The First Page of the Empire's Fall
The wind howled like a living thing, slicing through the pitch-black night sky. Below her stretched an endless abyss of darkness, and her stomach twisted violently with motion sickness. …Why the hell am I here…
Serian barely kept her balance on the lurching creature, desperately clutching its silver feathers. All of this had started the night before with a single sentence from General Clausewitz.
She had desperately protested. She was nothing more than a development officer with zero combat experience; sending her to the front lines was absurd. But the seasoned general had blocked every escape route with cold logic. He brought up Marquis Leopold of the Strategic Intelligence Bureau—the man originally slated to command the operation—and pointed out that the marquis only saw the new equipment as "fast cavalry." Then he assigned her a role she couldn't refuse.
Damn it… Clausewitz. That cursed old bastard.
It was nonsense. By that logic, every ship's captain would have to be a former shipbuilder. But no matter how much she flailed and insisted she wasn't capable, it was useless. He had dressed it up with fancy talk about "the captain's duty," but in the end—
—that single phrase had crushed all objections. Pushed forward by those words, she now found herself in this hellish sky. And the one carrying her here was none other than the "gift" the Emperor had personally bestowed upon her.
Serian turned her head to once again confirm the identity of the creature she was riding. Frost-covered feathers. Eyes like frozen glaciers. The sacred beast of the northern Scadia Principality.
The Frost Griffin.
Only a hero destined to bring another victory is worthy of riding this sacred beast that symbolizes the Empire's triumph.
The Empire called this creature a "symbol of victory." They claimed they had subjugated the north and taken their sacred beast as spoils of war. But Serian knew the truth. She knew exactly what future this so-called symbol would bring.
In her memories of her previous life, Lost Empire had recorded the Grandia Empire's downfall in meticulous detail. The moment this griffin went missing or died on the battlefield, the Scadia Principality would use the "desecration of their sacred beast" as a pretext to break their alliance and stab the Empire in the back. That betrayal would plunge the Empire into a two-front war against both the west and the north, driving it straight into ruin.
I just wanted to quietly run away…
How had she ended up riding a time bomb that carried the switch for the Empire's destruction, sitting in the front row of the express train to annihilation?
Right then, a small red light flickered to life in the darkness far below before vanishing. It was the signal from the main imperial forces deployed in the diversionary operation: We've successfully drawn the enemy's attention.
Now everything depended on her.
Serian pulled a palm-sized artifact from her coat. A commander's flare launcher embedded with three colored mana stones. Green for begin operation, yellow for standby and observe, red for immediate retreat.
Her fingers hovered hesitantly over the yellow and red stones.
Should I just fire the retreat signal now? No… that would be defying an imperial decree. They'd have my head before dawn.
In the end, there was only one choice.
She squeezed her eyes shut and poured mana into the green mana stone.
Shwoooosh—!
A streak of green light shot from the artifact, tracing a parabola across the night sky. The light reflected off the clouds, briefly dyeing the entire battlefield in an eerie green glow like some ominous aurora.
Seeing the signal, Kaizen on the ground drew his sword and roared.
Dozens of blue meteors—the members of the Night Ghosts—burst out of the forest all at once and began charging toward the supposedly impregnable fortress.
Watching the scene with a dazed expression, Serian muttered to herself.
…And so, with my own hands, I turn the first page of the Empire's downfall.
At the same moment, atop the walls of the Silver Horn Fortress.
"What was that? A meteor?" muttered the mage Elian, who was on night watch duty.
The ominous green flash that had appeared and vanished in the night sky. As he stared into the darkness where the light had disappeared, the guard captain beside him, Kaelus, snorted in disdain.
"Ignore it, Elian. Just a shooting star. Keep your eyes on the front."
His chin jerked toward the vast plain in front of the fortress. Thousands of torches writhed through the darkness like a massive fiery serpent, while crude battering rams and catapults revealed their heavy silhouettes.
"Seeing the Empire's main force coming with all those torches lit, it looks like they're planning something for tonight."
