After yet another round of running laps, this time around Saum, I returned to the preparations for the next charge. This time towards Eisenbar Ward and at night. At least it would have, if they weren’t stuck trying to invade it for about a week. Since I was being punished for needless damage to the village, my squad didn’t get a chance to be dispatched, and instead focused on guard duty.

For whatever reason, the chatty green onion, the quiet green onion, and the other guy keep bothering me about how we did well or whatever and the punishment is needless. I agree that it’s needless, but the fact they’re spouting nonsense about it, annoys me enough to disagree.

The commander for the squad I’m in appeared in front of us. A wimpy looking man with a sad-looking mustache gave us a pointless talk.

“Well men, looks like we’re finally having our turn to win this. I’m hoping that you all learned your lesson from last time, but move forward with everything.”

With those brief words, he walked away and the other three started to bother me again.

“Can you believe Sgt. Butaver?! Agelheed did most of the work at that time! He can’t just say things like that. Melissa, you were the one who used your magic so she could enter Saum didn’t you?”

“O-oh, it was nothing! Honestly! You protected me the whole time we were fighting Keith! Plus, Vandler followed up nicely.!”

That other green onion silently nodded. Ignoring them, I just sort of walk towards the edge of Saum where the operation is starting. They’re unable to breach the field between Saum and Eisenbar Ward. There's a storm incoming, so this is, apparently, the last chance to infiltrate it or it’ll be too difficult, apparently.

The red-haired man from earlier walked in front of all the soldiers around the area and explained what was going on.

“Okay, men, as you all know you’ve been trying to get through the Eisenbar Lightning Field, but now that I’m here to command you, we will get through.”

Just who was ordering them around before this? Regardless, he continued to talk about it.

“Eisenbar Lightning Field is what we’re calling it due to the intense lightning that’s been striking down our people as they try and cross it. No doubt it’s the work of those wretched pigs! While it is our goal to reach Eisenbar Ward, it means nothing if we don’t find the origin of the lightning and take it down. This way we can prevent further uses of this weapon.”

An electrical field? What does that even mean? I guess if it does start to rain, it would hurt a lot.

“Now, I’ll be having our lead of this operation explain. Sgt. Butaver, if you will. Give us an explanation of this operation.”

The wimpy commander stepped in front of us and told us what we’ll be doing.

“Up until now, we’ve tried to siege the ward with too much force. This time we will be attempting to use a different approach. We will have other members of the army charge directly at the ward as usual, but while the focus is on there, my squad will be heading in from the sides. This will serve two purposes. One, if we’re able to breach, it shows the weaknesses of whatever those filthy pigs are doing. Two, if it doesn’t work, then at the very least, we should be able to identify the source. Regardless, this is our goal of this operation. I’d like to call it operation Seize the Divine Lightning.”

Seize the Divine Lightning…

A dim field, accented with the moonlight. Charging towards a prison on a hill.

It doesn’t matter. As I thought that, he continued to speak.

“Also, this is our opportunity. There’s a chance that Lt Col. El’gant will be in that ward. If we can take care of piggies and their battalion commander, it would be a huge step to stopping the war.”

----------------------------------------

The plan has failed. No trace of that wimpy commander, or any other, whenever things are going bad. As I hide in one of the barricades hastily set up. The lightning striking down in this field is going between both locations just fine. One moment it will be cleaning through the initial army, and then the next its preventing us from advancing. I can’t take this stagnation.

We got so close; we’re at the ascending path to the ward, but we’re stuck. It was stupid to come here at night where the divine lightning ruins our vision of the land, but it was more stupid in the day, we wouldn’t even be able to see it.

When another one of our soldiers runs out to see what’s going on, he gets struck by lightning and falls back into the barricade. He wasn’t seriously hurt, but he was twitching with the pain. That was nearly instant. One or two more strikes and he'd be no more.

However, as soon as that happened, on the other side of a field they were also instantly struck. That’s it. I can’t stay like this forever. So I leap outward and sprint forwards.

