Chapter 79
Chapter 79: Waiting for This Day (2)
“What the hell is this?”
A massive wall of fire completely surrounded the enemy forces.
They couldn’t move forward, let alone retreat.
Everyone was dazed by the sudden appearance of this phenomenon.
Victor was the first to snap out of it and shouted at the nearby wizards.
“Break the magic! I said, release it!”
However, the wizards, wide-eyed, were frozen in place.
“W-We can’t dispel this magic.”
“What? You’re wizards!”
“This magic exceeds our circle.”
One of the wizards stammered his reply.
“Look at this. Does this look like ordinary magic to you? Have you ever seen anything like it? Even the master of any mage tower couldn’t cast such magic. We can’t break this spell.”
Another wizard glared at the wall of fire and added, “This is fourth-circle magic. But the caster is certainly not from the fourth circle. At the very least…”
“At least?”
“…a seventh-circle or higher.”
“Stop spouting nonsense! There are only two seventh-circle mages in the kingdom! And one is here?!”
Victor grit his teeth and shouted, but the wizard seemed to murmur to himself, not hearing Victor’s frustrations.
“No, even a seventh-circle mage shouldn’t be able to do this. What on earth is this? Is it a magic circle? An artifact? Some device? There must be some medium involved.”
Even amid the chaos, the wizards prioritized satisfying their curiosity over defeating the enemy.
They began analyzing the patterns of magic in the fire wall.
Victor, however, had no interest in the principles of magic.
“The Count sent you in case there was a mage to contend with. And now you can’t do anything? This isn’t the time to be gawking around!”
“W-We can’t do anything.”
“The Count likely didn’t foresee something like this.”
Victor’s temper flared to its peak at the wizards’ excuses.
“Ugh, you useless fools! Aren’t you here to prepare for this kind of situation?”
Count Desmond had assigned two mages to ensure they were prepared for any contingencies, accounting for the possibilities of Perdium using the money from selling runestones to call in mages.
Yet even the meticulous Harold never considered that there could be a mage of the fifth circle or higher in Perdium.
There were barely over 50 mages of the fifth circle or higher in the entire kingdom.
No matter how much money there was, it would be impossible for Perdium to gather more than a fourth-circle mage in such a short period.
And even that would require an extraordinary stroke of luck.
“Does this mean the Count couldn’t foresee this?”
Victor mumbled to himself and suddenly raised his head.
The siege war had become impossible due to the surrounding wall of fire.
They would have to wait until the magic ended.
Though flames blocked their way, if they ran quickly, they could find a way to retreat.
“Retreat! Let’s regroup behind and advance once the fire goes out! Get out of this area as fast as you can!”
Just as he shouted this and prepared to turn his horse around, one of the wizards spoke up.
“By the way, the concentration of mana in this area is unusually dense. Something seems off…”
Boom!
In that moment, the horses they were riding staggered. The wizard couldn’t finish his thought and grabbed the reins tightly.
Vanessa was casting the next level of magic.
A golden magic circle etched in her eyes spun around.
Crunch!
The runestone bracelets worn by her and Alfoy disintegrated into dust.
The wall of fire was merely a temporary means to bind the opponents in place. The real event was just beginning.
The mana that had permeated the surroundings slowly began to take tangible form.
It began to seep into the ground and connect with something that had been waiting beneath.
Finally, the conditions were perfectly met.
Vanessa quietly whispered, “Flame Strike.”
The ground trembled as the mana exploded outward.
Boom!
Rumble!
Kaboom!
With a thunderous roar that seemed to shake the heavens and earth, dozens of massive pillars of fire erupted from everywhere.
“AAAAAH!”
Victor’s soldiers screamed as they were engulfed in flames.
Those in the center of the pillars scarcely had time to scream before they turned to ash and disappeared.
“This is!”
Kaboom!
Victor and the wizards were not spared from the explosion.
The battlefield turned into utter chaos.
Those who survived began throwing down their weapons and scattering in fear.
“AAAAAH!”
“Save me!”
“Fall back! Everyone, fall back!”
Fire connected to fire, filling the area.
The massive pillars of fire devoured the siege towers and ladders, growing larger.
Soldiers scorched by flames writhed on the ground.
Inside the gates of Perdium, the soldiers anxiously watched the hellish scene.
Who on earth prepared something like this?
Zvalter, dazed, staggered but managed to steady himself, looking down.
In contrast to the panicked soldiers, Ghislaine and the mercenaries appeared calm.
“Could it be… Ghislaine, you?”
At that moment, Vanessa collapsed, blood pouring out.
A nearby mercenary caught her just before she hit the ground.
Ghislaine turned back briefly and spoke, “Belinda, take care of the mages.”
“Y-Yes? Yes, yes!”
Belinda and a few soldiers hurried to carry the fallen mages back.
Ghislaine turned and started walking, the mercenaries following closely behind.
Zvalter shouted loudly, “Ghislaine! What are you doing?!”
But Ghislaine did not respond or stop. Zvalter called out again in desperation.
“Stop! Enough! We’ve won! They’ll all flee from that fire! Why are you going out! Outside is a sea of fire!”
Finally, Ghislaine paused and looked at him.
The reply was dry and emotionless.
“Because I need to kill.”
“What?”
“I’ll kill every last one of them trying to escape. They need to feel the price of meddling in Perdium.”
“Do you mean that seriously…?”
“The enemies targeting this place will think twice from now on. They’ll be forced to question whether they have the courage to risk their lives.”
Boom.
A menacing aura surged from Ghislaine. It was the momentum only one who had built their life over piles of corpses could exude.
Zvalter felt a shiver running down his spine at this unfamiliar version of his son.
How could he display such ferocity?
But right now, he had to stop his son.
