The plan devised by
The true key to this operation was, quite simply, the full might of the empire that remained in the fortress city of
A sprawling metropolis bristling with military forces, housing the minds and hearts that formed the very brain and soul of Volakia.
How long could they hold off the corpse army pressing in to seize it? That was the time limit of the final battle upon which the survival of the Volakia Empire hinged—and by extension, a critical flashpoint that would determine the fate not just of the empire, but of the entire world.
The more corpse forces that congregated at the fortress city, the more freely the "Rescue Squad" in the Imperial Capital could operate. At the same time, if the fortress city fell, even if the Imperial Capital's operation succeeded, rebuilding the empire afterward would be impossible.
In other words— "—This is truly the *Tennozan* that will decide the outcome of this battle."
With his knight's sword drawn, the tall figure of
The elegant knight's blade was aimed at the swarm of corpses attempting to scale the wall and infiltrate the city. The enemy drove weapons into the stone to create makeshift footholds and climbed upward—and Julius descended in a spinning slash that flashed mercilessly.
"I won't let you!"
His cuts struck the backs and arms of the corpses clinging to the wall, severing them and sending them tumbling to the ground below.
Then, leaping onto one of the swords the corpses had used as a foothold, Julius surveyed the countless weapons embedded in the wall and called out: "Alro! I need to borrow your wind!"
Immediately after his cry, a swirling green wind coiled through the air, wrenching the embedded weapons free in one fell swoop—and with them, all the corpses' painstakingly built scaffolding collapsed to nothing.
Finally, Julius stomped on the sword he'd used as a foothold, kicked off, and danced back atop the wall.
He tickled the green glow of his contracted spirit with a fingertip and let out a quiet breath.
He had managed to halt the enemies scaling this section of the wall, but he couldn't let his guard down.
Even if the outermost wall was breached, the city still had a second and third defensive line, not to mention a formidable fortress— "They've pushed this far already? That's faster than projected."
"—Dame Taritta."
The one who called out to Julius as he stood on the wall catching his breath was a dark-skinned woman with black hair streaked in blue—Taritta, the warrior woman who led the Shudrak.
All members of the Shudrak tribe were archers capable of engaging corpses from a distance, making them the core fighting force of the fortress city's siege defense. Among them, Taritta—who possessed exceptional archery skills even by Shudrak standards—was one of the pillars of their defensive strength at this point in time.
In fact, she was accomplishing the same thing Julius had done—knocking weapons free from the wall—but from atop the wall itself, by shooting them down with arrows, thereby preventing the corpses from scaling over.
Her skill was genuinely impressive, and he admired it greatly. But her words pointed to a harsh reality he couldn't ignore.
"In this short time, the front line has already been pushed this far back."
Julius murmured this as he gazed beyond the wall, his finger tracing the scar beneath his left eye.
Where his sharp gaze landed, the horizon shimmered—its wavering shape was the head of the corpse army surging toward them, and even visually, it was clear that an enormous, off-the-scale force was bearing down on them.
The defensive lines that had originally been established outside the walls had been breached, and the Imperial soldiers fighting outside were being forced to fall back and consolidate their positions. Naturally, given the staggering numbers of the enemy, this outcome had been anticipated— "Every now and then, a particularly tough corpse slips in among the ranks. They're a real nuisance."
"I agree. As soon as we spot one, we have to dispatch our best fighters to deal with it immediately, but—"
Julius had barely finished speaking when— —!!
In the battlefield below, a group that had been fighting together was blasted away all at once.
Looking down, the ones sent hurtling through the air with thick screams were none other than members of the *Pleiades Battalion*—the elite fighters Subaru had brought along as reinforcements to the Imperial Capital.
Whether through some cunning stratagem, it was a female corpse—a horrifying, savage-looking woman whose very appearance stood out even among the horde—who had scattered them. She wielded greatswords in both hands—or rather, had fused both her arms into greatswords.
"Damn it... you've got to be kidding me...!"
"Wait, wait, wait, wait! Don't charge in without a plan! You'll just burden the others!"
"Fall back! Surround her together and take her down!"
Faced with that monstrous corpse, the group she'd struck managed to stubbornly pick themselves back up.
That no one had died and their fighting spirit remained unbroken was commendable. But even from Julius's perspective, this female warrior's abilities were unmistakably top-tier.
