The dogfight between Fritz’s unit and the enemy cultists had now reached its second minute. Nearly half of his men were already shot down. The head-to-head charge earlier managed to prevent their absolute destruction, as their counterattack forced some of the cultists to abandon their attack run.

  Unfortunately, that was a short-lived victory. Even when his men tried to limp away and flee, the enemy had superior speed and flight energy. They simply swooped upward, while the rest conducted a second dive.

  Some of his riders made the mistake of attempting a turn-fight with the cultist wyverns. It was always a fatal mistake. The truth was, aerial combat nowadays depended on speed, surprise, and first-strike opportunities.

  Brawling an enemy was only advisable if you had equal speed and altitude or if your wyvern was capable enough of accelerating out of any unfavorable circumstances. Fritz’s squadron had none of those.

  Even Heinrich struggled, as he was only able to pick off two cultist wyverns in the air. He had to practically use his own magic to do that, and that wasn’t exactly good. The truth was, there weren't a lot of mages that were capable of casting magecraft while piloting a speeding beast.

  Damn it.

  If we don’t make it out of here, no one will warn them.

  That, and of course, they would die. But Fritz was also worried about his comrades. What if the Death God Cult had more air assets? What if they were fully prepared for an assault, and this was just one of their measures?

  The 101st was practically walking into a major ambush. It did not bode well at all.

  Ah, damn it! Focus on the fight!

  Fritz expertly maneuvered his wyvern through the skies, dodging fireballs from two cultist flyers on his tail. Due to their superior velocity, they flew past him right after their attack run.

  He pulled his wyvern upward, and the wyvern opened its mouth while aiming it at one of the enemy riders.

  “Anna, open fire now!” Fritz shouted, and immediately, his partner obeyed. A ball of intense reddish light came from its mouth, flying straight into one of the cultist flyers.

  “Salvation!” The cultist shouted, even as a brutal inferno consumed him and the creature he was on, both of them falling as charred corpses into the ground.

  “One down! Damn it, can someone cover my rear!?” Fritz spoke to his manacomm, asking for assistance.

  Unfortunately, when he looked around him, there wasn’t anyone left to support him. Everyone but Heinrich was downed, and Heinrich himself was dealing with four cultists chasing his tail.

  One of the cultist flyers zoomed headfirst into Heinrich, and the two fired a fireball straight at each other’s faces. While Heinrich struck the enemy flyer, his wyvern wing was singed, causing it to roar in pain as the two tumbled downwards.

  “Behind you, heathen scum!” One of the cultists shouted in glee. “Face our judgement!”

  “Shit! Dodge, Anna!” Fritz shouted, cursing to himself as a fireball nearly scorched him. Fortunately, his wyvern rolled just in time, before diving downward after two more fireballs nearly struck him.

  But now, he was low to the ground. His altitude was bad, and his turns bled a lot of airspeed. He couldn’t believe it. He was really about to die.

  There was no way out. He was far away from any support; he was outnumbered and surrounded, and most of all, there were no tricks he’d be able to conduct. The rest of his squadron were swept away because they were unprepared.

  The fact that they even managed to shoot down eight of the enemy was a miracle. Other squadrons wouldn’t be able to even do anything if they were under the opening conditions that Fritz and his men found themselves under.

  The truth was, the only way out of this was if they had support from the ground. They would need mages capable of sending spells that could hit fast-moving targets in the air. There was none. There would be no rescue, and now, eight wyverns were speeding down on him.

  He laughed at his fate.

  It was over.

  “Anna,” Fritz held his wyvern’s reins tightly before patting its smooth, white skin. “You and I had a good run. I’m proud of you.”

  Eight glowing fireballs sped like a flash straight in his direction. There was no way to dodge them all, and so, he accepted his fate.

  Come, sweet oblivion. He fought hard for the kingdom and its king even when he had no love for them. Ultimately, this was the duty of a soldier: to die in battle.

  “Glory to Sordale—!”

  Before he finished his final battle cry, though, something came from the forest.

  [Absolute Blaze].

  Right then, a flash of red light cut through the skies, the fireballs dissipating as if they were nothing.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  [Purification Bolts].

  Then, it was followed up by eight rods of pure white light, each of them flying straight into the cultist flyers. Fritz was so slack-jawed after seeing what happened next that his wyvern nearly slammed into a nearby hill.

  Luckily, he regained control right as the unfortunate cultists and their mounts tumbled straight down into the forests.

  W-who the hell did that?!

  “Good work, Stella,” Marcus praised, impressed by Stella's impeccable marksmanship. “Now, try to recover and save your countrymen. They came in here trying to save you, after all.”

  Stella smiled at Marcus beneath her mask, clearly satisfied because of his praise of her ability. She was getting quite confident nowadays when she fought, and that was something that Marcus wanted to encourage a lot.

  “I’ll be on it, Sir Marcus. Please don’t get in trouble,” Stella replied as she nodded. “Don’t charge alone into the village.”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ll take care of things. You’re the one who can save people; I'm good at killing people,” Marcus grinned. “You got this.”

