Chapter 356: The Tin Knight and the Land of Emeralds (6)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 356: The Tin Knight and the Land of Emeralds (6)
Immediately after the battle began.
To put it plainly, our formation was about as bad as it could get.
While it sounded impressive to say we’d breached the enemy’s ironclad defenses and infiltrated their ranks, the reality was that a force of barely a hundred had plunged into the heart of the enemy army. Naturally, our formation was a mess. Frankly, we had walked right into an encirclement of our own making.
And so, the two priests stepped forward first.
Crackle! Fwoosh!
Violet lightning and golden flames erupted around Adelaide’s body.
What was needed wasn't a slash to take down a single powerful foe, but a wide-area strike to shatter their ranks.
Instead of focusing on the sharpness of her sword, she wrapped its blade thickly in mana.
She recalled the blunt weapon of the Giant King, once called Amaryllis.
She compensated for her smaller frame with technique, and for the weapon’s lighter weight with mana.
But Adelaide knew this wasn't enough.
Fully replicating the monstrous strength of the giant, which was like a living disaster, was more than her current body could handle.
Therefore, Adelaide resolved this in a manner befitting a disciple of the Tin Knight.
If you can't handle it, then don't.
Crack!
The balance between the golden flames and violet lightning shattered.
The ferocious violet lightning raged wildly, heedless of its user's limits.
Feeling her own body creak from the excessive enhancement, Adelaide nonetheless slammed her two-handed sword, now like a mace, into the ground without a hint of hesitation.
─KRA-KOOOOM!!
It wasn't a metaphor; a shockwave spread out as if a cannonball had landed nearby.
Like a heavy ball dropped on an intricately made sandcastle, a massive crater formed around Adelaide.
An entire block of a dozen buildings, nestled between roads that spread out like a spiderweb, was completely obliterated.
“────!?”
The emerald soldiers lost their balance and tumbled toward the center of the crater, while the priests who had been using the buildings as fortresses were buried along with their shelters.
Adelaide didn't escape unscathed either.
Countless hairline fractures ran through her wrists and arms, some of her muscles tore, and her bones screamed in protest—especially her spine, which had been the axis of the attack.
It was the price for an enhancement that surpassed the limits of what she could handle.
But instead of writhing in pain, Adelaide swiftly retreated as if nothing had happened and prepared to regroup.
As if swapping places with her, the Lennart bloodline surged forward, swinging their swords.
Clang!
Each emerald soldier was harder and tougher than ordinary metal, so even when struck by swords, they didn't suffer major wounds.
Of course, the Lennart bloodline had overcome far too many hardships to be fazed by something like that.
If they couldn't slice through the thick torsos in one go, they would simply have to chip away at them.
One of the bloodline would strike an emerald soldier's legs to flip it over, and another would sever its exposed ankles.
One would grab an emerald soldier's spear and pull, throwing it off balance, while another would shatter its arm as if splitting firewood.
If A broke its posture, B would slash. If C drew its attack, D would stab. If E engaged it in a contest of strength, A, B, C, and D would shatter its limbs.
There were no set formations. They weren't calling out to each other for support, nor were they coordinating in fixed pairs.
They simply perceived each other's positions and conditions through their superior senses, decided what they needed to do, and executed it.
It would have been difficult if the priests had interfered from behind, but they were still in disarray from Adelaide's opening strike and couldn't move in time.
And the only priest present who belonged to the earth, not the heavens, poured holy power into Adelaide's body.
As Sophia's healing combined with Adelaide's own regenerative abilities, wounds that would have left an ordinary person bedridden for years vanished in the blink of an eye.
[The ‘Tin Knight’ says this is just a warm-up before the real duel!]
Slice!
If Adelaide had shattered the enemy's encirclement by attacking the terrain itself, the Tin Knight's fighting style was far smoother and more efficient.
Each time he swung his sword, a limb was severed from a nearby emerald soldier.
At a glance, it looked as if he were mindlessly overpowering them with raw sword energy, but in truth, the Tin Knight wasn't expending much mana at all.
