Keslote's peaceful morning was shattered by a deafening boom. The Legendary Knight of the Noble Temple opened the war with a heaven-shaking, earth-shattering sword strike.
Hill and Alice threw away their breakfasts and rushed together to the porthole in the sitting room to look down.
This fire-element Legendary Knight sent flames filling the sky with a single slash. Unfortunately, he was facing the Undead, who had spent over a month coming and going through fire and being scorched by it.
When the Legendary flew into the air, glowing red all over as he prepared to unleash a major move, the Magi standing in the rear immediately cast fireproof barriers over the shield-bearing Knights.
Any Undead mage player who had fought in a city war had learned this fire-protection barrier spell.
After sacrificing several dozen Undead Sky Knights, they easily blocked the Legendary Knight's full-powered strike without even activating the city's defensive magic.
Amid the cheers of the Undead, the Legendary Knight angrily slashed down several more times. Unfortunately, the tens of thousands of Sky Knights carrying great shields endured it all under the protection of fireproof barriers, losing only several hundred more lives.
Dionysio did not let that Legendary continue embarrassing himself in midair and swiftly replaced him with a metal-element Legendary Knight.
This one truly dealt far more damage. Over a thousand Undead died at once. Unfortunately, people quickly emerged from the small buildings behind them to fill the vacant positions.
"Meow~ How many people are in those houses?"
"More than a hundred thousand, probably!"
"Meow?"
"This deity governs space. He can easily create room inside those houses for over a hundred thousand people."
"So powerful! Meow! Is this the one Hill is afraid of?"
"I'm afraid of all gods!
This one is just a little more terrifying.
Look down at the row of more than ten thousand Magi standing behind the Knights! They're all at the same level as my grandfather!"
"How is that possible? You're lying! Meow! They can't be that powerful!"
"Because they've only just become Magi! They haven't learned many spells yet. Once things settle down, they'll have time to study. So you can't run around recklessly, okay? They're outsiders, so they aren't afraid of nature's hostility. Even if they kill you and are hated by the world, suffering bad luck every day, they can simply return to their own world!"
"They're only a tiny bit stronger than Hill!" Alice said stubbornly. "I'm about as strong as Hill! Meow! We can get away! Meow!"
Hill looked at the argumentative little cat. "There are hundreds of thousands of Magi among them!"
"Waaah~~ I'll behave. When we go back, I'll stay in the territory."
He carried Alice back to the sofa. "Finish eating quickly. We're going upstairs. The view is clearer up there."
"Meow~ The ship is moving."
Hill tilted his head and looked outside. "We're heading to Undead territory. They can't really fight here anymore. William hasn't even shown his face. We'll wait until the end to watch the Divine Descent!"
The floating ship was very fast. By the time Hill carried Alice to the upper hall, the ship had already arrived above Black Rose City.
Hill glanced down. The fighting here was much livelier.
The idle and hostile players had probably all gone to William's side.
Black Rose City, which had never had the most people to begin with, only had fifty or sixty thousand players left.
Fortunately, the Legendary Knight leading the attack here was also fire-element. Behind the city walls, the Black Rose Family had set up scattered wooden platforms as high as the walls, with more than ten thousand Priests standing on them.
Hill looked down and saw a loli Priest hopping nimbly between the platforms as she directed the Priest players.
He turned to Falan and asked, "Grandfather, can we hear the voices below?"
Falan fiddled with the crystal ball a few times. "Let's see. There are no Legendary Mages, so we can go a little lower."
The floating ship gently slipped beneath the clouds and slowly came to a stop where the people below could look up and see it. The voices from the amplification array gradually became clear.
The ship finally stopped above the block of Priests. Hill noticed that the players below quickly spotted the floating ship.
Amid the clamor, he heard someone shout, "Bald Boss! There's a broken ship over the Priests' heads. Should we shoot it down?"
Hill immediately got up and went onto the deck, leaning over the rail to wave down at them.
"It's fine! That's Hill! He's here to watch the war!" Baldy's raspy voice rang out.
"Did you get a picture? The beautiful boy holding the white cat!" a loud female voice called out.
Hill sucked in a breath. He had forgotten he was still holding Alice! He hurried back inside.
A wave of regretful sighs rose from the girls below.
Adrian smiled and asked him, "What are you afraid of? This ship flies very fast. They can't hit it."
Falan cut in, "You're not as sensible as Hill. Those more than ten thousand Magi haven't cast anything but fireproof barriers!
Who knows what they have prepared.
That idiot down there had better not get himself killed."
Hill said, "I'm not worried that this ship can't evade them. I just don't want to test someone else's move and take the hit for them."
The female voice that had shouted about the white-cat beauty rang out again. "Left side! Dispel! Dispel! Can't you hear me? I'm telling you to dispel!"
Hill looked down. That fierce loli was called Old School Striking King.
She leaped about nimbly, monitoring the health bars of the Sky Knights at the front.
