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The alarm bell rang furiously.
“Wh-What?” A nobleman cast a befuddled look around.
“The enemy snuck up on us!”
The nobles in Pendra Castle leaped out of their seats.
“Let’s take a look at the situation.” Baron Ashval ran out the door with a stiff expression and hurried up the castle walls.
“The Ducal flag?”
“Damn it,” Baron Ashval shouted, “They’re here!” He grit his teeth. “Use the walls! Shut the gates and get your bows!”
“Noted!”
“Also, be prepared for the enemy bringing ladders to the walls. And get the oil heated.”
“Yes, sir!”
Baron Ashval peered over the busy soldiers and spotted the young Duchess Pontier slowly approaching.
“This stupid war ends today, Princess.”
He shut his eyes.
“Master, it looks like the enemy has no plans to leave the castle.”
“Unless their heads are just there for decoration, they’ll defend that castle to their last breath,” Cain quipped. Icarus grinned.
“We don’t have time. We’re ending this now.” Joshua’s feet didn’t even pause.
The soldiers behind him stared. They could see the enemy garrison’s faces from here—obviously, anyone trying to advance was going to be peppered with arrows.
“Oh, whoa, whoa.” Cain stepped in front of Joshua, earning him a bemused look. “I don’t want you to play the hero all on your own. Master
 sometimes I wish you were the kind of king who knew how to use his subjects properly.”
“Huh? I have no idea what you’re on about, but we need to break through that gate immediately.”
Cain peered at the gates. Most castles in the Empire had two gates clad in solid steel, whereas lesser countries would use plates of iron. Some smaller cities only had timber. That was to say, Pendra Castle’s gates were enormous slabs of steel. No attack could even leave a scratch on them, much less penetrate.
The young knight’s tightly pressed lips slowly curled into a smile.
“You told me to just watch last night. Master, this time, watch me.” His feet began to move. “I’ll show you what my awakening has done.” Cain abruptly accelerated, letting loose a battle cry as he ran.
The defenders were quick to respond with a hail of steel. Every step Cain took was littered with death, but he never hesitated once. The first arrow barely missed him. The rest were already on their way.
I can do this. As he ran, he began chanting in his head: Aura overlay; aura over aura. Cain fell into a state of hyper-focus, making everything around him slow to a crawl. It was as if he was in another world, just like the night when Joshua gave him a new purpose.
Cain attained enlightenment.
He always thought that the aura blade was the end goal of all knights—but there was a sky above the sky. A heavenly gift.
“If I could use aura overlay as a war song
 I could trick my opponent as well.” Cain’s eyes lit up. “Anything’s possible with aura
”
His ears twitched, and then drew his aura into a film over his body.
“Aura protection.” Joshua smiled, admiring the arrows clunking off of Cain’s aura.
Baron Ashval was shocked. “What is that?”
Cain wasn’t done, though. He wanted to swing his sword, so he coated it in the same film and whipped it forward, something that should have been impossible according to common sense. The whole time, he was moving at blinding speeds.
“This is crazy!”
“H-He’s gonna hit!”
Cain’s sword struck the gate with a terrible boom.
“This is it.” He gripped the sword with both hands and hammered it into the wall with a tremendous mass of mana. “Break.”
The steel-lined gates were torn apart like paper.
Cain strode right through the gateway and roared like a lion.
“Let’s finish this!”
With the gates broken, no one could stop the Pontiers’ army. Baron Ashval was the most powerful of them, but Cain had already beaten the shit out of him once; most of the soldiers laid down their weapons soon after the gates collapsed.
Charles examined the tied-up traitors expressionlessly.
“This is—! Untie me at once! I am Baron Ashval, a nobleman of the Avalon Empire, I say! You can’t treat me like this, girl! Do you understand me?!”
“I can’t believe he’s still like this
” A gentle hand on the shoulder was the only thing stopping Icarus from stomping forward. “Sir Cain?”
Cain shook his head and winked in Charles’s direction. Icarus remained confused but retreated for the moment.
Charles gazed over the prisoners, her eyes stopping on one person in particular.
“Cox. Is there anything else you would like to say?”
The disgraced count slowly lifted his head.
“What more could a simple traitor say, Princess?1 The only shame is
 we didn’t achieve our goals in the end,” he mumbled.
“
Is that right? Thank you, Cox.”
“I don’t think you can do it.” Cox’s lips twitched into a helpless little smile.
Charles turned around without replying, leaving only the wind to whistle into their ears.
It was time to bring this long story to an end.
He was closer to her than her own blood. A father better than her own father. Even through the hard times, he was there for Charles—but now, he had betrayed their family and struck against them. Now she had a decision to make.
“Baron Sanders. May I ask a favor of you?”
She looked straight forward, but Joshua noticed her wavering eyes, the slight trembling in her frosty voice, and the tears leaking from her eyes.
“
Of course.” He drew Lugia from its subspace. Charles was only a girl in her teen years; Joshua couldn’t carry all the weight on her shoulders, but he could carry some of it.
“Joshua Sanders! Prisoners of war have to be treated according to Imperial law!” Baron Ashval desperately shouted. His hands and feet were bound in iron shackles specially made for him by the Magic Tower—Joshua’s mercy was his only chance at survival. “Even you can’t weather the wrath of His Majesty the Emperor if you break Imperial law! Do you understand me?!”
“Noisy till the end,” Icarus couldn’t help but mutter.
“I don’t care about such things,” Joshua replied.
“Wait, what?”
“If I was worried about the Emperor, I wouldn’t have even dared to do this in the first place.”
The listeners reeled in shock.
“Crazy bastard!”
Baron Ashval’s mouth never stopped spitting curses, but it did nothing to stop Joshua from raising Lugia.
“You, you—!”
[Master! Master, this is a chance!]
Joshua paused.
[Let’s make an army of dullahans for the Lord of Dullahans! Or
 he’s still alive, so he can be a death knight if we torture him enough to make sure he doesn’t act up. He’s not half bad, right?]
“Hehehehe
 Now you get it?” Baron Ashval arrogantly stuck out his chin
But in fact, it only got easier for Joshua to cut off his head.
“No.”
[Ooookay?]
“I don’t want a soul tainted with betrayal.”
Joshua’s arms moved, and the Baron’s head flew.
TL/N: FUCK THE PLOT FOR MAKING COX THE TRAITOR ↩