“Winged drakes… dread tyrannosaurs, long‑bodied three‑legged beasts, and a cyclops.” Inside the Divine Warrior’s cockpit, Isaac recited the list like a drumbeat in rain.
He swept a glance over the heaps of corpses under the iron feet, and the ground carved open like butchered slabs. His smile cut cold as a knife. “Your soldiers are useless, so you send beasts on leashes? What a flock of cowards, hahaha.”
Another man sat in the front seat, hands steady on the controls like reins on a warhorse. “Your Highness, the Divine Warrior’s core is at thirty‑nine percent,” the knight said, eyes fixed forward like a hawk. “Do we continue fighting? Awaiting orders.”
Isaac stifled the laugh, frost closing over his face like night over a field. A breath of silence passed like a held arrow, then he asked, “Are the United Legions still behind us?”
The knight tapped the panel, and a small window bloomed like a rearview mirror in a river. “The Fourth and Twenty‑Third have retreated,” he reported, voice even as a metronome.
“The First and Third, plus six reserve legions without knights—eight units in all—are still on our heels like a tide.”
The small window showed a thousand human soldiers, bodies torn but eyes burning like coals. Isaac’s gaze held a glint of approval, a brief spark like sunlight on steel.
Then he looked at the dwindling core gauge, the red line sinking like a winter sun. “What if we drop them here?” he asked, voice dry as wind over stone.
“As for results, Your Highness, your recent standing in the ranks will suffer,” the knight answered, as plain as rain.
“Then we fight.”
The knight’s eyes flew wide like startled birds. He turned, disbelieving. “You mean we clear the beasts?”
“No,” Isaac said, voice as flat as a blade on a whetstone. “Kill the cyclops and the dread tyrannosaur. Leave the rest to rot.”
“Understood,” the knight replied, steadiness settling like dust on a floor.
At the order, the Divine Warrior surged forward like a thunderhead rolling. A lance of mana ripped out, a white river that bored through the cyclops’s skull.
As the cyclops toppled like a felled pine, the dread tyrannosaur threw its roar to the sky like a storm. It charged, a landslide in scaled flesh.
The Divine Warrior flared Battle Aura, fire sheathing iron like dawn on armor. It swung the great iron sword, a tower falling through wind, and the tyrannosaur crashed to earth in one blow.
Behind, soldiers saw stubborn nightmares crumble like clay idols, and their spirits rose like banners in a gale. “Long live the Heavenly Spirit Empire!!” they shouted, voices pounding like war drums.
They rushed in one wave, heads high like spears, believing shoulder to shoulder with the Empire’s Divine Warrior could shatter the rest.
Only the United Legions charged like a flood, though. The Divine Warrior slipped away in the dust like a shadow at dusk, abandoning them to the churn.
They didn’t know they’d been left, and their blood scattered across the field like red rain.
Back at the United Legions’ camp at the foot of the Leighton Highlands, Isaac stepped from the cockpit and stood on the Divine Warrior’s shoulder like a statue on a gate. “For the Heavenly Spirit Empire, for all Nordland, they fell with honor!” he declared, voice ringing like a bell.
Officers and men believed with bright eyes like torches, and they roared back, “Long live the Heavenly Spirit Empire!!”
He returned to the cockpit and watched their fervor flare like brushfire. His mouth curled, icy as a mountain stream. “In the end, they’re just humans. Without the Heavenly Spirit Empire’s aid, what right do they have to still be breathing?”
“Your words are exact,” the knight said, agreeable as a nod. “Humans ought to be the Empire’s vassals.”
The Divine Warrior rolled into the RV that doubled as a maintenance bay, metal settling like a beast in its den. They disembarked, and Isaac eyed the stack of paperwork like a snowdrift.
Half a day gone, and it had piled up like weeds after rain. He frowned, then reclined in a soft chair like a raft on a lake, sighing. “What a hassle. I’d love to drop it all.”
“As Lady Satia advised, Your Highness, while you forge war merit, you must also handle affairs yourself,” the knight said, voice level as a plumb line.
“Tch.”
With that dissatisfied breath, Isaac sat up, his gaze sweeping the desk like a broom. Most were requests for logistics and allocation, paper leaves rustling like dry reeds.
The Republic’s border defense line stretches long as a river, and logistics matter like bread and water. Among the Celestial Spirits, Isaac is wild at table yet not useless in the field, and he set to work with careful hands like a watchmaker.
When half the files were gone like chipped ice, he had the legions’ shape in mind like a map. He picked up a request for dry rations and wine, signed approval, and flicked it aside like a spent match. “Keep this up and the legions’ grain won’t keep up,” he said, a cold smile like winter ash.
Food shortage has dogged the United Legions like a lean wolf. They aren’t starving, but they aren’t full; priority meals go to elite fists like iron.
“What are the humans in the Farm Country doing?” Isaac asked, words sharp as sleet. “Do they want the Empire to raise their taxes?”
The Farm Country—south of the Doran Kingdom, the Principality of Cren—sends grain like a tide, so it wears the name like a wreath. The knight, cued by the crown prince’s tone, delivered the news like a messenger at dusk. “Your Highness, the Principality of Cren is wracked by civil war. The Dempsey family and the Makar family fight over legitimacy like dogs over a bone.”
“Our envoy is on the road to mediate,” he added, step steady as a metronome.
Isaac laughed, a brittle crack like ice. “Humans really are lower creatures—without the Empire, they turn to trash.”
“Your words are exact,” the knight echoed, loyalty plain as daylight. “Humans can’t survive without our Celestial Spirits. Without the peace treaty we set, the one forbidding wars between vassals, they’d burn themselves out like dry grass—let alone resist the Dark Spirit.”
With the paperwork nearly done, Isaac stretched, bones popping like kindling, and walked to the Divine Warrior under maintenance. On the service platform, the energy core sat gleaming like a caged star. “Never thought our Empire would hold something like this,” he said, a breath of awe like cool wind.
“It’s a miracle bestowed by the Light Deity,” the knight replied, reverent as a bowed head.
Isaac said nothing, silence coiling like smoke, then turned to the opposite wall. Another service platform, another berth waited there like an empty pier.
Both stood empty, the absence loud as a bell. Isaac pointed at the blank space, memory clicking like a latch. “Right. The Strategic Bureau took that Divine Warrior yesterday. What are they up to?”
The knight lifted a document like a flag. “Your Highness, they went to sabotage enemy logistics.”
“So many people hungry for the spotlight,” Isaac said, a cold snort like a spark in ash.
“Unifying voices within the Empire will be your main task after you ascend,” the knight said, gaze steady as a stake.
“And when do I ascend?” Isaac asked, a thin smile like a drawn line.
The knight looked outside at bustling officers and soldiers, ants on bright earth under a clear yet heavy sky. “Perhaps when this war ends,” he said, as quiet as shade.
“Then let’s pray to the Light Deity,” Isaac said, laughter dry as sand. “May the Strategic Bureau’s move actually work.”
