Chapter 439 — The Knight

Inside Boulder Fortress, in the mage tower that controlled the magic focus, the fierce but brief battle had already ended.

The arcane hall, once brimming with magical radiance and splendid with light, was now a scene of ruin. Bursts of magical energy and the explosions set by the attackers had left shocking damage everywhere: the walls were pocked with craters, the floor torn open by blasts, and the steel frames that had held the rune stones melted by the heat into a slumped mass of twisted metal. At the entrance, two arcane statues that had guarded the hall were now lifeless shards of obsidian scattered across the floor, and in the great circular array at the center of the hall, only faint human-shaped scorch marks and fragments of armor remained.

Sir Marchi, who had rushed to the scene at the greatest speed, stood blankly at the entrance, staring at the devastation inside, and for a long time said nothing.

"The fighting was concentrated inside the tower; there are no signs of battle outside or at the nearby watch posts," the mage advisor said beside Sir Marchi, setting out the clues gathered so far. "The attackers fought in a strange way, never seen before—dense explosions produced in a very short time, traces of extreme heat and blast everywhere. The guards seem to have been killed before they could even react. We also found this beside the wreckage of an obsidian golem."

Sir Marchi looked at what the mage advisor handed him: a twisted, broken blade—or the blade of a sword. Along its side could still be seen remnants of runes and alloy parts set into the metal. Whether in casting precision or design style, it could not have been produced inside Boulder Fortress, nor did it resemble any standard-issue sword in Ansu.

Only a section of the blade remained; its hilt was gone.

"Cecil equipment!" a southern knight who had come along cried the moment he saw the broken blade, then spoke rapidly: "General, this is a transcendent weapon. Its magic blade gives off tremendous heat and can cut a soldier in light armor, armor and all, in an instant. One of my squires was killed by a weapon like this..."

Hearing this, Sir Marchi suddenly recalled something else that had just happened: Viscount Carrol had fallen to his death from the terrace... No signs of struggle were visible on the terrace, so the only conclusion was that the viscount had lost his footing and fallen.

The banquet had been last night, and Viscount Carrol had not appeared since. Everyone assumed that the ever-anxious viscount had drunk too much and retired early to rest...

The attack before them had taken place inside the mage tower. Everyone had been caught off guard, pursued into the hall, and killed. Outside, there was no trace of battle at all...

The Cecil men were in the city—had been in the city for some time. They might even be hidden among the tower's guardians, or have already won the guardians' trust.

The troops guarding the mage tower and the inner wall belonged to the southern nobles—more precisely, to Baroness Ropeni Gran...

A deep sense of dread seized Sir Marchi's heart, and with it came the growing sounds of unrest and the muffled explosions from the distant walls.

This war... is this a war?

"There are traitors in the city... Where is Baroness Ropeni?!"

The guard knight beside him answered at once: "The baroness has not appeared on the wall since this morning—nor have the personal guards she brought with her."

Sir Marchi immediately gave a loud order: "Go at once—"

He did not finish. A disturbing whistling sound suddenly came from the upper levels of the mage tower, mixed with the sound of something shattering. The other knights and soldiers present instinctively looked up, but Sir Marchi and the mage advisor went pale at the same time: they had guessed what the whistling might mean.

It was not the tower itself. It was something connected to the tower—the magic barrier of Boulder Fortress.

The magic barrier was linked to the fortress walls and to every mage tower in the city. As the barrier steadily weakened, the first things to react were the magic crystals atop those towers.

He rushed out of the tower at once with his men.

Inside the towering Boulder Fortress, whistling sounds were echoing back and forth, and with them came a low rumble that grew steadily more distinct—the sound of the city shield shuddering on the verge of collapse, the sound of the air inside the shield resonating with the trembling walls. The faintly glowing magic barrier was now covered in ripples; pale white patterns spread from the top of the wall all the way into the high sky. By the time Sir Marchi burst out of the mage tower, those ripples covered nearly two-thirds of the sky.

In all his life the senior knight had never faced such a desperate situation, yet at this moment he grew calm instead. Watching the magic barrier crumble bit by bit, one hand on the sword hilt at his waist, he asked the mage advisor beside him in a low voice: "Master, how much longer can the shield hold?"

"Twenty minutes, or less," the mage advisor replied. "I will lead the surviving battle mages onto the wall and charge the shield with our own mana—that may buy three or five more minutes."

"Do not waste mana. Manpower is useless against a weapon like that," the knight cut him off. "Let the battle mages conserve their strength and prepare to fight in the city."

Then he turned to his most trusted subordinate, the guard knight who had followed him for years.

This guard knight was surely one of the strongest men in Boulder Fortress, second only to himself.

The city shield could hold for twenty minutes. After it broke, there was still the south wall; the metal-poured south wall could hold out for at least several tens of minutes against the Cecil "Skyfire blast." Even if the Cecil men sent Skyfire over the wall into the city, it would only destroy surface structures within the second wall—the magic focus and the main runes of the magic barrier were all buried underground.

Before the walls completely collapsed, there were still things he could do.

"Hold Xuanque City," the knight said to his guard knight. "Also, find Ropeni Gran and her missing guards. They may well have betrayed us already. Once that is confirmed, they must be dealt with before they cause greater damage."

The guard knight's eyes widened: "General, what are you going to do?"

"I once swore by my family name to defend Boulder Fortress to the death. Now it is time to keep that oath," Sir Marchi said, hand on his sword hilt, each word clear and forceful. "If I succeed, the Cecil attack may stop. If I fail, your loyalty ends—take the survivors out through the north gate, go to the royal capital, and tell Prince Wales the full account of how Boulder Fortress fell."

"General! I will go out with you!" the guard knight said at once. "I too swore that I would follow you on the battlefield forever. To flee on the eve of battle is not what a knight should do, still less what a noble should do!"

"The war of nobles is over!" Sir Marchi stared hard into the guard knight's face, then his tone softened. "...The war of nobles is over."

...

Knights who still had courage stepped forward. A knight order, led by the fortress commander, set out for the south wall gate. Sir Marchi sat on the warhorse he trusted deeply and watched the gate grow nearer before him.

Outside the wall, the magic barrier had reached the brink of collapse. Great patches of chaotic ripples wandered everywhere, and in some places magic pores had already opened. Where the barrier was broken, uncontrolled mana turbulence leaped across the wall like lightning, leaving chaos in its wake.

Groups of southern knights and noble soldiers fled down from the wall, mixed with the figures of some southern nobles.

A moment before, they had been shouting and preening on the wall.

Looking at these sorry wretches, a thought suddenly came to Sir Marchi: