Chapter 1050
“Right now?”
Even Karoon looked startled by the news that the war had already begun, his eyes widening.
“You mean we’re leaving immediately, without any preparation?”
He let out a disbelieving breath, as if the very idea was absurd.
“Isn’t this too sudden?”
Void Sword Captain Serena let out a deep sigh and raised her hand.
“As the True Martial Palace Lord said, we have not prepared for a battle at sea.”
She shook her head, explaining that while they had undergone all kinds of training, they had not practiced wielding their swords underwater.
“I agree.”
War Sword Division Captain Latein nodded, picking up where Serena left off.
“If we move too hastily, we could ruin everything.”
He pressed his lips together firmly, saying they needed time to prepare for a sea battle.
“What preparation? What nonsense!”
Balder stomped his foot loudly, as if telling them to stop talking nonsense.
“A fight is a fight, whether it’s at sea or on land! There’s no need to delay. This is a good thing, so why is everyone making such a fuss?”
He shook his pot-lid-sized fist, declaring that he and the True Martial Palace were ready to move immediately.
“You ignorant fool! It’s completely different!”
Aris furrowed her brow and smacked the back of Balder’s head.
“No matter how skilled you are, if it’s your first time fighting in water, you’ll inevitably lose your bearings.”
She shook her head, saying that if they did not adapt to the water, they would never be able to bring out their true strength.
“W-well, then what are we supposed to do…?”
Balder rubbed the back of his head where he had been hit and lowered his voice.
“That’s exactly why I should go! My crew and I are perfectly adapted to the sea!”
Aris slapped her chest and declared that she and the sailors of the Azure Wind would take part in the war.
“……”
As if he had already known this war was coming, Denier looked only at Glenn with a calm gaze.
“It’s good that we’re fighting the White Blood Cult, but why are you only telling us now?”
“Exactly. If we’d known we were going to war with the White Blood Cult, we would have trained with our lives on the line.”
“The sea is the same. If we’d known earlier, we would have trained for underwater combat.”
“If we’d had even a month. No, even a week for sea adaptation training….”
The swordsmen lined up in the training ground let out disappointed sighs, seemingly frustrated that such crucial news had been delivered so late.
“That was my order.”
The moment Glenn stepped to the center of the platform, the murmurs rising from every corner of the training ground instantly died down.
“There are currently spies inside Zieghart. If word had spread that we found the location of the White Blood Cult Main Headquarters, they would have either already fled elsewhere or prepared a trap to capture us instead.”
He lowered his chin heavily, explaining that he had no choice but to reveal the truth only on the day of the war, because the White Blood Cult could have struck first.
“You don’t need to worry about the battle at sea.”
Raon straightened his back and stood beside Glenn.
“Once the magic prepared by the Grand Mages is activated, all of you will be able to strike the White Blood Cult Main Headquarters from land.”
He nodded, telling them to trust the magic that Chamber and Larian had spent more than two months preparing.
“And as for the battle at sea, the Light Wind Palace will take responsibility for it, so I ask that all of you focus on the battle right in front of you.”
Raon told them that the Light Wind Palace had already undergone brutal training for sea combat.
Gooooooo!
As if to give weight to his words, the swordsmen of the Light Wind Palace unleashed a fearsome Energy Wave strong enough to overwhelm every swordsman present in the training ground.
“Ugh!”
“What kind of energy do those youngsters have…?”
“Th-the Light Wind Palace was this strong?”
The swordsmen swallowed dryly, shocked by the martial power of the Light Wind Palace swordsmen.
“Hmm!”
Glenn seemed pleased by the imposing spirit of Raon and the Light Wind Palace, the corners of his mouth curling upward.
“So then….”
Just as Raon was about to continue while looking toward Glenn—
Ooooooooh!
The Dimension Door hanging open in the sky shook violently, and Chamber, wearing a red witch’s hat, and Evelyn, draped in a violet robe, appeared.
“What’s this! Why aren’t they coming even though I opened the door!”
Chamber frowned, wrinkling her nose as she demanded to know why they were being so slow.
“Hey! Grandfather must have his reasons! Just wait!”