Immediately I was hit by an electric shock and knelt to the ground. It was painful. Very painful, but I’m alive. I try to keep focus, but I see someone running away in my blurred vision. With the remainder of my strength I crawl back into cover.

The chatty green onion crawled to my side in a panic.

“Oh no! Are you alright?! That looked extremely painful!”

“Eh…”

“We should try to figure something out about this, shouldn’t we?”

“There was someone there…”

“What?!”

While the surrounding soldiers were panicking, I took a deep breath, and prepared to go in again. This time, I know I’m supposed to be looking for someone doing this. Probably due to the Edonai, I didn’t get knocked out right away, but I wonder why everyone else with them has been incapacitated from the electrical surge.

I then jump out of the barricade yet again, and this time I shift my eyes intensely in all possible areas.

Nothing yet.

I prepare both of my swords and point it at opposite directions, not really sure what I’m doing, but I don’t know what else to do.

Then faintly, I hear the whistling of air come from the left side of my body and jump away.

GRRRR!

The loud sound of thunder rattles my head and causes me to fall down again. However, before I could get up, I hear the whistling sound again, this time coming from my right. I force myself to roll back into the barricade and where another crash of electricity hits the ground. The sound is one thing, the pain I feel from the electricity in the air is another, but every time my eyes have problems adjusting to the darkness.

Once again as I recover myself at the barricade, one of the three approaches me and talks to me, this time the swordsman.

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“Agelheed, Melissa said you had an idea? Can I help?”

“Like I said, there’s someone there.”

“I see! I think they might be Eisenbar Ward’s prisoners…”

Once again I adjust myself to jump into the center, but this time the swordsman is also ready to jump forward. That’s pretty pointless. However, I have an idea. As he was about to jump forward, I stay completely still so he would get hit by the lightning.

With enthusiasm he charges forward ignorantly into the sapphire-lit field. When he jumped in, I once again heard the whistling noise. I ran into the direction of the whistling noise and swipe my blade in a wide-arc.

Bam!

The roar of the electrical blast hit somewhere else. I’m not sure what I hit; it looked like a metal spike flying through the air. However, I remembered another one aiming at me, so quickly I slam my foot in the ground, and sprint to the opposite direction.

There I met face-to-face to the culprit. A gaunt man with ragged clothes.

“Eeek—!”

The man screams as I lunge towards him with my blades. He dropped the current metal spike he was holding and ran away. However, before we could get away, I drove one of my blades directly into his back.

Yet there was no blood.

He screamed in pain, but other than dropping on the floor there was no reaction to my strike. Everyone else left cover and focused on attacking the man with the spike. Yet, for whatever reason, he was still running. The only thing left of his silhouette was the luminous blue band on his shoulder.

I heard another whistling noise, so I instinctively ran in the opposite direction where I saw the other person, another gaunt man with torn clothes. He screamed as our archers fired volleys of arrows at him, but nothing happened to him. I leapt in the air and with all my force I swing my blade into his neck.

Crash—!

This time it wasn’t the simple sound of electricity following down upon us, but rather it was the sound of steel descending to the ground. A huge cloud of dust blinded us to what just happened. I hear the vibrations of electricity colliding in the air.

The Elkysti Army then faces the bringer of the Divine Lightning.

It was a man in a robe covering his face; additionally he had a visor covering his eyes, most likely to block the light. The sword he was holding was glowing with pulses of lightning. I heard whistling in the air again, so I ran to deflect the strike.

However, the moment I went to block the spike, the man in the robe leapt into the air in front of me, grabbed the spike in the air, and directed it into the sky. Once in the sky, lightning struck down at the back of our group, causing them to scream out in pain.

What was that? How is he moving like that?!

After he landed, I engaged him in battle, but he avoided my initial strike and I heard the whistling sound again. I smacked the spike out of the way. However, purposefully, he delayed the electrical surge until the spike flew further away before he caused the lightning to strike, hitting the middle section of our group.

“Two blades and the tenacity of a demon. Leonard Agelheed, was it?”

