Steel and Mana

Chapter 139 – Master-level

"Sovereign, this was delivered just now!"

"Hm?" I hummed, looking up, still yawning, sitting at the dining table, letting Luna serve me my breakfast, barely able to think straight yet. "What is it, Merlin? The world collapsed?" I groaned, trying to blink away my tiredness as I barely slept, woken up by the constant sound of dripping water from the melting snow, prompting me to go and take a piss. Every. Damn. Hour.

"Almost." He answered, and his tone told me he wasn't joking, making my eyes pop open. I stood up and pulled my robe closer to my body, walking forward with steady steps, taking the letter from him. Even my children, who were in the hands of Sasha and Yuri, stopped fussing as everyone looked at me, waiting for my assessment as I read it from top to bottom.

"It is from Kustov." I finished, gently folding it, thinking, "We need to focus on the mech more than before." After a long silence, I exhaled, glancing at Merlin, who nodded back at me, agreeing. "The Empire showed their strength... And if things go forward like this, the war will settle before spring truly begins."

"What do you mean?" Sasha asked while I gave her the letter.

"The city of Roria has been obliterated. By the time this letter arrived, they most likely had already reclaimed all of the lost territories."

"Well..." Yuri chuckled, looking at us, "Lucky me that I didn't stay there, huh?"

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While it was still winter, Empress Kathrien and her chosen fifteen mages finished the magical formation bestowed upon her by Pascal. Feeling that they were ready, she didn't inform the old man about it because she decided she wanted to see its power immediately. The construct was dismantled into its smaller parts and transported to its selected location close to Roria by two flying ships, who began assembling it in secret.

Of course, no matter how much they tried to do it covertly, King Yano and his scouts and spies did notice the strange movements in the Ishillian army and its backline, camped far from the reach of their magical weapons.

"Are the reports correct?" King Yano asked, looking at his generals and commanders.

"We made sure to check it multiple times; they are." Daito, their head general, answered, "They are planning something. Now that the winter seems to be coming to an end, they begin preparing for an assault. As for what they are planning to do, we still can't tell."

"How are our reserves?" Yano continued asking, as the long and brutal winter had made them suffer more than they had expected. 

Worse, halfway into it, their northern neighbors began closing the borders, followed by Doglenia, their eastern neighbor, one of the few democracies in the world. Although they had loose cooperation agreements, they were more along the lines of not attacking each other, making the Kingdom confident in launching their assault against Ishillia. But out of nowhere, borders were being closed, trade began failing, and with the harsh winter raging on, their supplies were dwindling very quickly.

"If the winter really ends in a month or so... we will be okay. If not, we will have to consider emergency measurements. Though, retreating would be also just as dangerous because of the weather." Another general explained, making Yano raise a hand, stopping him from continuing.

"We are not retreating. We won't give up our success just because of the weather! Organize scouts, people who can move around under the veil of the darkness, and send them out to get to the Empire's backlines. We need to know what they are planning. What about the Southern frontlines? Any news from there?"

"Communications have been problematic because of the heavy snow even down there. I don't know if they fare any better than us as they are totally unprepared for weather like this. What we can tell is that Ishillia has been preparing for a spring assault since autumn, which is now being delayed because of this damned winter. Still, when the snow melts, they may start moving." Daito said, his fingers silently drumming on the table they were sitting at. Even though he did not show it on his face, it was evident that the leading general was nervous and feeling threatened by their situation. 

"The mud will slow them down; that is also one of our best defenses when spring comes!" Yano exclaimed, standing up and looking at his top generals. "If they are impatient and knowing their Empress, she will be, they will order their troops to attack the moment the snow is gone. They won't think about the ground being a slog to march through, worse than if they did it in the snow. It will be then when we will obliterate their armies!"

Their king's words did make sense to them, and it slightly raised their spirits, but Daito also noticed the change in his recent speeches. In the past, King Yano III always talked about the other superpowers and how they would come to help them, but slowly, all those topics disappeared from his mantra, and instead, he focused on their own strength and powers. It could mean one thing only: even their king finally realized there would be no help coming, and they were the testing ground to measure the currently dormant Ishillia's powers.

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Two ships were floating above the Ishillian army camp, a sight rarely present throughout their history. One was the fixed-up, ready-to-go Retribution, which was here to finish what the Kingdom of Scorc started and avenge the Justice. The other was even bigger, twice its size, and it was the personal flying ship of the royal family, bearing the name of Judgement. It differed from the rest as its hull was painted golden and decorated with carvings of the sun and various famous faces of past Emperors and Empresses. They were not only decorations, but each and every one of their eyes housed a different magic artifact, capable of raining down death on anyone who came into their 'vision.' 

Right then, Kathrien was not on board the Judgement. Instead, she was a few kilometers away, overseeing the assembly of their top-level spell and doing multiple checks as she knew Pascal wasn't lying. Firing this spell was going to be an enormous strain on her and the rest of the mages, and she wasn't willing to be a sacrifice for the old bastard's plans. She will do it better than he thought and, in the meanwhile, learn all of the secrets the formation held within.

