Marquess Benedict Sharma glared down from astride his wyvern at what remained of the city. His city. The city he’d poured his heart and soul into. His pride.

Ruined.

All because of that cursed ducal family and their golden knights.

For too long, he’d allowed Collin, the irritating Duke of the Alistar Duchy, to meddle in Cael without facing the full strength of its military force. For too long, he’d been bound by duty to his King and relied on small-scale proxy battles.

Too many people had died in the invasion for him to continue bidding for peace as King Arthur had commanded. Any thought Benedict had entertained for peace had been utterly dashed at the sight of his once beautiful city.

No. He would wreak havoc against the bastard Lysorians who believed themselves always on the side of righteousness. Where was the righteousness, the morality, in killing hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians?

Not even the Holy Kingdom’s Knights, the High Pandorians, could tolerate the massive casualties. He’d seen their stricken faces of grief when they’d seen the dead when they’d sensed the death of their comrades.

Sensing his pain and sorrow, Benedict’s wyvern threw her head back and released a great mournful shriek that pierced the night. Her cry was echoed by the many platoons of his wyvern riders who were engaged with the duke’s golden knights.

He scoffed. Knights? As if. They were more akin to golden puppets than knights, their lives strictly bound to the duke by core oaths. And the Lysorians called his people barbaric.

Despite the battle raging below, Benedict did not descend. Not yet. His wyvern riders would easily match the golden puppets, there was no doubt in his mind about that. Throughout the decades, the Lysorian duke’s forces had never once defeated his. Sure, land went back and forth, and soldiers died on both sides, but for the most part, it had been a continual stalemate.

The only real threat they faced was Duke Alistar himself. One of the very rare, very few golden heart cores in Pularea. Well, perhaps there were more like him in the Holy Kingdom or Pandoria, but in the other parts of Pularea, there was maybe only a handful like him.

Fortunately, Benedict himself was a third-realm sorcerer, equal in power to most lower-tier golden cores. Magic and heart energy were fairly equivalent in the aspects of individual realms, with first-realm magic core users finding themselves empowered the same as a bronze-tier heart core, and so on.

If the rumors were true, however, and Collin was nearing a platinum core, then all the more reason to act now. The Church of Light may have obtained majority power in the Holy Kingdom for now, but there was no telling when a church more friendly to Lysoria would find an opportunity to spread its authority.

So long as Collin remained in the realm of a gold core, Benedict knew he had a chance. Perhaps not in a direct conflict, but he didn’t need to defeat Collin head-to-head. He simply needed to find the right moment to sever Collin’s line of power to his golden puppets. He and Collin had never been on the field at the same time together as Benedict was not particularly interested in warring and wasn’t too keen on putting his life in harm’s way. He preferred the study of magic and its applications to… well, just about everything.

That would change in mere minutes. The instant he spotted Collin Alistar would be when he introduced the duke to a very specialized, custom magic. He grinned to himself at the thought of Collin Alistar begging for mercy after having been a thorn in his side for so long. For all the soldiers of Benedict’s that the duke had directly and indirectly killed.

His magic core burned with more magic than he had ever gathered, undulating just above his navel with a power so great he knew in his bones that, if used at the right time, it would annihilate Collin Alistar. Finally ridding Cael of its largest, most persistent irritant.

“My Lord Marquess,” Juniper called out from her own, somewhat smaller wyvern that mirrored his own’s leather black scales tinted with a dark green infusion of magic alterations. It had been so long since she’d called him father. It still pained him that she’d grown so distant. “He approaches from the center towers.” The wind whipped her light brown hair much as it would have had his, had he not tied it back preemptively.

“Aye, I sense him, too,” Benedict growled. And he did. A tremendous wave of heart energy washed over him like a blanket of lava, even from his distant location.

Collin Alistar flew toward them without the use of a wyvern, though those at his side rode a collection of winged beasts ranging from wyverns to griffins to pegasi.

Benedict couldn’t help the low, vengeful chuckle that rumbled in his chest at the sight of the powerfully built golden-haired duke. At least in appearance, the man was everything he wasn’t. Tall where Benedict was short. Muscular whereas Benedict was thin. Commanding where Benedict preferred to follow. Reckless whereas Benedict was cautious. His gold hair and cold gold-gray eyes whereas Benedict’s were colorless pools of the darkest black.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Are we sure it’s wise to strike the Golden Knight Duke where he’s made a base? We lose the opportunity for an ambush and smaller-scale interferences,” Juniper asked, no doubt recalling whatever her strategic professor had told her.

“It is a pointless debate now, daughter. Our wyvern platoons have already engaged. Wrong or right, we must make do with our decisions,” Benedict answered, his expression grim. What his daughter did not yet know was that he had ambushed them. Just not in the traditional sense. Rather, he had done so with the use of a newly developed magic device its creators had dubbed a Catalyst of Destruction, CAD for short.

