In a strange and twisted way, it had actually been the merchants running the street stalls in Elendale that had actualized Cardinal Valentino’s plans. The distribution of mana stones throughout the entire capital of Britannia would not have been possible if it hadn’t been for the city’s most popular souvenir. Elendaleians loved selling artificial mana stones to foreigners visiting, and foreigners visiting loved having the experience of owning the famed magical artifact from a monster core, albeit a fake one.

Every shop in Elendale, whether it be a tailor shop, a mercer’s shop, a bakery, a butchery, a millinery, goldsmiths, blacksmiths, carpenters, or even a bookstore—all of them had small ceramic bowls filled with ersatz stones. It was an easy way to bring in copper coins for merchants, after all.

Real mana stones were only illegally available to the common people on the black market, the price of one stone tantamount to a royal treasury. The only institutions allowed to lawfully own mana stones were Temples, since those magical artifacts were exclusively produced in the Vatican. Even then, it was only a limited amount they were permitted to have, barely enough to turn the capital city of Britannia into ashes.

So it was no surprise that any native to Elendale seeing a small pebble rolling on cobblestone pavements would undoubtedly believe that it was just a fake trinket dropped by a tourist. Supplying the Elendaleian merchants with fake stones mixed with real ones had been too easy.

The plan was foolproof.

Pietro, having overseen the process of the distribution of the mana stones, architecting the chaos, and putting the plan into motion, was hiding near the Port of Elmos and waiting on his master.

He was a man that had never failed to perform a single command. He was loyal to a fault and never questioned the orders he was given. He followed and executed them meticulously and carefully, always heeding his master’s words and making sure to spare no effort.

So what followed next was, on all counts, completely unforeseen.

As soon as he had confirmed that the pandemonium had begun and arrived at the docks, a dragon with the color of the midnight sky blocked off the light of the moon as it flew past him, heading in the direction of the inner city.

The man was a bloodthirsty assassin and a monster himself, but never before had he seen a dragon, let alone so many different kinds of demons engaging in the slaughter of humans and ripping them apart. The few that existed in the southern countries were kept as entertainment for the elusive elite that partook in the highly sinful act of associating and colliding with devils. The majority of Southerners, be it commoners or nobles, would never encounter a monster in their entire lifetime.

Pietro’s master was a cardinal but not once had he believed in the existence of angels and demons, in the existence of God and the Devil.

All those he had fought during his time of living, had been human beings like himself.

The sight of the devil known to be Satan’s greatest servant soaring high through the heavens left him paralyzed, a strange shiver crawling up his spine and twisting around his neck like a noose. The vague realization of the existence of beings far superior, far greater than him had his blood run cold.

It was only for a moment, but he was unable to move a single inch. Not until the dragon vanished into the distance and not until he was unable to see the beast anymore. The sound of his heart pounding in his ears diminished and when he managed to wake from his stupor, he became angry with himself.

A dragon was a dragon, a mere beast that could die just like how any human could. What was there to be afraid of?

Shaking his head and arriving at the place he was supposed to rendezvous, he saw neither Cardinal Valentino nor the ship he had prepared for him in advance.

Did his master get caught? No, that was impossible.

Then, what was wrong? Where was he? Where was his sister? There was no way they hadn’t gotten out of the palace yet. It appeared to be that the dragon was also heading that way, so they had no time to dillydally.

But then, where was the ship? Had they already left?

Something ominous wormed up its way in his chest.

It looked like he had some more work to do and would be stuck in this annoying backwater of a city for a while longer. He had no choice, since he had to wait for his master’s orders in order to move.

However, the current situation was not in his favor.

There seemed to be no end to the monsters terrorizing Elendale and the Paladins running rampant looked too agitated to be confident. It didn’t seem like there would be many survivors in the end.

Pietro had received a rosary from his master imbued with protective divinity, but he wasn’t quite convinced that it would be very effective right now.

The southern spy was in quite the predicament.

