Medith spun and danced in midair, eyes on the porcelain-blue sky; the dawn sun hung high, a blazing crown over all things. From her height, the plain below was a crawling quilt of iron riders, a black-armored host flooding the earth like ants.
Only their exposed eyes showed it—confusion, shock, a chill like winter water—fixed on that green-haired silhouette above.
“What’s she doing?” A commander yanked his warhorse to a halt and ordered the column to stop.
“Crossbowmen, shoot her down.” At his shout, hundreds drew black crossbows, leveled them, and loosed death.
“Melia…” Relief softened Medith’s face as she ignored the scythes whistling past like reapers in the wind; acceptance settled on her like clear frost.
Whooo— She toe-tapped the air, climbed a few meters by a hair’s breadth, slipped past the rain of bolts, then bent, and looked down from tens of meters up.
“Melia! Watch closely! Today, Medith stands on the Southern Kingdom’s border and cuts down our foes. Your sacrifice wasn’t for nothing—nor for some hellbound demonizing brew to drag me down.
I’ll carry your share and live. I’ll finish our aim. I’ll gather the Divine Stones and bring Xier back.
I, Medith—keep my word—
Re—gi—”
“Ah!!!” The leader in black-and-red plate saw doomsday and went mad, waving his people back. “Fall back! Back—!”
They didn’t know what was coming, but years of drilling moved their bodies before their minds caught up.
“—do—!” Her note stretched, bright as crystal and heavy with grief, its clear beauty echoing along the border of the Southern Kingdom.
Then a holy sun bloomed, radiant and bone-white, lighting the world; every gaze filled with that sacred, terrifying orb.
Inside that light, Medith’s sun-mantle flared. Daylight erased her features; only twin emerald eyes, cold and merciless, shone through, green hair streaming—and then—
K-thoom— woooooahhh—!
BOOM— rrrr-rrr-rrr—!
The earth shuddered, and the sky cracked with a single detonation.
That white sun struck ground and punched up a world-ending mushroom cloud. Within the Annihilation Zone, over a thousand Southern Kingdom soldiers never even cried out; men and gear turned to drifting white motes, scattered into the air, gone without a trace.
Directly beneath Medith, Kneil—still falling, not yet broken on the earth—simply vaporized, like graphite brushed away by a rubber eraser; no shadow left to find.
Woooo… woooooo—
Then came five long seconds of a Destruction Ring. Within five hundred meters, every soldier of the Southern Kingdom bore the weight of heaven and earth. Most had their armor shattered in the first three seconds and died bleeding from every opening.
Only a few used sheer Lawbreaking Ability to blunt that crushing wave. The last sweep was a Cyclone, roaring across a full kilometer.
The howling Cyclone hurled sand and shards into the sky, even ripping fragile rocks from the ground and flinging them a hundred meters up, then raining their fury down.
Eight seconds felt like eight years. When breath finally returned, the field lay in wreck and ruin; the Iron Cavalry that charged to reap the kill were almost entirely wiped out.
Nearly a thousand massive war-horses sprawled across the plain. Corpses littered the ground. Some riders were simply gone; beside one quake-killed stallion, only the muscled body remained—its heavy black armor seemed to have evaporated.
Its bulging eyes told the horror it had seen.
“Hah… hah…” The commander’s shoulder-length scarlet pheasant plume had been snapped by the gale; his breath came ragged. He hadn’t cleared Medith’s Magic Breaker range in time and took the Destruction Ring head-on. If he hadn’t raised his own Magic Breaker fast enough, he would’ve died on the spot.
Even so, the losses defied counting. In a mere eight seconds of Magic Breaker transformation, the thousand-strong Iron Cavalry were annihilated; thousands were swept into the Magic Breaker Circle, casualties ghastly; the after-blast shredded the entire formation.
Worst of all, this Magic Breaker crushed their pride.
They had been arrogant, eyes above all, riding their famous name and overwhelming force. They’d never tasted fear—not even at Talant of the Eastern Nation, wrapped in legend.
But now they saw the corpses strewn like withered leaves. Ahead, a sprite girl held a greatsword glowing milky-white, a deity descended to earth. She stood, stepped over a mountain of bones, and walked toward them—one slow, inevitable step at a time.
