Chapter 1011: The Forward Gear
Endless torrents of magical energy surged around him, transformed by the spell matrix into dazzling light and heat. Every vein and nerve in his body became a blazing source of power, as if molten lava churned between his flesh and organs. Clement felt as though he was burning alive. Everything in his vision twisted and warped under the intense heat, turning into a strange, white-hot hallucination. It reminded him of the magical conduits he had observed in the lab just before they burned out… If those conduits had consciousness, would they have seen something like this in their final moments?
In the next fraction of a second, Clement heard a sharp, snapping crack deep within his soul. His senses suddenly heightened, as if he were surveying the entire world from above. He clearly saw every trace of magic flowing around him, the immense energy surging within the war machine beside him, and even the fierce battle raging in the sky behind—under the power of miracles, he had broken through to the legendary realm.
Then, a massive explosion swallowed everything.
Clement’s final consciousness echoed through a communication spell, piercing the raging blizzard, crossing the vast battlefield, and projecting directly to distant Winter Fortress—
“Watch out! Parin! They have dragons!!”
…
The explosion was so violent it tore a visible rift through the blizzard. Steam clouds billowing from the armored train’s cooling vents were instantly scattered by the shockwave. Mariland, about to board the Iron Scepter, was startled by the earth-shaking blast. Following the sound, he saw a small mushroom cloud rising from the tail of the Dust Serpent.
From the tactical segment backward, half the armored train’s carriages had been engulfed in the blast. The residual magical energy then surged into the power spine, detonating the remaining cars one after another.
The self-destruct devices installed in the Iron Throne alone could never have caused such devastation.
“Is that some kind of Typhon weapon?” the adjutant exclaimed in shock. “A super bomb? Why are they only using it now?”
“…It was a self-detonation, sir. I saw it,” a staff officer swallowed nervously. “I saw a mage falling from the sky—probably a mage—surrounded by writhing tendrils and tumors growing all over him…”
Mariland said nothing, only watching the rising mushroom cloud. After a few seconds, he nodded slightly toward it, then turned and boarded the armored train behind him.
Fireballs and lightning intertwined in the blizzard. Beneath the dark, clouded sky, Typhon and Cecil’s aerial forces continued their desperate struggle. On the ground, the massive war machine Dust Serpent finally came to a halt on the destroyed tracks. Another armored train roared through the snow, smoke, and wreckage, racing toward the Shadow Marsh.
Damage control teams had already extinguished the fires inside the armored train. The Iron Scepter’s dense anti-aircraft fire roared again, weaving a deadly net of magic crystal shells and high-energy beams that mowed down the remaining attackers in the sky. Dragons and flying machines darted through the clouds, further squeezing the maneuvering space of battle mages and griffon knights. The entire scene resembled a chaotic tapestry, twisted through time and space—
And this tapestry was nearing its final stroke.
The commander’s death had not shattered the Typhon aerial forces. The griffon knights, their morale unwavering, continued to carry out their orders with full resolve. The surviving battle mages squeezed out the last reserves of human potential to press their advantage. They had noticed that one of the two armored trains—the infamous main battle vehicle—had been destroyed, and the other was badly damaged, billowing thick smoke. In a sense, they had achieved their planned objectives, though at a far greater cost than expected.
They no longer had the strength to destroy the remaining train, nor to withdraw from this dreadful battlefield.
The dragon rider fighters, previously forced to retreat due to heavy losses, returned to the combat zone. Under the dragons’ cover, these tireless flying machines began to hunt down the griffon knights and battle mages, who had nearly exhausted their “miracle” powers. Human and griffon corpses rained from the sky, quickly swallowed by the blizzard.
A battle mage paused midair among the clouds, gasping for breath as he looked around. Suddenly, he realized the aerial battlefield had thinned out.
Where once dense formations had darted through the clouds, only a handful of scattered squads remained—mostly hastily reassembled units. The most fanatical griffon knights had already been wiped out. Now, only a few grotesquely mutated knights, barely human in form, charged at the dragons soaring above. The roars and explosions from all directions gradually faded, and the anti-aircraft fire from the ground had ceased without anyone noticing.
A deep, majestic roar suddenly echoed nearby, carrying a terrifying power that made the battle mage instinctively assume a defensive stance. The next moment, a colossal figure burst from the thick clouds beside him—a black dragon clad in full armor. Steel plates armored its massive wings and claws; a fearsome ram was mounted on its jaw. Though the missile launchers hanging from its sides had been damaged in battle, the mage knew that at this close range, the creature could kill him with just its claws and breath.
It was time to serve the empire.
The battle mage steeled himself, but the black dragon merely hovered before him, silently locking eyes. In those enormous eyes reflected the distant clouds and snow. The nerve-wracking standoff lasted several seconds before the dragon suddenly nodded—whether real or imagined, the gesture seemed tinged with approval. Then, the lord of the sky spread its wings, soared upward in a flash, and vanished into the depths of the clouds.
The dragon host had retreated.
Blinking in disbelief, the battle mage looked around and realized all the griffon knights had been wiped out.
The Cecil flying machines had withdrawn, the dragons had retreated, and the armored train had pulled back. The mountainous land below was littered with wreckage—human, griffon, machine. Thick smoke and lingering flames billowed among the ruins but were visibly dying out. The blizzard was gradually swallowing everything.
On the 35th day of the Mist Moon, Year 2 of Cecil, above the Winter Wolf Fortress defense line, the first recorded large-scale aerial battle in human history came to an end.
…
Parin Winterfort stepped into the now lifeless assembly hall, accompanied by a squad of mage guards and royal knights. The stench of blood and the eerie scene before him made him frown, while some of his attendants whispered in shock.
