(Thank you very much to 'Kaede no Chōrei', 'Panda Ah!', 'Lei Xiang', 'Sui Feng Qi Wu', 'Yume no Shouyou', and 'Qing yi Jian' for your rewards!)
"Whoosh—!"
Amid an incredibly piercing sound of something slicing through the air, a black shadow shot through the dust cloud formed by the locust-like flying magical beasts charging in. It tore through space and came to a stop directly above the Baruba Empire's Royal City, hovering there as it looked down from on high.
The black shadow was, in truth, a person.
It was precisely because they saw this figure hovering in midair and looking down upon the Baruba Empire's Royal City that the city guards froze on the spot.
In the Sparlier World, there were only two kinds of people capable of hovering and flying.
One kind was warriors and mages who cultivated techniques or magic that granted hovering or flight.
The other kind consisted of experts who had broken through the barrier of the ninth rank and advanced to the Demigod Rank.
Other than those two types, if anyone else wanted to hover or fly, they either had to rely on external aids such as tools, miraculous medicines, special armaments, or airships, or they could only achieve something similar.
For example, eighth- and ninth-rank experts could use fine control over battle aura and magic power to glide through the air, imitating hovering or flight. But it was ultimately only an imitation. It could not be sustained for long, could not be used flexibly, and consumed a great deal of battle aura and magic power.
Thus, in the Sparlier World, the only ones who could truly hover or fly were those who cultivated techniques or magic with such effects, or Demigod Rank experts.
Now, seeing someone hovering so steadily in midair, the city