Reivan was gently dropped on the ground while wearing full plate armor, promptly sending a cloud of dust up from the impact. He quickly got up and examined his surroundings.

  ‘Yep. I’m definitely in a different place.’

  Beside him was the head of a giant serpent with obsidian scales, its golden eye staring at him for approval.

  “Thanks, buddy. You did great.” Reivan said in a muted tone, careful not to speak too loudly in case any enemies were within earshot. Which actually had a high likelihood of being the case.

  It had still been the early hours of the morning when he was eaten by his favorite serpentine companion. But if his eyes weren't deceiving him, then it was nighttime now. Not to mention that the location had changed completely.

  To most people, it would have been a jarring experience to suddenly have one’s location and the time of day change without perceiving any time passing. Good thing he’d practiced with Zouros before embarking on this operation.

  Reivan had practiced being eaten for a minute before being spat out. Then an hour. Then a full day. In all three instances, he didn’t perceive any time passing at all.

  Just like now.

  Thinking about it in another way, the experience was kind of like being knocked out and waking up after a few hours—except being eaten by a massive cosmic serpent didn’t hurt at all, surprisingly enough. He didn’t even have a concussion, nor were there any risks of amnesia. As far as he knew, at least.

  Suddenly, a thought crossed his mind. “How many days passed, by the way?”

  Zouros’s tongue flicked out as it answered through their special soul-binding connection.

  That quiet hissing sound may have sounded like nothing to most people, but to him, it meant something along the lines of “I think the sun’s risen ten times since we left Second Home!” in a somewhat cutesy voice. Second Home pertained to Samsara, in this case, since just home meant the palace back in Aizen.

  Of course, the cutesy part was just him trying to make his telepathic conversations a little bit more interesting. There were no tones of voices when it came to their special brand of telepathy—just pure, unadulterated emotions and intentions. Anyway, they could be ignored.

  ‘Nine days, huh…’

  It had already been morning when they left Lageton, so the first time the sun would have risen since their departure was on the second day. Essentially, this mission had now consumed eleven days of his life.

  Probably because it was essentially immortal, Zouros didn’t pay much attention to the passage of time. It basically linked things to when Reivan did stuff and matched its own routine with his. So the concept of “days” was both foreign and utterly irrelevant from its point of view.

  But for this mission, it had learned to just count how many times the sun rose.

  'So it's been a week and four days, huh?'

  That was a bit later than he expected.

  Zouros was faster than a Samsaran sky ark in a pure contest of speed. So by distance alone, it should have only taken a week to arrive here. Maybe even less. His serpentine friend would have been completely invisible and undetectable, too, so it wouldn’t have needed to take roundabout routes to avoid enemy scouts. Ideally, it should have just flown straight here and arrived much, much earlier.

  But it didn't.

  Clearly, Zee had spent a few days trying to find a good landing spot.

  Sensing his thoughts and realizations, Zouros apologetically nudged him with its massive snout.

  ‘Haha. Don’t worry about it. It’s your first time, after all. You’ll get better.’

  Giving his big friend a pat on the nose, Reivan resumed gauging his surroundings.

  They were at the bottom of a dried-up lake. Upon consulting his memory, he realized that this was the exact same lake that housed the Golden Gear when he first met them.

  Which made sense, because it had been one of the spots that Reivan used as an example when he was teaching Zouros what to look out for when unloading allied forces from its stomach. Since Reivan would also be inside the mysteriously bottomless belly, he couldn’t direct Zee and had to leave the entirety of the judgment to his serpentine friend.

  Choosing unloading spots was surprisingly difficult. And he realized it when teaching Zouros before coming here.

  It had to be far enough that they wouldn’t be discovered by enemy patrol units. But it also had to be close enough that they could quickly launch an ambush with little to no chance of the enemy preparing for them. The location also had to be hidden to a certain extent. That way, the Samsaran assault team—which was composed of a few hundred knights—wouldn’t be immediately visible to every Argonian in the vicinity. Additionally, it had to be a place where espers were unlikely to loom in.

  The dried-up lake checked all the boxes for the last two.

