Chapter 232: Kneel
Leobold rode his horned beast in a straight line from Ohmel City to Lantis’ domain.
He finally reached the hill where the castle was visible, but there was no force to stop him.
“Did they invest all their troops in the castle defense?”
“Yes. Currently, there are 30 Goliaths stationed inside the castle. About 10 of them are hiding and waiting to ambush you when you appear.”
“The castle is quite large.”
It was big enough for Goliaths to run around.
Anyway, Lantis had poured all his efforts into a single defense battle.
He raided Gasan to hire mages and buy scrolls.
He also modified various parts of the castle and set up traps.
Some of them even included magic ropes made by Ether engineers.
“These magic ropes are very sturdy and difficult to deal with. Even if you are at the level of Bephar, it won’t be easy to cut them with brute force.”
“What if I use my ability?”
“They would be like threads.”
“Then it’s fine.”
If the vanguard did well, Lantis would come out, so he wouldn’t have to deal with tools.
Leobold drove his horned beast to the edge of the village.
Some farmers were harvesting grains as it was the harvest season.
There was no hope on their faces.
“Arma, how much is the tax here?”
“It’s similar to other places. 80%.”
“They only squeeze enough to keep them alive.”
“That’s the standard here.”
Leobold passed by the fields, but the farmers had no reaction.
After all, war was a matter of nobles, so they wouldn’t care if Lantis waged war.
They were only concerned about surviving day by day, living like mayflies.
According to various documents, it was not much different from 200 years ago.
According to Zion, even 700 years ago, there was not much difference in the lives of commoners.
“Something is wrong here.”
There could be speed in the development of civilization.
The situation and circumstances of each country were different, so he could understand that there was a difference in development.
On Earth, some places like America developed dazzlingly, while some places lived worse than the Middle Ages.
But even considering that, Leobold judged that Astera’s civilization was severely backward.
“Even though they have Ether, a convenient energy source.”
Dwarf Vultorn, who developed the Ether train this time, said this.
“The old ones said that there was not much difference between now and 200 years ago. But there was one thing that was definitely different.”
“What was it?”
“Ether technology. The Goliaths of that time were really huge and had tremendous destructive power. They even flew airships at altitudes higher than the floating continent?”
“How did such technology disappear? Even if humans lost their technology due to the aftermath of the war, dwarves were relatively fine.”
“Uh… I don’t know that either. My father and everyone else kept their mouths shut.”
Even why the war started was not known.
There must be a cause for any war, and since it was a huge scale that swept across the entire Astera continent, it should have been known to many people, but no one knew the cause.
It was only recorded that gods and dragons fought, and various races of Astera were involved.
Vultorn speculated that it was probably because they invaded the realm of gods.
“Look at that night sky. What do you see?”
Leobold thought of space, but he said he couldn’t see anything.
He sighed and continued.
“We couldn’t see anything either in the past. But we learned after telescopes were developed. There are other worlds beyond that sky.”
“Do you mean those twinkling things?”
“Yes. My father tried to reach there somehow by increasing the output of the airship and changing its design. But all attempts failed. I wonder what’s beyond that sky. Aren’t you curious?”
“I’m curious.”
“You don’t look very curious. Well, whatever. It’s just something I tried. The higher you go, the colder it gets and it’s harder to breathe. There’s no way you can endure it!”
Vultorn’s sigh ended there.
Leobold suddenly looked up.
A huge castle and a sky hung over the wide plain.
The castle resembled Megacity.
In terms of being tall and large enough to pierce the sky, and in terms of having a purpose to protect something.
But it was not exactly the same as Megacity.
Leobold built Megacity to protect humanity, but Lantis built his castle to protect himself.
In the world he would create, there was no need for humans like Lantis.
“Therefore, you have to die.”
Leobold’s horned beast ran straight toward the lord’s castle.
***
Lantis saw a horned beast and a human standing in front of the castle and finally confirmed.
“He repaired the Bephar! Get ready for defense!”
Unless he was crazy, he wouldn’t have come here alone, so he must have repaired the Bephar and put it in the subspace.
That was the correct judgment in this situation.
How that was possible was not important in this situation.
“Fire!”
Papapap-
The archers on the wall fired arrows in unison.
But they were too far away to be of any use.
He circled around the castle as if he was sightseeing, and that provoked Lantis’ anger.
“You rat bastard, you’re just shooting around, you damn bastard!”
One of the knights knelt down.
“My lord! This is our chance! He’s alone! Give us your order! We will capture him alive!”
“Stupid!”
Lantis shook his head roughly.
