Humble Scholar Xixido

The Grand Duchy had sent out all its elite forces, boasting a million-strong army.

Two Sky Fortresses!

These enormous hemispherical structures, each over a hundred meters in diameter, had metallic outer shells and large command platforms on top. Aside from their anti-gravity systems, each fortress needed twenty of the duchy's most powerful bellows working in tandem to propel it forward.

The colossal structures cast shadows over the ground, while a terrible pressure built in the air.

Eight hundred and seventy balloon airships.

After months of intensive requisitioning and mobilization, all but a few of the duchy's civilian airships had gathered at Saint Grand Fort, with only a handful remaining on the main air routes. Most had been equipped with weapons and converted into small aerial battle platforms.

These shark-shaped flying devices, each over thirty meters long, were spread across the sky for dozens of kilometers around the Sky Fortresses.

At a call from the ground army's mage advisors, the balloon airships could launch aerial bombardments at any moment with their Magic Crystal Cannons.

More than four thousand seven hundred accompanying scholars.

Twelve thousand members of the Sky Knight Order.

Six legions, one hundred thousand heavily armored knights, four hundred and twenty thousand heavily armored warriors...

"This battle has gathered nearly half the duchy's strength. We can only win—we can't afford to lose."

Watching the Grand Duchy's vast army stretch for dozens of kilometers, [Fire Phoenix] Angelina leaned on the railing of an unremarkable balloon airship near a Sky Fortress, propping her chin on her hand as she murmured.

She looked rather bored.

After graduating, this [Fire Phoenix], who had made quite a name for herself during her academy days, had traveled far and wide. She had worked part-time at the Solar Energy Laboratory on Red Ridge, joined the Frost Creation