Evelyn shouted the word “Grandfather” toward Glenn even in the middle of Zieghart, with countless swordsmen gathered there.
“G-grandfather? She said grandfather?”
“What does that mean?”
“C-could it be…?”
The swordsmen, who had just been steeling themselves for war against the White Blood Cult, now stared blankly at Evelyn and Glenn.
“Ugh….”
Unable to bear the embarrassment, Raon raised a hand to his forehead.
》That madwoman is on a whole different level.
Wrath let out a sigh as if exhausted.
》Neither you nor that Sword Demon bastard can keep up with that lunatic.
He shook his head, saying Evelyn’s madness should be treated as a separate category.
“Q-quiet!”
Glenn, unable to hide how flustered he was, even stumbled slightly over his words.
“From this point on, I will announce the forces departing for the war against the White Blood Cult.”
As he raised his hand, silence fell over the training ground that had been buzzing with whispers, and tension spread across every face.
“The vanguard will, of course, be the Light Wind Palace, which has contributed the most to this matter.”
“Light Wind Palace. We receive the Head Of House’s command!”
At Raon’s shout, all the swordsmen of the Light Wind Palace dropped to one knee.
“Aris Zieghart, you will also participate. Your subordinates will be waiting outside the Dimension Door.”
Glenn’s gaze turned toward Aris, who stood at the far left.
“I’ll kill them all and come back!”
Aris clenched her long hand into a fist, as if telling him to expect great things.
“The 2nd Palace, True Martial Palace, will be responsible for guarding the family. The 3rd Palace, Black Tortoise Palace, will remain on standby here. The 4th Palace, Central Martial Palace, will depart together with the Light Wind.”
Glenn gave his orders while looking in turn at Karoon, Denier, and Balder, as if he had already made all the decisions.
“…We receive the command.”
Karoon bit his lip, but accepted the order, knowing that someone had to stay behind and protect the family.
“Kehahahaha! A fine choice! I’ll rip the heads off those Blood Demons with these hands!”
Balder slammed his fists together in front of his chest as if to say there was nothing to worry about.
“We receive the Head Of House’s command!”
Denier bent at the waist calmly, without hesitation, as if he were simply stating that he would obey.
“Hmm….”
Raon narrowed his eyes slightly as he watched Denier’s indifferent reaction.
‘He says nothing even now?’
Unlike Karoon, who had been given the duty of guarding the family, Denier had been ordered to remain on standby, unable to take even a single step outside this training ground.
If he really were a spy for the Five Demons, this would be the worst possible situation, yet it was unsettling how quietly he accepted the order without a single objection.
‘Could it be that he really isn’t one?’
Watching him now, Raon even began to wonder if he had been suspecting Denier for no reason.
‘No. I can’t dismiss my suspicions. I have no idea what could happen or when.’
To steady himself again, Raon placed his hand on the blade of the Heavenly Drive. As the familiar sensation flowed into his fingertips, his chest felt lighter.
“The Heavenly Sword Division will remain on standby here. The Air Sword Division and the War Sword Division will support the Light Wind Palace from behind. The String Orchestra and the Heavy Music Division will….”
Glenn looked over each of the forces lined up in the training ground and assigned them their roles one by one.
“…Finally, I myself will remain here.”
He lowered his gaze, saying that he too would stay behind in Zieghart.
The swordsmen nodded, understanding why Glenn had no choice but to remain with the family.
“Then I leave the rest to you.”
Glenn stepped back and jerked his chin toward Chamber.
“Old man. You don’t need to say that!”
As Chamber chuckled and raised her hand, a Dimension Door descended before the swordsmen assigned to the front.
“Just think of it as stepping over your own doorstep and walk through comfortably.”
She jerked her chin, saying they would arrive at their destination the moment they crossed the Dimension Door.
“We will be here….”
Glenn looked at the swordsmen standing before the Dimension Door and raised his chin, the tendons in his neck standing out.
“…waiting for you.”
Those words, “We will wait,” which were neither “Don’t lose” nor “Fight and win,” carved themselves deeper into his heart than any encouragement or advice ever could.