“I don’t believe he captured a High Knight by luck! It’s suicide to intercept him on that wide plain! We wait for him here!”
No matter how strong a knight was, he couldn’t do anything to the castle itself.
Of course, Bephar had a high output core, so it was possible to destroy the wall.
But Lantis’ troops wouldn’t let that happen.
All kinds of magic and traps would be activated, and Goliath would likely disable it before it destroyed the castle.
Leobold kept circling around the castle on his horned beast, and siege weapons such as ballistas began to fire.
But none of them hit him.
And in the distant sky, three airships appeared.
It was the vanguard of the floating continent, including Altemaho.
The soldiers of the lord’s castle sneered at their size.
“The Galisto fleet is much bigger! They can’t compete!”
“They have Ether cannons, so they’ll shoot us down from afar!”
“Let’s just wait for them to crash and pick them up from below!”
As they were talking, the Galisto fleet emerged from the clouds.
They were much bigger and one more than the Vandus vanguard.
And they had Ether cannons mounted on each side.
The admiral of the Galisto fleet was confident of victory, but he was startled to realize that the Vandus vanguard was strangely fast.
“Why are they so fast? Weren’t they carrying Goliaths? Recalculate the expected position and relative speed!”
“Calculation is done! They are expected to reach here in 11 minutes! They are more than 1.3 times faster than us!”
“That’s too fast!”
He expected to have at least 30 minutes after revealing himself before reaching the lord’s castle, but it was an inexplicable situation.
The output of the Ether propeller was fixed, and they were carrying Goliaths.
The admiral made a decision after a short deliberation.
“We can’t help it! We abandon the original plan and enter a close-range bombardment battle! Prepare for bombardment!”
The original plan was to harass the enemy vanguard with Ether cannons from the outskirts.
It was considered a reasonable plan since they had an advantage in mobility and long-range weapons, but it went completely wrong in practice.
What did they do to make them so fast?
The deck crew cursed and moved, but the Vandus vanguard was approaching quickly.
Zion stood on the bow of Altemaho, waving his robe.
“Hehe… They’re surprised by our speed.”
He didn’t know why this ship was so fast either.
He was just satisfied with the fact that his ship was faster than any other airship.
He had been fast at running away since he was young, so he could keep his life until today.
He wanted to transform into a dragon form and smash that fleet right away, but he might die if he did that.
Something would be done before that happened.
‘I have to show them a cool magic here. So that they can’t ignore me anymore!’
His position in Vandus Territory was not very high.
Not only the people of the territory, but even the bureaucrats regarded him as a common mage.
He didn’t show any proper magic while only focusing on Ether research, so it was a natural evaluation.
Luciana Stefina and others who became close to him recently praised him as a great mage, but people’s reactions were lukewarm.
However, when Zion declared that he would board an airship, some respectful eyes poured out.
Mages rarely boarded airships.
It was because of the Ether propeller and floating stone that made it hard to use magic properly, but more than that, it was because they didn’t want to die.
Would they entrust their precious lives to an unverified airship?
But Zion was a dragon, so he could survive even if the airship crashed.
That would happen before that though.
Zion spread his arms and activated his Dragon Heart.
A magic circle started and Ether gathered in his hands.
“Haha! Take this! Mega Lightning!”
Krrrrr!
A blue beam shot out from his hands and split into several branches.
The Galisto fleet was startled by the sudden magic and began to turn.
As a result, the gunners had to stop firing their Ether cannons.
Granden didn’t miss that opportunity.
“They’re scattering! Captain Hampton, now!”
“Aye! Maximum Ether propeller, aim for their flagship!”
The three ships following Altemaho attacked the Galisto fleet like wolves.
The Galisto airships were shocked by their movements and fired their Ether cannons.
But the thin beams couldn’t penetrate the living metal armor that spread out in an instant.
There was some damage to the vanguard, but it was only a few crew members falling over.
Encouraged by this, Granden ordered them to push forward.
“Flagship! We prioritize suppressing the flagship! Advance like this!”
“Follow Lord Granden!”
The two airships following Altemaho each took care of one airship and entered a melee battle.
With this, the situation of the aerial battle became an absolute advantage for Vandus vanguard.
They won a decisive victory in mobility even though they were carrying one Goliath each.
Lantis, who was looking up from below, couldn’t understand why Galisto’s fleet was so slow.
“Why are they so slow? Why?”
If he knew that, he wouldn’t be here.
Anyway, the aerial battle showed Vandus’ overwhelming superiority.
The remaining one airship was running away desperately and there was no sign of recovery.
Soon after, Besteros’ flag came down and Vandus’ emblem went up.
