Back aboard the Zephyros, Alphonse stood at the bridge, watching the unfolding chaos through the enchanted glass windows. Explosions bloomed across the sky as spellfire collided in midair, and the air shimmered as the ships’ barriers strained to absorb the force of impact.

  This scene caused Alphonse to frown. “These aren’t ordinary defenders…”

  One of his aides stepped forward with a slightly solemn expression as he reported, “Sire, the eastern bastion has not only withstood our opening barrage, but their return fire has already damaged the Ternus and clipped the left flank of the Caelum.”

  Alphonse’s frown deepened. He had expected some resistance, yes, but not this level of coordination and ferocity. The speed at which those barrier spells were cast, the precision of their counterfire, and even the sheer number of magic cannons they’d deployed — it was beyond what any newly founded academy should possess.

  “What about the ground assault?”

  “Our strike teams are engaged and diverting a portion of the eastern bastion’s attention, but…” The aide hesitated. “They’re encountering strange tactics. These defenders — they fight like veterans. Like they’ve done this many times before.”

  That shouldn’t be possible.

  Yet Alphonse had already noticed what made these so-called acolytes different. They weren’t bound by Magus tradition, nor did they fight with predictable patterns. They were chaotic, experimental, and, worst of all, effective.

  Turning away from the window, Alphonse strode toward the center of the bridge. “Begin phase two. Redirect all firepower toward the southern bastion. If we break their rhythm there, the rest will begin to fall.”

  “Understood, Patriarch!”

  But even as he issued the command, a rare flicker of doubt crept into Alphonse’s heart. If this continued… he would need to act personally. Or unleash the full might of the Magi under his banner.

  From atop the eastern bastion, William watched the battle with intense focus while holding the Elemental Staff of Flame that had accompanied him since the early days. His gaze locked onto the forest just beyond the walls. The moment the enemy’s strike units broke through the tree line and charged toward the wall, the ground lit up with activation glyphs.

  “Everyone, they’re here!” he shouted.

  The snow-covered terrain beneath the eastern bastion erupted into chaos. Bursts of elemental magic exploded from magic circles as the traps got activated in rapid succession. The first wave of Merlin foot soldiers — clearly disposable cannon fodder — charged headlong into the danger zones, only for the ground beneath them to rupture.

  “Aaarghh!!”

  “My legs!”

  “Why are there so many magic traps in here?!”

  Screams echoed throughout the area, sending chills down everyone’s spines.

  “Boom!” one player shouted with glee from behind William, watching as a landmine of compressed Pyro-elemental energy blasted several enemies skyward.

  An enemy mage tried to leap over a trench, only to trigger a Carnivorous Man-Eating Plant trap. Vines lashed out, ensnaring him midair and dragging him into a gaping, toothed maw. Dozens more fell to snares, paralysis magic traps, or even good ol’ pitfalls.

  But the enemy wasn’t stupid.

  As they began to understand the terrain, the enemy forces changed tactics. They sent waves of expendable troops to test safe paths, while others bombarded suspected trap zones with wide-area spells. Bit by bit, they pushed forward, inching toward the outer wall.

  “All squads, maintain fire! Rotate barriers and conserve energy!” Zero’s voice rang through the guild’s command channel, steady and composed.

  “Trap mages, reload sectors four and six!” Storm added quickly. “Those are getting hit the hardest!”

  William had a serious look on his face. “Although the traps are working, they are getting closer. We need to divert our magic cannons to suppress the ground forces!”

  Though the surprise attack had become a meat grinder, the enemy adapted fast. Still, the players adapted faster — reinforcing weak points, shoring up breaches, and pulling injured teammates back in seamless formations. After all, they had drilled this exact scenario in the Virtual Combat Chamber for days. Now, it was just a matter of executing what they’d already mastered.

  More than two hundred players manned the eastern bastion, and they weren’t just any players — they were the most elite in the game. The weakest among them had reached the second stage of Initiate Attunement, and over thirty had advanced to the third. Not even the northern bastion under Auralise’s famed guild could rival the raw quality and coordination of this group.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  To begin with, even though there were more than two thousand players in the academy at the time of the invasion, only one thousand of them were combat-ready. The rest were newer players or life-skill-focused players, all of whom remained within the inner grounds, supplying vital resources like ammunition, magic weapons, and potions.

  Among the thousand fighters, six hundred were divided evenly across the three bastions. Two hundred served as rapid-response reinforcements ready to support whichever wall needed help, while the final two hundred comprised the academy’s trump card — a powerful strike force waiting for the perfect moment to flip the battlefield.

  Now, the enemy was within fifty meters of the eastern walls. Their advance had turned into a full-on charge — earth and snow flying beneath their feet. The battle was about to erupt into close-quarters chaos.

  “Push them back!” William roared, his voice echoing across the bastion. “This is our academy, and no one’s taking it from us!”

  “For the academy!”

  “Remember poor, little Lillie and the Brightmoon House!”

  “Let them come — I got my homies with me!”

  “They messed with the wrong academy, man!”

  “This is our hill — and we ain’t giving it up!”

  “Today, we hold the line!”

  “I am the storm that is approaching!”

  “And I… am Steve!”

