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“Graaah!”
The sky burned.
Kaphal struck the Marquess’s army with her fire breath from the air.
Dragons could manipulate their breath more naturally than humans could control their exhalations, at least. They could spread it across a wide area, or they could hold it in one place, sweeping everything in its range away.
Kaphal’s breath attack came out in a direct line, similar to a laser spell. The fire formed into a single point like the tip of a spear with enough force to break the mountain. She fired a shot at Julian in an attempt to kill him.
Lushera was on pins and needles as she watched from afar. Monica was with Julian. If it struck directly, she’d be dead.
But she didn’t need to worry. Water came from around the area where Julian probably was and surged upward to the sky to strike a counter at Kaphal’s breath. That was an attack from the Hurricane of Insight.
Fire and water collided.
The two elements met head-on, pushing at each other in an explosive burst of steam. The two attacks seemed equally matched at first, but the spurt of water from the ground slowly pushed the fire back.
As implied by the name, a dragon’s breath attack was applied to their exhaled breath. Even with a dragon’s incredible lung capacity, they couldn’t maintain a burst forever.
Seeing she was on the losing side, Kaphal flapped her wings powerfully to turn and gave up on the deadlocked cross of breath attacks. She dodged the follow-up attack from the dracovitae, sucked in a deep breath, and aimed her next shot at the ground.
Julian of course intercepted it. Steam rose. The water from the attack that missed Kaphal fell back down, wetting the ground, forming a rainbow in the sky.
It’s incredibly powerful. Mom’s breath attack is losing to it. This is the strength of a dracovitae…
Lushera was about halfway up the mountain, much farther than Julian’s vanguard, watching the battle from the roof of the quickly made fort.
If she looked through a pair of magic binoculars that magnified everything it saw, she could see even Monica, floating in the air in the middle of the formation as if crucified.
“Use the overwhelming power of the dracovitae to fend off the enemy, while the soldiers cause further damage and protect the dracovitae… A textbook strategy, but it is strong.” Cristophe was beside her, using magic binoculars like her and calmly analyzing the enemy’s movements. “Little dragon,” he said.
“You can just call me Lushera.”
“Ah. Then, Lushera, I’d like to tell you what my impression is. I believe, having seen what I have so far, that we can win.”
“…Why?”
Cristophe’s eyes glinted from within his face with its pointed nose and sharp features. He didn’t look at her, he continued to stare at the battlefield. “He’s excited. He’s like a fledgling bird exhilarated by the heat of his first battle. In that state, it doesn’t matter how intelligent a man he is at his desk, he won’t be able to use his head effectively.”
“You can tell that from this far away?” Lushera asked.
“I can.”
In front of them was the map of the mountain and many call charms. Both the map and charms were held down by paperweights so they didn’t blow away in the wind.
Cristophe lowered his binoculars and swiped along all the charms to activate them like someone just going down a line. Each one of them connected to the commanders in charge of the various squads on the frontline.
“First, draw him in. They are fighting against time. Retreat is not an option for them! Reserve your own strength as you wear them down. Use the variants to our advantage. Remain vigilant in case any of their forces are moving separately!”
“Yes, sir!” came the courageous responses from each of the charms.
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THERE was the red dragon’s breath and the pseudo breath created by the power of the dracovitae that Julian borrowed.
While those two abnormal powers struggled against each other, the Setrayuan soldiers defending the mountain attacked the Marquess’s army, forcing them to fight both Setrayuan knights and variants at the same time.
But then the attacks stopped.
“The enemy forces and the red dragon are retreating!”
The decision to retreat was quick.
Julian watched the red dragon flee to the sky, took a breath, and looked around to check the status of his men.
Those who could use healing magic were helping the injured on the ground. Perhaps it was the variants that did it, but there were some whose mithril armor was half melted, some with half their bodies squashed flat, armor and all. The only thing they could do for them was offer a prayer after they confirmed they’d died.
Resurrection magic did exist, but there were many conditions that had to be met. They had to be at a ceremonial location (such as a temple), the body had to be in good condition, they had to use large amounts of magic components, have a magic user of enough skill, and, lastly, they had to have luck.
Even if many people died, they could only attempt resurrection on a few at a time. There was no getting around the fact that the vast majority of people who died here were going to stay dead.
“They ran the moment their variants were wiped out? Then they’ll prepare their next attack at the next line of defense…”
Julian wasn’t emotionally impacted at all that his retainers or even his knights were dying. He did at least understand it wasn’t a good thing that his fighting force was shrinking.
The knights protecting the dracovitae (and therefore Julian and Monica) were a step above your average soldier in terms of strength. They were all the sort of incredibly strong people who could punch mithril and leave an indent of their fist.
Many of these elite warriors were killed on Mount Kugus not long ago, along with Kenneth Angus. The ones there now were the result of Julian scraping whatever was left back together. They lacked both numbers and skill, and there were no replacements if they died.
They aren’t holding back with the variants. Where were they hiding them? he wondered.
It was obvious that the only goal of the variant attack was to weaken the defenses around the dracovitae. Meaning they were pawns meant to be sacrificed. Julian anticipated an attack like that, but the enemy seemed bolder about using them and throwing them away than he expected.
Was it our intelligence gathering or the analysis that was wrong? It was quite possibly both.
Julian had received information that there were monsters with odd movements carrying things to Mount Kugus in the night. The analysis determined Setrayu was using monster-mounted knights to haul military supplies to the mountain. What Julian didn’t know was that the dragons were using pack monsters to also haul in variants.
But it didn’t matter if there’d been a miscalculation. Retreat was not an option now.
It wasn’t necessary either.
Julian looked up at the fort on the side of the mountain and checked the map. There were several places along the route to the fort that seemed likely spots the enemy would attack. He believed their strategy was going to be to throw variants at them at each of those locations, wearing down his men until he was exposed.
“It’s amusing how cautious they are. Well, if that’s the case, I have an idea of my own.” Julian looked over at Monica.
She followed after him, kept aloft in the air by the power of the dracovitae. She didn’t even react to the raging battle around her, possibly because her emotions had been entirely taken over with despair, rendering her unable to move. She just stared down at the ground.
“Wield the dracovitae for me, dog. Cast off all the shackles on the land of Setrayu.”
Anyone looking at her might have questioned her sanity with the way her head drooped, but it snapped up then. For the first time in a long time, fragments of fear lingered deep in her clouded eyes.