The vast circular hall’s ritual fire had long since died out. Only a few faint embers flickered in the massive brazier. Around it, the priesthood who had taken part in the ceremony were all reduced to mummified husks, their bodies coated in an iron-gray sheen. Dried bloodstains stretched from their feet to the brazier at the center. Viewed from above, the scene resembled a dark blood sacrifice.
A dark blood sacrifice… something any sane church would abhor, only found in twisted, corrupt cults. Parin Winterfort had never imagined he would witness such a sight at the War God’s ritual site.
“Normally, ‘miracles’ require only the faithful’s sincere devotion. The true gods never demand a price beyond that,” the mage lord whispered to a nearby advisor. “But clearly, the War God exacted an extraordinary toll in this ‘miracle.’ All the priests involved were completely drained.”
“Out of control…” the advisor said gravely. “It seems prayers to the War God have become even more dangerous than before… The current balance is nearly at its limit.”
Parin approached the altar and glanced at a formless, crawling mass beside the brazier. He murmured to himself, “War cannot appease the gods. There is no sign of improvement… This aligns with His Majesty’s judgment.”
The advisor fell silent, then quietly asked, “My lord, what do you make of Count Clement’s last message before his death?”
“You mean about the ‘dragons’?” Parin raised an eyebrow, then slowly said after some thought, “Dragons… I have some intelligence on that. There have always been scattered rumors that Gawain Cecil himself has some connection to the dragonkind, but no evidence that the Cecil Empire has established diplomatic ties with true dragons. So, if I’m correct, the dragons Clement mentioned… are probably not real dragons, but dragonborn.”
“Dragonborn?” the advisor repeated instinctively. “You mean… the Holy Dragon Principality?”
“Cecil managed to open the door to the Holy Dragon Principality. Last year, they established relations with that mysterious realm,” Parin nodded gently. “Information about that country remains scarce, but one thing is certain: the Holy Dragon Principality has always identified as ‘dragonborn.’ They seem to possess some degree of draconic power, but some texts record that they are incomplete dragons, unable to fly or fight like true dragons… Whatever the truth behind this, it appears the Cecilians must have received help from these ‘dragonborn.’”
The advisor lowered his head regretfully. “…So, without realizing it, we’ve fallen far behind our opponent again.”
“Yes. We tried to establish contact with the Holy Dragon Principality, but after several setbacks, we gave up… This may be a huge loss,” Parin shook his head. “There may be more hidden truths behind this. We lack the means to investigate further. For now, let’s report everything that happened here truthfully to Aldern.”
As he spoke, he looked up through the circular skylight at the still clouded sky—the divine power had faded, and the clouds were now just ordinary clouds.
“No matter what the future holds, everything that happened here today… is destined to be recorded in history.”
Rosetta Augustus listened quietly to the battle reports coming in from the front lines, her face unreadable—neither sorrowful nor joyful. Ferdinand Wendell stood silently beside her, as still and statuesque as a sculpture.
The intelligence came directly from Winterburg. Despite the great distance, the delay was almost negligible. Thanks to the direct efforts of the Royal Mage Association and the Imperial Cabinet, the empire’s key communication systems had undergone costly, comprehensive upgrades in recent times. New transmission arrays had replaced the old magic-based methods, and the entire network of signal towers had been streamlined. Now, critical intelligence from the border regions could be delivered straight to Rosetta Augustus’s office without the usual tedious relays, transcriptions, or hand deliveries.
Before the blizzard at the border had even cleared, the Aldernan command already knew the outcome of the aerial battle.
When the transmission ended, Rosetta fell silent for a moment, then turned to Ferdinand. “Lord Ferdinand, what’s your assessment?”
“In terms of immediate gains, we’ve finally shattered the Cecil forces’ offensive in the Shadow Marshes. For the foreseeable future, they won’t be able to launch their ‘Iron Advance’ with armored trains—though they still have two, they can’t bring both to the front. We also succeeded in wiping out a significant portion of their air power and uncovered some of their capabilities. This is the first time since the war began that we’ve gained such a clear advantage in the skies. Of course, the cost was steep—painfully so,” Ferdinand shook his head. “These gains came at the price of the complete destruction of the First, Second, and Fourth National Gryphon Knight Regiments. Count Clement was killed in action, and the two combat mage regiments under his command were nearly wiped out as well.”
“Out of 172 regular knight regiments, we’ve lost about a third by now… and ninety-six combat mage regiments have suffered roughly a tenth in casualties,” Rosetta sighed softly. “The price to purge the ‘contamination’ within the knight orders has been nothing short of enormous…”
Rosetta’s words deepened the gravity on Ferdinand’s face. The old duke knew these were far more than mere numbers.
This was the threshold the upper echelons of Typhon society could bear—the critical point at which the Augustus royal family’s authority could maintain order within the empire. Though the crown and some powerful nobles were aware of the war’s hidden truths—that it was essentially a purge of “contamination”—this was not something that could be resolved with simple arithmetic.
Every day, the front lines claimed lives. The royal family kept sending soldiers and nobles alike into the “Winter Wolf Fortress meat grinder.” The pressure was mounting, and the empire’s capacity to endure it had limits.
Even with the emperor’s unmatched skill and the awe-inspiring authority of the crown, that respect and trust could not be drained indefinitely.
“That’s enough,” Rosetta said softly, almost to herself.
Ferdinand looked at her sharply. “Your Majesty?”
“Prepare yourself, Lord Ferdinand,” Rosetta rose from behind her desk, speaking as casually as if she were giving instructions for dinner. “It’s about time we head to the front.”
Ferdinand froze, then his eyes widened. “You can’t possibly—”
“This is a necessary step,” Rosetta said calmly. “You just make the preparations.”
He stared into her eyes for several long seconds, as if finally grasping the full weight of her decision. Then he exhaled deeply. “I understand, Your Majesty.”
(End of chapter)