Building it alone gifted her with incredible insights, and she knew well that Pascal wasn't joking when he introduced it to her. This was a relic from the hands of the Emperor of Magic... The power hidden within was something that she only read about when studying the beasts on the other side of the world. Merlin VIII... What Kathrien managed to learn was that he based this spell on a spell that a monster from the underworld used, wiping out a fully armed and trained army sent into the Beastlands.

"If not for the Gods, our world would be theirs to rule..." She whispered, standing on a tower, covered in thick clothes, holding a mug of hot tea, looking from above as the formation was being carefully assembled before her eyes.

It was present in all of the legends, no matter their origin, that when the Gods visited them, they were the ones raising the mountains, painting the land the same way as it was in the heavens. Many prophets said they heard them talk about how it now resembled their home, where a similar wall separated beasts from men. No wonder they did it... Whatever evolved on that side was not something they could stand up to; even she could agree to that fact.

"Your Majesty..." Came a timid voice of a man, interrupting her thoughts as he ascended the tower, bowing his head, not daring to look at her face directly, even if it was from behind.

"Speak."

"The work is going to be completed by tomorrow. The Lord Mages are asking if we should begin deploying the crystals as planned."

"Did I order otherwise?"

"No..." he stuttered, sweating in the cold weather, gathering all of his strength and bravery to continue. "They are unsure if it is a good idea."

"Which one of them said it?" Kathrien chuckled, turning around, making her guard captain shudder and turn whiter than the snow covering the land below them.

"..."

"No matter. I am in a good mood, so I won't punish them. Do what I ordered and start placing the CC. I will call upon the Judgement to bring over the primary catalyst... It is time that the world witnesses a Master-level spell after a thousand years of absence. It is best if our neighbors realize that the Empire is stronger than ever!"

The Empress wasn't joking around this time, even if her face was beaming with a satisfied, somewhat manic grin. While studying and building the formation, she realized they could push its limit to the Master-level from the Extreme-level. They just needed a better core CC... something from a monster.

So, when they left the capital city, she also took out one of the treasures of the royal family, a monster core from the time of Merlin VIII himself. It was a priced collectible, something they obtained on the other end of the world. As for how, Kathrien didn't know, but she knew that it was something that was the beating heart of a beast once, a monster as immense as her own palace. After so many centuries, it was still beaming with energy, the most vibrant CC they ever got their hands on, and it was time to use it. With it powering their spell, the world will be awed, and her name will enter the codexes of the most faraway empires.

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It was a weird day since daybreak. When King Yano woke up, he could feel it in his bones. Something was not right, but he couldn't tell why. Even his soldiers were feeling it, going on patrols without order, keeping their eyes on the distant camps of the Ishillian Empire. As a mage, Yano was sure whatever he was feeling was because of some kind of magic... but what? From where? Or was it the making of the weird winter? Was it really only his mind playing tricks on him because of exhaustion? It was becoming harder and harder to tell as the minutes passed by.

"My King." Daito said, catching up to his ruler, who was heading out to the palace's balcony to taste the air and try to discern where the unease was coming from.

"Speak. Did something happen?" He asked, opening the double doors and stepping out into the cold wind.

"I can't tell. But something seems weird, especially amongst the animals around the city. They have been restless, and we have received reports of them becoming wild. Spooked."

"Something is not right..." Yano whispered, watching his breath linger in the air, "Raise the alarm in the city and send the civilians underground. Something is..."

"Your Majesty?"

By the time Daito asked, he also noticed it. It was hard not to, as the sky towards the west, where the Ishillian forces camped, began changing. Even as the sun was out and the sky was free of clouds, it began darkening, losing its colors. It originated from their direction, soon overtaking the whole region. It was unnatural; the sun remained high, and they could look at it with the naked eye as it became much dimmer, followed by the sky turning dark grey, almost black, before their very eyes.

King Yano wanted to say something, but no words escaped his mouth, stuck in there by the atmosphere weighing down on his consciousness. Both of them stood there, frozen, watching the northern lights coming from the west, an unnatural phenomenon streaking through the sky like colorful snakes, heading directly toward them.

"Those are..."

There was nothing else the last ruler of the Kingdom of Scorc could say as the fifteen differently colored lights crisscrossed through the dark sky before changing directions and falling down on the city and its surrounding lands, engulfing it in a blinding flash and evaporating everything in the blink of an eye.

From far away, what anyone could see was a colorful, glowing sphere appearing, growing in size faster and faster before it swallowed the whole city, swirling with an incredible speed. At first, it remained silent, but then the shock wave passed through the land, bringing along the cacophony of explosions and utter destruction, playing the music of death, spreading it through multiple dozen kilometers for everyone to hear...