The roar of spells and the clash of steel played across the walls like a brutal symphony.
As time dragged on, the battlefield had reached a boiling point.
A young soldier had just shoved a gnoll off the parapet with his spear. Before he could pull the spearhead back, a goblin darted in from the side and drove a short sword into his belly.
Blood ran across the stone tiles of the wall.
Outside the walls—
A red dragon swept through the sky, its trajectory aimed straight at the rear of the army.
The monsters below noticed the shadow passing overhead and hurriedly raised their bows toward the sky.
What answered them was a flood of scorching, lethal flame.
"Hephaestus, clear the way with your breath!"
The red dragon kept flying at full speed, craned its neck, and poured down molten, magma-hot dragonfire.
Like divine punishment, the flames fell from the heavens—like a sword of Damocles finally dropping.
Monsters vanished in fire. They rolled and writhed, but nothing could put the blaze out.
Hephaestus was fast—blindingly fast.
But the wyvern that had vanished earlier seemed to have heard some kind of summons. It shot in from nowhere, diving at Hephaestus to block him.
"Magic Missile!"
Gauss stood and snapped his staff forward, releasing more than a dozen missiles in a burst, forcing the wyvern to slow and veer away.
"WOO—WOOO!"
The horn calls were growing clearer.
Ahead, outside a camp of beast-hide tents, dozens of hulking ogre warriors stood like iron towers in tight formation. Several shamans wreathed in black fog moved in perfect rhythm, bone staves lifting and sweeping together.
A heavy pressure slammed into the air around Gauss.
"ROAR!"
Hephaestus bellowed as if something invisible had been triggered.
That overwhelming magic pressed down on his body until he felt heavier and heavier. No matter how hard he beat his wings, his altitude began to drop.
"A no-fly formation…?"
Gauss immediately grasped what they'd done.
If Hephaestus were fully grown—or if he were a true red dragon—the formation might not have worked so well. But as a dragon-beast still short of his prime, Hephaestus couldn't resist an army-grade suppression array.
Forced down, Hephaestus had to make an emergency landing.
Behind them, Eberhard's griffon fared even worse.
Hephaestus at least managed to land on his feet. The griffon crashed nose-first into the ground like a thrown stone. Luckily it was tough; after a few dizzy shakes, it managed to scramble upright.
"Cough…"
Eberhard looked slightly worse for wear, but he quickly moved to regroup with Gauss.
They hadn't even reached the target and they'd already been swatted out of the sky.
Between them and the enemy command tent was a sea of monsters.
They clearly understood what Gauss's group was trying to do. One by one, red eyes turned toward them.
"We cut through."
Gauss tightened his grip on the pale staff.
Everyone else tightened their own weapons.
The plan didn't change.
"Control Water."
The holy water gifted by Moterra split into countless hair-thin strands, circling and guarding the team.
They formed a rapidly spinning spherical screen—an armored globe of water—locking Gauss and the others safely inside.
Alia and the others had seen this before.
Eberhard, coordinating with Gauss for the first time, stared in open astonishment at the nearly airtight lattice.
He could feel something exalted in it.
So this really was divine power…
He'd heard rumors about Gauss—lake goddess blessings, walking on water like a saint—and he'd dismissed them as exaggerated propaganda.
But seeing those threads humming with sacred force, he realized nothing about Gauss had been embellished.
"Kill."
Gauss led them forward.
The monsters rushed them like moths into a blaze.
They didn't even reach the team.
Those slender, razor water-needles punched through skulls, eye sockets, throats, chests.
Tiny holes appeared—almost invisible at first—then the creatures ran two more steps and toppled like puppets with cut strings.
Dark blood burst from a hundred pinpricks, painting the frozen ground red.
"THUD—THUD—THUD!"
Monsters fell. More replaced them. And more.
From above—if anyone could have flown beyond the no-fly field—they would have seen a terrifying sight:
Gauss was carving a bloody corridor straight through the monster host.
They sprinted forward, leaving a road of gore—shattered limbs, minced flesh, red and white and green fluids running like little streams.
But not every monster was mindless fodder.