“Yes!” “We’ll definitely return!” “Please wait for us!”
It seemed he was not the only one who felt that way, because all the swordsmen looked at Glenn with moved eyes.
“Depart!”
At Raon’s rough shout, the swordsmen of Zieghart stepped into the blue Dimension Door with lighter strides.
“I will return.”
Raon bowed to the smiling Glenn, then entered the Dimension Door last.
Ooooooooh!
It seemed Chamber had improved her Teleportation magic yet again, because the instant he blinked after entering the blue dimension, an entirely new landscape unfolded before him.
Swoooosh!
The sound of blue waves crashing echoed out. A familiar beach. It was the coastline where he had dived every night while searching for the White Blood Cult Main Headquarters.
They had arrived before they could even take a proper breath.
“Whoa…”
“Th-this fast?”
“Is this a different spell from the Dimension Door? Amazing….”
The swordsmen seemed to feel the same way, looking around and breathing out in disbelief.
“Prepare for battle.”
Raon ordered the swordsmen to make ready, then walked toward the front of the beach.
Ooooooooh!
On the sandy shore, hundreds of mages stood carefully maintaining three different magic circles.
“Y-you’re here…?”
Larian, who had been personally inspecting the central magic circle, waved at him with a trembling hand. Her eyes looked dead, so it seemed she was in her shut-in mage state again.
“Is it really all right to activate the magic from here?”
Raon frowned as he looked at the sea where the waves were crashing violently.
“H-here, we have…”
“Don’t worry. We thoroughly set up a barrier that conceals both presence and Mana.”
Just as Larian was about to answer, Evelyn stepped up from behind and replied first.
“Right?”
She grinned and hugged Larian from behind. It seemed the two had grown closer while researching magic together over the past two months.
“Huh? Uuuh!”
Larian nodded with a face that looked ready to die. It was probably just Raon’s misunderstanding. It seemed only Evelyn believed they had become close.
“It’s fine for now, but they’ll notice the moment we activate the magic.”
Chamber clicked her tongue, saying the White Blood Lord and the Blood Demons were not fools.
“So we only get one chance. We absolutely cannot make a mistake.”
She let out a heavy sigh, saying all three spells had to be activated while the White Blood Lord was still off guard.
“So the three of you here are each in charge of one spell.”
Raon nodded as he saw that the centers of the three magic circles had been left empty.
“That’s right. You need to be at least Transcendent to cast magic above the White Blood Lord’s head while hiding it in the unseen sea.”
Evelyn laughed, saying that she, Chamber, and Larian had no choice but to take the core positions in the magic circles.
“But where is King Lecross?”
The ones who were supposed to face the White Blood Lord today were the Black Sword King and the Magic Tower Lord.
Chamber had to withdraw afterward to manage the Teleportation magic once the White Blood Cult was summoned, but King Lecross and Owen’s knights were nowhere to be seen.
“He’ll be a little late. He has something he needs to prepare.”
Chamber waved her hand as if telling him not to worry.
“For now, we need to confirm the location of the White Blood Cult Main Headquarters one last time. Can you do that?”
She looked at him and said they needed one final confirmation before activating the magic.
“Understood.”
Raon nodded and dipped his hand into the sea. As he released an extremely faint thread of Mana, Haerang leapt up onto the surface of the water.
“Yip!”
Haerang wagged his tail wildly as if they were meeting again after a year, even though it had only been a week, and rubbed his head against Raon’s hand.
“So that’s the Spirit you saved?”
Chamber stroked Haerang’s back as if she found him adorable.
“A-a Spirit! A Sea Spirit is incredibly rare!”
Larian’s research instincts seemed to flare up, and she scanned Haerang’s whole body with reddened eyes.
“Is the white city we saw still in the same place?”
“Woof!”
Haerang answered yes and bumped his head against Raon’s forehead. Along with the cool sensation of entering the sea, the image of the White Blood Cult Main Headquarters lying sunken exactly where he had seen it a week earlier rose in his mind.
“Yes. It is still exactly where I told you it would be.”
Raon nodded, saying the White Blood Cult’s location had not changed.
