The atmosphere in the city lord’s mansion was heavy. People hurried in and out, tense but orderly. Orders kept flying out from here to every corner of Alliance City. By the time Ophelia’s carriage pulled up, the guards who had been waiting for her rushed to escort her inside.
“Princess, this way, please!”
They walked all the way to the council chamber. Bexia followed behind Ophelia, but when they reached the door, the guards blocked him. He froze for a moment, then understood. This was a legion meeting. He was an outsider. How could he just walk in?
“Let him in.” A voice came from inside. Bexia could tell it was Bor.
Entering the council chamber, he saw long tables lined up, both sides already filled. Bexia spotted General Yudar, and beside him sat Bor.
“Kid, over here!” Bor called out to him.
“Okay.” Bexia walked over. Ophelia took the only empty seat that remained. Looking around the hall, he could more or less guess who everyone was.
Seven legion commanders from three kingdoms, plus Bor, another old man, and a beautiful woman in a shrine maiden’s outfit—ten people in total. Bexia, of course, didn’t count as part of this meeting.
Besides Bor, the three elders included the Thunder King Benjamin, the chief elementalist of Kingdom Yaro, whom Bexia had seen once before. As for the woman in shrine maiden robes, there was no need to ask; she was obviously from Kingdom Anzu. The three of them sat in a triangle, clearly on the same level as each other and above the rest. Their strength was definitely that of crowned champions.
“Stand for now. Wait till we’re done,” someone said.
“Fine.” Bexia nodded casually. He was only here to accompany Ophelia anyway. He’d been dragged in at someone else’s word. He had zero interest in the actual contents of the meeting, though since Bor had called him over, there had to be something Bor wanted to say to him later.
“Let’s start, then. The situation this time is anything but good. We need a foolproof plan. If those monsters break through Alliance City, the result… I don’t think I need to spell it out for anyone here.” The shrine maiden from Kingdom Anzu spoke first, sharp and direct.
“What’s it like on your sides?” Yudar looked toward the three champions. To be honest, what truly terrified him were champion‑class monsters. The rest were still manageable; as long as they paid the price, they could be killed. But champions weren’t just destructive—they were insanely hard to put down. Magic cannons and normal defensive gear barely touched them.
Only champions could fight champions.
From the moment the three main fortresses on the Dark Border were founded, it had been set in stone: champions would stall champion‑class monsters. The legions only dealt with monsters below champion level. The crowned champions would lure the champion‑class beasts away. Whether they bound them down or killed them didn’t matter—so long as the monster tide was crushed, the champions within it would retreat. In every monster war over the millennia, victory had never been decided by ordinary legions. Champions were the real foundation of the battlefield.
“This wave is on a whole different level. The results of our scouting aren’t encouraging. The number of champion‑class monsters coming at Alliance City is at least this much.” The Thunder King Benjamin lifted his hand. Lightning arced and danced, sketching a glowing “ten” in the air.
The legion commanders’ pupils shrank hard. The mood in the room sank at once. The silence felt suffocating.
Ten champion‑class monsters.
That was enough to wipe Alliance City off the map. In the thousands of years that humans had held the Dark Border, there had never been a siege with champions in double digits. Even a normal monster riot with three or four champion‑class monsters was already a big one. And now there were ten. It was a level of horror almost beyond imagination.
“No matter what, we have to stop these champion‑class monsters. If the line breaks, then…” If the monsters broke through into Godsend Continent proper, the consequences were beyond imagining.
“Request help from the Empire—” A legion commander from Kingdom Yaro had just started to suggest asking the Empire for support when Benjamin cut him off.
“This time it’s a real crisis. Not just our Alliance City sector—both the Lopez Empire and the Celt Empire’s lines are under heavy monster assault. They’ve got plenty of champions on their side too. They can’t spare anyone to support us.”
“How… how can this be…?” The legion commander from Kingdom Loya went pale, then flushed, then pale again. A formless fear rose up in his chest. He’d seen a champion‑class monster’s power with his own eyes, and exactly because of that, he was even more terrified of those walking natural disasters.
“We’ve run the numbers. Ten champion‑class monsters isn’t impossible to hold off. Besides the three of us, at most we can scrape together five more champions. That means, one‑on‑one, there are still two champions left to deal with,” Bor said. He said “deal with,” not “fight.” Champions could only truly be handled by other champions. Killing a champion‑class monster as a non‑champion wasn’t impossible, but they simply couldn’t afford the price right now.
“I should be able to stall one for a while,” General Yudar spoke up. His strength could be called invincible below champion level. With a flying dragon backing him up, dragging one out for some time wouldn’t be a problem.
“It’s not enough. Still not enough. Even if you fight to the death, there’s no way you can buy enough time. At the very least, we still need Commander Hel Yun and Commander Xinki on top of you. That’s the conclusion from our earlier discussions.”
“Loya’s right. And even with you three, I doubt you can stall them for long.” The Thunder King Benjamin followed up on what the woman called Loya had said.
These three legion commanders were the strongest in their respective kingdoms. Each one was a powerhouse at the Extreme level. Stalling a single champion‑class monster shouldn’t be a problem. But that would only cover one. What about the extra one? If that spare champion reached the range of Alliance City, there was no one who could keep this city standing.
“I’ll take the remaining champion‑class monster,” Ophelia suddenly said, standing up.
“Don’t be ridiculous! What do you think a champion‑class monster is? You really don’t know your own strength?” Bor glared at Ophelia and snapped, “Sit down!”
Looking at her, Bor knew very well: whoever stepped up here was walking to their death. If you wanted to buy time without a champion, you paid with lives. That had become an unspoken rule.
So what did Ophelia mean by standing up?
Kingdom Asman only had this one heir left. If anything happened to her, wouldn’t Asman’s royal bloodline just… end? There was no way Bor would let her go to her death. If he didn’t get angry over this, he wouldn’t be Bor.
