Some time ago, back at the rooftop garden of the Galarc Castle, Satsuki and the others in the garden were able to see the intense aerial battle with the golem from afar. Aishia released a slash of light into the golem’s back, blowing its body away and eliminating it.
“Yay! They did it!” Latifa cheered.
“Yes, it seems they’ve defeated it!” Liselotte said with a happy nod.
Everyone in the rooftop garden celebrated. Everyone other than Hiroaki, who was muttering under his breath as he anxiously watched the people cheering around him.
“Stop that. Celebrating early is just asking for trouble...”
“Haha, that only happens in anime and manga, bro,” Masato said, teasing Hiroaki with a friendly grin.
In the sky above, Sara, Orphia, and Alma were rushing to Aishia as she lost balance and celebrating their victory. Hiroaki sighed in relief at the sight of that.
Immediately after, a new source of incredible magic essence appeared in the sky above Aishia and the others.
“What?!”
Gouki, Kayoko, and Aria promptly reached for their weapons. The others who could detect the magic essence all stiffened and looked up.
“I have a really bad feeling...” Satsuki said, face twitching.
“L-Look over there! The thing they just defeated is...!”
Liselotte was pointing at the first golem that had regenerated beside Aishia and the others in the air.
“There seems to be one more,” Gouki said. The second one was higher in the sky than the naked eye could see, but he didn’t miss its presence.
“See? It’s just like I said!” Hiroaki yelled, completely losing his composure. He glanced around frantically in search of an escape. But there was no telling when an attack would land on them and destroy the area.
Rather than fleeing inside the castle, it was probably safer to stay somewhere where the golem’s movements were visible and he could run whenever he wanted. Despite wanting to flee immediately, Hiroaki held his ground with a vexed look.
“Everyone, stay together. Sorcerers, set essence barriers in the air. Knights, take your positions and stay alert.” King Francois called over the figures nearby and gave orders to his sorcerers and knights to guard them.
“Magicae Murum.” The royal sorcerers set up layers of essence barriers of light overhead to protect them from any attacks.
Immediately after, the second golem descended upon the rooftop garden so fast, the sound of its arrival was left behind. No sooner had it done so, it softly came to a stop right above the floor of the roof, like a bird’s feather ignoring all air pressure and inertia.
It was a silent appearance unimaginable for its huge, two-meter large size. Its silver mechanical body released a divine radiance that, combined with its feathered wings, made it look just like a beautiful angel.
While everyone else was taken aback with fascination, Gouki immediately ran towards the golem.
“Ngh...!”
He was so fast, it was as if his legs had grown wings.
So light...
When he moved, he could feel it clearly: his physical body enhancement was at a much higher degree than usual. The cause of that had been Miharu, who had cast magic before disappearing with Celia.
Si vis pacem, para bellum legio.
Setting aside the question of why Miharu could use magic, the effect of her spell was extremely reassuring right now.
His initial velocity surpassed that of a werebeast warrior, who were far superior to humans in physical ability. But even then, the golem was faster. It hovered a hair’s breadth above the ground and glided towards Gouki.
Before he knew it, the swinging fist of the golem was right before his eyes. Its aim was locked onto his face with unmatched accuracy. In that instant, Gouki could see his head flying off in his mind. There was no time for him to even blink.
Even so, Gouki’s katana was already moving. He was able to react thanks to his many years of combat experience, and his potential that had been increased by Miharu. If he had lacked any one of these things, he would have died to that strike just now.
“Guh...!” Gouki forced the side of his katana into the golem’s arm and swung it, using the recoil to move his body aside.
Immediately after, the golem’s fist passed by the side of Gouki’s face. The golem’s fist created a strong tremor in the air that shook Gouki’s eardrum, making him frown. But he couldn’t afford to take his eyes off the golem. He turned to face the golem and kept its body within his field of view. When facing it from this close, its presence and essence made him want to step back. But he had approached the golem in the first place in order to make the first move.
“Hmph!”
Gouki boldly swung his katana down. On top of reducing his movements to the utmost extent, his supersonic strike was sharp enough to easily slice through rock. Any regular opponent would struggle to react, but the golem’s sharp pointed tail swayed. It shot forward, aimed right at Gouki’s katana.
Gouki extended his swing to continue slashing at the golem. But the golem’s tail could move freely like a whip, preventing him from doing so. Its main body didn’t budge in the slightest, as though to say its tail was enough of an opponent for him.
In fact, Gouki was unable to get any closer past the tail. The moment he stepped within reach, the tail would shoot towards him, and it was all he could do to deflect that. If he stepped too far into its range, he could see himself being sliced into two. And if he went even further into the range of the golem’s arms...
This could be bad...
He couldn’t see any chance of winning. He was swinging his katana with all his might, but he couldn’t see the depths of the golem at all. His hand was going numb from the impact, and it was dubious whether he could keep up with the speed of the tail.
Gouki broke out in a cold sweat. “I will draw this one away! Retreat to somewhere out of its sight now!” he yelled at those standing behind him.
It was dangerous to evacuate inside when the golems’ attacks could cause a collapse at any moment, but with the golems right beside them, it was safer than remaining here.
However, the golem wasn’t about to wait patiently for them to move. The next moment, the feather blades separated from its wings and scattered through the air.