He needed to rush to their aid immediately. Julius handed the wall's defense over to Taritta and was about to leap down— "No need—the *Lion Knight* already went."
The voice that struck Julius's eardrums was conspicuously cheerful, entirely at odds with the battlefield. And the information that voice delivered immediately changed the situation below.
It was Goz, wielding his golden warhammer, who had charged in beneath the two-handed greatsword warrior.
"We've never had the chance to face each other, but I'd never mistake those skills! You've been revived, *Sword Slave Empress*!!"
Goz's warhammer and the female warrior's greatswords clashed, and a shockwave tore across the battlefield.
Both wielded superheavy weapons that ordinary people couldn't so much as lift, and the ferocity of their impacts sent Imperial soldiers and corpses alike flying like toys in a gale.
The exchange was dead even—neither side yielded a step—but the enemy's advance had halted. That battlefield was best left to Goz.
"I appreciate you stopping her, Lord Flop."
"Ha ha ha, don't worry about it! We need Subaru and Taritta to stay focused on the fights right in front of them, after all! For a non-combatant like me, this is about the extent of what I can contribute!"
Flop answered with his characteristic carefree laugh, unchanged even on a battlefield.
A non-combatant and the brother of an imperial consort candidate, he was supposed to have been ordered to remain inside the fortress. His appearance on the front-line wall left Taritta stunned.
"Flop!? Why are you here...?"
"Well, the situation has become an all-out war, hasn't it? Even those who can't fight have plenty to do—rescuing the wounded, repairing equipment, things of that nature. Naturally, I'm one of them."
Tapping his thin chest, Flop held out a quiver to Taritta.
She took it instinctively. She already had a quiver on her back, but her remaining arrow count was worryingly low—Flop's resupply was exactly what she needed.
He must have been distributing quivers to the other Shudrak on the wall as well.
Including non-combatants, everyone fights. His actions embodied that very principle.
"How's the battle going?"
"—Everyone is fighting hard. As long as we stay purely on the defensive, we should be able to hold the wall for a while longer. But even that—"
"—changes completely if a *Dragon Rider* shows up on their side."
Julius finished Taritta's thought for her when she hesitated. At this, Flop's expression hardened.
For a young man who always wore a bright, cheerful smile, the mere act of sobering his features carried an eerie weight of gravity. But it was only natural for him to do so.
Any citizen of the Volakia Empire knew just how formidable a *Dragon Rider* was.
—— Immediately after the battle began, the first wave—swarms of dead wyverns, or *corpse dragons*—had been repelled by a coordinated assault from Julius and the Shudrak. The scattered airborne threats that followed were being handled reliably by the Shudrak, who had been assigned the role of corpse-dragon hunters.
But that was only possible because there were no corpse *Dragon Riders* among their opponents.
A lone wyvern without a rider and a wyvern partnered with a *Dragon Rider* were not remotely comparable.
A single *Dragon Rider* pair could overpower a flock of a hundred wyverns with ease. That was the caliber of enemy they represented—a force that leveraged the sky with tactical precision.
—Once before, Julius had crossed swords with a *Dragon Rider*.
At the time, he had scraped out a miraculous victory thanks to
There couldn't have been more than two *Dragon Riders* of that caliber in the entire empire. But if the corpse line produced not just corpse dragons, but *Dragon Riders* mounted upon them, the situation would change entirely.
"Of course, the reason the city's skies haven't been lost yet is precisely because the cases of both a rider and their beloved dragon being revived together are exceedingly rare."
Flop's assessment was, given the current state of the siege, most likely correct.
*Dragon Riders* were a fearsome threat, but the bond between rider and dragon was forged over a long period of mutual trust. Without achieving perfect unity of person and beast, they could not display their true strength.
That principle held even for the dead revived through extraordinary means.
Unless the corpse dragon had been together with its rider since before death, the existence known as a *Corpse Dragon Rider* could not come into being.
That was presumably why no *Corpse Dragon Riders* had yet appeared over the fortress city.
"...Though it's ironic that the one rare exception was the most formidable *Dragon Rider* of all."
What shattered that fragile reassurance was a *Corpse Dragon Rider* that Julius had witnessed with his own eyes.