But in truth, he wasn't worried at all. This sight was nothing more than a tiresome play he had seen dozens of times over the past ten years. The mana barrier protecting this fortress—the Absolute Barrier—had repelled every imperial offensive for a decade. It was the masterpiece of Astra Empire's archmage Ulysses, designed and perfected over his lifetime. As long as the barrier stood, those outdated toys would simply shatter against the walls.
That was when it happened.
"Captain! L-look over there!"
Elian pointed toward the forest in horror. From the treeline shrouded in darkness, dozens of blue lights suddenly flashed into existence. And they were charging toward the fortress at an impossible speed.
"What are those lights? Cavalry?"
Kaelus snorted again.
"I don't know which unit they belong to, but their commander must be out of his mind. Charging at that speed without a single siege weapon? Are they planning to ram their heads into our fortress and commit suicide?"
His adjutant spoke cautiously. "It looks like they're aiming for the flank. Should we redirect some troops to intercept—"
"Nonsense." Kaelus cut him off with a wave of his hand. "You want to waste precious arrows on those suicidal moths?"
He pointed at the blue lights with his chin.
"Pay them no mind. They won't even be able to scratch the Absolute Barrier."
They would clearly just struggle against the invisible wall until they exhausted themselves and fell away. Kaelus clicked his tongue and turned his gaze back to the massive battlefield in front.
"All units, focus fire on the main force ahead!"
His attention was solely on how to dismantle the primary enemy troops.
But his sneer didn't last long.
It was when the blue lights he had dismissed reached the base of the wall.
Clang— Kang! Kang-kang!
A sharp, alien metallic sound tore through the battlefield noise and struck his ears. Dozens of anchors flew toward the wall they stood on and embedded themselves with terrifying force. The unbelievable sight of steel hooks piercing straight through the surface of the Absolute Barrier and anchoring firmly.
"Th-those bastards! They're climbing the wall!"
"Impossible! How are they getting through the Absolute Barrier…?!"
Chaos erupted across the ramparts in an instant. The smile vanished from Kaelus's face.
"Don't just stand there like idiots! Fire everything! Don't let a single one live!"
At his furious command, the panicked soldiers regained their senses and began raining down magic and arrows like a storm.
But what they faced was not human.
It was a ghostly dance riding the darkness.
They weren't climbing. They kicked off the wall, defying gravity, and flew through the air to reposition themselves. They danced through the pouring arrow rain and the flashes of exploding magic shells.
One archer fired a killing shot at the lead ghost. The arrow flew straight toward the ghost's heart.
—Or so he thought. In that instant, the ghost's body twisted at an impossible angle, letting the arrow graze past. The next moment, the archer felt the cold touch of a blade against his neck. The last thing he saw was a blue afterimage flashing before his eyes before he plummeted from the wall.
"Concentrate your magic! Target where they gather!"
At Kaelus's shout, the mages combined their power to create a massive fireball. The lava-like mass of mana lit up the night like daylight. But before the fireball could even be launched, several wires shot from the air, piercing the mages' ankles and arms.
"Aaaargh!"
They screamed as they were yanked into the air like puppets. The uncontrolled fireball slammed into the wrong section of wall and exploded.
The soldiers preparing defensive magic from a watchtower midway up the wall witnessed an even more horrific sight. A single blue ghost flew above their heads and dropped straight into their midst.
Crunch!
With a terrible sound of steel and bone colliding, a bloody mist erupted. The blood of comrades who had been alive moments ago flowed stickily across the matte black armor that blended with the darkness. The blue glow of the moonstones embedded throughout the armor caught the blood and gleamed with a ghastly, demonic light.
When the ghost swung its blades and flew away again, only a pile of mangled corpses remained.
They were hunting.
Using the vertical cliff of the fortress wall as their hunting ground, they slaughtered the insects clinging to it like predators.
Yes… this was a new kind of disaster created by one of the Empire's monsters.