“Place all barriers towards the front!” Francois immediately ordered the royal sorcerers.
All the sorcerers moved the light barriers they had cast overhead to surround Satsuki and the others instead. But before the barriers completely blocked them off, Gouki’s wife, Kayoko, and Liselotte’s attendant, Aria, stepped outside of them.
“I will team up with my husband to lure the blades away!”
“Everyone, use this chance to retreat to safety!”
Kayoko and Aria gave orders for retreat and split into two directions as though they were moving in sync. The majority of the feather blades swiftly followed after them. Countless blades approached at a rapid rate; not even Kayoko or Aria could deal with them directly. They focused solely on keeping their feet moving, luring the feathers after them as much as they could.
Gouki, Kayoko, and Aria were risking their lives to buy time. The problem was whether there was a refuge inside the castle that was both out of sight of the golem and not at risk of collapsing from an attack.
“Everyone, fall back. There’s a royal escape passage underground. We can evacuate there,” King Francois said.
A royal escape passage was only used to abandon the castle in an emergency. It was a place meant to be kept an absolute secret to outsiders, but Francois must have deemed the current situation to be an emergency.
“Hmph!” Gouki swung his katana frantically to keep the golem pinned as long as possible.
“Look out, your back is unguarded!” Kayoko yelled. She noticed that a portion of the feather blades were approaching him from behind.
“Guh!” Gouki had no choice but to leap to the side. The feather blades made perpendicular turns to avoid hitting the golem’s main body and followed his movements. As a result, Gouki was forced away from the golem, setting it free.
Oh no!
Gouki promptly tried to approach the golem again, but the feathers pursuing him didn’t allow him to do so.
Immediately after, the golem closed in on Francois and the others who had already commenced retreating. It swung its arm, smashing through the barrier like it was shattering glass.
The sorcerers quickly moved the remaining essence barriers around them before the golem. At that moment, the golem’s strong arm swayed, and its fist burst forward, smashing through the new barriers one after another.
All the barriers were broken through in a mere few seconds, leaving Francois and the others within completely undefended.
“Protect His Majesty!” a knight inside the barriers yelled. All the knights stepped forward to form a human shield.
“Move it!” Satsuki yelled. She charged at the golem, thrusting forward her spear-shaped Divine Arms that she had materialized.
“Haaah!”
Wind like a condensed storm was released forward from the tip of the spear. A terrible gale blew fiercely in an attempt to force the golem back.
And while the raging winds blew around the golem, blocking its vision, Liselotte and Christine both decided to cast a spell at the same time.
“Ictus Lancea.”
“Fulgur Sphera.”
A thick lance of ice and intense bolt of lightning were sucked into the wind and attacked the golem.
“Ictus Lancea.”
“Fulgur Sphera.”
Seeing that, Lilianna and Charlotte also cast the same spells, providing more support. The other sorcerers also began casting spell after spell into the storm surrounding the golem.
“Now’s your chance! Quickly...!”
“Get inside,” was what Satsuki was about to yell at the people behind her. But at that moment, something struck her chest with a thump. The feeling was accompanied by the sensation of her body floating.
“Huh...?” Satsuki slowly looked down.
The golem’s tail had extended through the wind and pierced through her chest. There was a hole opened right through her chest, which the tail was using to lift her up.
The Divine Arms spear slipped out of Satsuki’s hand. The raging wind extending from its tip vanished as she let go of the spear. The falling spear clattered to the floor and disappeared into particles of light like a spirit turning into its spirit form.
“Satsuki!”
Latifa, Masato, and Aki screamed.
“Ah...”
Oh, I’m dead was the thought that crossed Satsuki’s mind.
Everyone’s going to be worried. I have to tell them it’ll be okay. Thoughts rapidly flashed through her head.
“E-Everyone...run...”
With a pale face, Satsuki smiled at Latifa and the others, but the golem flicked its tail as though to say such sentiments were worthless, flinging Satsuki’s body aside. Her body fell heavily to the ground, and it rolled across the floor of the garden and stopped moving. A large amount of blood was flowing from the hole in her chest, creating a puddle of blood.
Masato’s eyes turned bloodshot with anger as he grabbed his Divine Arms sword. Latifa wasn’t armed with a weapon, but she clenched her fists and readied herself for combat.
“H-Hey, you guys!” Hiroaki called out to stop them. The golem’s combat power was painfully evident. There was no way they had any chance of winning. Challenging it would just result in unnecessary deaths.
Of course, Masato and Latifa understood that too—the fear was clear in their side profiles. Even so, their eyes burned with fighting spirit, unwilling to forgive the golem. But there were some things in this world that couldn’t be dealt with using feelings alone. The golem was the embodiment of that.
“Everyone...!”
Above the castle, Aishia, Sara, Orphia, and Alma were busy dealing with the first golem that had regenerated. Exhausted from the earlier battle, Aishia was struggling just to evade the attacks. She couldn’t save those in the garden even if she wanted to, and there was a look of panic on her usually emotionless face.
It was a hopeless situation. The golem standing before Latifa and the others was unharmed from the attacks they had launched at it. It spread the wings of light on its back and formed enough spears to blow away everyone on the roof.
There was nowhere to run. It was at that moment that a thick pillar of light rose from a corner of the rooftop garden.
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