Their casters struck back in formation.
Like human mage squads, these shamans and warlocks were trained to combine spells into layered effects—almost like a living ritual circle.
A torrent of poison poured down like a waterfall.
"HISSSSS—"
Gauss's water screen wasn't truly seamless. The poison seeped through.
It splashed to the ground with white steam and ate pits into the earth.
They couldn't avoid all of it.
But the poison's strength favored coverage over lethality—wide, not deep.
Gauss's Omni-Armor wrapped the team like armor. The toxin gnawed at it, but couldn't break through quickly.
Near the command tent—
A line of ogres in heavy iron armor stepped forward, tower-shields raised, shoulder to shoulder like moving mountains.
Gauss narrowed his eyes.
He felt a heavier "momentum" in them—something stronger than mere muscle.
A pressure clung to their bodies like an invisible mantle. Their synchronized steps hit like war drums.
THUD.
THUD.
The ground trembled.
And combined with the monsters closing from both sides and behind, Gauss felt a sudden, awful weakness—as if sinking into mud.
Even when he wanted to cut, the resistance was everywhere, like invisible hands dragging at his limbs.
"You're dead."
"This is your grave."
Whispers slid into his ear.
Fear, pain, despair—present in the air yet unseen—paired with the shield-drums and began carving at the team's minds like butcher knives.
Albena blinked—and for an instant she saw her childhood again: tossed into a pit by her tribe, forced to fight a giant wolf. The wolf's fangs advanced, breath hot on her face—
The others faltered too, each caught in their own private terror.
Gauss snapped free first—almost instantly.
The moment his deepest fear surfaced, he tore out of it, thanks to a soul strong enough to resist being bent.
He exhaled hard and shook his teammates awake.
Eberhard, either due to level or preparation, recovered on his own.
"Careful," Gauss warned.
They'd slaughtered hundreds on the way here, but the ring around them was still thick.
He dropped the water screen, reshaped holy water into a bow—this method was too mana-hungry to sustain.
He fired several arrows into the shield wall.
THUD.
The magic arrows bored through tower-shields. Several ogres dropped instantly.
But the surrounding monsters still didn't show fear.
"WOOOOO!"
The horn sounded again—and the entire monster mass surged.
"Kill!"
The team went back-to-back, forming a circle.
Albena took a breath and swung. Her axe became a storm, shredding the monsters rushing her.
If she were alone in that quagmire, she might have broken.
But having comrades beside her gave her spine and rage.
"HAAAH!"
A several-meter-long axe-wind swept out like a leaf-blade and cut down dozens.
"Moonlight Glow!"
High above, the clouds split and a silver moon crept free.
Under moonlight, this spell—now perfectly suited to Alia—exploded in power beyond anything she'd shown before.
A long, straight beam fired from her staff, bathing a lane of monsters in silvery pain.
Hephaestus blasted dragonfire.
Eberhard moved like a phantom—several slashes, and the air itself cracked. Monsters that had been running simply froze mid-step, then fell apart into pieces.
Black shadows danced through the ranks, each spear of darkness impaling another target.
But—
There were too many.
For every monster that fell, more poured in.
That was the terror of a monster army: low-tier creatures were easily driven into frenzy, and they fought without regard for their lives.
Worse—more monsters were peeling away from the assault on the walls and rushing back to strangle this strike team.
Their priority had shifted.
Killing the raiders behind the lines came before taking the city.
Gauss threw a fireball toward the command tent—
A transparent barrier swallowed it whole.
He narrowed his eyes, felt a faint twist of pain in his gut, and tossed several mana stones into his mouth, chewing and swallowing.
Tonight's mana expenditure was already absurd.
Fireball after Fireball. Control Water. Machine-gun Magic Missiles.
He was spending oceans of power.
He could swear he'd burned through more mana than many "transcendent" casters even possessed.
The only reason he could keep going was his enormous reserves—and the Special Stomach Racial Trait, letting him digest mana stone fragments on the move.
But even that had limits.
Even Gauss was starting to feel the strain.
It was slight—so far—but he knew they couldn't drag this out.
