Heading towards the centre I could see two pillars with something like a pedestal being built between them. And several tens of meters further away from the pillars there was a huge pyramid.

On top of the pedestal I saw a familiar crystal.

It was akin to the one the Black Knight had raised to the sky. There were a number of soldiers guarding it but they didn’t seem like they were on the same level as Cronus.

As I got closer they shouted something and fired at me with guns.

‘It seems like they don’t know our world’s language. It seems normal soldiers cannot hold a conversation like Cronus could…’

I blocked the bullets with a shield of wind and let off a wind blade at the soldiers that were trying to come at me.

I took down the close to ten soldiers that were closing in on me but I couldn’t take the remaining soldiers in the back. And it also seemed like a magic barrier had been cast around the crystal.

Because the enemy was shooting at me from inside the barrier I decided to retreat for the time being.

I was somehow able to get here by using Healing Magic on my wounds, but with my Healing Magic I couldn’t fully heal myself and was far off from being in perfect condition.

‘I’d be great if I could join up with Elias and the others soon…’

I encouraged myself back up and entered the rain of bullets. While blocking the bullets with my sword I finally reached the magic barrier…

“NOTOS!!”

My sword pierced through the barrier, turning it into pieces. The soldiers that were inside the barrier were blown off by the impact and fell down, never to get back up again.

Standing before me was a blue crystal that was placed on top of the pedestal.

“If only this thing hadn’t existed…”

I raised my sword and swung down with all my might.

“ZEPHYRUS!!”

The blue crystal was split into and turned into specs of light which disappeared into thin air.

For now I took a sigh of relief but when looking around I saw that there were two more places, around the central pyramid, with identical pillars.

‘I can’t see from the pyramid in the middle but I’m guessing there should be more pillars over there as well. Which means that there are a total of four places that have these pillars. And with me going wild just now the other soldiers should have noticed something has gone wrong. The question now is should I go towards the pyramid or should I circle around to the other pillars…’

I thought for a bit, but in the end decided to trust my comrades and headed for the pyramid.

‘I’ll go help out the others after I destroy that pyramid.’

◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇

“There’s something up front. There are soldiers as well.”

“Wan! We’re breaking through them!!”

“Count me in.”

Freya’s sword and Wan’s rod mowed down the enemy soldiers. And like that they reached a place with two pillars. Noticing that the place was protected by a barrier the both of them exchanged looks and nodded at each other.

While dodging the bullets coming from inside the barrier Wan pulled back her rod.

“Flying Dragon Spear!!”

Wan threw her coated in Aura Compliant Golden-Hooped Rod, which flew like a spear with tremendous speed and collided with the barrier, which glittered violently.

With a loud bang the barrier broke down. The soldiers inside were plugging their ears because of the loud impact. And Freya didn’t miss that opportunity.

“Shining Meteor!!”

The light meteors collided with the over 10 soldiers, piercing through them and taking them down. As both Wan and Freya got close to the pedestal they noticed a green colored crystal, similar to the one the Black Knight had carried with himself.

Both of them raised their weapons and slammed them at the crystal.

The crystal turned to pieces disappearing into thin air.

“It should be fine for now.” said Wan.

“Yes. I don’t believe that more monsters will appear now that we destroyed the crystal. It seems like there are other identical pillars but let’s leave those ones to the others.”

“You’re right, we should head for that huge building at the centre!”

◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇

[Carlo Bandis――]

“Woah. They suddenly started shooting at us.”

When we headed for the pillars before us, suddenly close to 30 soldiers started shooting at us. The bullets they used looked like small fireballs made from magic.

‘They’re not impossible to block but we should still be careful…’

“Everyone, spread out! We still have people that aren’t fully healed. Don’t let your guards down!”

We used Luke and the other members capable of long-range attacks as a pivot to counter-attack.

‘Guess we can only push forward carefully like this…’

◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇

As I headed for the centre, people with guns suddenly started firing at me.

‘It seems like they’re protecting that pedestal. If it’s that important to them then it must mean that it’s dangerous for us.’

I cast Black Sun in front of me. The black ball headed straight for the pedestal and when it reached it suddenly swelled up, growing bigger as if it was about to pop at any moment.

Afterwards a huge explosion occurred and the black light rose high into the sky.

The pedestal and the soldiers were gone without a trace and the only thing left at the place where the pedestal was, was an enormous crater.

“I… don’t know what happened… but this should be okay right?”

◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇

“Leo!”

“Freya, Wan! I’m glad you’re safe.”

While I was sitting down, thinking in front of the enormous pyramid, Wan and Freya ran over to me.

It seemed like they were able to defeat the enemies.

“We had a hard time but we managed. How about you Leo, were you fine?”

“Well you could say that…”

“So Leo, what were you doing here?” asked Wan with a puzzled expression.

“Look at this.” I said while thrusting my sword forward. A loud sound was heard and my sword was repelled.

“This is…!?”

“A magic barrier. And quite the powerful one at that.”

“So this is what’s stopping you.”

“I don’t have a lot of MP left as well. Even if I was able to destroy it I figured that I wouldn’t be able to destroy this big thing afterwards.”

“It should be fine now that we’re here.”

“I’m counting on you.”

Just as we were about to combine our efforts we heard a voice coming from the distance. Carlo was coming towards us with a huge crowd of people.

‘Seems like they managed to destroy the crystal. It seems like they’re all fine.’

I wasn’t that worried about Emily, which meant we had managed to get here without any casualties.

I explained the situation to Carlo and the others and we all got about trying to destroy the barrier.

“Everyone! Attack at once! Fire!!”

Arrows and Magic collided against the barrier. Explosions covered the surrounding, however the barrier still showed no signs of breaking.

“It’s way too damn tough!!” said Carlo, astonished. It was true that this barrier was on a whole other level compared to the one around the pedestal.

“It must be something even more important…”

“AH!”

Heading Freya’s exclamation I turned around to see Emily running towards us. She didn’t have any endurance in the first place so it looked like she was struggling quite a bit.

“Emily are you okay? I’m glad to see that you’re well.”

“Haa…haa.. I’m f-fine.”

“Emily, I’m sorry to ask this of you when you’re tired but could you lend us a hand in destroying this barrier. We need your strength.”

“O-of course…”

Emily steadied her breathing and deployed a black aura around herself. The aura turned into three black dragons which flew towards the pyramid, colliding with the barrier.

The dragons were blocked by the barrier, but without giving up they began wrapping themselves around it, moving up.

Cracking and creaking noises could be heard.

‘She’s pressuring the barrier!?’ 　

Emily then created a black ball in front of her and then compressed that said ball.

We moved back from where we were standing in order not to hinder Emily. The only thing we could was watch her whilst holding our breaths.

The compressed ball slowly made its way to the pyramid.

I popped as soon as it lightly touched the barrier and from within it black flames spewed forth, which flames combined with the dragons, creating a grand explosion. A fire pillar that pierced through the clouds was raging before us.

Everyone was trying desperately to withstand the impact but there were still some that were blown back.

When the curtain of dust lifted and the view became clear we saw that there was nothing. Everything had been blown off without leaving a trace.

“My god. Guess we won’t be needed any more.” said Carlo in admiration.

‘To think that she didn’t just destroy the barrier, that we weren’t able to even scratch, she literally annihilated the whole pyramid…’

“The air battle is doing fine as well. It seems like the advantage is with us.”

When we got close to the place where the pyramid had been, a strange thing entered our vision. A machine, the like of which we had never seen before, was buried into the ground.

It seemed like it was buried quite deep and on top of that it appeared to still be working.

And not only that, I could sense that an amazing amount of energy was coming from directly below it.

“Not good! . It’s dangerous here, get back!!”

When all of us got further away from the place the ground suddenly began to glow bright red. An enormous amount of energy gushed out and rose towards the sky.

“What in the world is this….!?”

An enormous pillar of light pierced through the clouds and changed the sky’s color.

‘Where in the world did they get this energy from…’

It was then that I suddenly realized…

‘If it came from underground then maybe, geothermal energy? …No wait I can’t be the earth’s mantle. It’s hard to imagine but could it be that the machine managed to dig to the Outer core….’

There were a lot of things that I couldn’t figure out, however one was certain. They were trying to use the enormous energy, coming from underground, for something.

The sky looked like it was twisting and the atmosphere like it was screaming.

In the next moment an unbelievable amount of black battleships shrouded the sky. There were battleships as far as the eye could see.

“What in the…. WHAT IS THIS?”

That day, jet black battleships numbering over a 1,000,000 covered the skies above Mongolia and the nearby countries. And we understood that the forces that we had been fighting up until now were only the vanguard.

We could only stand still in shock and gaze at the unbelievable sight of the enemy’s main force.