The White Prison, the very symbol of the First Inspection City.
Though it could not compare to Galaharad, it was still a fortress in its own right—an impregnable bastion. Yet now, that very bastion lay half-destroyed.
The number of attackers: only seven.
But those mere seven had completely subdued over a hundred paladins and prison guards.
It was an unprecedented event in the history of Bretus.
Wiiiiing!!!
Boom! Paf-paf!
Emergency sirens howled throughout the city as white signal flares burst one after another into the sky.
When the blinding white lights shining brighter than the stars began to fade from the heavens, the distant gates of Galaharad Fortress opened, and waves of troops poured out.
Alex clicked his tongue.
“Look at them swarming like a pack of dogs. I heard most of their forces were sent across the continent—so where the hell were these ones hiding?”
“They may be dressed in white, but the way they move is no different from cockroaches.”
Bretus Theocracy should have been an empty house by now, yet the number of paladins pouring out was far from small.
If anything, since they were the ones guarding the capital, the quality of their white coats and the armor layered over them was far superior to that of ordinary paladins.
With white hoods pulled over their heads, the paladins swiftly formed ranks and began to move in precise coordination.
It was almost laughable—what did they plan to do if their enemies decided to flee? But when Alex looked back, he saw the paladins of the First Inspection City already emerging and surrounding them.
“They’ve completely blocked our retreat.”
“How annoying.”
Phantos flattened his ears, growling in irritation.
The Bretus paladins clearly thought the intruders would rescue Ludger from the White Prison and immediately flee afterward.
That assumption stung Phantos’s pride deeply.
“Seems we’ll have to teach them a proper lesson.”
Rolling his shoulders, Phantos stepped forward—
—but the one who stopped him wasn’t Alex, nor Ludger. It was Hans.
“What is it?”
“Allow me to handle this.”
At Hans’s calm reply, Phantos stared at him in surprise.
And he wasn’t the only one. The other Owens members also widened their eyes in disbelief.
“Hans. Are you sure?”
Ludger asked quietly, and Hans, though hesitant, nodded.
“To be honest, I’m not entirely sure.”
“You’re saying that even though you’re not sure, you’ll still go?”
“After that day—in Dreamland—I think something changed. How should I put it... it feels like I can control this power a little better now. It’s hard to explain, but... I can feel it.”
“......”
Ludger studied Hans silently.
Come to think of it, even when Hans had transformed into a monster of Jévaudan back in Dreamland, he’d fought with a surprising degree of composure.
If that experience had given him some instinctive realization—
“Very well.”
At Ludger’s permission, Hans’s face brightened.
Phantos still looked displeased but, since Ludger had given consent, he snorted and stepped back slightly.
“If you’re stealing my prey, then make sure it’s worth it.”
Hans knew now that this was Phantos’s way of cheering him on.
“Of course.”
As Hans took a step forward toward the approaching paladin ranks, Ludger called out.
“Hans.”
“What? Oh—uh?”
Hans barely managed to catch something Ludger suddenly threw to him.
When he looked down to see what it was, his eyes widened.
“Boss, this is...”
“I picked it up while passing through Isla Machia.”
“...Good grief.”
Hans let out a hollow laugh as he stared at the tooth of the wolf spirit beast.
You call that ‘picking it up while passing through’? That was Isla Machia!
He had already heard rumors of what had happened there.
And yet, in all that chaos, Ludger had remembered to bring him such a thing. That thought alone filled him with gratitude.
“Thank you. I’ve actually been meaning to experiment with something.”
“Experiment, huh. Sounds confident.”
“I’ve never tried it before, but for some reason, I feel like I can do it.”
Hans drew another fang from inside his coat. Holding both—the one Ludger had given him and another—he pressed them down simultaneously into his own palm.
One was the tooth of the guardian beast of House Ulburk, retrieved from Isla Machia.
The other belonged to the deer spirit beast he had received in the Mystic Forest.
Two spirit beast fangs.
And Hans had pierced both into his palm at once.
The change came immediately.
Fwoooosh!
White fur burst out from his skin, his body swelling massively in an instant.
Normally, he would have taken the form of a deer—but this time was different.
His muzzle lengthened, fangs grew, and his body transformed into that of a massive four-legged wolf.
But his fur remained pure white, and from atop his wolfish head sprouted a golden crown-like horn.
The wind stirred.
Blue-tinged currents of air swirled around Hans, now transformed by the genes of two spirit beasts.
“This is...”
Violetta, most sensitive to wind among them, muttered in awe.
Awooooo!!
The wolf’s howl echoed through the city.
Its voice carried far beyond the First Inspection City, reaching even the paladins rushing from afar.
Startled for a moment by the howl, the paladins soon regained composure and resumed their advance.
Hans curled his lips into a grin at the sight.
Then—
With a blue afterimage, he vanished.
* * *
“What was that wolf’s howl just now?”
“Do beasts even live around here?”
“Stay alert. We don’t know the enemy’s capabilities—it’s safest to assume that was the intruder’s doing.”
As they exchanged quick words, the paladins’ line of sight reached the half-destroyed White Prison.
The sight of that holy bastion—where heretics and criminals were imprisoned and executed—crumbling like a sandcastle made several paladins tremble with rage.
“Those intruders. How dare they defile the Holy Nation. I’ll never forgive them.”
As their anger boiled, a sudden gust swept past.
“Stop.”
Sensing something off, the leading commander gave a curt order.
The advancing paladins halted in unison.
