As the encampment transformed into a crucible of chaos, Blatta and Sobul—the leaders of the Subjugation Army—rushed through the grounds, clutching the map and weapons they had received from Cabajid.
Instinct had warned them of the danger the moment shouts of fire broke out, just before the firestorm was fully formed. They had successfully put some distance between themselves and the heart of the disaster, but they carried nothing but their gear and the map. For all intents and purposes, they fled with little more than the clothes on their backs.
Before them stood a flame tornado so massive they had to strain their necks to see its peak. It swept across the camp, drifting back and forth as if following its own whims.
"Dammit! It looks like it’s moving randomly, but it never leaves the perimeter of the camp! How is that even possible!?" Blatta roared, his voice competing with the panicked cries of soldiers, knights, adventurers, and nobles.
He shouted in irritation, glaring hatefully at the swirling vortex of fire. There was no doubt that the Subjugation Army would suffer catastrophic damage tonight. No—catastrophic was an understatement. The damage was on the scale of total annihilation.
They could no longer fight the Rebel Army. Without even exchanging a single blow with the enemy, their defeat had been sealed.
(Dammit, dammit, dammit! Even those useless disposable pawns assembled by His Highness Schuls got to fight the rebels. And yet we... I can't even get in one damn fight!?)
The fury in his heart had reached its boiling point. However, the normally hotheaded Blatta kept his temper from overflowing only because he knew survival was currently his absolute priority.
"Wh—!"
Blatta heard a gasp of shock from his partner, Sobul. It was a sound he never expected to hear from a man who usually embodied the words "cool and composed." Blatta stopped and followed Sobul’s gaze, and he immediately understood why.
The flame tornado was heading toward the enclosure where the wyverns—ridden by the few Dragon Knights in the Subjugation Army—were kept.
The wyverns clearly understood the danger of the approaching vortex, but they were not free to move. Their reins were tethered to the ground. It was a standard precaution meant to keep them from flying off or escaping on a whim, but now, it was a death sentence.
The practice had been debated before; some argued it left the creatures vulnerable, but the wyverns were powerful monsters. It was assumed that no ordinary human could easily harm them, and they had fire bullets to repel long-range archers. The policy had remained unchanged, and today, that negligence proved fatal.
"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
A series of cries erupted from the stables. Blatta and Sobul recognized them instantly—not as roars of anger or battle, but as death rattles.
The wyverns of the First Prince Faction’s elite Dragon Knights were being slaughtered. While these weren't all the Dragon Knights the faction possessed, they represented more than half of their total aerial strength.
"Dammit! How am I supposed to face His Highness Cabajid!? The Subjugation Army we spent so much effort assembling is half-destroyed, and our trump card wyverns were butchered without even being allowed to take flight..." Blatta muttered, grinding his teeth.
Sobul, having already regained his composure, placed a steadying hand on Blatta’s shoulder.
"Calm down. The Subjugation Army has sustained a fatal blow, that much is true. But in exchange... we’ve obtained a massive piece of intelligence."
Blatta looked at Sobul with a confused scowl. What information could possibly be worth this? They had been humiliated and decimated right on the doorstep of the Imperial Capital because they had let their guard down.
"Calm down," Sobul repeated.
Blatta managed to settle his nerves, largely because of his long history with the man. Whenever Sobul wore that specific look, it meant he had deduced something vital.
Once he saw that his partner was rational again, Sobul continued to run through the camp alongside Blatta as he spoke. He shared the one fact that could not be ignored.
"Listen to me. The thing destroying this camp is that sentient flame tornado. A flame tornado... Does that remind you of anything?"
"...Huh? A flame tornado? What about it? Wait. A flame tornado... flame tornado... The flame tornado!?"
As the realization dawned, Blatta’s expression tightened into a mask of grim severity.
A flame tornado. For anyone in the Bestia Empire, it was a signature move they could never forget. It was the symbol of a specific individual—the one who carried a scythe larger than himself and commanded an A-Rank Monster Gryphon known as the Grim Reaper of the Skies.
Rei, B-Rank Adventurer, the Alias Holder known as Crimson.
"You’ve got to be kidding... You’re saying that guy—Crimson—did this!?"
"Do you know anyone else capable of such a feat? There might be a few other Alias Holders with the raw power, but think about it. This 'Crimson' just happened to arrive in the Empire recently to participate in the Fighting Tournament. He just happened to vanish right before the civil strife began. And now, someone just happens to be here who can master the flame tornado—Crimson’s symbol. Are we really calling that a coincidence?"
Sobul spoke with cold certainty even as they navigated the wreckage of the camp.