  Stella immediately broke off, using [Fly] to go straight to the shot-down riders. While it was unlikely that all of them were still alive, Marcus knew that Stella’s saintly abilities would make sure that the survivors in critical condition, who would definitely die in a minute or two, could be saved.

  To ensure that she wouldn’t be interrupted in that task, Marcus got to work. He used one of his rapiers for his opening attack earlier, which managed to disrupt the surviving cultists so badly that the last rider from the Wyvern Knights Corps was now gaining speed and altitude as he beelined out of trouble.

  While some may view it as a cowardly move, Marcus respected whatever soldier was on that mount. He reacted quickly even after a catastrophic ambush, not letting his emotions about his fallen comrades affect him.

  In this kind of situation, when fate suddenly interfered so that a soldier would be able to limp out of an unexpected foe, it was best for a survivor to escape immediately and report to his allies. That was definitely the task of that lone rider.

  Don’t look back. We’ll deal with the rest.

  Marcus pulled out his second rapier. Then, he counted the remaining enemies in the sky. There were two of them, but four more riders came out of the skies, diving down to reinforce the flyers wiped out by the earlier skirmish.

  Naturally, Marcus wouldn’t let even a single cultist survive. So, activating [Blink Step] and [Levitation], he zoomed upwards. At first, he thought he’d have some trouble battling enemies that were flying quickly high up in the sky.

  But [Blink Step] was simply too powerful mobility-wise. He looked like he was straight up flying because of [Levitation] too, except he was moving in short, rapid bursts.

  The cultists panicked as he closed in, all of them trying to fly away quickly. Unfortunately, Marcus closed in faster, readying his swords. As he reached his first target, immediately he blinked one last time, spinning with the momentum, before cutting down both the rider and his mount in one swing.

  Then, he moved on to the next, then the next, then the next. None of them managed to nail him with their fireball attacks. The singular cultist rider who managed to torch him a bit only made a glancing hit.

  When he was done, with bodies of both beast and human falling from the skies, Marcus let go of his skills. He immediately began falling downward with a smile on his face as he returned his rapiers to his scabbards.

  How satisfying.

  Killing cultists always pumped his blood. Truly, there was no greater satisfaction in this world than killing the death god’s minions.

  As he closed in on the ground, he finally activated [Levitation] and [Blink Step] again, landing harmlessly on an area that gave him a good view of the village.

  On the other hand, the cultists each fell on the hard ground with a terrible splat.

  [Greater Heal].

  [Greater Heal].

  [Fly].

  [Fly].

  [Greater Heal].

  Stella had quite the difficult task for her. While Marcus rushed out to battle the remaining cultists in the air, Stella focused on the job she was good at—healing people.

  The soldiers in Eisenfeld were all countrymen of hers. Worst of all, they were all there to save her skin, sacrificing themselves in a fight against a foe they didn’t fully understand.

  A foe that Stella was sure the church and her father underestimated.

  As a result, they faced a terrible fate. Some of them were completely burned head to toe, some were reduced into ugly red stains on the ground, and others were half-burned, half-dead, with bones and flesh broken.

  She tried her best to rush to each one of them, using her healing powers to quickly restore them. Then, she’d carry them using [Fly] into a safe area.

  Within a few minutes, she managed to rescue more than a dozen of them, frantically using [Greater Heal] over and over again on them.

  Please stay alive.

  Don’t die for me.

  Please, please, please.

  Most of them were still badly injured, as she couldn’t waste too much time on everyone she saved. She had to save more, so all she could do was give them a few seconds of [Greater Heal] to save their lives in the short term before running out and grabbing more soldiers.

  It was tiresome and heart wrenching. Each time she found a soldier weeping deliriously for his mother, lying with dislocated and fractured bones on the ground, her growing hatred for the Death God Cult intensified.

  [Greater Heal].

  [Fly].

  [Greater Heal].

  Maybe, at some point, her heart’s aversion to killing was truly dying. Back then, she would reason to herself that she was ‘fine’ with killing because ultimately, it would help if the goddess judged their misguided souls earlier.

  But perhaps that was wrong. Perhaps killing truly was good if it stopped people who would cruelly do these actions to good people.

  She shut her thoughts down. She focused on saving and healing. That was all that mattered.

  When she was done with her task, four of the soldiers she saved were unrecoverable. They were dead; nothing much more could be done. Eleven of them were in critical condition, all of them only alive because of Stella’s quick intervention.

  They were now all piled up inside a small cave she found on a hill. None of them could speak, their severe blood loss knocking them unconscious. The ones who weren’t unconscious were barely lucid, merely muttering weakly about the overwhelming pain they were in.

  Stella took a deep breath. Channeling all of her mana, she activated the best skill she had to save them all at once.

  [Area Heal].

  Immediately, the cave was filled with the ethereal, golden glow of her saintly magic.