“There’s something here. Everyone, be on—”
He never finished.
Before he could complete the sentence, his head was severed and floated into the air.
The paladins in the front row froze, their pupils shrinking.
“Comman—!”
The moment they tried to call out, their own heads were lopped off.
An invisible, razor-sharp blade swept horizontally, cleanly severing the heads of nearly fifty paladins, hoods and all.
Their faces showed no awareness of death. That was how swift—and silent—the slaughter had been.
“Everyone, down!”
A few sharp-minded paladins in the second row shouted, ducking low.
Shhhk!
With a chilling slice, the ends of their hoods were cut away.
‘Our hoods are woven with threads imbued with divine power—!’
Yet the cut was smooth, as though made by a guillotine’s edge.
“Enemy attack!”
“Protect your heads!”
“We can’t see him! Watch for stealth!”
The paladins swiftly changed formation, forming a defensive barrier.
Those with shields recited divine spells, golden light flaring to life and surrounding them protectively.
They moved with clockwork precision, hundreds acting as one massive mechanism.
Eyes darted everywhere, searching for the unseen assassin behind the slicing wind.
Perhaps because they had entered a defensive stance, the cutting wind abruptly stopped.
Did he flee?
Some paladins began to think so—until one of them, with sharper sight, happened to glance upward.
The blue moonlight seemed unusually bright tonight.
“Huh?”
Without meaning to, the paladin let out a small gasp.
Under the moonlight, he saw blue stars falling toward them.
Only when they grew closer did he realize—they weren’t stars at all, but bombardments of condensed pure mana.
“Everyone, defend!”
Feeling the crushing pressure from above, the central paladins began chanting divine barriers.
A translucent triple-layered cross-shaped shield spread over the formation like a turtle shell.
Then the blue “meteor” fell upon it.
Kwooooom!!!
Even hastily cast, the barrier was no simple spell—it was formed from the combined strength of countless paladins.
Yet it shattered easily, the impact detonating in the center with a blue magical explosion that swept across the area.
Their unity had become their downfall.
The explosion devoured them whole.
And worse—the formation was broken.
“Check for casualties!”
“Heal the wounded immediately! Loosen the ranks! If we bunch up, the damage multiplies!”
Those at the center were obliterated beyond recognition. The ones on the outskirts suffered heavy wounds but quickly began recovery through divine healing.
The famed vitality of paladins was showing its worth.
But the attacker had no intention of waiting.
From above, the glowing stars began to fall again.
They were smaller this time—but ten times as numerous.
It looked as though the heavens themselves were collapsing.
Gritting their teeth, the paladins raised their shields.
Countless streaks of blue light rained down like a storm, hammering their barriers until they cracked and shattered like glass.
Through the gaps came the flashes, exploding upon contact with the ground in hemispherical bursts.
Each one small, yet densely packed with mana—impossible to ignore even with divine protection.
“Where’s the enemy?!”
“There! Up in the sky!”
They spotted it—a white figure floating in the air, conjuring spheres of blue mana and raining them down.
A white deer spirit beast.
“Intercept!”
Even in the sky, the paladins had ways to retaliate.
Golden spears materialized in their hands as they prepared to throw.
Muscles bulged, veins surfaced—
Sh-sh-sh-shk!
Dozens of golden spears shot upward.
Priests in the rear joined in—summoning angels of light to block the bombardments, launching golden chains that shot toward the airborne spirit beast.
The white deer danced through the air, stepping on nothing, evading with impossible agility.
But even so, with a body that [N O V E L I G H T] large, it couldn’t possibly dodge everything.
Got him.
That thought crossed every mind at once—
—and then the wind blew again.
“Huh?”
A whisper of blue wind brushed past paladins and priests alike.
Ssshk. Sshhh.
It felt as light as a passing breeze—yet every time it passed, a head fell.
“W-What?! There’s a hidden enemy!”
“Outer ranks, hold the defense! Inner ranks, take down that deer!”
The same one who had stopped attacking once the barriers were raised—
The paladins gritted their teeth, fury rising—just as a figure emerged from within the blue mist.
A beast with a golden horn—a wolf.
“A wolf?”
Come to think of it, wasn’t that the same howl they had heard earlier—?
Crunch!
The paladin’s thought ended as the wolf’s jaws crushed his throat.
And it wasn’t alone.
More wolves—over twenty—burst from the blue mist.
Each one stood three meters tall, enormous spirit beasts tearing through the outer defenses and diving into the center.
“Hold the line! Hold—!”
“Our attacks aren’t working!”
Physical attacks passed through them as if slicing air—swords, maces, spears—all useless.
Only divine power-infused strikes inflicted real damage, but by then, the formation was already in ruins.
Regaining momentum, the blue bombardment resumed from above.
“Retreat! Fall back!”
“Everyone across the bridge! Raise it now!”
The paladins who had crossed the canal quickly lifted the drawbridge.
True to its name, the city of water had canals everywhere—useful as both passages and barriers.
Splash!
But the wolf spirit leaped down into the water, as if mocking them.
A pillar of water rose, towering like a wall, then turned and crashed forward as a localized tidal wave.
The paladins braced themselves, planting their feet, but the water slowed their movements for just a second—
—and that was enough.
The wolves sprinted.
Running on air, flying with the wind itself.
The wolves ran.
Across a golden-lit field, ripe fruits fell, tumbling like raindrops.
Under the moonlight, the reaper moved among them, harvesting his yield.
