Before the string of gut-warnings, Enkrid leveled Dawn Tempering to the right exactly as he held it at dawn's ready. It was before Temares could so much as react. Enkrid's body moved faster than his tongue.
Sound, smell, touch—everything braided together into an alarm.
He saw flames kindle in his eyes and clump into a mass. Every step of the change entered his vision one by one.
A line ran down from the cloud of fire spread wide across the sky to the fireball itself. The mass skimmed the ground as it flew, like a galloping carriage.
KWA-DRRRRRRR!
The blaze that rose with a thunderous roar warped the surroundings. The heat alone was enough to conjure mirages.
You could call it a natural disaster. How is a human body supposed to receive a catastrophe poured down from the heavens?
Hard. For an ordinary human, yes.
But there wasn't a single ordinary human here. Nor did all of them need to step forward.
'Dawn Tempering.'
Enkrid believes in Dawn Tempering. That trust lodges in the blade, and the engraved Will shines. Dawn Tempering's light grew deeper than before.
He went out to meet the flames head-on. He mixed in what he'd awakened by cleaving Walking Fire with the knack of cutting a fireball spell for the first time.
'Spell-Slaying.'
Esther called her blade that. Enkrid drew his sword through. A pressure-making cut parted the air that had gone heavy and set.
As his stroke cleaved, air pressure shifted and shoved the heat back, and the Will-imbued edge split the blaze without hesitation. More precisely, it cut the center of the flames.
POP!
The sound of air bursting accompanied it.
Whoosh.
It was the same knack as parting Walking Fire—even if he didn't know whether the enemy had used a spell.
'The root is the same. The principle is the same.'
Then you cut it. If it cuts, then it can be cut.
'Just now my thought was obnoxious enough to sound like Ragna.'
Isn't it like asking, "How do you cut it?" and answering, "You just do."
He wasn't in a bad mood. Calling it an obnoxious Ragna-like thought meant it was the kind of line only a genius could afford to say.
"Refreshing."
Enkrid said it after swinging his sword.
The ends of his hair sizzled and singed in the searing heat. The soot settled to the ground as black smoke. Soon the smoke was crushed by the heat swaddling this whole area and scattered.
In air that choked your breath short, saying "refreshing" was more than enough to make him look insane.
There had been two fireballs; Audin stopped the other.
"Lord."
Wreathed head to toe in holy radiance, he smothered the flames with his divinity. White light ran down his body, blanketed the fire, then pressed it flat.
Even when speaking of what surpasses the ordinary and enters the realm of the extraordinary, he carried out something outrageous as if it were nothing.
Maybe that was exactly the right to face a heaven-sent catastrophe. Here were people whose very bodies served as the basis for being called "catastrophe." Even before the flaming cloud in the sky, they did not yield.
'Suppression.'
Enkrid watched Audin pin the blaze and thought.
That flame-cloud was a different breed from Balrog, and its way of fighting was hard to gauge.
Then how do you suppress it?
'What's the most fitting way?'
The deliberation didn't last long. Perhaps because he had Uske. Enkrid's thinking converged on one thing.
"A war of attrition."
Drain it until it pants and wheezes. Even if not, it was time to square up and get a measure of it.
Therefore, stamina and attrition. The flame-cloud had already formed a shape: a quadruped pressed low to the ground.
It looked like a dog or a wolf, or else a lizard. The thought rose as he watched it.
Was that heat-line that scored the ground earlier its tongue?
Imagining it lolling without that wasn't exactly funny, even in the mind's eye.
Then several lumps of flame thudded down from above, hit the ground with a boom, rolled, and squirmed into shape.
Two arms and two legs formed, swords clutched in their hands. Do you call those knights of flame?
Their bodies were made of fire, but the way they held their blades and charged was human.
POOM!
The fiery aberration stood and finished getting ready to fight at once. It lowered its posture to rush. It was just about to kick off the ground when its head blew apart first. A bullet had flown in, punched through the flames, and vanished.
Perhaps the will to advance remained, because the fire flickered and took a few steps forward, then collapsed as it was.
Cr-r-rumble.
Only black ash scattered across the floor remained.
Wheee—
At the very rear, Rem, who'd been lightly whirling his sling, gave a shrug.
"If you just pin it down with strength and make it tired, that's all you need, right?"
Rem's head worked just as well as ever.
"Right."
Enkrid agreed.
Temares was surprised at the resolve he felt from each one of them. In a dragonkin's life, surprise doesn't happen even five times in total—and here he was at the second, after Enkrid.
Gathered here were people whose purity of Will was out of the ordinary. When they moved, high-purity Will and light were visible to a dragonkin's eyes.
'Even so, that man is the most.'
Black hair, blue eyes.
The light visible from him was far too great.
***
Seiki was not officially part of the standing army, but she had learned to fight piecemeal—picking up a little from Enkrid, a little from Audin.
Enkrid knew her talent was unusual. But on the other hand, he also knew she lacked Will.
For someone whose goal in life was to idle away on a mountain, watching the stars, martial arts were just an accessory.
Still, Seiki did her own kind of training. She had learned techniques for handling divinity.
She was a Highlander, one who roamed the mountains, and mountains on this continent didn't only hold gentle beasts—so knowing how to fight was natural. Her grandfather who raised her had also lived by hunting and traps.
"What the hell!"
The first sign was a wolf of flame that came at her while she was at leisure. A mass sculpted of fire thundered down in a pack.
Seiki threw every trick she had into fighting and fleeing. Lazy as she was, what she'd learned so far kept her alive. She headed straight for the city. The numbers weren't something she could handle alone.
"Fight!"
"Only magic weapons work!"