During the battle of the Linked Dragon Carriages, a corpse—Barroy Temegriff—had appeared, mounted on the very dragon he had ridden in life, cutting through enemy lines with overwhelming mobility.
If he were deployed to this battlefield, a single rider could collapse the entire siege line.
Or perhaps he might appear at any moment— "I don't think we need to worry about that."
"Lord Flop?"
"Even if other *Dragon Riders* were revived, there's no need to worry about Barroy showing up."
Flop spoke with a confidence that bordered on certainty, both in his tone and his expression, denying Julius's apprehension.
Julius furrowed his brow at this. Taritta, who had just confirmed her arrow striking a corpse's knee as it scaled the wall, also asked: "Whatever makes you so certain?"
"Because Barroy knew that Medium and I were aboard the Linked Dragon Carriages. Naturally, he'd assume we're in this fortress city. He'd be reluctant to come here, wouldn't he?"
"That's..."
Flop closed one eye as he gave his answer, leaving Taritta at a loss for words.
Julius shared her skepticism. Flop's reasoning wasn't exactly convincing. If he was banking on Barroy's lingering human emotions or mercy even in undeath— "I'm sorry, but we can't place any hope in their pre-death personalities. Zombies... the thinking of the dead has been warped. If it hadn't been, it would be impossible for this many corpses to cooperate in the destruction of their own homeland."
Indeed, an unfathomable number of corpses had been mobilized—enough to fill the horizon to its very edge.
It was hard to believe that every last one of them had harbored such deep-seated hatred for Volakia in life that they had taken up arms the moment they were revived.
The natural assumption was that the necromancer who revived them was manipulating the corpses at will.
At Julius's point, Flop nodded while scratching his cheek.
"I share Subaru's view. The deceased have had their thoughts altered. But I believe there's still something that hasn't changed."
"You think Barroy, at least, retains his human feelings and mercy?"
"Now *that* would be quite the emotional moment! But that's not it, Subaru. I think you and Taritta would be better at noticing this than I would."
"*We* would?"
Finding no common ground between them, Julius and Taritta exchanged glances.
If there was something that Flop—who had known Barroy in life—couldn't pick up on, but Julius who had fought him and Taritta who had never even met him could, then that would be— "—His fighting style."
"———"
"Even if their thoughts have been altered from how they were in life, if their fighting style was stripped away too, there would be no point in reviving them. That's why the dead fight the way they did when they were alive. Am I wrong?"
"...I can't say for certain, but that's highly likely."
He hadn't fought the corpses extensively, nor did he know their living selves in any depth, but Flop's deduction hit the mark.
At Julius and Taritta's affirmative reactions, Flop smiled.
A smile tinged with nostalgia and sorrow—an overwhelmingly melancholic one.
"If Barroy were going to come here, he would have been the very first to arrive, ahead of anyone else, and punched straight through this city's vital points. But Barroy Temegriff, the *Magic Bullet Marksman*, didn't lead the charge. That's my reason for believing he isn't on this battlefield."
△▼△▼△▼△ —Barroy Temegriff was, as a matter of principle, strongly opposed to wasting his subordinates' lives.
That said, this was not because he rejected Volakia's *Iron Blood's Creed* or opposed imperialism out of some brand of humanitarianism.
The imperial philosophy of valuing the strong and trampling the weak was, in fact, convenient for Barroy, who had been born into a destitute commoner's household. To exploit the mechanics of that society to rise in rank, only to turncoat the moment he achieved status—that would have been hypocritical.
In truth, Barroy had never engaged with imperialism all that deeply. It simply existed, and his temperament and talents happened to be compatible with it.
Therefore, Barroy's aversion to wasting his subordinates' lives had nothing to do with imperialism in the final analysis.
It was a perspective Barroy had acquired through others—a lesson taught to him later in life.
—Two people had profoundly shaped Barroy's character.
One was his benefactor, Serina Draukloits, who had recognized his talent, taken him in, and given him the opportunity for education and for meeting his beloved dragon.
The other was
These two encounters—and the days that followed—had woven together the imperial and the unimperial in complex ways, forging the character of Barroy Temegriff.
And that character, once forged, despised the waste of subordinates' lives.
Subordinates were people within his reach—his own. He hated seeing his own sacrificed.
That was why, when he joined the premeditated coup—engineered to suit the emperor's agenda—he had gone alone, without bringing a single subordinate along.