Fortunately, he had not yet taken off the scapular he was wearing. It would be best to escape with the crowd of monks and lower-ranked priests who were evacuating the citizens.

Making up his mind to finally get a move on, he searched his surroundings one last time.

“Where did Master go?”

Why couldn’t he find him anywhere? He had to have arrived at the docks already, but there were no signs of him. Pietro was tasked with protecting and defending his master, but the mob of terrified people going ballistic in this chaos made it too difficult to focus on finding one person.

Gritting his teeth in frustration, the assassin emerged from the shadows of the tree he had been hiding behind.

Into his view came a Paladin’s cloak.

A behemoth of a man dressed in black armor, a face reminiscent of a crazed bear. Under short red hair, a set of stormy eyes fixed on him.

Pietro had seen this man several times while monitoring Lady Rudbeckia.

A man who seemed to be more suitable for the profession of executioner rather than a Paladin. Scanning him from head to toe, Pietro pondered on the thought of finally getting to warm up properly for the first time in a long while.

Spreading out his knees and taking a deep breath to focus on the air around him, the assassin from the South pulled out a poisonous needle from under his robes and got to work.

***

“Ivan!”

Ivan had no time to acknowledge his fellow knights as they arrived on the battlefield one by one.

A colossal reptilian tail thwacked the stone floor before he could regain his feet.

The age-old slabs of stone that had been placed centuries ago as pavement cracked and fractured, the previously smooth ground now in smithereens. Dust and rocks and condensed water from the Frost Dragon’s icy breath rose up in the air and shrouded the knights who were coming up from all directions in the cold.

However, Ivan was only concerned about one person. “You f**king b*st*rd! Hey, Izek! Are you dead?”

“Shut up.”

Apparently, he was not dead yet. The blond knight saw as Izek landed on a pile of crushed boulders and glanced his way for a second, murder clear in his blood-colored eyes.

Come to think of it, the white-haired captain of the Knights of Longinus should not have been the only one that was in the zone.

Ivan bit the inside of his cheek and tried to focus on the battle.

Izek was struggling because he was fighting the dragon with the intent to not kill it, but to incapacitate it. But holding oneself back in a fight against a damn dragon was not something that was easily done, not to mention something actually quite idiotic to do.

The only way to survive this battle was to fight to the death, but that was not what Izek was doing. The only way to subdue that big b*st*rd was to hit maximum levels and enter the zone, but it was not easy for Ivan to watch his friend, who had already exhausted all of his energy in the past few days, push himself to the absolute max in this state.

If only Izek would stop being stubborn and give the permission to kill.

Maybe if all of the Paladins present could enter the zone as well, they’d be able to subjugate the beast, consequences of pushing the physical limit be damned. The Frost Dragon would stand no chance against a league of top-class Paladins all at their peak even if the aftermath meant standing at death’s door.

Ivan really, really did want to encourage it.

But if everyone here lost their senses to the zone, there’d be no one to pull the worst one of the bunch out of it. Izek fought like there was no tomorrow. His recklessness made Ivan nervous.

The blond knight had half a mind to put an end to his friend’s resolve with his own two hands. “Idiot… All that just for your wife…”

“Ivan! We gotta regroup!”

“What the f**k are you talking about?! We don’t know if reinforcements are coming, so go wild and just finish it already! Did you become a Paladin yesterday? Why do none of you know how to use a goddamn sword? Pay attention, you f**king idiots!”

No one was able to truly take in the unexpected verbal abuse, purely because there was no time to do so.

That wretched dragon was shrieking its lungs out, slamming into all the walls surrounding it and swinging at everyone and everything with its razor-sharp claws.

The beast breathed ice and snow and the harsh winter wind razed through the air, knocking the knights back and slamming against Izek’s divine shield. The light that burst forth from the collusion turned the entire area white.

The terrain around the Moon Tower was wholly encased in heavy snow.