"What are the ones in the middle doing? Don't heal recklessly! Save your mana!"
"Left side, heal! Right side, dispel! Is my voice not loud enough? Can you listen to someone for once?"
Hill watched Baldy, who was hiding at the front and directing the Sky Knights to raise their shields. He did not dare say a word.
He merely repeated mechanically, "Raise shields! Fill the gaps!"
Old Age's savage voice soon followed. "Those who got revived, run faster! Are your legs shorter than mine?"
Adrian suddenly sighed. "Undead women!"
Hill wanted to laugh. Had Adrian remembered the days when female players flirted with him?
Falan could not be bothered with either of them and kept staring at the players in the city.
Adrian asked in confusion, "Teacher, what are you looking at?"
"Their mages are moving slowly. That idiot only knows how to stand stupidly in the air and slash. Knights truly have no brains! Can't he even look down once? They're spreading out by element!"
Hill quickly lowered his head and studied them carefully.
Actually, the Legendary Knight could not really be blamed for noticing nothing.
The players were not obediently dressed in mage robes. They wore all sorts of flamboyant outfits as they slowly moved through the city, like ordinary residents taking a stroll.
That Legendary would probably get angry after only two looks. No one was taking his attacks seriously at all.
If he had been a Legendary Mage, then upon seeing crowds gathering toward six points, he would have become alert regardless of who stood below.
Pentagram magic arrays and hexagram magic arrays were always what mages were most sensitive to.
Pentagrams were generally used for defense, while hexagrams were for attack.
Hill drew in a breath. "A hexagram magic array using more than ten thousand Magi as its nodes should be able to easily destroy a Legendary Knight, right?"
Falan tapped the window. "They built a Mage Tower in the center of the city. The one that looks like a clock tower."
Hill looked at that glittering crystal clock tower. He could not see it at all. But if Falan said so, he must have noticed something.
He examined it bit by bit. The players really had plenty of clever tricks. Magical lamps shining within the crystal walls made the exterior curtain wall reflect boundless rays of light.
Anyone who looked over would instinctively avert their eyes and only look at the clock at the very top.
What perfect refraction. They really knew their physics!
Instead, when the hands of that enormous clock turned, Hill sensed faint flashes from magical Runes.
Anyone unfamiliar with alchemical spells would likely mistake them for the Runes naturally found on an alchemical clock.
Only a high-level alchemist like Falan could keenly notice something wrong even in such a tiny detail.
Falan said quietly, "If this is Undead technology, they learn astonishingly fast!
If they were not still unfamiliar with setting up magic arrays, and if people were not constantly calculating array connections atop the clock tower, I would not have noticed it either."
Adrian sighed deeply. "None of us would have thought to make a Mage Tower into a clock tower!
Mage Towers exist to intimidate others! No one has thought of hiding one for tens of thousands of years."
Hill said, "They've fought each other many times and understand one another too well. That's why they like using underhanded tricks."
"It looks like it was prepared for the Undead's enemies, but they didn't get to use it?" Falan muttered. "It just happens to be useful against that idiot Knight."
Adrian suddenly said, "Could every one of their cities have hidden something like this? If they understand each other so well, they would all need to be on guard!"
"As long as they have money, their thinking is more active," Hill said. "It looks like they won't use it today, though?" He saw the gathered people slowly disperse again.
"That idiot still has plenty of strength! He is a Legendary, after all. He won't be easy to kill." Falan sneered. "Once he gets tired and slows down, the Undead should be done practicing."
Hill noticed a group of mage players put on mage robes and replace the Magi on the battlements who had been continuously casting fireproof barriers.
"This really is quite a show! They even know to put on mage robes to fool people."
"Anyone attentive would definitely notice. They've been fighting for over a month. How could ordinary people still be living in this city?" Falan pointed at the fire-element Legendary Knight. "Fire-element Knights are usually simple-minded. They only know how to charge headlong. Metal-element ones are a little better. Earth-Element Law users are generally focused on defense and would not come out to attack others."
"The Undead Sky Knights standing in the front are also fire-element and earth-element," Adrian said. "Their commander understands things quite well."
Falan said strangely, "Who is commanding their mages? They even know how to use a hexagram magic array."
Hill shook his head. "I don't know. Jijiyaya is more academically inclined and prefers brewing potions."
"The Priest commander is fierce enough, though!" Adrian suddenly said.
The voice they had been hearing all along was Old School Striking King's furious scolding.
After watching for so long, they had gained some understanding of the tactics. It seemed that because resurrection took time, Knights were ordered to retreat once their health dropped to a quarter, giving their positions to others.
But there were always people who wanted to wait until the very end. Unfortunately, every one of them was singled out and cursed at.
"Fall back, fall back, An Idler! Do you want to die? Or do you want me to chase after you and heal you? Keep dreaming! Get your ass to the back!"
"Daduoduo! Ababa! I'd like to see how you want to die!"
Hill rested his chin on his hand and spent the day smiling amid Sanda King's scolding.
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