Legend

Having glided from the night sky, Ray and Seto succeed in landing near the center of the position without making a sound as it were.

Keep your breath lurking to see what's going on around you, but fortunately, there's no way they found you on the lookout.

Even though it is a night's watch after dinner close to the banquet, there is probably not enough tension with the realization that we are only about a day away from the imperial capital and completely within our sphere of influence.

Not everyone is most relaxed, and some of them take a proper and serious watch.

Still, I didn't even think there was someone flying into the sky at night to break into the position, and few were turning their attention to the night sky.

Alternatively, if there had been widespread information that Ray might be cooperating with the rebels, a few might have been wary of the sky.

But Ray's cooperation with the rebels is still unconfirmed information, and if he knew that information, there would certainly be people out there who would escape among those who knew Ray's role in the Spring War and the Martial Arts Games, and morale would inevitably be lowered even if he didn't get to the point of escape. Due to those circumstances, the unconfirmed information was still on the ground.

Ningro, it was the Wyburns present at the edge of the position who noticed Ray and Seto entering from above.

Wyburn, ridden by one of the few dragon knights among the crusaders, had noticed the presence of Ray and Seto with his superior five senses... overwhelmed by differences in character, frightened instead of making a scene and shrinking in reverse.

If I had a partner, the Dragon Knight, I might have encouraged Wyburn to go into some action.

But it was disastrous that the Dragon Knight and Wyburn were in separate places.

"... All right, nobody seems to have found you. Seto, can you go?

"Gru."

Seto tinkly throats at Ray, who asks in the darkness of the night.

Seto knows what kind of place this is.

If we screw up here, we'll find the guerrilla men who will be on horseback at this position anyway, and they'll be wiped out by the siege and probably wiped out.

In order not to do so, we must ensure a successful night raid here.

(I guess with flame ore you can do more damage...... no, if you make it that powerful, you might get the guerrilla troops involved)

Where the guerrilla forces are assembling near the entrance to the Crusader's position, they take deadly damage with the effect of flaming ore.

Having made such a prediction, Ray shakes his head small and concentrates his consciousness.

What you hear is a soldier's ibiki from a tent nearby and the sound of a bug as if it symbolizes an autumn night.

Stay there for about thirty minutes. Eventually Ray confirms that the time he had promised in advance has passed before turning his gaze again to Seto.

I guess you understood what that gaze meant. Seto makes a short noise towards what appears to be the central part of the position and activates the tornado.

Watching that tornado produced, Ray also began chanting spells with Death Size in his hands again.

"O flame, manifest thy burning power as a vortex."

Together with that spell, he throws a tornado through the flaming mass created on the death-sized stone-piercing part.

"Whirlpool Fire!

Wind tornadoes and flaming tornadoes. Seeing as those two overlap and exist, Ray then uses the hands of the wind, which is also a death-size skill, with the tentacles of the wind touching the tornado of the wind and flames, pouring Ray's magic into the tornado of the wind, which was now about to burn and extinguish in flames.

At that moment, the wind tornado, which was likely to be eroded by the flames, grew more powerful and grew to be as big as the flaming tornado.

The two tornadoes, flame and wind, become the same size and exist in such a way that they overlap each other… in the next moment those two merge and turn into a fire whirlwind.

By this time, soldiers who had detected anomalies in the position with the voices of soldiers on watch were awake, and some were rushing out of the tent.

But seeing the fire whirlwind that exists in front of you the minute you get out of the tent, you have to be stunned and flabbergasted without understanding what's going on.

Still, I'd say the soldiers far from the fire whirlwind were still lucky.

Because the soldier in the tent near the fire whirlwind was burned to the ground without knowing what had happened the moment he was on the table and finished his life.

That's not the only soldier on the table. The tent, which existed near the fire whirlwind, swallows and burns in the fire whirlwind, gathering together soldiers who were still asleep inside, soldiers who tried to wake up to notice the noise outside, soldiers who decided something strange had happened and were in a hurry to put on their armor.

That fire whirlwind, created by Ray's magic, becomes more powerful over time.

The soldiers returned to me in that state when some of the blazing soldiers were swallowed up by a fire whirlwind with screams.

The fire whirlwind created near the center of the position had already burned down nearly a thousand soldiers at this point.

But when I said it was still the beginning, the fire whirlwind grew bigger over time.

It swallows people, swallows tents, swallows carriages loaded with supplies, and unfortunately also swallows horses and military horses pulling carriages that were near them.

Its blazing fire whirlwind moves around the crusader's position as if it can't withstand its own weight, not staying in one place unlike what was used on the Seremus plain, some of the effects of the wind's hand level being higher than last time.

Its speed is very slow, but because of the magnitude of the fire whirlwind, and above all because of the range of heat that cannot be breathed into a wider area than the flames visible around the fire whirlwind, the sight that takes lives without touching the fire whirlwind deserves to be called disaster or natural disaster in the literal sense, not something that a person would do.

Minutes after the fire whirlwind was created… In just a few minutes, the elite crusaders prepared by the 1st Prince were nearly half devastated.

"Evacuate, Evacuate! Once we're out of position, we need to rebuild our posture. Hurry, hurry!

Such a voice is uttered throughout the position.

But... the crusader's misfortune is not over yet.

The loud noise of a fire whirlwind made it abundant that the soldiers around them could not hear the screaming for retreat.