Having gauged the enemy's durability with a single clash of blades, he was slaughtering them by using precisely the right amount of mana at precisely the right moment.
Slash, advance, slash, advance.
The link between the two actions was so clean and swift that it felt as if the Tin Knight were simply running and swinging his sword randomly, and the soldiers were walking into its path to be cut down.
The priests erected emerald barriers to stop the Tin Knight's terrifying advance, but he shattered even these with ruthless efficiency.
Stab!
If there was a barrier, instead of cutting through the whole thing, he would pierce a hole with a thrust, extend his sword energy through the gap, and sever the priest's neck. If a priest attacked from a distance, he would kick the head of a fallen emerald soldier, crushing the distant foe's chest.
He wasn't unleashing widespread destruction or a dazzling display of sword energy, yet his mere charge was enough to throw the enemy into disarray, their formation crumbling.
“Follow him!!”
“Hooah!!”
Inspired by his valiant fighting, Alonso and the kingdom's soldiers followed, supporting the Tin Knight from behind.
Their individual skills were somewhat lacking compared to the Lennart bloodline, but they had greater numbers and their morale was high.
As Adelaide and the Tin Knight charged from the left and right, the seemingly impenetrable encirclement began to tear apart.
Meanwhile, Dorothea focused on controlling the undead dragon.
The enemy was temporarily in chaos, but the difference in numbers remained. To overcome this, they needed to destroy the enemy's defensive walls and anti-invasion batteries from the inside.
And right now, Dorothea possessed the ultimate means of projecting firepower.
Fwoooosh!
When the undead dragon took a deep breath and exhaled with all its might, immense destruction erupted at the point of impact.
Even facilities tough enough to easily deflect most magical attacks were swept away equally before the breath.
Chunks of her mana drained away each time, but Dorothea didn't stop.
A magic circle, not usually there, was now etched near her left breast, scattering an eerie light.
Dorothea's mana, already nearly inexhaustible, had been boosted to the point where she could fire the dragon's breath repeatedly.
The soldiers of the Kingdom of Heaven tried to stop Dorothea, but the offensive from the Tin Knight and Adelaide was so overwhelming that no openings appeared.
Even if they somehow broke through and approached Dorothea, Billina, who stood by her side exuding a menacing killing intent, would cut them down without mercy.
As if in reward for the party's efforts, the forces that had been circling outside the island finally succeeded in setting foot on the territory of the Kingdom of Heaven.
“For the glory of the Empire! Punish the lawless Kingdom of Heaven that dared to launch a preemptive strike on Lydia!”
Elite knights, raised in a vast territory with a massive population, aimed their swords at the emerald soldiers.
The power of the emerald soldiers—who could withstand even sword energy with their bare bodies, were numerous, and possessed immense strength, truly an upgraded version of magic dolls—was so great that even the Empire's knights found it difficult to face them one-on-one. However, the knights had tactics as a collective.
Alone, they were pushed back. In pairs, they were evenly matched. In threes, they could boldly strike for the emerald soldiers' necks.
The Kingdom of Heaven had more troops overall, but the essence of strategy was to create situations where a larger number of allies could fight a smaller number of enemies, even when outnumbered.
“Show them the wisdom of the Magic State! Annihilate the vile schemers who brought disaster upon Aeolia!”
If the Empire gained the upper hand through meticulous formations and masterful troop deployment, the Magic State pushed forward with overwhelming firepower.
The first rank would sweep the enemy with all sorts of attack magic and then fall back, at which point the second rank, already chanting, would step forward and attack. When they finished, the third rank would attack, followed by the regrouped first rank unleashing another barrage.
Compared to the unified Imperial army, the mages of the Magic State were more like a coalition, and their coordination was somewhat clumsy. However, the familiars such as spirits and golems that the mages brought with them neatly covered these gaps and protected their masters.
In particular, the three spirit birds deployed by the Tower of Annihilation—sent with such urgency it was as if they'd torn out the tower's very foundations—annihilated the enemy by scattering the powers of flame, lightning, and frost.
《Ha! It's been a long life as a pirate, but this is my first time in the sky! Since we're here, I'd better make sure to grab some loot!》
“Ooki! Ooki-ki-ki-ki!”
