Chapter 1708: Third Stage [6]

Raphael got the message soon enough.

"You're clear to attack."

It was the message he was waiting for. He went to the frontlines to fight, and that was exactly his original plan, but he was forced to promise that he wouldn't act without orders.

To August, it was a pretty easy negotiation. All he had to do was give up some vain privileges to make Raphael listen to him. If that kind of mentality wasn't enough to make August see him as a child, then nothing was.

Raphael had a simple mind produced by a simple and straightforward upbringing. He had never experienced real struggle, and he'd been granted anything he ever wanted as long as he performed well enough.

That kind of person could not easily become a general. He wasn't nearly level-headed enough to command people through tumultuous tides, but in a scenario like this one, he was probably more than enough.

After all, the people on the other side were just like him, and this wasn't a struggle.

It was a competition.

In this setting, power was more important than all else.

Raphael immediately gathered his troops and approached the border separating the two territories.

He didn't give many orders, only to kill anyone they saw on sight.

They knew enough about who they were facing. Seryius sent back plenty of information on the type of soldiers that were recruited by the other side.

Unlike theirs, who came from multiple places, the soldiers on Eris' team were exclusively sourced from Holy Clans and noble clans.

Each one had a name that was at least somewhat recognizable, which, in most cases, would be a problem for the opposing army.

But it only made Raphael grin.

He knew of his own inexperience. He understood where he was lacking, and that was exactly why he chose to make a mercenary corps loyal to him instead of only gathering people from his clan.

They were experienced in war.

They had seen more blood than anyone else who was participating in this war.

Or so Raphael believed, but the truth didn't really matter. They had more experience than the people they were fighting against. That was most important.

"Ready your arms!"

Raphael shouted, raising his arm into the air.

A row of one hundred stepped out of the masses and gathered their mana.

"Aim!"

They formed their arms as if they were preparing to shoot bows, but they weren't holding anything. Mana eventually coalesced to form a shape, but it was not that of a traditional bow that one would expect.

Even if dragons used arms, they only used weapons catered to their species. To maximize their power in their human forms, and to do so in a way that showed their pride in their species, the dragons recreated human weapons in ways they claimed to be far better.

These weapons couldn't be related to their human equivalents unless one had special knowledge, but even humans had to admit that when dragons used their arms, they could truly create havoc.

The one hundred bowmen took aim, raising their bows to the sky.

Their aim was focused past the city wall roughly a hundred kilometers away.

It was a decently long distance, but for trained draconic archers...?

"FIRE!"

Raphael roared and swung his arm down. The archers let loose their arrows, and immediately, a whizzing sound filled the air as countless mana projectiles blasted through the atmosphere.

It was quiet for a few seconds as the arrows flew too high into the sky for their sound to project. As they came over the horizon, everything changed.

The sky was dyed red and orange. A wave of mana rushed into the surroundings as the aura of those attacks presented itself to the world, and though the enemies being struck felt their presence extremely clearly, what were they supposed to do?

This wasn't just an attack of provocation.

This was a move meant to completely eradicate anyone who stood in that city.

As for those who survived...

Raphael's eyes blazed with the flames of glory.

"Charge!"

He led his troops across the border.

...survival for those people simply wasn't an option.

***

Estavian's city was far more orderly than Raphael's operation.

He was a strategic genius. Not at the level of August or Cera, but as a member of the Liqua Clan, he had to know how to scheme.

It wasn't because they all liked to scheme against their enemies. More so, it was an attitude they developed in order to survive in their clan that just happened to manifest further when they were facing external enemies.

Wilhelm was taking the head of the armies. He was a far more tactical individual than the rest of their teammates, even Eris, who insisted on being their tactician.

Estavian and Wilhelm didn't have the best relationship. Nobody in the Liqua Clan actually liked the people around them.

Still, since his clan member had delegated him to this role, he wasn't in a position to object.

Everything had been normal. There were some curiosities about why Gianna wasn't responding to messages, but it was just like her to act on her own, so there wasn't much to be concerned about.

Until she finished her mission, nobody else was planning to move. Seryius Ether also hadn't been caught yet.

It was getting a bit boring even for him.

Perhaps that was why he entered a house and took a break from the war.

It would've been fine if he was still coming out occasionally to check on the situation, but after a day passed, he was practically spending all of his time holed up inside.

'When is this war even going to start?'

He stared at the ceiling and asked himself, as if it could only ever start if they decided to start it.

But he was about to face a rude awakening in the form of a flaming hell.

Right about now, in fact.

As Estavian faced the ceiling, he noticed that it was starting to feel heavier, which was strange.

'Heavier?'

That wasn't right, was it?

'I should probably-'

BOOOOOOM!

The roof exploded and the entire house crumbled as the entire city erupted into a ball of flames.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Arrows rained down hell upon the simulated citizens of the city. They screamed and cried like real people as their loved ones were turned to ash, but there was nobody there to help them.

The noble clan geniuses under Estavian's command were already panicking.

When their defenses failed and they were exposed to the calamity around them, the only thought in their heads was to run.

The geniuses brought from the Liqua Clan itself fared a little better. They managed to survive and keep themselves calm, but there were only a few tens of them in the army of several hundred.

Left with no leader as Estavian never showed his face, they could only react passively to the ongoing chaos.

That was the kind of situation that they were in when the city walls crashed down.

BOOOM!

Raphael broke through any defenses that were once present and made his way into the battlefield.

"KILL!"

""KILL!""

The mercenaries followed his lead, their bloodlust at an all-time high.

What would follow was a slaughter that didn't discriminate between the innocent and the guilty.

And there was nothing that anyone present could do to stop it.