The Bestia Imperial Army's main camp stood on the Seremuse Plain. About thirty cavalrymen galloped toward it, their speed far exceeding that of warhorses handled by ordinary knights. Even from his vantage point in the sky, Rei could see they were a group of elite experts.
"Well then, Set. Shall we go too?"
"Guruuuu!"
At Rei’s voice, Set cried out with fighting spirit vibrating in its throat and flapped its wings to advance through the sky. Its speed was by no means inferior to the cavalry racing across the ground. In fact, comparing a ground-based cavalry unit to a creature that commanded the skies was a mistake from the start. Set easily overtook the ground troops—who were already faster than any average unit—and soared toward the enemy main camp visible in the distance.
Rei’s role in this surprise attack was to act as the vanguard and throw the enemy camp into chaos. Taking advantage of that confusion, the surprise attack unit would then charge in to slay the supreme commander, General Kastom. There had been a suggestion for Rei to use the Firestorm he had employed at the start of the war, but several objections had been raised. First, due to the skill's limited range, Rei would have to charge deep into the heart of the enemy camp to manifest it. Second, if the supreme commander were killed by the Firestorm, his body might be charred beyond recognition, making it impossible to confirm the kill. Ultimately, they had decided on a more direct method: simply charging in and running amok.
However, that plan only held if everything went perfectly. Rei was also tasked with eliminating any irregularities that might hinder the surprise attack unit’s advance. Irregularities like the roughly twenty Dragon Knights currently taking flight from the main camp.
"Tch. I thought I’d thinned their numbers significantly with the Firestorm, but they still have this many left? Set, you know the drill. Our job is to make sure those Dragon Knights don't head toward Elena and Siminal. If those wyverns rain down a synchronized volley of fireballs from above, the surprise attack unit will be wiped out before they can even strike."
"Guruuuuuu!"
Set let out a thunderous roar to bolster its own presence.
The Dragon Knights must have heard it. For a fleeting moment, Rei caught sight of the wyverns’ movements becoming sluggish.
It was only for an instant, however. True to their reputation as the army's elite, the Dragon Knights quickly calmed their agitated mounts and shifted their target. They abandoned their pursuit of the surprise attack unit racing across the plain and turned toward Rei and Set. One thing Rei hadn't expected was that not all of the Dragon Knights turned to face him. While the majority of the twenty riders came for Rei and Set, three of them broke off to continue their assault on the ground unit.
"Tch. Of course they’d have someone over there with a head on their shoulders. Set, let's finish this quickly."
"Guru!"
Set gave a sharp cry and tilted its body mid-flight. In the next moment, a barrage of fireballs unleashed by the wyverns pierced the space where Set had been just a second before.
Set continued to weave through the fireballs, evading them with ease, while Rei swung his Death Scythe to intercept any that came too close. Being fundamentally aggressive, Rei was not one to stay solely on the defensive.
"Flying Slash!"
With that shout, Rei unleashed a horizontal strike from his Death Scythe. The blade of wind tore through the air, cleanly severing the torsos of two Dragon Knights flying side-by-side.
Deprived of the knights who controlled them, the wyverns fell into immediate confusion. They lost their balance, collided with the wyverns flying next to them, and plummeted toward the ground in a tailspin.
"Fifteen left! Set, we're at a disadvantage if we stay at a distance. Let’s engage them in close combat!"
"Guruuu!"
Hearing Rei’s command, Set increased its speed and charged headlong into the formation of Dragon Knights.
Set possessed several long-range skills like Fire Breath, Water Ball, and Wind Arrow. However, revealing them here would expose Set's unique nature and, by extension, the secrets of Beast Magic. It might have been fine if Rei could provide a cover story as he had with the Firestorm, but doing so was impossible in front of such a large number of enemies.
"Flying Slash!"
Rei unleashed another projectile strike. However, as the Dragon Knights were the most elite members of the army, they were wary of an attack they had seen once—especially one so lethal. They maneuvered the moment Rei swung, diving out of the slash's flight path.
"Tch, they're fast. But every extra move you make just makes you more sluggish!"
Shouting, Rei switched the Death Scythe to his left hand and retrieved a spear from the Misty Ring with his right. Its tip was broken, making it useless for conventional fighting.
"Hah!"
He hurled the spear with a fierce shout. In terms of pure speed, it surpassed the Flying Slash; where the slash was a linear wave, the spear was a pinpoint thrust. The spear tore through the air and pierced not a knight, but a wyvern. Upon impact, it transfixed the creature's body and continued through to impale the shoulder of the Dragon Knight behind it, blowing him off his mount.
The Dragon Knights were momentarily stunned by an attack that seemed to have no limit on ammunition. In truth, Rei did have a limit, but considering the sheer volume of spears stored in his Item Box, it was practically infinite for the duration of this battle. They delayed their instructions to the wyverns for a split second.
Neither Rei nor his partner, Set, missed such a decisive opening.
"Guruuuuuu!"
Set let out a roar, flapped its wings powerfully, and rapidly closed the distance.
