We Won!

Four colossal meteors pierced through the heavy dark clouds and plummeted from the sky. Beholding this despair-inducing sight, even the Silvermoon Knight's eyes widened. This was a genuine ninth-circle spell, Meteor Swarm. He truly was a legendary evocation wizard—the amplified Ice Storm from moments before was an evocation spell as well. The School of Evocation specialized in all forms of destructive, offensive magic; Fireball was their bread and butter, and Meteor Swarm was their ultimate hallmark. Wizards of this school possessed another preposterous trait: safe friendly fire. Evocation wizards could carve out pockets of safe magical space, protecting their companions from being harmed by their own spells. In other words, no matter how vast an area-of-effect spell they unleashed, they could bombard with reckless abandon, utterly unconcerned about friendly fire. As the four meteors rained down, not even the Silvermoon Knight could intercept them. His sword might be able to cleave a meteor in two, but that wouldn't stop it from striking the ground; shattering it into a rain of fiery shrapnel would only make the devastation worse. After four heavy, thunderous booms, three of the meteors missed, cratering into the distant desert sand and sending shockwaves that blew away roughly a hundred soldiers. The final meteor, however, struck dead center into the heart of the Ryan army. Following a cataclysmic explosion, hundreds of Ryan soldiers were killed on the spot, with countless more wounded. The raw destructive power of Meteor Swarm was terrifying. Ordinary soldiers had no way to withstand it. No matter how many defensive spells they were warded with, they were crushed into paste by the colossal meteor and then vaporized into ash by the blast. The casualties wrought by this single Meteor Swarm surpassed Ryan's combat losses over the past year. Suspended in midair, Anbaixiu was not particularly pleased with this outcome. Without the Dice of Fate guiding them, only one out of the four meteors had hit. No wonder Meteor Swarm was dubbed the shame of the ninth circle—its accuracy was truly abysmal. If used in a duel against an individual, a spell like this would be completely useless. No matter; Anbaixiu had no intention of stopping. Lightly tapping the armrest of the Golden Throne, another vast expanse of dark clouds gathered, unleashing a torrential downpour that soaked the Ryan soldiers to the bone. Ignoring the rain drenching his armor, the Silvermoon Knight roared, "Raise the defensive barrier!" The clerics of light busy tending to the wounded immediately dropped their work, linking their power of Holy Light together to erect a colossal protective barrier over their battle lines. No sooner had the barrier formed than sheets of lightning crashed from the heavens. Yet every bolt was deflected by the barrier, its violent energy conducted harmlessly into the sea of sand. Watching this, Anbaixiu couldn't help but admire it: Impressive. This kind of mass battlefield casting was not something an ordinary military could pull off. It required not only a shared source of power, but also long periods of disciplined coordination. In the entire Raging Tide Kingdom, only a thousand spellcasters could manage joint casting, and even then it required advance preparation. Yet Ryan had several whole legions of such elites, able to summon a barrier at a moment's notice. Anbaixiu remarked to himself, "That Silvermoon Knight has a keen eye. He knew this barrier couldn't withstand Meteor Swarm, so he held off, deploying it just at the right moment." Pure energy lightning dealt damage completely differently from burning meteors. The Silvermoon Knight was quite knowledgeable about magic, choosing the exact right countermeasure. "Let's see how long you can keep that up!" Just as Anbaixiu prepared to cast another spell, four streaks of light finally burst from the Ryan ranks, hurtling toward him. Ryan's legendary paladins had finally lost their patience and moved to take him down. Faced with such an onslaught, Anbaixiu made a single, decisive choice: run away immediately. Before the paladins could breach the clouds, he stowed away the Golden Throne, hauled a massive cannon barrel out of his private space, and strapped it to his back. "Come on, witness the wonder of jet-propelled flight!" Anbaixiu flipped a switch. The barrel behind him began to buzz and hum as violent gales blasted from its muzzle. Feeling an intense pulling force, he was rapidly carried high into the sky. From the blueprints he had acquired in the City of Alchemy, the magitech cannon used intense wind pressure to accelerate projectiles. With slight modifications, the magic circle generating the wind field could continuously expel powerful gales. The Fly spell could only sustain a speed of fifty to sixty kilometers per hour—a magical limitation hard for ordinary people to surpass. As for jet flight... Anbaixiu hadn't tested it formally, but he estimated it was at least three hundred kilometers per hour. It wasn't that the alchemists hadn't thought of this; rather, nobody could survive flying through the sky with such a contraption strapped to their back. Exposed flight at several hundred kilometers per hour would strip the skin off even a barbarian in minutes. Even with a metal casing added, this mode of flight remained exceedingly hazardous, with a mortality rate likely exceeding seventy percent. With conveniences like teleportation arrays available, alchemists lacked the incentive to pursue such a perilous form of travel. Anbaixiu, however, was forged entirely of mithral. His chassis was rugged enough, and as a lich backed by the insurance of a phylactery, he had the guts to toy with something so reckless. The paladins had also taken to the skies using Fly spells. To prevent Anbaixiu from escaping, they had split up, encircling him from various angles. Who could have guessed that before their cordon could close, Anbaixiu would