Still, those who managed to retreat away from the fire whirlwind also appeared, but those who did not hear it just stopped moving so that they would be fascinated by the immense fire whirlwind that looms upon them, or their bodies would cease to move because of fear, and they would be swallowed up by the fire whirlwind as it were and burn out their lives.

And even for those who hear the voices of evacuation, the time of disaster is not yet over.

A protective fence set up to protect the position from bandits and monsters prevented the soldiers of the Crusaders from evacuating quickly.

Even as we escape from the position being ravaged by the fire whirlwind, we must head to an area without a protective fence covering the position, and there are many who have died as a result of its confusion.

Furthermore, the crusaders' bad luck continues.

Even if we try to get out of the protective fence, naturally there are not enough places built for its entrance and exit to get a dozen people out at the same time.

From that narrow entrance, the killings that occur by the soldiers who tried to escape, even by themselves.

There is nowhere to be found the figure of those who were called the elite units of the First Prince.

Fear of when a fire whirlwind will strike me at random from behind puts me in a state of panic trying to escape the scene anyway, even by myself, and until a few hours ago I try to push my comrades out of the position, who had been eating food laughing and choking together.

Even for those who can push it, the price you pay for it is your own life if you take the trouble here. Naturally, there was no way to accept such a fate in silence, and some pulled out their own weapons to eliminate the opponent.

If you think calmly, there would have been a way for everyone to work together to destroy the protective fence.

Even if it was a protective fence that was sturdy built to deal with monsters and bandits, you could have pulled out the fence and defeated it if you joined forces with ten people.

But... a huge fire whirlwind, looming from behind, that could only be called a natural disaster or disaster, did not calmly make the decision that far.

Besides, I guess it also affected that this was still about a day's distance from the Empire and I was completely distracted that I could still feel safe.

No matter how elite they were, the Crusaders had been slammed into chaos to the point of fatality, as if to prove that they were inferior to the miscellaneous soldiers there in a distracted state.

Particularly disruptive were those who took part in the spring war. Few people are in a state of half-assed panic because they have seen firing whirlwinds ravaging the battlefield directly with their own eyes with enough power to describe it as extremely evil.

It's bigger than the fire whirlwind we saw in the spring war, and it should have barely moved before, moving vertically and endlessly within the position.... The appearance of a more threatening fire whirlwind had given a stronger fear to those who knew what a previous fire whirlwind looked like.

Few of them have already swung their weapons beyond the limits of their spirituality and slashed them depending on their allowance to those around them.

"It's him... he's here. Ahhhhhhhhh! Dying, dying, dying, we're all gonna die. Huh!

"Yeah, calm down! Damn, we need to calm down now anyway...... yeah fence, can't we do something about the fence yet!

One of the nobles joining the crusade screams to his own men who are around him when he manages to seize a rioting soldier.

While doing so, fire whirlwinds continue to move around the position as they please to scale the damage.

Already at this point about 70% of the Crusaders had already lost their lives.

Most of all, there were more than a hundred people who lost their lives because of confused soldier behavior, which is what the Crusaders look like today.

Confusion… The position of the Crusaders, who had been so devastated that they could not say enough in those words, has become a situation to be described as a cage for locking up the Crusaders rather than calling it a position already.

... Yes. This is what Ray aimed for.

It is only natural to install a protective fence around the position to deal with bandits and monsters, which can prevent attacks from outside the position while also serving as a cage to trap those inside.

If we could work together with fire whirlwinds looming close, there would have been a way for more people to survive.

But few can do that when their lives are at stake. Those such as knights and nobles would have kept some calm, but it was impossible to ask the soldiers in general for it.

The result was soldiers arriving at the entrance and exit of the protective fence, and even those who were lucky enough to get out of that entrance and exit could not yet be said to be safe.

"Ha, ha, ha.... Hey, you managed to survive safely!

"Oh. And what the hell is that? What a tornado of fire..."

"I've heard a bit about you. Look, we lost in the spring war..."

"Hey, wait! What's that? So Deep Red is cooperating with the rebels?

"I don't know if you're cooperating with the rebels, but you're definitely hostile to us at least. Otherwise all of a sudden you create a tornado of flames in the position or something!

The soldier, who suddenly tried to turn his gaze to his fellow strange voice in the middle of the story, saw for a moment some shadow due to the fire whirlwind burning in the position and the moonlight falling on the ground, and in the next moment consciousness fell into darkness.

"Hey what... arrow!?

"is hiccup!

Another man, an arrow pierces his forehead and loses his life.

That's it, and the rest of the soldiers finally realize they're under attack by a bow.

Though he hastily tried to speak to a few people who were still alive around him, he was pierced through the top of his head by an arrow that was released into the mountains and descended directly from the top, instantly losing his life and falling to the ground.

Yes. It is the guerrilla forces led by Ray - essentially Palenix - who are making this attack.

The number of people is as small as thirty, but they are all elite, and if they were trained so that they would not survive if they did not go mad at the death caused by Ray and Seto day after day, it was not that difficult to shoot by bow in the midst of the brightness of the fire whirlwind, even at night.

There are about five entrances and exits in the position. Six people are dispatched there, each using a bow and arrow to continue shooting the bow at a Crusader soldier who came out of the entrance and exit of that fence.

Of course, given the number of people, not everyone who has escaped can be shot.

Still, however, the blow of arrows, as if to poke a gap of relief that he had finally survived out of the confusion, continues to take several lives.

... The worst night of disaster for the Crusaders is not over yet.

Because the night is not yet dawn.