“I understand your intentions, but how on earth do you plan to get past that fire?”
Even with mana to protect himself, there were limits in such horrifying flames.
Attempting to penetrate through haphazardly would end in death for most.
Yet, despite Zvalter’s desperate shout, Ghislaine only smiled faintly.
*
Meanwhile, Count Tamos, who had been watching from the back, was suddenly startled by the erupting flames.
“W-What? What is happening? Why is the fire suddenly rising?! There was nothing here!”
He couldn’t even comprehend what was going on.
The soldiers on the outskirts barely managed to escape, but many more had perished.
Some who had narrowly escaped the flames soon met their demise.
Tamos stared blankly when a young staff officer shouted loudly.
“Snap out of it! We need to issue a retreat order! Sound the trumpet and send the remaining soldiers forward! We must rescue the wounded!”
To the still bewildered Tamos, the officer pressed on urgently.
“This isn’t a forest. The surroundings are wide open, and there’s nothing to ride, so as long as we get out, we can regroup and gather our forces again!”
One of the reasons fire attacks are terrifying is that flames quickly spread by consuming the surrounding vegetation.
But in this open plain, it wouldn’t spread significantly and would soon extinguish.
“Y-You, aren’t you that scribe… was it Lowell? What if the enemies chase us? Shouldn’t we just run now…?”
“The enemies can’t cross through the flames either. They’re likely waiting for us to flee or burn to death. It would take time for them to find another gate. We need to act right now!”
Tamos, hesitating, stammered his response.
“N-No, but… if they arrive before we can gather our forces… wouldn’t it be better to just run away?”
“Ah, for crying out loud… No, Lord! If we don’t have any soldiers, there’s nothing left other than surrender! We need soldiers to negotiate our surrender too! We must save as many as we can!”
“Y-You’re right… Lift the wounded! Once we gather a bit more, we’ll retreat!”
Tamos shouted urgently, and the escorting soldiers who remained in the rear began to move.
Though they were only a hundred strong, that was all the force he had left.
*
Meanwhile, Ghislaine patted her armor and turned to the mercenaries.
“We can’t hold out long. Kill as many as you can quickly and then fall back.”
The black armor Ghislaine and the mercenaries wore was reinforced with Dirus Ent’s inner lining.
Since it was made from materials capable of countering fourth-circle fire magic, they could withstand this massive surge of power for a while.
Gillian shook his head, saying, “This is probably the most expensive trap in history.”
“Probably. We blew through all the runestones we brought this time.”
“Aren’t you going to regret losing the runestones?”
“Money is just a means to an end.”
The mercenaries, previously following orders without understanding what was happening, finally realized Ghislaine’s strategy.
Since the war was declared, Ghislaine had been ordering the mercenaries to bury runestones outside the castle.
“I thought you were hiding them for fear of losing them. I never imagined you would use them like this. All those guys are just getting wiped out.”
“Are you not upset about it?”
“I was planning to sneakily dig them up later, but it looks like they all just blew up.”
The mercenaries shared a hollow laugh.
Normally, they would flee with the runestones, enough to live comfortably for a lifetime.
Yet to blow them all up for a single use trap was both impressive and outrageous.
“Still, that woman is incredible. She’s a real mage.”
“What circle does that make her? Is she possibly a grand mage?”
“I thought she was just a maid.”
The mercenaries admired the results, but the reality was a bit different.
Even if she had been infused with magical power, Vanessa couldn’t have detonated all those runestones at once at her current level.
She had only managed to blow up a few.
However, every runestone had intricate spells inscribed, involving convergence, chaining, and explosions.
Leading up to the declaration of war, Vanessa had been diligently inscribing spells under Ghislaine’s orders.
It took someone with outstanding magical theory and sensitivity like her to perform such a task.
Starting from when Ghislaine unearthed the runestones in the Forest of Monsters, this trap had been in preparation.
Bringing Vanessa from the Mage Tower was part of that plan.
And finally, it was time to make the intruders pay a price.
It was time to unleash the pent-up rage.
“Kill anyone you see!”
Ghislaine shouted and charged forward.
As Gillian and Kaor followed, the hesitant mercenaries gritted their teeth and pursued.
“Let’s just do this!”
“If she says it’s fine, then it’s fine!”
“Let’s catch everyone before they run away!”
Swoosh!
Dirus Ent’s inner lining began to steam the moment it made contact with the fire.
“Oh, it’s warm! It’s warm!”
“I can manage this!”
“Let’s kill quickly and pull back!”
In the fiery hellscape, there were still plenty of survivors.
The mercenaries chased after those fleeing for their lives, wielding their weapons.
“RAAAAH!”
Enemies who writhed in the flame fell down helplessly.
While the mercenaries massacred the survivors, Ghislaine searched through the flames for someone.
“I have to kill that bastard Victor first.”
Even now, Victor was strong. It was certain he would become an even more formidable foe as time passed.
She had to find him and kill him in this war.
“It would be fortunate if he died from the flames, but… I need to confirm his remains at the very least.”
Ghislaine dashed through the dreadful screams of the enemy soldiers echoing all around her.
“I found you.”
And at last, she spotted a man standing alone amidst the flames.
“Kraaaaah! My army! How dare you!”
Victor was howling with rage.
His face, half-covered with blisters, was still simmering, and his armor was battered and crumpled from the ordeal.
Yet, he was still alive.
“I’ll kill you all! I’ll gut you and hang your heads on the walls!”
His eyes gleamed with madness.
He couldn’t return like this.
Even if it meant standing alone, he had to behead the lord of Perdium and all his retainers.
Even if he died here, that was the last way to preserve his honor and standing.
Just as Victor was about to leap toward the Perdium lord, his mana erupting forth.
Swoosh!
Something shot toward him, slicing through the flames.