  Since it was essentially shaped like a bowl, being at the bottom made it difficult for those outside the bowl to see inside unless they were flying. Furthermore, it was difficult for those at the bottom to peer outside, so it was a bad location for espers to secretly hide in since they couldn't function well as scouts or lookouts.

  With all that said, he wasn’t aware of how the urban landscape had changed since his last time here. So he didn't know if there were Argonian settlements nearby or not. As such, he merely used it as an example, but didn’t advise Zouros to actually bring them here.

  ‘There probably is a settlement nearby, though.’

  Otherwise, Zee wouldn’t have brought him here.

  They didn’t have much time to go over everything, to be honest, but he chose to place his trust in Zee's judgement.

  “Lemme see…” Reivan muttered. He had been unloaded near the rim of the dried-up lake, so it only took him a moment to climb up and take a peek at the lake’s surroundings.

  Sadly, the ground jutted out at some point, so he couldn’t see any buildings hiding behind hills or large land bumps that were too small to call hills.

  But he could vaguely see some smoke rising up in the distance. Campfires, fireplaces, or hearths. Whatever they were, there were many of them, which was a pretty good sign they were in the right place.

  ‘Alright. This looks good. Go ahead and unload everyone else, Zee.’

  Zouros opened wide and spat out Hector first, before air-slithering over toward the middle of the depression.

  Unlike Reivan and his best friend, the other knights didn’t get the courtesy of being spat out one by one. Rather, they were quickly building up a pile of armored bodies, which was rather comical despite their current situation. The ones who quickly recovered, which is to say most of the knights, immediately got up or rolled out of the way to avoid being pinned underneath the quickly growing pile of steel-clad warriors.

  ‘Oh. Yeah, we were so busy learning what kind of spots were good for unloading, but we didn’t learn how to unload, huh…?’

  In hindsight, Zouros was a bit distant when it came to the well-being of people other than Reivan and those he loved.

  And though Reivan technically did care for these knights, Zouros could tell the difference, as someone who was constantly linked to him. In the past, it classified people as “Reivan”, “food”, and “not food”. Now, there was the additional classification of “important” that was placed on people like Helen, his parents, his siblings, Hector, and lately, Arthur as well.

  It knew which allies Reivan would die for and which ones he wouldn’t.

  With all that said, Zouros wasn’t very considerate of anyone who wasn’t Reivan or who wasn’t “important”. Hence, the somewhat rough treatment. Zouros wasn’t even being mean. Not intentionally, anyway.

  But Reivan tried hard not to laugh or grin at how funny the view was. Look at all these big, strong knights. They were the pinnacle of martial excellence and paragons of the kingdom’s might. Yet here they were, being unceremoniously dropped on top of each other until there was a dogpile of them.

  ‘Eh. They’ll be fine.’

  All of the knights he’d brought were Senior-grade. Or at the very least, very close to that. Plus, everyone was already wearing their armor.

  Even the knights at the very bottom of that heap of bodies would come out of this mini-ordeal unharmed.

  “Oh, wow.” Hector whistled in amazement from behind his helm as he sat up. His head swivelled left and right to take in the surroundings. “We really are in a different place. Kind of like we teleported. Except it actually takes super long.”

  “That would mean it’s not teleporting anymore,” Reivan dryly quipped as he offered a hand.

  Hector took it without much thought and pulled himself up. He suddenly started sniffing the air. “Huh. It smells like a lot of people are cooking food. Seems we’re near some settlers.”

  “I can’t smell shit from here, but you can? Are you a dog now?”

  “I’ve always been a cat person. But no, I’m just using elementalism to gather scents from far away.”

  Reivan’s brows rose. He’d never heard of that application of [Wind]. It probably wasn’t something Hector himself invented, though, since it seemed like a skill meant for a scouting specialist to learn, rather than an agile warrior type like Hector.

  Answering his unasked question, Hector lazily rolled his wrist. “Living with warbeasts got me a bit jealous about their enhanced sense of smell. So I thought it’d be pretty nice if I had it too. I played around a bit and got some pretty nice results.”

  “So you did invent it? Damn. Good job.”

  “No, no, no. From how simple it was, I just knew that someone else in the past had already thought of it before I did. Probably refined it too. So I asked some old dudes back home and they told me about a nice aetherblade art I can learn from the family archives.”

