A firm, booming voice soon reached their ears. “The shield won’t break!” It was Deruth. The mellow and unassuming count wore a full suit of armor, jaw set in a fierce expression. “Everyone, focus!”
The pounding on the shield and the roars of the wyverns were no match for the count’s volume. Cale listened to Deruth with a smile. He’s surprisingly talented.
Just as he was evaluating his father’s abilities, the loudest noise yet cracked through the commotion.
BANG!
Cale’s smile disappeared.
A gargantuan wyvern—a good fifteen meters long—glared at Cale through the shield’s silvery shroud and opened its mouth. No normal wyvern reached that size, suggesting it was a mutant.
“You’re here,” Cale said, greeting his highly anticipated guest. He’d been waiting for the man mounted on the white wyvern: Faern’s Guardian Knight, the white-haired Clope Seca.
Clope pulled the wyvern back, staring down at Cale. When the two of them locked eyes, Clope declared, “Once we destroy the shield, everything else will fall.”
He, too, had seen Rowoon’s video. After watching it, he had sworn to lay waste to this ancient yet powerless kingdom first and foremost. He was too proud to start his conquest anywhere else; if he did, it would seem as if Rowoon’s proclamation had intimidated him. Accordingly, the Indomitable Alliance had selected Rowoon as their first target.
Clope also knew of a moderately famous individual from Rowoon: a noble’s son who used a silver shield. He now examined the shield, which gave off a faint silver light. “How interesting.”
Getting rid of this shield and the red-haired punk who wielded it would start the invasion off on a good note. Clope had come here personally to use his overwhelming strength to write a new legend.
He blew into a flute.
The Henituse soldiers gripped their spears in fear as dozens of wyverns swooped toward Clope, rapidly closing the gap. Fwoosh! A multitude of wyverns beyond what they’d seen in the video blotted out the sky over Henituse territory.
Clope looked down at the red-haired man. Was his name Cale Henituse? Regardless, he would die soon. All Ancient Powers had their limits.
He raised a hand. “Descend.”
At his command, a burly group leapt off the wyverns behind him, opening previously unseen parachutes that carried them safely to the ground. Boom! Boom! Boom! The massive individuals landed one by one, forming a line outside Weston’s walls. There were easily over a hundred of them.
A soldier in Weston gasped. “It’s the Bear Tribe!”
The Bear Tribe was one of the strongest beastfolk tribes, and they boasted the largest numbers. As they alighted using the parachutes the dwarves had made for them, the enormous bears went into Berserk Mode and surrounded the city.
Clope watched them land, lowered his hand, and relayed his next order. “Attack.”
The wyverns rushed the silver shield, his own white wyvern among them.
Even from here, Clope could see the expressions of the people standing on the walls. The soldiers were pale, and he assumed the civilians were similarly haggard. He was certain that this would be an easy victory. Their combined assault eclipsed that of any magic bomb or crumbling palace. It wasn’t their strongest attack by a long shot, but it would be enough to destroy this small territory.
Clope met Cale’s gaze once again. This was the end.
Bang! Bang!
The barrage was so loud, the defending troops feared their eardrums might shatter. One of the more cowardly soldiers collapsed to his knees. “What can we do…?”
That shield is going to break! He sought out Cale, as did many others. The lordling’s face was bone-white; he looked like he would drop at any moment.
Cale himself was thinking, The north is really OP. The northern alliance’s forces were certainly formidable, but there was something Cale had on his side that the north did not.
‹Those wyverns may have big bodies, human, but they’re just small fry. These puny little things are actually kind of cute!›
He had a dragon.
I can’t expose Raon, but I can still put him to use.
Raon’s barrier overlapped Cale’s silver shield, making it unbreakable. A mere wyvern wouldn’t even be able to crack it. The wyverns rammed into the shield over and over, pounding against it like a drum. Boom, boom!
All the while, Cale kept his shield in place.
The kneeling soldier sucked in a breath. One strike. Ten strikes. Almost a hundred strikes. No matter how many times the wyverns bashed into the shield, it didn’t break. In fact, it only shined even brighter. The soldier found himself repeating the count’s previous words: “The shield won’t break.”
Though Cale looked like he might buckle any second now, he stood strong.
Clope barked an incredulous laugh. “Ha!” The shield was tougher than he’d expected. Contrary to his feeble appearance, that young noble had a stronger Ancient Power than Clope had given him credit for. Nothing had changed Clope’s mind, however. Any shield would break eventually, and they had plenty of other targets to choose from.
The Guardian Knight maintained his cool as he looked down at Cale. It was then that he noticed…Cale Henituse was smiling. Clope felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Behind me!
He wheeled the white wyvern around. At first, he thought what he saw was a white cloud, descending from the sky, but he was wrong. “Are those…bones?”
The “cloud” was really a horde of skeletons—hundreds of them. This flock of monstrous remains swooped down from the sky, their ghoulish forms filling the air.
Cale grinned. “Too bad. This is just the beginning.” With his eyes on the sky, he couldn’t contain his glee.
At the same time, an entity rose from the Dark Forest’s black swamp. It was the only skeleton with bones of pure black. Bony ebony wings, absent of any hide, began to flap. Soon enough, the legion of airborne skeletons parted to reveal this gargantuan presence.
Clope’s eyes opened wide. “That’s—!”
It was a dragon. Though the creature was just a collection of bones, it was close to twenty meters long. A pair of pitch-black wings, each spanning several meters, stretched across the sky. This mighty being was an overlord, even after death. Merely looking at it made Clope’s breath snag in his chest.
As Cale watched the draconic skeleton spread its wings, he thought to himself that a battle with an overwhelming advantage was bound to be entertaining.