flee—and at such blazing speed? "What in the world is that?!" The Silvermoon Knight stared at the white contrail streaking across the night sky, utterly dumbfounded. For a paladin to understand magic so thoroughly, he was truly well-versed and experienced, but Anbaixiu's jet-powered flight exceeded his wildest imagination. What on earth was that thing?! The Silvermoon Knight could only watch helplessly as Anbaixiu pulled further and further away, impossible to catch no matter how hard they pushed their spells. His Moonlight Strike was primed, but the problem was that even his sword beam might not catch up to this bizarre contraption. Another legendary paladin couldn't help asking, "General, what do we do now?" "We... pursue from a distance. That thing might not be able to fly very far." The Silvermoon Knight's objective had only been to stop Anbaixiu from casting more large-scale spells to spare Ryan's army further casualties. If Anbaixiu fled, it made no difference—the end result was the same. Yet just as the words left the Silvermoon Knight's mouth, a thunderous explosion rang out. The distant white streak suddenly blew apart like a burst of smoke. The Silvermoon Knight's eyes went wide. No way—did his prediction actually come true? Without a moment's hesitation, he shouted, "Pursue!" This was a golden opportunity. Slaying this wizard was far safer than driving him away; they had to seize this moment of misfortune to finish him off. The paladins rushed in pursuit, but the speed of the Fly spell couldn't be altered by willpower alone. They had no choice but to lavishly burn through teleportation scrolls repeatedly. These magical scrolls were practically liquid gold, usually hoarded for saving lives. None of them had ever dreamed they'd be expending them to chase someone down. Meanwhile, Anbaixiu was floating miserably in midair. The blast had left his soul ringing. While he had known his modified magitech jet engine was unstable, he hadn't expected it to blow up after barely a minute. Fortunately, his mithral chassis was resilient enough, merely having a few parts rattled loose; a living being would have been blown to smithereens. Having barely regained his senses, Anbaixiu saw several streaks of Holy Light flashing toward him in pursuit. Anbaixiu recognized the effects of teleportation scrolls at a glance and couldn't help remarking, "Such extravagance? Ryan really is loaded." With that, he reopened his private space, pulled out a second magitech jet engine, and strapped it onto his back once more. "Come on, I refuse to believe this one won't last two minutes!" Anbaixiu hit the switch and transformed into a white jet stream once more, vanishing before the paladins' eyes. The Ryan legends came to an abrupt halt, looking at one another in acute embarrassment. The Silvermoon Knight gripped his hilt so tightly his knuckles turned white. He strongly suspected the explosion had been completely intentional, done purely to trick them into wasting teleportation scrolls. "Ignore him! This man knows us too well. He anticipates our every move." The Silvermoon Knight had no way to keep chasing him anyway, and the battlefield below was far more crucial. Besides, the fellow had flown far enough away; by the time he swung his second sword strike, the wizard wouldn't make it back in time. The Silvermoon Knight dove straight toward the ground, aiming directly for the brightly lit Sweetdew City. Just as the Silvermoon Knight thought, Anbaixiu had flown too far, and the device lacked maneuverability. Turning around in time to block this strike was out of the question. Looking down upon the city below, the Silvermoon Knight took a deep breath and drew the longsword from his waist. An indescribably dazzling radiance coalesced along the edge of his blade. He raised the holy sword high, then swung it down with grim resolve. The Holy Light unleashed from the blade was like moonlight itself. At first no larger than a man, the moonlight broadened rapidly as it descended, swelling until it spanned larger than Sweetdew City itself. The terrifying sword ray ripped through the battered positions before the city, gouging a chasm deeper than the one left by the celestial warrior, before carving unabated into Sweetdew City's walls. With a single stroke, all of Sweetdew City was cleaved in two. The torrential Holy Light did not merely leave a scar across the earth; it penetrated deep into the city, triggering cataclysmic detonations. This single strike blasted a wide breach clean through the entire city. The Silvermoon Knight was well pleased with this achievement. With such a path cleared, who could halt the advance of Ryan's army? Yet just as the Silvermoon Knight was about to order his troops to charge into Sweetdew City, the magnificent city before his eyes shattered like glass, dissolving into countless shimmering fragments that sank into the yellow sand. There was no city here at all—only barren, empty desert. "An illusion?!" The Silvermoon Knight felt his chest seize. His full-power strike, unleashed with such immense effort, had struck nothing more than an illusion?! How could Sweetdew City be an illusion? How could anyone project an illusion on such a colossal scale? No illusion spell was capable of this—not even by a legendary wizard! His vision went dark, and the Silvermoon Knight spat a mouthful of blood before tumbling straight toward the ground. The other paladins were terrified. Forgetting all about winning or losing this battle, they hastily caught the Silvermoon Knight and flew away into the distance. A single Sweetdew City hardly mattered, whether captured or not; the Silvermoon Knight was what mattered. If any mishap befell this pillar of the empire, that would be the true, catastrophic loss. Watching the Ryan army withdraw in full, Anbaixiu, who had arrived late on the scene, exclaimed excitedly, "We won!" Under the menace of the Silvermoon Knight, they had successfully defended the city!