They bore the hopes and wills of far too many!
The puppet legion of the Forgetting World surged forth in a mighty torrent. This was the victory countless ancient wizards had endured humiliation and hardship for, watching helplessly as the lives of young demon-hunting wizards were spent to buy it!
Even the Second-generation Wizard King, recalling those harsh years of the Wizard World, remembered how the number of official wizards had been so scant, not even one-thousandth or one-hundredth of what it was now. Yet they had struggled to accumulate these mechanical puppets, to give themselves a few more reserves for the future war against the Abyssal Devil Race. It had been the cruel frugality of the True Spirit Wizards, scraps of grain pinched out from between their teeth, as they watched demon-hunting wizards cast away their heads and spill their hot blood on the battlefields of foreign worlds during expedition after expedition. He could not help but shout and sing aloud.
"An empire that lasts a thousand autumns—success in a single battle! Lofty ambitions soar through the clouds, singing into the great wind!"
This was the Second-generation Wizard King's shouted song. He was not as wise and accomplished as the First-generation Wizard King, nor had he forged myths and legends. As one of the countless ancient wizards who had barely clung to life while steeped in the dark glory of the past, achieving vengeance upon the Abyss in a single successful battle, securing the Wizard Alliance's grand undertaking for a thousand autumns, and determining the history of victory and defeat in this war—this was the achievement he craved most.
The Cataclysm of the War of Civilization stirred up by the Metallic Flame, overturning the balance of war, was merely one of the Second-generation Wizard King's several methods!
The vast