bother answering the taunt. Expressionless, he stepped forward and brought his sword down to split Robin’s skull in two, but Robin countered with his fastest shot yet.

“Windflow Arrow, Rapid Tempo: Lightning Gale Arrows.”

The arrows streaked like lightning, fangs bared, blocking every path Cedric could take. It was archery that had reached the realm of divine skill.

“Pathetic!”

Cedric had already seen this technique in this battle before. He wasn’t going to fall for it again. He cut straight through the barrage, shattering the rhythm of Robin’s rapid fire with a single slash.

“Ten Thousand Severing Strikes.”

The Aura Blade that could slice through anything—even the very flow of energy itself—was capable of severing the currents of power that sustained other techniques. It was the perfect counter to the Stendal family’s secret art, Windflow Arrows. With one more step, Robin’s head would have fallen.

Then, as if waiting for this timing, a massive war hammer came hurtling from nowhere and smashed into the ground right where Cedric’s foot was about to land, gouging the earth into a crater. Instinctively stepping back, Cedric immediately felt the presence of another Master.

Robin’s mocking voice rang out from behind the dust.

“Did you really think I’d let you fight two-on-one forever?”

Valter, who had closed the distance by then, muttered beside Cedric, “You may not know this, but there are three Masters still remaining in the Empire. Counting Robin, that makes one—and two others.”

Had Dayton and Edgar not died, and Grania not defected, there would have been six.

The three who remained were Robin the Great Archer, Garibaldi the Crusher, and Grainger the Twin Blades.

Which meant there could be only one man behind that war hammer.

Unlike Robin, the man’s eyes held no glimmer of will. Garibaldi revealed himself. Over two meters tall, muscles like rising cliffs—his massive frame was proof enough of the rumors that he carried the blood of giants.

And he was not alone. Behind him stood a woman with two swords at her hips, her eyes glazed and unfocused, their dull gleam betraying a will not her own.

“Three against two,” Valter muttered, his voice grim. “This could be dangerous.”

His years of battle warned him of the obvious: each opponent was their equal, perhaps stronger, and if they had accepted the exolaw’s power, then even escape might be impossible.

Cedric, by contrast, hadn’t yet drawn upon his full strength. He considered unsheathing Dainslife but decided against it.

“No. We have the advantage,” he said with a grin.

“What? Are you insane?”

“Idiot. Did you toss your battle sense into a cesspit?”

Valter was about to snap back at the insult, but then he froze, feeling a new pressure sweep over him a moment later.

Cedric was right. They did have the advantage. Three shadows landed atop the wall with an earth-shaking crash. They had leaped so high that the impact alone cracked the stone beneath their feet.

At the center of the trio, Adela stood, grumbling as she dusted herself off.

“Ugh, I hate this! I’m short enough already, and now we’re on some stupid high place!”

“One can’t always choose pleasant circumstances,” said Irexana dryly.

“Shut it, old man! I’m not asking for a lecture! I’m asking you to empathize for once!”

As Irexana stepped forward, twin axes in hand, the enthralled Masters instinctively retreated several paces. He hadn’t even released his Aura, yet they fully understood their disadvantage. Regardless of numbers, the strength before them was overwhelming.

And to seal that truth, Elahan lifted her Holy Iron Breaker onto her shoulder.

“It’s time for judgment,” she stated.

“So, the Holy Church,” Robin murmured, giving a hollow smile as realization dawned.

Adela tilted her head. “Looks like only one of them still has his mind. What do you think—just half-kill the archer?”

“Our task remains the same,” Irexana said, his voice steady as he raised his power. “Whatever their reasons, they’ve sided with Evil. We’ll lessen their burden before the goddess passes her final sentence.”

Robin smirked crookedly. “How touching. Would’ve been nicer if you’d helped earlier.”

“If that’s what you truly wanted,” Irexana replied, “you could have sought the Church before things reached this point.”

“Heh... yeah. Story of my life. Always too late.”

Robin’s bitter laugh echoed as he drew Sylphid once more. In response, Garibaldi and Grainger lifted their weapons, their Aura Blades igniting.

The air thickened, warping under the crushing weight of their power. In that hellish pressure, Robin shouted his last defiance.

“I won’t make any excuses, and I won’t beg for mercy. Come!”

The battle that began as two against three was now three against five. Even with the numbers now in their favor, there was no room for carelessness.

Those who fought with their backs to the wall could be terrifying—and when those warriors were Masters, they could even surpass the limits of their Aura Blades in a final burst of will. That was why Irexana and Adela charged forward without hesitation.

Two steps behind them, Elahan followed and whispered a prayer in her heart.

“May the Goddess guide the Hero’s path.”

The Church’s hidden reserves—two other Cardinals and the Holy Iron Inquisitors—were not yet here. Neither were Leon and Karen. They had their own task elsewhere.

Before that thought could finish forming, a shockwave erupted, sweeping everything into chaos. Elahan banished all distractions and swung her Holy Iron Breaker.

“Haaah!”

Thus began the true battle of the Imperial Capital.