What is he talking about? Who? Why is it so uncomfortable?

Before I could process the information that this man told me, similar to Saum, the green onion mage unleashed a wave of ice that rushed towards the man. Then as he leapt into the air, another burst of fire was thrown at him.

On contact, there was a small explosion in the air where he was, and then the swordsman charged at the dust to finish the combination. It promptly ended with him being pushed out of the smoke. The robed man continued to speak.

“Huh, not a bad effort… Magic of that level doesn’t do much though. Problem is that while it has a sharp contact, you’re relying on the burst rather than the substance behind it. Similar to the lightning, really…”

Now what is this guy going on about? He keeps spouting out nonsense. The guy on my squad faced me, attempting to strategize.

“Agelheed! We have to do something about this guy! We’ll follow up with you, so please take the lead!”

Take the lead? I’ll just do as I like.

I slashed at the robed man with one of my blades, but as if he was predicting that, he didn't even block, instead aimed at the blind spot of the strike. Detecting that, I purposefully kill my balance and drop on the ground, and aim at his ankle with the other sword. Yet again, he steps out of that strike’s range and using the intense energy of his sword tries to stab downward at me.

Luckily, I was able to roll out of the way as the swordsman attacked him while he was focusing on me, but upon contact with the blade, electricity surges towards him, causing him to be stunned.

“G-guh?! Wh-what is this?!”

Taking advantage of him being struck, I aim at the robed man’s neck, but it only hits the air. He ducked and moved out of the way the instant the sword was fixated at his neck. He tried to slash at the opening I created, but I waved my other sword at his face. It was an awkward angle so it wouldn’t have actually done anything to him, but he still stepped backward to avoid it.

Once he stepped back, a rush of wind aimed at him crashed into the hillside behind him. He avoided getting sliced by wind magic.

As a follow-up to the wind spell, the other mage sank the earth to ruin the robed man's footing, while the swordsman struck at our shared target once more. Flipping backwards out of the hole, he switched the grip of his blade and just leapt towards the swordsman, exchanging steel. However, he dropped to the ground as electricity coursed through his body.

At this point, the barrage of arrows is being avoided so easily that, as I’m exchanging attacks with him, they’re more of a hindrance to me than an attempt at hurting him.

Eventually a shout came from the back, from the chatty green onion.

“How’s this for substance!?”

The Edonai glows and bursts.

On her wrist, I see a blue glow on her wrist erupts as flames gather towards her. With a spiral motion she points her staff towards the robed man. With a shout she unleashes the spear-like projectile at him.

With a shout the green onion uses a fire spell she never used before.

Flames spiraling into a lance, condensed and dangerous.

[Flame Lance] Forge the essence of fire into a javelin.

Only then can it be gracefully hurled towards a target.

The tearing of the air and the cerulean field is lit by the warm blaze of the inferno. The robed man stands in front of it calmly with his response to the intense flames.

The robed man’s sword bursts into light and with a slash.

A terrifying arc of lightning shoots forward

[Lucent Overload] Electricity runs its course over a small area, propelled by a profoundly simple slash.

Judging by the previous attempts at cutting this person down, I charge through the explosion of the two spells colliding and strike at the man. His sword was no longer covered in electricity, so I crossed blades with him. One strike misses him completely, but the other one forces him to guard.

When he stepped back, the swordsman runs past me and aims at his head. This time the Edonai on his wrist glows red and shatters. In response, the robed man blocks one of his strikes, but is unable to completely leave the area of the next hit's impact.

Shatter—!

The sound of glass breaking.

Upon the swordsman’s strike, the robed man is leaned forward holding his face. Pieces of the visor he was wearing fell on the ground. He made a swift withdrawal after that. .

“W-wait! Don’t run, you coward!”

As we started to chase him, he tossed many needles into the air. We all braced ourselves from the incoming barrage of lightning that didn't come. By the time we realize it, he was already running back up the path into the prison.

Hurriedly, we all chase after him and try to stop this once and for all.

Into the Eisenbar Ward.