This army would grind them down and butcher them here.
Even elephants die when enough ants bite.
"Push forward!"
"I'll break the line!"
Eberhard took the role—without hesitation.
As a swordsman, his killing power and agility were the best fit, and as guildmaster, he couldn't hide behind others.
"Then I'm counting on you, Guildmaster."
Gauss nodded.
Eberhard inhaled—and his aura changed.
Not Albena's roaring bloodlust, not Gauss's bright spell-flare, but something tempered and sharpened by endless grinding—intent.
A sword-presence.
It pushed back against the crushing battlefield momentum, carving breathing room.
His blade sang—clear, long—and silver sword-qi ran along the steel like moonlight.
"Stay on me."
His body blurred.
"Sword Art: Breaker of Armies!"
A Level 9 Swordsman—one step from the peak of master-tier—was a terrifying thing.
And unlike Gauss, Eberhard had barely spent himself yet.
Now, he unsheathed his true speed.
He became a straight bolt of silver lightning, piercing forward.
Pop—pop—pop—pop!
A rapid sequence of wet impacts.
Shield walls, gnolls, even a diving wyvern—blood burst across them all.
"So strong…"
Gauss and the others followed, cleaning the sides, stunned at the sheer efficiency.
The sword was everywhere at once. Nothing could block it.
Swordsmen were common, but that didn't mean "sword" was ordinary—done right, it was the most reliable kind of lethal.
With Eberhard cutting a corridor through the impossible, the strike team slammed into the space before the command tent.
Every one of them was drenched in gore. No one looked heroic anymore.
"WOOOO!"
The commander clearly knew they'd reached him.
The tent flap snapped aside.
A strange-looking ogre stepped out—followed by two towering ogre champions.
Their presence was heavier than elites—something more.
But the leader wasn't bulky like typical ogres.
He wore shredded black robes. His skin was a pale, unnatural blue. Two sharp horns rose from his brow. White hair streamed around his hood.
When he looked at them, he bared teeth like a shark's—rows of fine needles—and flexed black claws with a sound like scraping stone.
Evil.
Pure, undeniable evil.
He took a black cleaver from a champion.
In the next instant, his legs thickened, and he launched like a cannonball.
Mid-flight, his body swelled—larger and larger—until even the cleaver grew with him.
BOOM!
Eberhard met him head-on.
A ten-meter cleaver struck against a sword barely over a meter long.
The crash threw sparks across both faces: Eberhard's cold focus, the ogre's brutal delight.
Eberhard flew backward.
In raw strength, the human was outmatched.
Gauss caught him, steadying him.
Eberhard coughed, face pale—but his eyes relaxed.
"Not transcendent-tier," he said.
Good news.
Not fully good news.
This ogre's bloodline was abnormal. He carried abilities beyond normal ogres.
And inside the army's core momentum, he was being amplified.
That was the only reason he could shove Eberhard around like this.
"Let me," Gauss said.
He waved the others to handle the surrounding threats and kept the leader for himself.
Eberhard hesitated—wordlessly asking, Can you?
His own plan had been to kite and stall until Grayrock's forces hit from multiple sides, breaking the enemy's army-momentum.
Then they could surround and kill.
Gauss answered with a calm nod.
Not because he didn't understand the risk—because he didn't think they could afford to wait.
His body was already approaching its limit.
Better to try now—even if he couldn't win cleanly, he could at least maim the leader enough for Eberhard to finish later.
Gauss met the ogre's eyes—
—and the "familiar" feeling clicked into place.
That ancient power.
The ogre had a trace of the same thing living in Gauss.
Not as pure. Not as strong. But the same scent.
The leader licked his lips.
Gauss did too.
Both of them felt it—the bloodline's hunger, urging them to kill each other.
Like a breeding pit. Like raising poison insects—two larvae meet, one dies, and the "perfect" survivor crawls out.
"What a vile bloodline…"
Gauss shook his head, understanding Ghoul Form a little more deeply.
In level, he was at a disadvantage.
In that ancient "ghoul-blood," his was purer.
~~~
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