"Don't charge in unless your weapon's blessed!"
Where she ran, the standing army was already clashing with the flame constructs. Seiki threw herself right in.
'There are too many.'
The standing army fought well. Not a single one was faltering. Those armed with magic weapons even overwhelmed the fiery aberrations.
But now and then, a monster appeared that seemed to be a special variant—something soldiers could hardly manage.
'Bipedal.'
Creatures walking and running on two legs. They were faster and stronger than the rest.
BANG!
A fist hammered a shield and drove the shield-bearer stumbling back.
"What is this."
The shield-bearer muttered through clenched teeth. The strength was dizzying. Could he withstand it?
Just that one blow had his oil-fed, shade-dried shield groaning in a squeal. The iron rims shrieked.
If that strike had landed without a shield to block, he would have been finished.
The threat squeezed his heart, but he would not fall.
Because if there were monsters outside regulation on that side, there were on this side too.
"Not enough training."
Could a monster made of fire even know what "training" meant? It couldn't even understand words—but Pel said his piece.
One cut. The flame split vertically and scattered. It was the power of the Idol Slayer.
His sword was specialized in cutting amorphous things.
To the shield-bearer's eyes, all he saw was a line pass straight down through the fiery monster's body.
The owner of that blade turned his sword in the air. The faint remnants of fire scattered and vanished aloft.
The shield-bearer swallowed hard. When the shock passed, he saw the one who stood before him.
The sword's master—the Mad Order of Knights.
The one who had saved his life spoke.
"How is it? I'm better than Lawford, aren't I? In face and in skill?"
The shield-bearer didn't dare shake his head. This man had just saved his life.
Meanwhile, Lawford moved all the busier. A line had been drawn sharp in his mind. Visible even to his eyes. A path showing the most efficient movements.
By now his Hawk's Eye technique was fully matured. Keen senses, wide vision, tactics learned from Luagarne—all wove together into skill. He dashed across the battlefield.
'Leave the rabble.'
He struck only those beyond ordinary soldiers' reach. Running along the dotted line, he swung his sword.
A dwarf-forged blade infused with Esther's magic.
CLANG!
Each time Lawford's sword passed through a fiery aberration, blue powder scattered in the air.
Stamping his left foot, slashing as he turned—his blows were enough to draw admiration even from Enkrid.
"Of course, Captain Lawford!"
He had taken charge of training recruits and earned the respect of some soldiers.
Unlike Pel, who constantly harped that training was supreme, beating and sparring and bullying them through violence.
Of course, Pel's methods worked for some, but only a few. Most were more moved by Lawford's training style.
It depended on the soldier's temperament, but the majority leaned to Lawford. Though Pel had his own followers too.
For instance, the ten swordsmen under Ragna followed Pel more closely, even though their official assignment was directly under Lawford.
A trivial difference in preference, perhaps—but the fact was that Lawford's popularity was higher.
"Lawford!"
"Running Lawford!"
So many calls to keep him running had even given him that nickname.
The battlefield was wide. While those two were shining in one place, elsewhere a half-blood giant and a beastwoman and a Frog were moving.
Dunbakel ran wielding a soldier's spear in one hand and a sword in the other.
Her sense of smell outstripped even normal beastmen. A nose that instinctively sought what provoked her.
"Good enough."
Where her spear and sword swept past, there came the repeated sound of glass shattering—pakang!
And the flame giant collapsed into white ash.
That was thanks to the blessings Teresa had laid. Divinity smothered the flames.
"Ooh, stinking Dunbakel!"
Some soldiers shouted with glee.
"Rank-Smelling Dunbakel!"
"Won't you shut it?"
Not the nickname she wanted.
At the army's center, Teresa sang. Chants, hymns imbued with divinity. The lyrics themselves became divine, suffusing the soldiers' weapons.
"O Lord, where Your hand reaches—"
As the high note burst out, white light began to rim their weapons. A chant's power like this was something even Audin couldn't perform.
The soldiers, emboldened, raised their swords and spears.
"Saintess Teresa!"
The real Saintess was Seiki, but in practice within the army the one called Saintess was Teresa.
Not a nickname that fit a half-blood giant's looks, but as if to prove they really were the standing army under the Mad Order of Knights, they loved giving nicknames tinged with madness.
Maybe it was the backlash of being beaten half to death in training on the regular.
Between the stink and the Saintess—
"Peerless Beauty Lua!"
A frog-like Frog in human eyes puffed her cheeks at hearing her nickname.
Because laughter had burst out.
"Crazy bastards."
She said it while spinning her Loop Sword round and round.
It was a technique she made after watching Rem's sling whirl.
She wrapped thick leather cords around every finger joint, over which she wore gloves layered with beast hide.
Wheeeeee!
Thus fixed, the Loop Sword spun at high speed as she swung it.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Monsters of flame caught on the rotating blade scattered and flew apart.
All her weapons were magic weapons; they needed no blessing.
For the standing army and the rest, blocking the incoming flame masses wasn't hard.
The problem was, there was no sign it would end.
At the rear, Garett and Luagarne were stamping their feet. They knew they'd have to endure at least three days like this.
Salamanders did not tire easily. Summoned creatures of fire would keep pressing for a minimum of three days.
They knew. Yet something happened outside their expectations.
"Mmm."
"Is it over?"
These words arose naturally among the soldiers.
The flame beasts and monsters, even the flame golems that had swept through, began to dwindle. Their numbers shrank until they suddenly stopped altogether.
'Enki.'
Luagarne instinctively sensed that Enkrid, who had gone into the mountains, had done something.
There was no other reason for the Salamander's power to be cut off. And her guess was right.