The clash between the Rebel Army and the Subjugation Army had turned into a grueling see-saw struggle.
There was no denying that numbers were a form of power in their own right. To overturn such quantity with sheer quality required exceptions to the rule—warriors like High-Rank Adventurers who held an alias.
Since the Rebel Army currently possessed no such specialized combat assets, it was a self-evident truth that they would be pushed back, despite the presence of the Mobile Unit and the Beast Soldiers.
Even the fences surrounding the Rebel Army Position had begun to give way in several places.
These were the defenses of the main camp. They were no mere temporary barricades used for a quick camp, but rather substantial, sturdy structures; the fact that they were being breached served as grim evidence of how heavily the rebels were being pressured.
"Dammit, we can't push them back on the east side! Isn't there any way to scrape together reinforcements!?"
"It's impossible! Almost all of our combat strength is already deployed! The only ones left are the guards protecting His Highness Mercurio!"
"Tch, then what are we supposed to do!? If this keeps up, it won't be long before this position falls!"
"What about the Beast Soldiers!?"
"Lord Theoreme!"
Inside the main camp, Theoreme turned his gaze toward the noble who had spoken. He considered the situation for a few seconds before finally nodding.
"Understood. We cannot move His Highness Mercurio's personal guards, but we still have a few escort Beast Soldiers in reserve. I will deploy them."
Theoreme’s expression remained unchanged, but his hands were clenched tight.
He knew it was a certainty that they would eventually be overrun if things continued this way, yet he found himself unable to provide an effective countermeasure.
(Combat strength... at any rate, our numbers are just too low. Losing almost all our scouting soldiers at the very beginning was the killing blow. If not for that, we might have detected the signs of this attack a little sooner.)
Before Videre and Rei had departed for the Imperial Capital, they had wiped out all the Subjugation Army scouts lurking around the camp.
As if in retaliation, every rebel scout stationed around the camp had been systematically eliminated before this current operation began. That total purge was the reason they had failed to detect the surprise attack until it was too late.
(This level of flawlessness in layering one strategy upon another... it must be His Highness Cabajid. If it were His Highness Schuls, there might have been a bit more room to maneuver.)
While internally offering words that were somewhere between praise and a grievance for the opponent who had orchestrated this, Theoreme was about to issue orders to the few remaining Beast Soldiers when...
"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
He realized a great roar of voices was echoing from outside the Magic Tent.
If that voice had been a cry of despair, he would have judged that the east side had finally been breached, allowing the enemy to flood the camp in force rather than the small-scale incursions they had seen thus far.
But the voices he heard were not screams of terror, but cheers—a roar expressing an almost unimaginable level of joy.
"What is this... has Lady Vihera returned?"
The image of his master's sister flashed through Theoreme’s mind.
Between the approaching Frizion Army and Vihera's Army, which was occupied with lifting the highway blockade, he figured the latter was far more likely to arrive first as reinforcements.
Driven by a desperate need to confirm the situation for himself, he moved. The other nobles followed suit, and they all hurried out of the Magic Tent right behind Theoreme.
Mercurio’s expression flickered for a moment as if he wished to follow, but he likely understood his own importance. He remained within the Magic Tent.
The men who stepped outside saw the camp erupting in cheers, even as screams of agony rose from just beyond the perimeter.
Thanks to the illusions shrouding the camp and its surroundings, the hellish landscape was invisible to anyone outside the field of battle.
Normally, the Breath of Quantome was only capable of masking an area the size of a single camp, but the effect was clearly much broader than what Theoreme had heard from Mercurio.
While he could imagine several reasons for this discrepancy, Theoreme had no time to dwell on it. He turned his gaze toward a nearby soldier and shouted sharply.
"What's going on!? Find someone who knows the situation and bring them to me!"
"Yes, sir!"
The soldier saluted and hurried off.
Watching the man's retreating back, Theoreme felt a wave of relief. Whatever the reason, something favorable to them had clearly happened.
(Now... if we can just repel the Subjugation Army like this... no, if possible, I want to annihilate them here. This operation was meticulously prepared; there is no doubt that both His Highness Cabajid and His Highness Schuls put a tremendous amount of effort into it. That means if we can deal them a heavy blow here...)
Even as he considered the possibility of a total reversal, he began issuing instructions to his subordinates to grasp the situation and flip the tide of battle.
To go back a little in time.
Rei had been traveling through the air on Seto's back. Whenever he spotted units positioned along the highway, he would drop stones or strike them with Flame Magic as he made his way toward the camp. He watched the units below descend into chaos, then turned his gaze forward.
To be honest, Rei had worried for a second that he might accidentally attack an allied unit, but since they were all facing toward the highway leading to the Imperial Capital—the direction from which the Frizion Army would arrive—rather than toward the rebel camp, he judged them all to be enemies.
As he proceeded with his aerial bombardment, Rei noticed Seto let out a suspicious growl.
"Seto, what is it?"
"Guru, gurururururu."
In response to Rei’s question, Seto turned its gaze ahead.
Rei followed the gryphon’s line of sight and understood what had caused the creature to growl.
The landscape ahead looked perfectly normal, but something felt subtly wrong.