  “Ah. Seems about right.”

  Reivan chuckled. That was the thing when an organization nurtured generation after generation of competent people. If someone thinks of something that seems like it would be good, someone else in the past has probably thought of it already. And then someone else who came after the inventor refined the technique even more.

  In a way, it was a weakness. Because it was growing increasingly harder for people to invent new and unique aetherblade arts.

  But that, all things considered, was a pretty good problem to have. Putting it in a good way, the younger generation just had to focus on further refining what the older generation left behind instead of doing the much harder work of setting the foundation.

  Hector’s gaze must have fallen on the pile of knights, because he slowly looked away to pretend he hadn’t seen anything. “I sure hope things go well.”

  Reivan grunted in agreement. “It will. We'll make sure of that.”

  “Yeah, but if it doesn’t, it would mean a lot to me if you promise to help Mimi take care of Sienna.”

  It was a bit too casually said, but Reivan realized that Hector was being serious. His best friend donned a helm right after that, so he couldn’t even gauge the man’s expression.

  Reivan momentarily considered how to answer. He could have just insisted that nobody was going to die from their side. Because he honestly thought this operation was too easy for that to happen. But if he were in Hector’s place, that wasn’t the kind of answer he would want to receive.

  “Of course,” Reivan nodded seriously. “And you’ll take care of mine, yeah?”

  “For sure…” Hector also nodded, though his energy tapered off toward the end. “Uh, but you’re probably going to have a lot of them. I don’t think I can handle that many…”

  “Oh. Right…”

  “Isn’t it kind of unfair? I only have one, but you’re gonna burden me with hundreds of kids? Not to mention hundreds of mistresses.”

  “Stop whining and just suck it up.”

  Hector sighed. “Just don’t die. For real.”

  Reivan chuckled. “Nobody’s going to die.”

  “I know. It’s just… You know. Just in case.”

  “Yeah… Yeah, I get it. I understand.”

  There was a moment of silence, where both of them probably thought of possible futures where things didn’t turn out alright. But what meaning was there in life if you were constantly running from death?

  Reivan and Hector looked at each other, their gaze meeting from behind both their helms. Then, as if they had a prior agreement, they bumped fists and turned to the rising pillars of smoke in the distance.

  Since he didn’t want to reveal himself and his forces too soon, Reivan depended on Zouros to scout out the enemy camp.

  Contrary to expectations, the smoke pillars in the distance didn’t seem to be settlers. Or at least, they weren’t only settlers. According to Zee, there were no upright buildings nearby, just a whole bunch of tents. There were also plenty of armored men patrolling the area.

  It was probably a military camp.

  ‘That’s good.’

  If all they were facing were soldiers, then Reivan wouldn’t have to worry about the moral dilemma of murdering civilians or anything like that.

  Aizen wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, vanquishing foes with the power of love and friendship. One of the reasons it has prospered since time immemorial was its ruthlessness when it came to handling its enemies.

  Even if there were “innocent” civilians involved.

  Most of the time, they weren’t murdered in cold blood. Civilians had to be fed, so sparing them and letting them trickle into other imperial territories lowered public order and strained their food reserves.

  Knights used to venture into Argonian lands specifically to use this strategy, attacking during harvest season to force nobles to field levies—levies that would have harvested food for the fief if they weren’t called to war. And then the knights would rout those levies anyway, sparing as much as they could to let them become deserters who would have no choice but to become bandits or criminals after escaping from the field of battle.

  Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

  It was a double-whammy attack on the imperial public order. And that wasn’t even the final stroke. The knights would then attack villages and salt the fields while pushing the villagers toward other territories as refugees. Now, there was no harvest, no villagers, and no fields, causing an enormous strain on food reserves. Accompanied by unwilling brigands and a band of roving knights.

  The knights wouldn’t take their lives directly, but many of those they spared would die from hunger or something else anyway.

  Reivan was glad he wouldn’t have to do such a thing today. If only soldiers were there, then he could just keep swinging his sword at any Argonian who was still standing.

  “The battle plan’s simple,” Reivan announced in a somewhat muted tone to prevent getting discovered. “You keep swinging at ‘em until you can’t anymore. You’re all more experienced at this than I am, so you should know what to do. I’m just going to go ahead and set us all on the same tactic.”