In the end, that decision cost him his life. Which meant Barroy's judgment had been, paradoxically, correct.
—No matter what, fighting meant death on both sides.
He took other people's lives himself. He couldn't ask for an exception to that rule for his own people alone. If he wanted to uphold that principle anyway, he had no choice but to achieve it through his own strength, not someone else's.
And so, the conclusion Barroy Temegriff arrived at was the fastest possible sniper kill.
Using his beloved dragon's wings to command the sky, creating the perfect moment of his own volition, and piercing the vital point—the heart—of his target in the blink of an eye. That was the optimal path to fulfilling his wish.
Barroy was a man of the empire. He wouldn't lose a wink of sleep over how many enemies died.
But he couldn't bear to see his own people perish. Therefore, Barroy's sniping sought the fastest resolution possible. He was convinced this was the best method to minimize harm to his own side, regardless of who the enemy was.
And so— "I hear you,
Answering the call from his dead beloved dragon, Barroy rose from beside the bedside.
On the bed before him lay Madeline, unconscious and peaceful. Her consciousness had already returned to
Needless to say, deploying the *Dragon* in the Imperial Capital would be far too dangerous an excess of firepower.
But when considering the enemy they faced, the fact that such overwhelming force might not even be enough was terrifying.
"You were one of my people, but something doesn't sit right, does it, people of the empire."
The notion that there existed a monster capable of not merely rivaling but surpassing a *Dragon*—the most formidable creature in existence—was itself an aberration.
On paper, he had been listed alongside them, but Barroy didn't believe his own abilities stood on the same level as those extraordinary beings.
Still, strength and victory were not in absolute correlation.
Barroy parted the sky-blue hair falling over Madeline's forehead, then made his way to the balcony where his beloved dragon waited. En route, he grabbed the spear propped against the wall. There, with wings folded, Carillon stood on the white terrace, his back turned.
When Barroy stroked the base of those wings, the dragon rubbed its long neck against his shoulder.
They had known each other since hatching from the egg. Even back when Carillon was small and weak—a baby wyvern—this habit hadn't changed.
"My habits and tastes don't change even in death. ...Though I guess I'm one to talk."
Barroy muttered this with a touch of self-deprecation, then gave the back he'd been stroking a brisk slap. At the signal, Carillon lowered his body, and Barroy vaulted onto his back in one fluid motion, settling into a forward-facing position.
From the Crystal Palace balcony, looking out over the vast expanse of the Imperial Capital, the once beautiful and orderly cityscape was marred and broken in patches, suffused with the stench of war.
That atmosphere of battle wasn't limited to the Imperial Capital—it permeated the entire empire, and nowhere more powerfully than at the fortress city of Garkla, where the bulk of the corpse army had been directed.
The fortress city had swallowed the evacuees and Imperial soldiers from the capital, and fierce fighting raged within. Ordinarily, Barroy should have marched out to join the siege.
However— *'I understand that you may feel... apprehensive. As there is a risk you will not perform at your full capability, the situation cannot be considered optimal. The call is yours to make.'* The necromancer who had revived Barroy—the one who called herself the *
Of course, Barroy had also been expected to play the role of keeping Madeline—who had defected to their side—under control and maintaining the *Cloud Dragon* Mezoreia as an ally. There was no question about that.
He had thoughts about that assigned role, but even setting it aside, being left behind in the Imperial Capital worked in Barroy's favor.
Because it meant he wouldn't have to cross paths with the familiar brother and sister waiting in the fortress city—or so it wasn't.
This, too, was part of Sphinx's assessment, and Barroy himself intuited it: "If it were Your Excellency, you would come."
The Vincent Volachia that Barroy knew was a cold and ferocious emperor.
In peacetime, he would never leave his castle, but when it came to the final reckoning, he would always be there under his own power. This wasn't unique to Vincent—it was a tradition of the Volachian emperors.
It could also be said to stem from the *Iron Blood's Creed*, considered the imperial way.
And precisely because Vincent despised the Volakia Empire more than anyone yet endeavored to faithfully fulfill his role as its emperor, he would surely come to the Imperial Capital.
To destroy Sphinx, the mastermind behind this *Great Calamity*—with the *Sun Blade* in hand.
