At the very front of the massive cavalry charge, three figures gleamed like miniature suns. Three knights clad head to toe in golden plate armor rode at the vanguard, their warhorses snorting steam as they thundered forward. These were no ordinary soldiers. They were Great Knights—elite warriors whose speed, strength, and endurance far exceeded common men.
One of them let out a booming laugh.
"Hahahaha! Look at them—only two thousand, daring to stand before thirty thousand cavalry! What pitiful fools!"
He raised his greatsword high and pointed toward the thin defensive line of Ross's army ahead. "Watch closely, brothers. I'll break through that formation as if it were paper! Alone, I'll carve a path of blood!"
"Damn you, I won't let you take the glory first!" another bellowed, spurring his horse harder.
The third knight gritted his teeth. "Out of my way!"
In moments, all three golden-armored Great Knights urged their mounts into even greater speed. They raced ahead, leaving the thirty thousand cavalry and one thousand armored knights behind them.
From the rear, King Gavin Ward observed with narrowed eyes. He saw the dust rising, the sunlight flashing from golden armor, and the sheer arrogance in the enemy's posture.
"These three are in a rush to die," Gavin muttered coldly.
But he did not yet realize the truth. These three were no ordinary warriors; they were Great Knights. Even without horses, their bodies could sprint faster than normal cavalry. They were like human battering rams, each capable of slaughtering hundreds in close combat.
Yet no matter their strength, Gavin trusted his men and his weapons.
"Wait for my command. Get ready!" he ordered.
His words spread like a chain of fire. Company commanders relayed the order, and the two thousand Ross soldiers shifted into formation. Unlike the deep, layered phalanxes of cold-steel armies, this was a modern design: a stretched horizontal line, thin but long, maximizing fields of fire.
The soldiers braced, rifles steady, their masks of iron hiding nervous sweat.
The golden knights came closer—now less than thirty meters away. From that distance, the soldiers could see every ornate etching carved into their gleaming armor, could hear the pounding hooves like thunder rolling over the plains.
Behind them, the bulk of the cavalry was still five hundred meters distant.
"Fire!" Gavin Ward roared.
---
The plains erupted.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Hundreds of rifles spat flame. Smoke and thunder cracked the air, echoing across the endless grasslands.
The three Great Knights frowned in confusion.
"What is this noise?" one muttered.
Then they felt it—sharp, crushing impacts slamming into their bodies. It was as if invisible hammers pounded against their armor. They looked down in disbelief.
The proud golden plates covering their chests had shattered. Blood spurted in thin red streams.
"Hsssss!" their warhorses screamed in pain as bullets tore through flesh.
For warriors of their caliber, a single wound meant nothing. Their vitality was monstrous; even pierced, they could fight on and still kill dozens. But this was no duel. This was not a lucky arrow or spear thrust.
They faced the concentrated rifle fire of an entire company.
Dozens of bullets tore through them in a single volley. In moments, both men and horses were shredded, collapsing into a mangled heap of blood and twisted gold.
Three Great Knights, considered invincible by ordinary armies, were annihilated before they could even touch the enemy line.
---
Far in the Nord camp, a magician jerked upright, his eyes blazing with unnatural light as he peered through his scrying spell.
"What… what is this?!" he gasped.
He had watched the three knights ride boldly into the fray, confident in their strength. And then, in mere seconds, he saw them reduced to corpses.
Not by magic. Not by divine power. But by some strange force that left no magical fluctuations at all.
Shaken, he shouted to King Ragnor, "Brother, something is wrong! Call back the cavalry! Retreat them at once!"
"What nonsense is this?!" Ragnor barked, his eyes flashing with fury. But before he could say more, the sound reached him.
A rolling storm of thunder, endless and unbroken.
Ahead, the Ross army had unleashed its true strength.
At two hundred meters, Gavin Ward gave the command.
"All units—fire at will!"
---
The battlefield became hell itself.
The two thousand Ross soldiers, each clutching a Mauser 98K rifle, fired in disciplined volleys. Alongside them, 115 MG 42 general-purpose machine guns opened up in terrifying unison.
Tom, masked and calm, pulled the trigger of his mounted MG 42. The weapon screamed. The sound was like a saw ripping through wood, a shrieking, mechanical roar that never ceased.
The MG 42 could spit out over 1,200 rounds a minute. At its peak, 1,500. Multiply that by more than a hundred weapons, and the plains shook as if the gods themselves were tearing the sky apart.
For the thirty thousand cavalry charging forward, the two hundred meters ahead became an invisible wall—the line of death.
Knights and horses crumpled instantly. One moment they were galloping, banners high, eyes fierce. The next, bullets punched through armor, through bone, through flesh. Riders were hurled from saddles, bodies twisting grotesquely in mid-air before slamming lifeless to the ground.
"Ahhh!!"
"My lord save us!"
"We are under attack!"
"It's the enemy's magicians! It must be magic!"
The cavalry screamed in confusion. To them, it could only be sorcery. What else could cut through golden plate like paper? What else could slay men from two hundred meters with no spell, no flame, no arrow?
Yet their cries were answered only by the merciless whistle of bullets.
The proud armor they had trusted for years—their shields against arrows and blades—proved useless. Bullets ripped through steel like cloth, tore flesh into showers of gore, and painted the grass red.
In mere moments, the battlefield had transformed into a slaughterhouse. Horses stumbled over fallen comrades. Knights howled in pain, their bodies shredded, limbs mangled.
It was purgatory born in broad daylight.
---
From the rear, King Lot IX sprang from his chair, his face pale as death.
"Didn't you promise me!" he shouted at his magicians. "Didn't you say you would strike when you felt the enemy's magic? Then where are they?! My soldiers are dying like insects! Do something!"
His voice broke with anguish. Of the thirty thousand cavalry and twelve hundred knights who charged, twenty-five thousand of them were his Kingdom of Lot's own troops.
This was his life's foundation, the heart of his nation's strength. And now they were being torn apart as if swallowed by an invisible beast.
"Silence!" one of the elder magicians barked, veins bulging on his forehead.
The twelve magicians stood together, eyes bloodshot, bodies trembling with the strain of pouring out their magic sense.
"Where? Where is it?!" one screamed, voice cracking.
"Damn it, why can't we find the magician?!" another roared.
"There must be a mage—there must be! Without magical fluctuation, how could such destruction exist?!"
Yet no matter how hard they strained, no matter how deeply they searched the air for magical threads, they found nothing.
There was no magic.
Only death.
And still the bullets rained down.
Why? Why could they not find the enemy's magician? Why was their cavalry being torn apart by a force that felt like no magic they had ever known?
Their minds rebelled against the truth. But the evidence lay before them in corpses and blood: Ross's army had unleashed a power beyond magic. A power they could neither see nor understand.
And their world would never be the same again.