  There were nods from the five hundred knights he’d brought along with him.

  “I’d like to do more scouting, honestly, but the moment we charge out of this place, we will likely be discovered. By lookouts, espers, or something else. We’ll try to delay that, of course, but the chances of making it to their camp without being discovered are slim, especially since they’re entrenched.”

  Reivan cleared his throat before continuing.

  “But it doesn’t matter. Just watch each other’s backs while trying to stay out of each other’s way. We’ll be home before you know it. Because we’re better than them. And this time, we have the initiative.”

  Deciding to end it at that, Reivan’s armor transformed to that of an Imperial Vanguard, except he had a different crest on his shield. This particular crest belonged to a different faction than the one they were supposed to be attacking.

  It belonged to one of Axion’s confirmed allies.

  Apparently, this was how Argonians distinguished which imperial scion they followed. After all, the former Arkhanian lands were infested by dozens of Argonian princes and princesses who wanted to slit each other’s throats for a chance at the throne.

  Following his example. The knights also changed their armor to match his. The design, crest, and everything else were exactly the same. It was worth noting how there were no female knights with him this time, because Argonians did not train female vanguards. So bringing some along would ruin his plans.

  It was the same reason why he didn't bring any warbeasts or darkin.

  “Remember, my good sirs. We need to let some survivors escape to spread the word.” Reivan flexed his shoulders a little, a bit unaccustomed to the structure of imperial plate armor—it was a little too thick around the shoulders but didn't have much lower body protection. “So kill until you can’t kill anything else. But if they flee, don’t chase them too hard.”

  He received yet another round of nods and smiled. It was finally time to vent his rising frustrations on these Argonians. For the longest time, he had wanted to retaliate for all the shit this godforsaken nation has done. Now, he finally could.

  There was no signal to begin, nor a fearless cry of “Charge!” or anything of the sort.

  Reivan simply slipped into the shadow of the night, moving ahead of his allies. They would know when to follow.

  He was a specter streaking through the moonless night. It didn’t take long for him to glimpse a few watchtowers in the distance, prompting him to stop for a moment to drop into a throwing stance. The distance was so far, but his eyes were rather good. Better than the lookout, at least, because he still hadn’t been detected by any of them.

  Opting to fight like an imperial vanguard as much as possible, Reivan retrieved a real javelin—not a conjured one—before wrapping it in [Darkness] attribute essence to help it blend into the darkness. With a soft grunt, he launched it at the nearest watchtower as hard as he could.

  The projectile shot across the sky and pierced through the unsuspecting Argonian who had the unfortunate duty of being on lookout tonight.

  Though he didn’t specialize in throwing projectiles, it wasn’t all that hard to hit something that was staying mostly stationary. Especially one whose mind was dull from hours of guard duty. Besides, he was also a decent marksman and had proficient knowledge of just how strong he was. Both were essential factors when utilizing throwing projectiles.

  Like clockwork, he eliminated the lookouts one by one. And just in time, too, because the other knights had caught up and charged past him quietly. Aiming to keep up, Reivan followed them at a trot.

  Hector came to run beside him. Without even speaking, they both agreed to watch each other’s backs.

  Soon, the camp itself came into view. Countless crimson tents were illuminated by candlelight or lanterns from the inside, and there were also some torches or braziers outside to illuminate the paths between tents.

  There was no use being too sneaky here. They couldn’t just go into a tent, kill every Argonian inside, and get out. With how the tents were arranged so closely together, it was easy for neighbors to hear nearby commotions.

  Reivan once again took out a javelin and hurled it toward a part of the camp. The other knights took his lead to procure their own javelins and launch them toward the general vicinity of the spot he’d attacked, essentially carpet bombing the area. Except they weren’t using bombs, of course. Ironically, those wouldn't have the oomph necessary to kill the caliber of warriors they had to slay.

  After another volley at a different spot, the knights split into two groups to finish off any stragglers who survived the volleys.

  From then on, everyone could act freely as long as they didn’t go off on their own.

  “Ragh!” Reivan grunted the same way he pictured an Argonian warrior would grunt as they swung a sword to behead someone. “For the prince!”

  “”For the prince!”” followed cries from the other knights in disguise. Ironically, they really were fighting for a prince. Just not an Argonian one. Maybe that's why there was quite a bit of enthusiasm in their warcries?

  As the severed head dropped to the ground, Reivan heard a terrified whimper to his right. Following the sound to its source, he found a man who looked to be about seventeen. Or somewhere along those lines, he assumed. He wasn’t very familiar with Argonian faces, so his estimations could always be wrong. But all the same, this one looked quite young.

  “W-Warrior, please spare me…” the youth fell on his ass and slowly backed away until his head was against the wall. “Please… I am not someone of importance!”

  Reivan regarded the soldier with a scrutinizing gaze. From the guy’s strength, he was probably a peasant levy. Or a legionary fresh out of the recruitment camps.

  Losing interest, Reivan scanned the chaotic battle for anyone who might be a threat to his knights. He was one of the strongest entities in the Samsaran assault force, so his responsibility wasn’t to cull the small fries, but to hunt down the other side’s champions.

  With a short glance behind him to make sure Hector was still keeping up, Reivan charged into the fray. Since no worthy enemies had shown up yet, he may as well help the others. A few vanguards were busy ganging up on one of his knights, so Reivan threw his hat into the ring by cutting one down from behind before quickly slicing off another’s left arm.

  Hector quickly followed up, launching a javelin to finish off the one Reivan had just injured. He then unsheathed his sword and started surgically destroying a different enemy, who seemed not to be his match in might or skill. It only took a single exchange for Hector’s blade to wound the enemy's sword arm and another exchange for that same blade to find the poor sap's throat.

  It was easy to forget because he was overshadowed by the people around him, but Hector was also a top-class talent. And a hard worker to boot.

  Meanwhile, Reivan had also slain his own foe. But that hardly mattered because another three sprouted out from nowhere, their hastily donned armor glinting in the moonlight. These ones were just for him, because Hector seemed occupied with a different set of very violent newcomers.

  A burst of movement too fast for mundane eyes to follow erupted shortly after.

  Reivan blocked one enemy’s blow with his large shield, letting it slide off the surface before bashing its rim into their face. There was the familiar feeling of a nose breaking as his adversary was sent back staggering. That also temporarily created some space between them. Just what he needed to parry and riposte another enemy’s cowardly attack to his relatively exposed back. His blade stabbed deeply into the poor sap’s chest.

  Hopefully, the knave would fight more honorably in his next life.

  He unfortunately didn’t bother to pull his sword out of the dying man's body, so he instead snatched the one the dead man was holding before it fell from a loosening grip. Raising his shield, he successfully blocked a heavy downward slash from the last of the three, though it exposed him to the one he’d shield-bashed earlier.

  Making a snap decision, Reivan decided to take a few quick steps back to create space between his two opponents. If he didn’t have to fight like an imperial vanguard, these two would already be cold corpses. But alas, he had to bring out his skills.

  It was as if he were returning to the fundamentals.

  Of course, he wasn’t worried at all. Sir Donovan and Sir Valter had trained him in a lot of ways as a child. And one of those ways involved limiting which powers or weapon types he could utilize. Besides, his martial foundation was pretty solid in his books. In a contest of pure skill, he knew that few could best him. Within the mortal realm, of course.

  Unfortunately, he didn’t get to show off because his two opponents were cut down from behind by knights who had defeated their own adversaries. How competent of them to do so. It was certainly commendable how they could see openings and have the battle acumen to seize them.

  Feeling slightly deflated, Reivan lazily lobbed the sword at the nearest opponent and watched as its blade slid neatly into one of the armor's gaps—which was wider than usual because the Argonian didn’t put it on properly. They didn’t even wear any chainmail to protect the gaps and joints.

  Their haste would be the death of them.

  Anyway, if his basic knowledge of anatomy didn't fail him, then he could surmise that his improvised throwing weapon just skewered a kidney. Good riddance.

  The poor fellow raised his weapon and tried to keep fighting, but his knees buckled. No knight would let go of this chance, so the one he’d been fighting traced a bloody line across his neck immediately. The knight in disguise offered Reivan a thankful nod before jumping back into the heat of battle.