Objectively speaking, the Federation's forces were somewhat inferior compared to those of the Empire or the Magic State.
This was because it wasn't so much an army dispatched by the Federation itself, but rather Franka's personal forces.
Franka knew this as well, so instead of recklessly charging in alone, she chose the strategy of boarding Cap'n Bill's ship and firing all sorts of weaponry.
The method was for Franka to conjure various ranged weapons like crossbows and javelins on the ship, which her homunculi would then use to attack the enemy from above.
《Hey! Damned witch!! I told you to stop using my ship as material for your weapons!!》
“This ship restores itself even if it gets a little broken or torn up! Don't be so cheap!”
Franka's tactics, which relied on mass-based attacks, had the drawback of being finished once her materials ran out, but this was solved by the power of an all-purpose raw material that returned no matter how many times it was fired.
Faced with the mighty forces on the ground, the heavenly armies began to be pushed back.
However, despite the favorable tide of battle, the faces of the commanders were not bright.
“Dorothea! At this rate, this will never end!”
Gale, who had been coolly crushing enemies alongside the white knight, had at some point approached Dorothea and shouted.
Instead of retorting bluntly about what nonsense she was spouting, Dorothea clicked her tongue in agreement.
'The enemy reinforcements never stop. If this turns into a war of attrition, we'll lose.'
The Kingdom of Heaven was a nation existing on a flying 'island,' but while the island was smaller than a continent, it was still an objectively vast landmass.
Even this battlefield, where Dorothea's party was currently running rampant, was a tiny area that accounted for not even a tenth, not even a hundredth, of the entire Kingdom of Heaven.
In a normal territory, no matter how vast, it wouldn't be entirely filled with soldiers. But this was the Kingdom of Heaven.
It was better for one's sanity to throw away any notion of 'normal'.
And for good reason—even as they were speaking, enemy troops were being endlessly reinforced.
It wasn't a matter of enemies from the rear moving to the front.
The crumbled emerald buildings, the smoothly paved emerald roads.
From all the things that made up their surroundings, soldiers were being 'born'.
Clank.
Clank. Clank.
Clank. Clank. Clank. Clank. Clank. Clank. Clank. Clank. Clank. Clank. Clank. Clank.
Dorothea narrowed her eyes at the sight of the seemingly inexhaustible enemy reinforcements.
Compared to the soldiers Ozma had controlled directly, their individual specs seemed somewhat inferior. But the problem was that these troops—strong enough that even a skilled knight would struggle against one, unless they were a human weapon like a Lennart—were being churned out like (in the Tin Knight's words) mass-produced goods.
Each time soldiers were produced this way, the brilliant light of the emeralds dimmed and the holy power they emitted weakened, suggesting they weren't literally infinite. However, if the emeralds scattered all over this city could be 'converted' like this, it was practically the same as infinite from the perspective of the attackers.
“The most suspicious thing is that big castle in the center...”
“It doesn't look like we can just walk in.”
Gale was right.
As brilliant witches, they had noticed that the great flow of power in this heavenly realm was similar to a kind of barrier.
East, west, south, and north.
In the four cardinal directions of the Kingdom of Heaven, there was something that could be called a 'core' of holy power, each holding immense energy. They were linked, supplying holy power to the entire island while also protecting the great castle at its center.
In other words, unless they captured the key points in the east, west, south, and north—the intermediate bases, so to speak—it would be impossible to even approach the enemy's leader, the New King 'Oz'.
“...This is exactly his kind of thing.”
Dorothea let out a dry laugh.
For some reason, she felt this was a setup the Tin Knight would absolutely love.
If four intermediate bases were the key to defending this Kingdom of Heaven, then naturally, they would have guardians befitting their importance.
It was a blatant setup.
And it seemed they had no intention of hiding it.
The ferocious south. The fickle west. The gloomy north. The mechanical east.
Adelaide. Sophia. Dorothea. The Tin Knight.
The auras of the angels, each connected to a member of their party, seemed to be beckoning them to come forward.