The battlefield burned with chaos. Soldiers screamed, horses shrieked, and the air thundered with the endless crack of gunfire. Amidst it all, Gavin Ward lifted his eyes.
High above, a colossal fireball swelled in the sky. Its blazing heat scorched the plains below, its crimson glow turning noon into a false twilight. The Twelfth Brother of the Nord magicians, consumed by grief and rage, had broken through into the legendary realm of a Sky Mage.
Even Gavin, hardened by battles and by strange gifts from his mysterious system, couldn't help but feel a flicker of awe.
"What power…" he murmured. But awe did not last long. His expression hardened into steel.
"Bring me a rifle," he ordered.
An attendant hurried forward, handing him a Mauser 98K bolt-action rifle fitted with a scope. In the Kingdom of Ross, their craftsmen had begun producing rudimentary optics—scopes that gave no magnification, but only a thin crosshair. Yet for Gavin, such tools were unnecessary.
He himself was the scope.
The strength of a knight blessed him with eyesight sharper than any lens. At four hundred meters, he could see every flame dancing across the Sky Mage's robes.
---
The Nord magicians below shouted with delight and fury.
"Senior Brother Twelve, avenge us! Burn them all!"
"Yes! You have surpassed us all—our master himself would bow to you now!"
"Destroy the Ross army! Make them pay for our fallen brothers!"
The Sky Mage heard them and roared back, pride swelling in his chest.
"Now I am the master of the skies! I stand above all living beings! No one may resist me!"
Magic surged around him like a raging storm. His fireball swelled ever larger, more than twenty meters across, a miniature sun threatening to fall upon Gavin's army and erase them in fire.
The mage threw back his head, reveling in his newfound glory.
"I am above all beings of the continent! None can—"
---
Boom!
A gunshot cracked across the field.
The 98K's round tore through the air faster than sound. In less than half a heartbeat, it crossed the four hundred meters separating Gavin from the mage.
The bullet struck.
The Sky Mage's skull erupted. His words cut off. A blossom of red mist exploded from his head. Bone fragments scattered like snowflakes, his brains spilling through the air.
The towering fireball flickered once, then shattered into nothing, flames dissolving like smoke in the wind.
The mage's body plummeted, limp and broken. With a sickening thud, he hit the ground. The firestorm that was to consume thousands vanished before it was ever released.
---
The seven surviving magicians screamed. Their eyes bulged in disbelief.
"No… impossible! He was a Sky Mage! A Sky Mage!"
Their voices cracked with hysteria. Sky Mages were legends, paragons of magic. Their bodies were sheathed in power, their shields capable of shrugging off arrows, catapults, even siege spells. They were supposed to be untouchable.
And yet, before their eyes, their brother had been felled by a single shot. Not even a spell, not even something they could feel. Just a strange thunder from afar, a thunder that pierced through shield and skull alike.
"This cannot be!" one wailed. "His shield was unbroken! No magic could pierce it!"
But the truth was cruel. The Twelfth Brother's breakthrough had been unstable. He had poured every drop of mana into sustaining the massive fireball above him, leaving his body vulnerable. And no matter how mighty the magic, flesh and bone were still flesh and bone.
Even Great Knights could not stand against the bite of modern rifles. Neither could Sky Mages.
---
"All snipers—fire!" Gavin commanded.
At once, hundreds of Ross soldiers raised their rifles. Each knight of Ross, trained with vision as sharp as eagles, could strike targets a kilometer away without a scope. They were born snipers.
The surviving magicians, still trembling in shock, suddenly realized the truth: they were being hunted.
"Retreat! Retreat now!" their eldest brother shouted. "We cannot stay here!"
But it was far too late.
"Fire!" Gavin roared.
---
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The air filled with the synchronized thunder of rifles. Hundreds of bullets streaked across the battlefield in a deadly storm.
The magicians had just turned to flee when the hail struck them.
"Crack! Crack!"
Their hastily conjured shields shattered like glass beneath the relentless barrage.
"Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!"
Bullets tore through robes, through flesh, through bone. Blood burst in fountains, spraying the sky with crimson.
The seven staggered, vomiting blood, their eyes wide with disbelief and hatred.
One fell screaming. Another convulsed before collapsing. Three more tumbled from the sky, their bodies punctured a dozen times over.
The eldest brother tried to endure. His robes were soaked red, his body riddled with holes. He clenched his jaw, refusing to collapse, his gaze fixed on the Ross line.
"What… is this power?" he rasped. "No magic… no fluctuation… and yet it kills faster than any spell…"
Another volley cracked. Bullets punched into his chest, shredding him further.
With a choking cry, the last surviving magician fell to his knees. His blood pooled beneath him, staining the earth. Slowly, his body toppled, lifeless.
---
King Ragnor IV saw it all.
The pride of his army—their twelve greatest magicians—slaughtered in moments. One, even after ascending to the exalted realm of Sky Mage, killed like an insect.
His eyes bulged, bloodshot, veins standing out against his temples. His face twisted with disbelief and fury.
"How can this be!!" he bellowed, voice cracking like thunder. "Impossible!!"
But the evidence lay before him—corpses strewn across the battlefield, magic undone by an invisible power that his people could not comprehend.
The Nord army, for the first time, felt something colder than steel pierce their hearts. Fear.
---