  Reivan then reached down to pick up the original sword he’d dropped. It was something he’d looted from an imperial vanguard on a separate occasion, but he had just finished sharpening it before embarking on this trip.

  Was it dumb to form an attachment to a weapon he only cleaned once? Perhaps it was. But anyway, it happened, so what the hell was he supposed to do about it? Letting it go felt like such a waste.

  Not even letting him have a moment’s respite, more imperial vanguards showed up from the other side of the camp. These ones were fresh and didn’t suffer the might of a volley. And they properly put on their armor, too.

  ‘Holy fuck, there’s so many of them…’

  Reivan and his forces were truly outnumbered, which wasn’t a big surprise. The entire fight until now, every knight was basically handling at least two or three people at once. Yet the reinforcements seemed endless.

  He gripped his sword a little tighter as he raised his shield.

  Hector came up right beside him, a copious amount of blood splattered on his armor. He also raised his shield before shouting. “For the prince!”

  “”For the prince,” came replies from all around, with even Reivan joining in.

  A soft but amused chuckle escaped Hector’s lips as he whispered to Reivan. “My bad. I really wanted to say that.”

  “Be more serious.” Reivan chided, though not that strongly.

  Enemies in front, a good friend beside him, and powerful allies watching his back.

  What else would he need to grasp victory?

  The first surprise assault ended without much issue.

  They came to discover that the enemy’s imperial vanguards only outnumbered them three to one. Which was not at all enough to make Reivan and the other knights falter. At some point, the people coming out to face them didn’t have the capabilities to stop the tide of steel and death.

  Of course, there was a ridiculous number of legionaries and other troops that were probably mercenaries as well.

  These ones, however, routed very quickly when they realized that the fights around them were out of their league. A few knights who weren’t occupied by enemies threw some devastating attacks at their fleeing backs just for good measure, but most of them were allowed to escape.

  As long as all the imperial vanguards were dead, that was all that mattered.

  Vanguards were the closest equivalent to Aizen’s knights, meaning they were the cream of the crop. With the number of casualties Samsara was inflicting, there was virtually no way for Argonia to replenish troops of such quality so quickly. No matter how large the pool of talent they drew from was, such losses were bound to sting.

  Samsara’s second surprise assault went even better. There were no casualties on Samsara's side again, but they managed to scare a haughty-looking princess into using some type of artifact that teleported her elsewhere.

  The third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and every single assault after that went swimmingly as well.

  ‘Truly, the essence of war is swiftness.’

  No army was ever going to win a battle if they never arrived. As such, mobility was a huge factor.

  And Reivan now had a bus that could store his finest troops, before transporting them elsewhere without being intercepted or detected by enemies. It wasn’t quite the same as warping an entire army in the enemy’s face, because it wasn’t instant. But it was all kinds of broken all the same.

  Reivan and his knights were like boogeymen. An army of very scary boogeymen who also wore armor and chucked javelin volleys at you.

  The best part? Few people were going to attribute this set of assaults to Samsara or Aizen.

  That was what the disguises were for. It was a bit cumbersome because none of them could use elementalism to avoid being exposed as knights. Plus, they had to be careful not to lose their shields in battle because it made distinguishing friend from foe a lot harder than it already was. But it had all worked out.

  Sure, such deceptive methods wouldn’t last long. At some point, those Argonian brats would realize that it was probably the work of Samsara. But this might delay that outcome. It may potentially create enmity between the imperial scions, and they might kill each other before they discover the truth.

  Who knew what could happen? The sky was the limit.

  They were so far out west that it would be seen as impossible for such a large party of knights to avoid detection while traversing the lands. There were probably espers everywhere, and there were those disgusting bat-like abominations to scout from the air. Presumably, the sea was being watched over, too.

  So speaking only with logic, it was hard to fathom how Samsara got here.

  It wasn’t all good, though. Because Reivan finally discovered one little weakness to this strategy.

  ‘The others are starting to get tired…’

  Reivan had long noticed how sluggish the other knights’ movements had become. They were letting more enemy attacks through their guard and taking unnecessary hits. Good thing their armor wasn’t of the same quality as imperial vanguard equipment, even though they looked identical. Else, he would have a lot of injured knights.