“Good. Then nothing is in the way.”
Chamber clapped her hands as if to say they would begin immediately.
“Prepare!”
At her shout, the eyes of the mages standing around the magic circles changed. Their desperate determination to make the spell succeed was so intense that even the swordsmen of Zieghart swallowed dryly.
Ooooooooh!
Chamber opened a blue screen over the sea, and within it, a distant stretch of ocean appeared in real time.
It seemed to show the sky above the sea where the White Blood Cult Main Headquarters lay hidden.
“Evelyn!”
Chamber jerked her chin toward Evelyn, who had been taking a deep breath while looking only at Raon.
“You start. Don’t make a mistake.”
“I know.”
Evelyn waved her hand as if telling them not to worry and stepped into the center of the first magic circle.
“Watch closely.”
She winked at him as if telling him to watch only her, then brought her hands together.
Rumble!
Evelyn’s Mana burst forth wildly and seeped into the circular magic circle, releasing a majestic violet wave.
“It succeeded!”
When he turned his gaze to the screen Chamber had opened, as Evelyn said those words, he saw a jar as massive as a city falling over the blue sea.
“Larian!”
Chamber reached out toward Larian as if telling her to begin immediately.
“I already know!”
Larian threw off the robe that had been covering her entire body, brought her hands together, and formed a Formula. Her personality had already shifted from a shut-in mage to the Magic Tower Lord.
“Let’s go, everyone!”
At her sharp shout, the mages of the Magic Tower maintaining the second magic circle closed their eyes and began chanting.
Ooooooooh!
As Larian poured Mana into the Formula the mages had formed, a massive hexagram magic circle unfolded beside the sea where the giant jar had fallen.
It was so enormous that it could engulf not just the city, but far beyond it.
“Now we just have to wait.”
After confirming that Evelyn’s and Larian’s spells had both succeeded, Chamber brought her hands together.
“May the octopus get trapped in the pot.”
She bit her lip deeply and drew a cool smile.
===
“Mana? No, is it magic?”
The 10th Apostle sensed the massive wave of Mana rising above the Main Headquarters and lifted his head.
“Who in the world…”
Unable to understand the sudden turn of events, his pupils trembled.
“The magic isn’t heading toward us. Something massive is falling to the right.”
The 12th Apostle frowned as he lowered his gaze.
“No, that’s not all. Something else is descending above our heads too.”
He twisted his lips upward, saying it looked like an attack.
“You were right.”
The White Blood Lord lowered her long pipe and blew out a thin stream of smoke.
“It seems this place has been discovered, just as you said.”
Murmuring that he was reliable, she looked back at the 10th Apostle.
“Hmm….”
The 12th Apostle lowered his brows in displeasure as he looked between the 10th Apostle and the White Blood Lord.
“My apologies. I should have confirmed it more thoroughly….”
Though he had just been praised, the 10th Apostle bowed his head as if ashamed.
“I will make preparations at once.”
“It’s fine. I’ve already prepared for this.”
The White Blood Lord looked at the approaching magic circle and smiled faintly.
“I enhanced the Mana resistance of the fog spread outside the Main Headquarters, and the barrier surrounding the Main Headquarters itself has been properly maintained. Even if 9th-class magic falls one after another, there will be no problem. Moreover….”
She turned her pipe over and tapped out the ash.
“Attack magic and Aura won’t work on the Kraken supporting us. There is nothing to worry about.”
The White Blood Lord said she had strengthened every defensive Spell the moment she sensed external Mana, then returned the pipe to her lips.
“Even so, there’s no reason to stay in a place that’s already been exposed. Inform the 1st Apostle. Have the Kraken move and return to the deep sea.”
She sneered, saying that everything the Five Kings had prepared would become meaningless.
“Understood.”
Just as the 10th and 12th Apostles nodded and were about to go to the 1st Apostle—
Guoooooh!
A thunderous impact rang out from beside the White Blood Cult Main Headquarters as something enormous landed, and the entire sea shook.
“A jar…?”
The White Blood Lord’s eyes widened as she looked at the giant jar, which was nearly as large as the Main Headquarters.