Without a moment’s rest, the silver-haired captain retracted the holy shield before jumping into the air and landing on the dragon’s head.

The sight was unbelievable. The man must’ve lost his mind.

“My wife said she wanted to stay alongside you.”

The Frost Dragon stayed still for a few seconds, maybe because of the man hammering its face with the pommel of his sword, shouting strange words that it didn’t understand, or maybe because the landing on its forehead was just too unexpected.

Growling ominously as the beast grew more and more annoyed with the irksome beating, the heavens and earth seemed to split into two as it let out an ear-splitting screech.

While the dragon was distracted with trying to shake Izek off, Ivan and the rest of the knights rushed straight in to attack. Since they weren’t meant to kill it, the assault was solely focused on the poor beast’s legs.

Paladins were flanking the dragon, poking holes and cutting through flesh and trying to stop it from spreading out its wings to fly away from the charge, but the lack of lethal intent from the warriors meant that there was no besting the servant of Satan.

The Frost Dragon raised its forelimbs and stretched its wings out with a forceful burst, then jumped into the air, losing the knights still hanging on to its legs as it slammed its body against the walls still standing tall in its ascent.

The Moon Tower, covered in white snow, slowly began to collapse.

The dragon took to the sky, higher and higher as if it were releasing its anger, tearing the Tower apart and breathing frost, the battlefield encased in ice and snow.

The hacking movements from holy swords sent out divine blasts of air from below and barreled into the biting wind the beast shot out, turning into frozen icicles that came down fast.

“Izek!”

Dust, debris, blinding lights from flashing swords, the bitter winter wind blowing roughly and the snow falling hid everything from sight, but Ivan could still see Izek between it all.

That madman was still hanging on to the Frost Dragon.

To be precise, the madman was holding on to the sword he had plunged between the beast’s scales whilst it was twisting and turning, doing everything it could to shake off the annoyance stuck to its back.

The dragon floated in midair for a moment, suddenly stopping the flapping of its wings and then dived down, plummeting and rushing towards the ground. It happened before Ivan could finish blinking. He didn’t even have the time to yell at his friend to let go.

The terrible sound of the crash seemed to echo throughout the city and even the lands beyond. Then, all fell silent.

“Hey… You punk…”

The heavy weight on Ivan’s chest had him heaving and gasping for air, until someone cleared away the piles of stones crushing him.

It was Ruve who was standing over him, one dimly lit eye hidden behind a monocle, the other behind an eyepatch. His fellow minority elite helped him up and brush off the dust, coughing all the while. Ruve seemed unharmed, miraculously.

Ivan turned around and took in his surroundings.

The Frost Dragon, the embodiment of calamity and destroyer of Elendale’s architecture, was no longer roaring or growling.

Without making a single sound, it was staring at something under its foot, its ears and wings lowered and neck slightly bent forward. The image of a predator having caught its prey.

It exhaled and steam blew from its blue snout, the loud noise sending shivers down Ivan’s spine.

Frost was growing slowly from the place where the prey was trapped, everything becoming shrouded in ice. There was no doubt. It was Izek that was trapped under there.

Damn, this was already the second time in just one day.

Once under the Undead Dragon and now under the Frost Dragon, the same f**king pain flattening him to the ground and breaking his ribs.

Feverish fury turned the gold looking at him into burning fire, crazed bloodthirst lighting up reptilian eyes.

The silver-haired knight, facing the demon head-on without a single hint of fear on his worn-out face, wheezed and hacked up blood.

“It hurts, you damn b*st*rd…”

Ed.

/N: “Being in the zone” is a term used in the athlete world and is a mental state that enables one to perform to the best of one’s ability. You’re fully immersed in the feeling of performing and focused only on that. It’s a higher mental state of being once you enter it. In real life, it just means extreme focus on only the sport you’re performing at the moment, usually during a competition. In here, it means that the balance between divinity and the performing of swordsmanship has completely taken over and overwritten one’s senses.