Dark clouds had obscured the moonlight, and ruined walls surrounded them.
Even though Alcides had controlled the direction of the battle, a third of the castle had still been reduced to rubble.
Fortunately, the place where Illya lay remained untouched, and she was still sleeping peacefully.
But how could she possibly sleep? With the fighting outside and the castle collapsing, how unflappable would she have to be?
Illya was pretending to sleep to put Berserker at ease, and also because she trusted him. Berserker was the strongest.
That was the bond between Illya and Berserker.
Meanwhile, two furtive figures were sneaking into the castle.
Thirty paces away, Artoria's slashes never stopped, maintaining the same pace she had set at the beginning.
Crisscrossing waves of sword energy could shred anything. The fallen trees and ruined walls around them were all her handiwork.
Alcides, by contrast, wore an expression as still as water, revealing nothing.
Though he was pinned down and could only dodge, his breathing remained frighteningly steady, as though even his heartbeat had stopped.
Watching Artoria unleash slashes for fifteen uninterrupted minutes, Alcides felt the deepest respect for this woman.
The black mud clinging to her could only increase her stamina and magical energy. It did nothing to bolster her mental endurance.
Had their positions been reversed, Alcides might have reached his mental limit at the ten-minute mark.
At that point, he would have gradually opened up the distance, finding a way to break off this kind of battle and regroup.
Yet she showed no intention of stopping. She kept swinging her sword, without even the slightest flaw in her technique.
There was only one possible explanation: muscle memory.
Reaching that level required years of training, swinging a sword tens of thousands of times every day.
That was why