It was a discrepancy that a normal person would likely have missed, but it was not strange for Seto and Rei, with their incredibly sharp Five Senses and Sixth Sense, to feel a sense of unease.
And Rei had a good idea of what was causing it.
"The Breath of Quantome, huh? I suppose if you weren't told there was an illusion, an ordinary person would never notice. Seto, don't stop, just charge through. We need to hit them hard to help the Rebel Army anyway. If we just burst in, they won't have time to see us coming."
"Gururururu!"
The units Rei and Seto had attacked were still in a state of total confusion.
They had likely dispatched messengers, but a horse on the ground could never hope to outpace Seto in the sky.
The man and beast duo steeled their resolve and pierced through the wall of air.
Seto flapped its wings, flying with a degree of caution as they passed through the barrier... and the world shifted instantly.
A moment ago, it had been a calm autumn day with nothing in sight, but now, a fierce battle raged everywhere below.
It was clear at a glance that the Rebel Army was at a massive disadvantage; a significant number of the fences surrounding their position had already been reduced to splinters.
As Rei looked down at the two locations where the fighting was most intense, he first showed a satisfied smile, followed by an expression of genuine shock.
The former was due to seeing the Mobile Unit in action, and the latter was at the sight of the Beast Soldiers.
"Setting the Mobile Unit aside, they've even brought out the Beast Soldiers. And in those numbers..."
Rei muttered to himself.
He had some complicated feelings regarding the Beast Soldiers, having fought them many times before.
He had known they were part of the Rebel Army, of course. They weren't quite skilled enough to hide their presence from Rei or Seto’s senses, and he had previously felt them lurking underground as Mercurio's guards.
But he had truly believed their numbers were small. He never would have imagined they had enough to form an entire unit.
Still, there was no denying they were a formidable force in the Rebels' current predicament.
"Well, helping them comes before worrying about the Beast Soldiers. Seto, we'll fly over the Mobile Unit first to let them know I'm back. Once their morale is up, we'll split up and strike the Subjugation Army from different sides. How's that sound?"
"Guru!"
Seto growled its agreement, flapping its wings hard as it headed for the Mobile Unit’s position.
The Rebel Army Main Camp was about the size of a small town, but given Seto's speed, they were hovering over the battlefield in an instant.
"Gurururururururururururu!"
As they passed overhead, Seto let out a roar that echoed through the entire area.
At the same time...
"Flying Slash!"
A flying slash released from Rei's Death Scythe tore through the air, striking the rear of the Subjugation Army forces engaged with the Mobile Unit.
The Flying Slash didn't have the power to kill an armored soldier in a single hit, but inflicting wounds was simple enough. It was even easier when the enemy was frozen in place by Seto's sudden, thunderous roar.
"Uoooooooooooooooooooo!"
A roar of pure joy rose from the Mobile Unit.
Even though the rebels were still in a desperate position, the voices of the Mobile Unit sounded as though they were already certain of victory.
It was only natural. To them, the strength of Rei and Seto was an absolute truth they had witnessed firsthand.
Since Rei had returned to the fray, victory was guaranteed. All that remained was to see how many of the enemy they could take down while keeping their own casualties low.
From the perspective of the regular soldiers, this sudden shift was unbelievable, but to the Mobile Unit, it was the only logical reaction.
Having plunged the ground into instant chaos—ecstasy for their allies and despair for their foes—Rei and Seto headed for the east side of the camp.
Arriving where the enemy was most concentrated, Rei lightly stroked the back of Seto's neck.
"Seto, I'll take care of the ones down here. You handle the other locations."
"Guru!"
The moment he heard the growl of acknowledgment, Rei leaped from Seto's back.
As he plummeted through the sky, he used his Sleipnir's Shoes several times to bleed off his momentum before dropping toward the earth.
His destination was not the Rebel Army's lines, but the very center of the Subjugation Army forces.
Seto's roar had reached this far as well; many of the enemy soldiers who had a moment to breathe were looking up and noticed Rei descending upon them.
Since they were some distance away from the Mobile Unit's position, these soldiers didn't freeze. They didn't have time to aim their bows, but they did have time to level their spears.
Rei plummeted straight into that spear hedge.
Normally, such a fall would have been a death sentence. But Rei simply gathered his magic in mid-air and roared.
"Don't think you can stop me with toys like those!"
With that shout, his Magic Power was compressed into a dense, visible aura.
Rei had activated his Overlord's Armor.
The shimmering veil of magic enveloped him, a skill that declared all half-hearted attacks to be utterly meaningless.
Among the soldiers on the ground, many had traveled to the Imperial Capital for the Fighting Tournament and had watched the finals between Noise and Rei with their own eyes.
They instinctively realized exactly who was falling toward them.
They could have guessed from the gryphon, but seeing Rei activate his Overlord's Armor in person caused an uncontrollable trembling to seize their bodies.
Yet, with a final, desperate hope, they pointed their spears at him.
In the next moment, Rei slammed into the ground, completely ignoring the weapons. The spear tips never even touched his skin; they snapped, shattered, and crumbled the instant they made contact with the Overlord's Armor.
Rei stood tall in their midst without a single scratch.
The Subjugation Army’s despair and the Rebel Army’s hope had finally arrived on the field.