The Dragon Knights had intended to keep Set at a distance while pelting him with fireballs. Their formation had been predicated on the assumption that a Gryphon had no means of long-range retaliation. But having allowed them to get close, the wyverns were helpless against a creature of Set's caliber. Even if the surrounding wyverns spat fireballs, they risked hitting their own comrades. Their only means of defense were the knights' spears or the wyverns' claws, but Rei parried those easily with the Death Scythe while Set danced through the air. Set plunged into the swarm, body-slamming one Dragon Knight to the ground, crushing the neck of a wyvern with its talons, and delivering a fatal peck to another knight with its beak.
Rei was just as devastating, swinging the Death Scythe to cut down anyone who drew near. He delivered fatal blows by piercing through armor with the butt end of the scythe or knocking knights off their mounts with the shaft.
"Guh! Fall back! We have no chance in close combat! Surround him and attack from a distance! If he closes in, don't worry about attacking—just evade!"
The commander of the Dragon Knights shouted in a panic. Their numbers had already dwindled to five. Even including the three sent to intercept the ground unit, they had lost more than half their strength. Given the immense cost of training a single Dragon Knight, the losses sustained in this war—between the fire tornado and this skirmish—represented a staggering financial blow to the empire. The Bestia Imperial Army had invaded with serious intent, deploying previously unseen assets like Beast Soldiers and Teleportation Stones. They had committed far more elite Dragon Knights than usual, yet they were being dismantled. Every bit of that damage had been inflicted by the single man standing before them. To the Dragon Knight Captain, Rei was no longer a man; between his fire tornado and this slaughter, he was a walking calamity.
(Damn it, why is there a high-rank monster like a Gryphon here? And if he's mastered a Gryphon, there’s no doubt he’s the 'Crimson' the soldiers have been whispering about...)
For a fleeting second, the captain lost himself in thought. The next moment, he was horrified to find the Gryphon and the boy on its back directly in front of him. Rei swung the massive scythe...
"Hah!"
With a spirited shout, the captain's world vanished as his torso was sliced in two.
"Set!"
"Guruuu!"
Rei called out to his partner without even looking back. The captain's lower half remained astride the wyvern while his upper body fell toward the ground in a spray of blood and organs. Set responded to Rei's voice by performing a sudden, graceful mid-air backflip.
"Wh—!?"
The move was so unexpected that the remaining Dragon Knights momentarily forgot their rage and froze, unable to believe what they were seeing. Set’s front paws, completing the rotation in the air, slammed down onto one of the riders. It crushed the knight’s head and helmet instantly; the wyvern he rode lost consciousness from the shock and plummeted toward the earth.
But Rei wasn't finished. As Set spread its wings to slow its descent after the overhead strike, it settled at an altitude much closer to the ground. This placed the remaining three Dragon Knights directly above them. They were still reeling from the backflip when two more spears thrown from below pierced their wyverns' bellies, sending them falling.
"One left! Set!"
"Guruuuuuu!"
Set let out a roar and ascended as if treading on the air itself. Seeing that he couldn't possibly win alone, the last rider turned to flee, hoping to regroup with the three knights sent after the surprise attack unit.
Even as an elite of the Dragon Knight corps, the knight turned his back and fled...
"Gaaaaaaaah!"
In the next moment, his wyvern shrieked and began to fall.
"Wh-What!?"
Thinking it was the Gryphon's doing, the knight looked back in desperation as he fell, but the Gryphon was nowhere near him. As he was thrown from his spiraling mount, he saw a whip-like blade pierced through the wyvern's torso.
He followed the whip to its source and saw a beautiful woman on a warhorse looking up at him from the ground. With that image burned into his eyes, the Dragon Knight slammed into the earth, ending his short life.
Seeing the last of the aerial threats dealt with, Rei and Set descended to the ground. The woman holding the whip-sword was, of course, Elena. The rest of the surprise attack unit was nowhere to be seen; the din of battle was already erupting from the direction of the enemy camp.
"You saved me a bit of trouble."
"It was nothing. Only three of them came our way. More importantly, now that the Dragon Knights are finished, we must support the surprise attack unit."
"I know."
Rei glanced briefly at the dead wyvern lying nearby, but he couldn't very well suggest harvesting the creature when every second counted. With a look of lingering regret, he remained mounted on Set and rode with Elena toward the location of the enemy's supreme commander.
The Bestia Imperial Army's main camp had transformed into a scene of absolute carnage.
"Curse these Mireana curs! To think they would target me directly!"
General Kastom shouted, swinging his sword to slice the throat of an attacker. As he did, he caught sight of five men in his periphery aiming their bows at him.
"Everyone, get behind me!"
It was an unheard-of command—a supreme commander taking the vanguard—but his soldiers obeyed without hesitation, falling back behind him.
In the next instant, the five members of the Kingdom of Mireana’s surprise attack unit unleashed a rapid volley. More than twenty arrows rained down on Kastom like a storm.
Even as the arrows converged on him, Kastom showed no trace of panic. With a ferocious smile, he pointed his armored right arm toward the sky.
"Howl, Behemoth!"
The moment he spoke, the earth swelled instantly, rising to envelop Kastom and his surrounding knights in a protective dome of soil. It blocked every single arrow, leaving the men inside without a scratch.
This was the Bracelet of Behemoth, a magic item that manipulated the earth. It was a masterpiece produced by the Bestia Imperial Army's Ministry of Magic using a massive amount of rare materials—the only one of its kind in the entire empire.