“Can you really defeat him?” she murmured questioningly, her voice light but Benedict knew that soft tremble in her voice to be fear. With the counties engaging in a war without divine restrictions, it was just as likely for the duke’s men to kill them as it was to use them as political hostages.

Benedict gave his daughter a slight shrug accompanied by a tight smirk. “You know there aren’t many who can defeat your father.”

She returned his expression with sorrow in her eyes and an equally grim smile. Her words were soft, almost a whisper buried under the rushing wind. “That wasn’t an answer.”

He dropped all attempts at levity and turned to her with his brows furrowed and jaw set in determination. “Juniper. Do not die. If you must run, then run. If you must hide, then hide. Do not fear cowardice if it means your survival.”

He could all but hear her teeth gnashing at his words. Juniper returned his words with a single stiff nod. “Do not worry, Lord Marquess. I will not allow our bloodline to cease here tonight.”

Benedict wanted to tell her that he didn’t give a rat’s ass about the house lineage. He wanted his only daughter to stay alive. He didn’t though, giving her a similarly curt nod. If her misunderstanding pushed her to stay alive, then so be it.

Even if he’d wanted to say something, there wasn’t the time as Collin Alistar hovered astride a silver wyvern fully clad in his usual brilliant suit of enchanted gold armor. Benedict, too, wore an enchanted suit, though it was much less ostentatious.

“You must have grown quite bold since I last heard rumors of you, Marquess,” Duke Alistar snarled, the tails of his wyvern streaked red with blood whipping in circles. “Or you must have gone insane to disregard the Holy Treaty.”

Benedict returned the scowl with a sneer. “I have done no such thing. It is your people who have violated the treaty. Look at the city. Look at all the deaths you have caused. And for what?” He spat the words, his voice rising in anger. “Some land?”

“Your city has been enslaving our people for nearly a decade,” Collin Alistar roared, the Authority of his golden core slamming against Benedict’s defensive barrier with such force he flinched. “Even the daughters and sons of nobility. Then you kill one of our barons with ties to the royal family and dare declare yourself innocent? Your barbaric deeds end here and now, Benedict Sharma.”

Benedict scoffed. “If Lysorian children were enslaved, perhaps you should have cared for them better? Don’t act as if slavers don’t exist in Lysoria.”

“They do not exist out in the open,” the duke bellowed, and Benedict could see the rage in his narrowed eyes. “Else they face the wrath of the King himself.”

That was as purely posturing as Benedict had ever heard. “So instead of pursuing diplomatic means, you invade our city and release captured monsters into the city to kill civilians? The enslavement of a few is worth the death of hundreds? Thousands?”

“We had no hand in releasing those beasts,” Collin responded with a curt laugh. The way he spoke, confident and honest, caused Benedict to blink. Confused. That couldn’t be true. If he didn’t, then how had they been released? By whom?

“Regardless. There is no escape for your evils today, Collin of House Alistar. Today, you and yours all die.” Benedict snapped his fingers, and the mana within his magic core blazed to life like magma in his stomach. Words of ancient Runic spilled from his lips in an unstoppable flood of sounds he hardly understood. The mana screamed, resonating with the foreign sounds, and exploded from his body.

A magic circle spanning nearly half the city took shape above them, draining his mana as he collected it from the environment and sucking it out of his reserve with a wild hunger. His mana drew thousands of lines within the magic circle, sketching pattern after pattern of unrecognizable symbols.

The spell he now wielded was a gift given to him from the Red Cardinal on behalf of the Church of Light’s Pope. It had been customized and empowered to be especially reactive against heart cores. Or so he was told. Despite Benedict being only a third-realm mage, the use of ancient Runic should increase the power of his magic, if only for the singular spell, to that of a fifth realm. Not even if Collin progressed into a platinum core would he come out unharmed.

Benedict opened his mouth to release a battle cry.

Instead, his throat clamped and he choked. His body froze, and he realized the magic circle was still drawing energy from him. When it hadn’t found any mana left, it had switched to his life force, and he could feel it being stolen just as quickly as his mana. What wormed its way out of his throat was a bloodcurdling scream of horrible, horrible pain. As if a hand had reached down his throat, taken a handful of his innards, and started to pull them up through his mouth.

His vision went suddenly red, not with rage but with blood, he realized as something warm and sticky slid down his cheeks like tears.

Had he been lied to? What in the nine hells was this spell?

Just as the pain began to swallow him whole, the pressure of the spell draining his life ebbed slightly, and a small, feminine, almost childlike voice penetrated through to him like a blade of infinite sharpness. When it spoke, his mind nearly collapsed with the desire to follow the will of the speaker.

“Stop,” it commanded with authority even his king paled to reach, every word demanding obedience without dissent. “You are not worthy of speaking Runic.”

His scream was silenced, the foreign words cutting off as he plunged into a great silence.

The last thing he thought before pitching sideways off his wyvern was that it was too late. The voice had been too late.

The summoning portal was completed.