"Once or twice might be a coincidence. But three times? To call it anything else is a fool’s errand. Am I wrong?"
"I guess not. Dammit... so Crimson really did side with the Rebel Army. He hasn't shown his face until now; I didn't think he’d play his hand here."
"No, this was the perfect place to play it. We were deep in our own territory, so everyone was completely off guard. The protective fence traps us inside with few exits. It's night, so most were asleep. And the opponent has a Gryphon for mobility."
"Normally, no matter how hard one person tries, the damage they can do to a military camp is limited," Blatta spat, drawing his longsword to hack away a burning piece of tent fabric that blew toward him.
Sobul let out a small, weary sigh.
"Normally, you'd be right. But unfortunately, Crimson is a Magic Warrior, and his repertoire is filled with wide-area annihilation spells. To put it bluntly, a man like him moving freely is the equivalent of an entire army on the march."
He could strike from the sky on his Gryphon and was difficult to track because he was a single target. Yet, his magical output was massive. It was a level of capability that felt fundamentally unfair.
"Dammit! Rhodos might have been thrilled at the challenge, but to us, he's nothing but a god of plagues!"
Blatta suddenly lunged forward and yanked Sobul out of the way. A charred corpse, launched by the firestorm, whistled through the air.
It slammed into the spot where Sobul had been standing a second prior. The velocity was far beyond what a simple gust of wind could produce; it was more accurate to describe the corpses being spat out by the firestorm as meat bullets. Given that many of these meat bullets were encased in leather armor, their destructive impact was even greater.
Sobul escaped thanks to Blatta’s quick reflexes, but throughout the camp, the launched corpses of soldiers and knights in metal armor were causing significant casualties.
When the firestorm had been used at the Seremuse Plain, it had mostly stayed in place. But this one was different. It prowled the camp, moving left and right, causing the damage to increase exponentially.
The only mercy was that this Subjugation Army was smaller than the Imperial forces from the Spring War—roughly four thousand combatants, or six thousand including the supply unit and guards. But that was no comfort to the two men in charge.
"Curse it! If he’d just fight us fair and square, we might have stood a chance..."
Sobul gripped Blatta’s shoulder firmly once more.
"No. Focus, Blatta. What is your duty right now? It’s to escape this place and inform Lord Cabajid that Crimson has joined the rebels. If we die here, His Highness will have to face that monster again without knowing what he’s truly up against. You know how dangerous that would be."
It was the cold truth. Their lack of confirmation regarding Rei’s alignment was a primary reason for this disaster. They had to survive to warn their master.
Sobul turned a determined gaze toward Blatta, but before either could speak further—
"Lord Blatta! You’re safe! Lord Sobul as well!"
A voice called out from the smoke. A group of men on horseback approached, having miraculously survived the moving firestorm. They were the cavalrymen Prince Schuls had forced into the unit.
"Yeah, somehow. Glad to see you're still in one piece," Blatta replied.
They paused for a moment as the firestorm drifted toward the other side of the camp. There was no time to bicker over factional politics. They needed to get out and get back to the Imperial Capital. The intent was shared with a simple nod.
"We have spare horses. In exchange, we ask for your help in getting us out of this hellhole."
"Fine. We have a deal."
They wasted no time on pleasantries, quickly making ready. Blatta didn't hesitate to accept, though he felt the weight of abandoning the rest of the army. Still, wasting even a minute more could be fatal for Cabajid’s entire cause.
"Where are we headed, Lord Blatta? Our scouts report that the Rebel Army is waiting at every protective fence entrance, picking off anyone who tries to leave with long-range bows."
The Captain of the Cavalry Unit delivered the grim news. Blatta clicked his tongue, and Sobul’s brow furrowed in distaste. It was a textbook ambush, and they had to respect the enemy’s efficiency.
What they didn't know was that the sniping unit only consisted of about thirty men. Had they known, they might have simply charged through. But given the scale of the surprise attack, they assumed the exits were heavily guarded.
Sobul had been wondering about the oddity of a night raid this deep in their territory, but Blatta spoke before he could analyze it.
"So the enemy is concentrating their fire at the entrances?"
"Uh, yes. Naturally."
The Captain of the Cavalry Unit looked at Blatta with confusion, wondering why he was stating the obvious. But Blatta merely wore a ferocious grin as he looked toward the protective fence itself—away from the gate.
"Then it's easy. We don't have to walk right into their trap. We’ll just catch them off guard."
"...I see. You can certainly pull that off, Blatta," Sobul muttered, understanding immediately.
The Captain of the Cavalry Unit could only tilt his head in confusion, but the tragic night was finally drawing to its close.