  Or dead ones.

  ‘Makes sense. We’ve been fighting constantly.’

  They couldn’t afford to rest or camp out anywhere because they might be spied upon. So right after every fight, Reivan and the others had filed into Zouros’s invisible mouth. From the perspective of anyone who was watching, they were seemingly disappearing.

  And right after coming out, the knights would have to fight again.

  Though the assaults happened in the span of a week, to Reivan and the others, they had fought all of the assaults within a few hours. Not having to use elementalism or aetherblade arts made economizing their mana easier, but it wasn’t like that was the only thing they used mana for. Just strengthening the body through advanced magic power application consumed mana, though at a very slow pace if the person was skilled enough.

  In essence, they were running out of steam now.

  Zouros couldn’t even help them out because the giant obsidian serpent had already been revealed to the Argonians. No doubt every imperial prince and princess knew about Zee already.

  Reivan would be fine, somehow. He had special abilities that basically gave him infinite stamina.

  So as long as he could focus on using just qi instead of mana or essence, then he would be fine. That, however, basically meant he needed to bullrush every enemy he could find and overwhelm them with fierce strikes that held all of his physical prowess behind each one.

  It was unfortunate that the other knights didn’t have the same benefits he did. For them, both stamina and mana were limited resources that they had to manage well.

  Now, they had just completed their twelfth assault, and the last of his knights had entered Zee’s gaping maw. He pondered what to do next.

  To head off to the thirteenth assault or to head home.

  ‘Hm… Well, we can probably do one last attack, right? Now that we know it’ll be the last one, we don’t have to be stingy with our resources.’

  Reivan made a mental note to agree on a set number of assaults the next time they had to do this. That way, his knights could better ration how many resources they consumed in each fight.

  Just as he was about to ask Zouros to take them to find another spot for an assault, Reivan’s spine suddenly chilled. He realized what a catastrophic mistake he was making.

  One last attack? Really? When he had already seen a bunch of knights get hit and potentially slain just a few moments ago? Was he a moron?

  This was not the time to go for one last attack.

  It was the same thing with watching anime series in his past life. He always mentally said that he’d just watch one last episode before he stopped, but then he’d end up watching five or six instead.

  Reivan rubbed the back of his neck, cold sweat dripping down his forehead. He had almost made a blunder that he would never mentally recover from as a military officer.

  ‘The knights are probably more tired than they appear to be.’

  A freaking prince was among them. Of course they would put their best foot forward and try their best to hide their fatigue. Especially if said prince was still rearing to go.

  Hector was a bit less vocal about it, too. But that was probably because he didn’t want to admit that he couldn’t keep up with Reivan. They may have been best friends, but he wasn’t blind to the small bit of rivalry Hector held for him.

  Or rather, it was because they were friends that neither of them wanted to be left behind.

  ‘Merciful god…’

  Reivan felt as if he’d barely stopped on the precipice of a steep cliff, just before he fell to his demise. If he’d taken another step, he would have been fucked.

  Absolutely fucked beyond measure.

  ‘We’re heading home, Zee. Straight home. No detours, please.’

  Zouros’s large head tilted quizzically, its mouth still agape. It made him look quite silly, actually, but that's besides the point.

  ‘No, not that home. I meant Second Home. The one we just left. Arthur’s there, remember? We can't just go home while leaving Arthur in Second Home, right?’

  At the mention of Arthur, Zee’s wings fluttered in excitement. It seemed that his favorite snake had momentarily forgotten how it missed the newest member of their family. Now that it had been reminded, it was eager to go back and check on the little boy.

  Zouros guarded Arthur in much the same way it had when Reivan had been a child. Clearly, it was attached to the baby.

  With that out of the way, Reivan took one last look at the ruins he and his knights had wrought upon the place.

  Countless bodies, whole and mutilated alike, lay strewn on the ground in a seemingly endless spread. The expression “rivers of blood” came to mind when he gazed upon it. He’d always felt like that was an exaggeration when was used in a novel, but now he knew that it didn’t always have to be.

  ‘I’ll be back.’

  Reivan turned around and jumped into his serpentine companion’s awaiting maw, his mind already thinking of the next battlefield.