Lantis sensed defeat, but he couldn’t show it in front of his subordinates.
The knight who had suggested intercepting earlier proposed again.
“My lord! The Goliaths will soon descend from the airship! We have to do something about him before that!”
“…”
He couldn’t answer.
He knew better than anyone that there was no chance of winning if he went out now.
The only way to win this war was to lure Leobold into the castle and overwhelm him with numbers.
No matter how strong he was, there was a limit to facing several Goliaths at the same time, and he planned to use that gap to disable him with magic, traps, and various tools.
But now that Galisto’s fleet had fallen into the enemy’s hands, there was no reason to maintain that plan.
Six airships were an undeniable force, and there was a crazy high mage among them.
He had to catch him before they came down.
Lantis made a decision after agonizing.
“All troops, prepare to sortie. Open the castle gate quietly.”
Soon after, 30 Goliaths came out of the lord’s castle.
The target was Leobold.
***
“Uh, sir! They’re coming out!”
Katina looked down with a telescope and exclaimed.
As the lord’s castle opened, he witnessed dozens of Goliaths coming out.
Granden snatched the telescope and gave an order right away.
“Captain Hampton! Leave the captured airship and let’s go down first! Protecting the lord is our priority!”
“Yes, sir!”
But Zion blocked Hampton’s way.
“Hey, I know you’re in a hurry, but let’s just watch. He’s not that easy to deal with.”
“You don’t know what Lantis has prepared to capture the lord!”
“I know everything. I’m a mage too. But it won’t be of any use. He’s completely insane, you know?”
Only Zion could call the lord insane.
He would suffer a terrible punishment after saying that, but no one could stop Zion.
He went on for a while about Leobold’s monstrousness and Granden asked him.
“How do you know that?”
“Well, I’ve seen it myself…”
“Yourself?”
“No, no.”
He had a dragon’s pride, so he couldn’t say that he had been beaten by him.
Anyway, he succeeded in diverting his attention and Granden gave up on lowering the altitude and just watched.
A wide field was blocked by 30 Goliaths and a few horned birds carrying mages.
Leobold wandered around casually and sent the horned birds somewhere and opened a space gate to pull out a Bepharos-class Goliath.
It made a rumbling sound as it stood up and Lantis took a spear from his subordinate.
And he ran towards him and threw the spear with all his might.
A five-meter-long single spear flew straight towards the Bepharos-class.
Leobold caught it by the blunt end instead of dodging it.
The spear stopped in mid-air with a clink and shook violently.
“Weak, Lantis.”
“You bastard, you bastard!”
Lantis forgot about the original encirclement plan and started throwing other spears.
His Goliath was a Gusion-class, which was inferior to the Bepharos-class, but it was an improved model for royal guards or high nobles with high output.
Lantis was also a noble with Ether bloodline and a knight who was hard to find in the whole Bagran with his skills.
Except for a few like Granden, that is.
“If it weren’t for you, if it weren’t for you!”
Leobold threw away the spears he caught to the side.
He threw five spears, but none of them hit him.
When he ran out of spears, he taunted Lantis.
“Is that all? You look pathetic.”
“Show some respect, Vandus! I am a count and a great lord of this country!”
“You were until recently. But not anymore. You are nothing but a traitor. And so are the knights beside you.”
“Enooom!”
“I will punish you in the name of King Bagran III. If you have any loyalty left, kneel down now.”
“…”
Of course, there was no knight who knelt down.
Lantis shouted proudly.
“My glorious knights will not be swayed by your tongue!”
“Is that so? Then you have to die.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the mages around him activated their Greek magic.
Leobold felt Ether changing ominously and jumped up immediately.
“Fireball!”
Fireballs collided in mid-air and exploded, but the Goliath didn’t even flinch.
The grand magic circle nullified all ordinary magic.
“Now! Throw the rope!”
It was the magic rope that Arma warned him about.
As soon as Leobold landed, the rope wrapped around him.
It looked like an ordinary rope on the outside, but it was reinforced with Ether and could not be cut by any ordinary force.
But Leobold cut it off with his Goliath.
“He cut off the rope!”
“How did he?”
He didn’t cut it with force, but separated it with psychokinesis.
The knights rushed at him without looking back and Leobold erased the sealing magic circle with his fingers.
On his chest was an Ether Heart that Arma had engraved anew.
It reflected all the combat data and research on Granden’s Ether Heart and started to build a system that completely surpassed the previous Ether circuit in every aspect.
The Bepharos-class Goliath’s sword turned golden and changed into a greatsword shape.
The knights, as well as Lantis, were shocked by that sight and backed away hesitantly.
“An Ether Blade…”
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