‘Why a jar?’
She had assumed it was some kind of siege weapon meant for physical destruction, so disbelief escaped her when all they had dropped was an enormous jar.
‘Wait…’
The White Blood Lord urgently raised her gaze, examining the magic circle slowly descending from above.
‘That isn’t an attack spell.’
If it were an attack spell, it should have already been blocked and erased by the fog. Yet this magic circle passed smoothly through the mist as if it meant no harm, enveloping the Main Headquarters and the Kraken beneath it.
“What is this….”
The White Blood Lord swallowed dryly as she observed the densely woven magical formula, intricate as knitting. Though she couldn’t identify the spell, a strange unease prickled down her spine.
“Move the Kraken! Now!”
Setting everything else aside, she shouted to retreat the Kraken immediately.
“Yes! I’ll inform the 1st Apostle right away—”
“No! I’ll do it myself!”
Just as the White Blood Lord was about to dash toward the control room where the 1st Apostle resided—
KWA-BOOOOOOM!
Even before any order could reach it, the Kraken began to stir on its own, moving toward the jar that had fallen to the right.
“What! Who gave the Kraken orders just now!”
The White Blood Lord ground her teeth and stomped her foot, but of course, no one knew.
Kugugugugugugu!
Unconcerned whether the White Blood Cult Main Headquarters tilted or collapsed, the Kraken twisted its eyes and began pushing its long, massive legs into the jar.
“The jar…?”
“Why the jar all of a sudden!”
The 10th and 12th Apostles were also stunned by the Kraken’s abrupt actions, their jaws dropping.
“Aaaagh!”
“Th-the buildings are collapsing!”
“Save me!”
Lower-ranked Blood Demons were crushed or impaled by falling structures amid the violent, earthquake-like tremors.
“L-Lord!”
The 1st Apostle burst out of the control room, panting heavily.
“The Kraken has broken free from control! Even with your blood infused, it’s moving on its own!”
He trembled as he reported that the Kraken wouldn’t obey.
“Hah….”
The White Blood Lord lowered her wavering gaze to look at the magic circle enveloping the Main Headquarters and the Kraken.
‘Could it be… a spell that amplifies instincts?’
Octopuses, as cephalopods, have an instinct to squeeze their bodies into round objects.
The Kraken supporting the Main Headquarters was an ancient monster, with instincts many times stronger than modern Krakens. That had allowed them to use its camouflage comfortably, but she never imagined it could be exploited like this.
“Immediately disable the spells placed around the Main Headquarters and open the dimensional gate!”
They had just strengthened the fog’s defenses to protect the Main Headquarters from magic, so they couldn’t open the dimensional gate right away.
Kugugugugu!
While the White Blood Lord was giving orders to the Apostles, the Kraken had already inserted all eight of its legs into the jar.
“I’ll kill the Kraken myself!”
The moment she ground her teeth and tried to step out over the sea, countless formulas bloomed above the jar holding the Kraken, emitting a blue light.
“Damn it!”
The White Blood Lord bit her lip until it bled as she watched the jar flicker with Chamber’s distinctive blue Mana.
“We’ve been had….”
===
KWA-BOOOOOOM!
A magnificent blue light flashed as a giant jar, with a white city perched atop it, plummeted down over the beach. The colossal weight of its fall shook heaven and earth.
“Connect!”
At Larian’s shout, the mages operating the first and second magic circles chanted new incantations and pressed their hands to the ground.
CLAAANG!
From the small magic circles drawn by the mages, chains of various colors shot out and coiled around the White Blood Cult Main Headquarters.
KRAAASH!
The jar containing the Kraken shattered, and the White Blood Cult Main Headquarters, now bound by hundreds of chains, began being dragged toward the beach.
“Combine!”
As Evelyn formed a Formula with four fingers, a violet radiance descended, linking the chains summoned by the mages to create five bridges connecting the beach and the White Blood Cult Main Headquarters.
SNAP!
Evelyn flicked her fingers and glanced back at Raon. She curled her red lips as if to say their mission was complete.
“White Blood Cult summoning complete!”