Chapter 1208: Final Struggle

Thanks to March of the Valkyrie, the over 500 Red Knights could move at an incredibly high speed. We quickly caught up with the superhuman soldiers, and surpassed them just as fast. This wasn’t only due to our title, but also the Squad Enhancement skill I took from the Cardinal Flag.

The Cardinal Flag Knights were the ones originally in charge of protecting the people of this region. Ironically, the power I stole from their captain was now being used to protect them again.

We inserted ourselves between the villagers and the superhuman soldiers, forming a blockade.

However, that alone wouldn’t be enough to stop them completely. We might be able to hold them off to some extent, but I expect more than half of them to slip through.

（Master, do the thing.）

『Got it!』

Times like these call for the ever reliable land magic. We didn’t have much mana to spare, but this was definitely the right moment to spend it.

We activated Great Wall multiple times, creating a simple funnel to lead the enemy forces into a bottleneck.

「Wow! This is amazing!」

Sibylla, as well as Biscot and the other Red Knights, seemed surprised. They had probably not expected Fran to be adept at such a wide variety of magic.

Meanwhile, Fran simply replied with a simple strategy.

「You handle the orders.」

That alone seemed to be enough for Sibylla to understand her intent.

「Alright! You guys split into three squads! First, the squad that’ll stay here to cover Fran and me, then the squads that’ll split left and right to get any trying to flank us! Madred, you take those capable of using bows, and hunt down the flyers from the top of the wall!」

「Roger!」

Sibylla’s sharp intuition made everything so easy! We didn’t need to explain a single thing.

『Fran, leave the walls to them! We’re taking to the skies!』

「Nn!」

Coordinating with the Red Knights was surprisingly smooth. About thirty of the Dusk Rain Knights jumped onto the Great Wall with support from their captain’s magic. Then they started precision sniping with their bows.

Most of the knights fired arrows to intercept the superhuman soldiers attempting to surround Fran, while Captain Madred slew any flyers trying to bypass her at a distance.

We still felt Madred’s piercing killing intent, but he behaved like a perfect ally. This was a man who could separate his intentions and actions.

It seems Fran started giving him quite a bit of respect because of that. That’s something she still wasn’t capable of.

Thanks to their efforts, Fran was able to focus on any flyers trying to break through.

Though we were pushing ourselves and exhausting our resources, it wasn’t to the point of risking our lives.

After a bit of combat, our Great Walls got destroyed by a long-range attack. The area near the ground got blown up, causing them to collapse.

Windwolf and Bladehawk finally jumped in. It seems they had been preparing for this attack while they were hidden.

And they succeeded in completely destroying all of our Great Walls almost simultaneously.

I sensed a significant reduction in their mana from the attack, despite the mysterious mana supply they were receiving.

As a result, more than half of the superhuman soldiers began climbing the rubble and bypassing the Red Knights.

That said, the Red Knights responded with blinding speed. The moment they realized this, they lined up for the chase without any action on our part.

Sibylla yelled, “We’re counting on you again, Captain!” and at that moment, command was again transferred to Fran.

We caught up to the superhuman soldiers once more, and the battle resumed. However, the distance between them and the villagers had been narrowed to just a few hundred meters. After all, we could see Urushi’s figure in the distance.

（We absolutely can’t let them get any closer!）

『Yeah!』

We invoked Great Wall again, and the Red Knights plugged up the funnel. After leaving the defense of the sky to the Dusk Rain Knights, Fran and I went for Windwolf and Bladehawk.

Our goal was to disrupt their command and protect our Great Wall. We aimed not to defeat them, but to engage them and divert their attention.

It seems the two finally realized that they wouldn’t be able to deal significant damage to the villagers or the Red Knights at this rate. They decided to take a gamble.

「GAAAAAH!」

「RUUOOOH!」

Windwolf summoned five tornados and sent them towards Fran. Meanwhile, Bladehawk filled the tornadoes with his razor-sharp feathers.

An insane amount of mana was infused into this attack, and I sensed a bigger reduction from when they destroyed our Great Wall. The two were practically on the verge of exhaustion, with Windwolf shrinking greatly, and Bladehawk having shed almost all his feathers.

They were staking everything on this last resort.

Five gigantic tornadoes with the power of high-tier spells, combined with thousands of mana-infused feather bombs.

I saw a house-sized boulder torn apart the instant the tornado engulfed it.

Avoiding them would be as simple as moving out of the way, but they’re aimed at the Red Knights. Sibylla was probably the only one capable of surviving a direct hit.

The tornadoes were also in line to massacre countless superhuman soldiers along with the Red Knights, but that seemed to be of no concern to them. In fact, they might have done so intentionally.

Furthermore, they were also on a path to reach the villagers if allowed to continue.

So we could no longer afford to back down.

（Master, stopping them isn’t enough! Let’s blow them all away!）

Perhaps we could mitigate the damage through continuous usage of Kanna Kamui and Megiddo Flame. However, the shockwaves would still reach the Red Knights.

『Yeah, we have no choice but take them head on and neutralize them completely.』

「Nn!」

Fran stared down the approaching tornadoes with resolute eyes.