"I was thoroughly outplayed that time, you know."
At the *Great Calamity's* inception, when neither the corpses nor Barroy's own existence had been anticipated—an opening couldn't have been more perfect. Yet Barroy's surprise attack hadn't reached Vincent.
Chisha's sacrifice had saved the emperor, and the fastest path to victory in the *Great Calamity* had been foreclosed.
However— "Next time, there won't be anyone to serve as your shield, Your Excellency."
He would not let the next opportunity slip by.
If Vincent charged into the Imperial Capital himself, Barroy would pierce his heart without fail. That would sever the last hope of the Volakia Empire.
And then, the threat of the *Great Calamity* would press north, and even the
—— Raising his head at the sensation tickling his nape, Barroy couldn't believe his own eyes.
Mounted on Carillon's back, hovering over the Imperial Capital as it became a battlefield, Barroy had been scanning intently for his target, Vincent, making sure not to miss any change on the field.
And from beyond his vigilance, it had come straight for the Crystal Palace.
—From directly above the most beautiful castle in the world, blazing fireballs rained down in succession.
"Carillon!"
At the sharp call, his beloved dragon spread its wings in an instant. The lift generated by a single wingbeat sent its massive body soaring into the skies above the Imperial Capital. With each powerful beat, both speed and altitude climbed sharply, and the wyvern carrying Barroy rose into the sky.
To block their ascent, fireballs the size of grown men plummeted mercilessly down on them. —Barroy aimed his spear.
"No good."
In Barroy's hand, the spearpoint aimed skyward took on a faint glow. In the same instant, an invisible bolt of light was loosed, colliding with the falling fireballs. Midair explosions erupted, painting the sky red.
Not just once. Two, three—thirteen shots in rapid succession, each bolt of light shooting down a fireball. The roar swallowed the capital's sky, and Barroy and Carillon plunged through the billowing flames.
"What in blazes are you playing at—firing from above the clouds!"
Cutting through the rain of flame, Barroy nonetheless marveled at the enemy's skill.
If the fireballs had flown straight at the castle, or arced through the air like arrows or catapult stones, the Crystal Palace's defenders could have easily tracked them. The fact that even Barroy couldn't was self-evident—the fireballs had been launched from far away, flown over the thick cloud cover above the capital, and arrived directly above the Crystal Palace before plunging straight down.
In words, what the enemy had done was simple and straightforward. But executing it was an endeavor with an abyssal gap between theory and practice—a divine feat of hurling stones from several kilometers away, over clouds, to hit a target. And to do so without even using their hands made it even more terrifying.
Still, Barroy was among those rare in the empire who could use magic, even if only in a single specialized application.
"Guess I'd better return the favor."
Having finished processing the incoming fireballs, Carillon wheeled in the sky. Clinging tight to his dragon's back, Barroy directed his consciousness far to the south of the Imperial Capital.
The area south of the Crystal Palace, near the capital's gates, was guarded by Mezoreia. Judging from the distance and angle of the launched fireballs, the enemy was positioned somewhat to the west—and around Barroy's left eye, the black sclera with its golden pupil, the air shimmered softly.
This wasn't a change to Barroy's face, but to the air near his left eye.
Through magical light refraction, Barroy created a telescope to peer into the distance. Peering through his left eye and aiming his spearpoint squarely, he prepared to fire.
With a wyvern's speed to secure range and angle, combining his light-shot specialization for extreme long-range sniping with the light telescope that never missed its mark, Barroy prepared to fight.
On a flat plain with no obstructions, Barroy could hit a moving target several kilometers away with a bolt of light.
—— This time, too, that was his intention. Barroy closed his right eye and focused all his consciousness on his left.
The non-existent telescope conjured by light refraction soared across the Imperial Capital's cityscape, past landmark after landmark, until it captured the figure of the one who had hurled fireballs at the Crystal Palace— "Midi..."
He exhaled the name in a ragged breath. And Barroy Temegriff's telescope revealed her clearly.
Her golden hair gleaming like sunlight, she was carried aloft in the arms of a long-robed man—and looking straight at Barroy, the one she should not have been able to see, with those blue eyes.
And her lips, without a sound, formed words that rang clearly in Barroy's heart: "I won't let you run off on your own anymore. Talk to me properly, Bar-nii."