  Even though the players were all focused on spouting famous lines from popular movies and games, they hurled spells at the enemies, lighting up the air like fireworks, and the battlefield pulsed with elemental energy as everyone unleashed everything they had.

  Victory wasn’t just the goal; it was the only acceptable outcome. To every player there, this was no longer a game. This was their home — and no NPC army was going to take it from them.

  At the rear of the Merlin family’s ground forces, behind the chaos and rising smoke of the battlefield, a tall man in black-and-silver armor surveyed the eastern bastion with calculating eyes. His name was Kael Vargrend, a famed mercenary whose reputation spanned three regions — and more importantly, a peak Ki Master wielding power few could match.

  He observed calmly as wave after wave of cannon fodder were obliterated by layers of ordinary and magic traps. His lips curled into a faint grin. “Good... they’re actually putting up a fight. This won’t be boring,” he murmured to himself.

  Nearby, a younger acolyte clad in a Merlin family acolyte robe flinched as another squad vanished in a burst of condensed ice. “Sir Vargrend, the barrier is still holding. If this continues, we’ll burn through all our frontline forces before even reaching the wall.”

  “I don’t care about losses,” Kael replied coolly. “That’s what they’re here for — to weaken the defenses. Let the defenders waste their mana and traps. Once they’re worn down... that’s when we strike.”

  With a slow exhale, the Ki Master unsheathed his twin blades — one humming with wind, the other heavy with compressed force. The aura around him flared, pressure rolling across the trees like a thunderclap. These twin blades were called Wind Soul Blades, and they were a pair of superior-grade magic tools feared across battlefields.

  “Summon the elite strike unit. We break through that barrier in ten minutes.”

  “As you command, sir.”

  Kael’s eyes narrowed as he looked past the smoke to the pulsing magic barrier above the bastion. “Let’s see if this so-called academy is truly as formidable as it looks.”

  Soon, the elite strike unit gathered near Kael. It was an imposing force — six seasoned Ki Masters, each exuding honed killing intent; two dozen Ki Guards clad in full body armor; two Elemental Adept Magi whose robes fluttered from the mana swirling around them; and five acolytes who were only a step away from becoming official Magi. These were no ordinary soldiers — they were the sharpest blades the Merlin family could muster on the ground, composed mostly of renowned mercenaries and rogue mages pulled from all over the surrounding region.

  Kael’s gaze swept over them, nodding with approval. “You know your roles. Strike hard, strike fast. Break the barrier, and we open the way.”

  Even though Kael was not a Magus, but a Ki Master, he was the strongest among them — a battle-hardened mercenary whose name carried weight even on the far side of the kingdom. Only peak Elemental Adept Magi could be considered a match for him.

  Subsequently, the group moved like clockwork. The two Elemental Adept Magi flew ahead, chanting in unison as they cast coordinated spells — a barrage of searing Pyro-elemental lances followed by a twisting vortex of Anemo magic designed to destabilize the core of the magic barrier.

  Boom. Boom. Boom.

  Explosions rocked the air in brilliant flashes of light and heat. The eastern bastion’s outer barrier flickered violently, as the cracks that had formed because of the artillery cannons of the dirigibles began to widen.

  “Now!” Kael barked as he launched himself forward.

  The Ki Masters followed, cloaked in swirling wind, weapons gleaming with lethal intent. In coordinated strikes, they unleashed powerful force slashes at the fracture points. The five near-Magi acolytes followed up immediately, channeling synchronized spells that struck like battering rams against the weakened shell.

  With a sound like shattered glass across dimensions, the outermost layer of the barrier broke apart, vanishing into motes of fading energy.

  “Oh no! The barrier is down!” an acolyte on the wall shouted in alarm.

  “Damn it! What are the teams manning the magic towers doing? How could they let this happen?”

  “So what?! We just need to take them down ourselves!”

  “Incoming!”

  “Ahhh! You shall not pass!”

  Cries of panic and defiance rang out across the eastern bastion as the defenders scrambled to mount a response, trying to hold the line.

  On the other side, Kael’s grin widened. “Advance! Give them no time to regroup!”

  With lethal precision, the elite strike force advanced, with the Ki Masters leading the charge, scaling the ten-meter-tall wall in a single jump and attacking the acolytes defending the wall — ready to rip the gates open from within.

  But the acolytes were no pushover.

  In fact, as Kael and his strike team landed on the wall, what greeted them wasn’t retreat — it was a strange, almost chaotic counterattack. The acolytes moved with unpredictable rhythm, casting odd spells that didn’t belong to traditional Magus schools. One of them even hurled a bomb that released a cloud of hallucination mist, while another used a strange magic that caused metal weapons to strike off course.

  Kael had never encountered anything like this anywhere else. The way these acolytes fought defied everything he knew about battle tactics. But regardless of how clever or creative their resistance was, none of it mattered when faced with sheer overwhelming power.

  Each defender who dared to stand in his path was cut down with a single swing of his blade. Wind and force danced at his command, ripping through elemental barriers, armor, and bodies alike.

  In this battlefield, Kael was more than just a mercenary — he was a grim reaper.

  And they would learn to fear him like no other enemy.

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