Thirty minutes.

  That was the maximum extent of the time that it should take for them to finish the operation. Therefore, starting at 15:35 hours, they should be done by 16:05 hours.

  Why?

  Because the rest of the Wyvern Knights Corps must be speeding straight into Eisenfeld already. From start to finish, they had to take only thirty minutes at most.

  No delays.

  No complications.

  Therefore, when the White Watch and the members of the Wyvern Knights Corps emerged from the woods, he ordered Stella to begin with a powerful magical attack. So, she invoked a spell that took more than twenty seconds to set up.

  It was named ‘Divine Strike’, which was quite apt considering its capability. Using her staff, she conjured thirty magic circles in front of her. As she continued invoking her spell, larger magic circles appeared in the skies.

  Suffice it to say, the wyvern knights were all staring at Stella with their jaws practically on the ground. Noticing their incoming questions, Marcus waved them off.

  “She’s a powerful archmage,” Marcus lied. “That’s all.”

  “...I truly wish to know who the two of you are,” Manfred declared. “I’ve not heard of people capable of taking on the Death God Cult this easily.”

  “Gracious goddess,” Heinrich gaped at Stella. “Captain Fritz should have seen this. She’s almost as capable as the [Saint] herself.”

  At that, Marcus felt a bead of sweat go down his face uncontrollably. Maybe their disguises were truly paper-thin, especially with Stella conducting miracles left and right.

  But he doubted they could help it. The mask that the White Watch offered the two was useful, but there would hardly be any use to it if they would have to handicap themselves to maintain secrecy.

  Soon, Stella finished, and with a final chant, she said out loud the name of her spell.

  [Divine Judgement].

  It must be more than a six-circle spell, Marcus thought, even with his limited knowledge. While indeed, technically, it was only ‘one spell’, in reality, she was managing to conduct it by layering multiple spells together.

  She must be using some kind of scrying to find her targets. Then, she probably was using another spell to invoke her magic circles that far in the sky. Then another spell to guide the attacks themselves.

  And so on.

  His amateur analysis aside, her spell was a true work of art. Using [Mass Surveillance], Marcus managed to watch nearly a hundred beams of golden light strike down from the skies.

  The gathering cultists, now numbering in the hundreds—he truly was incensed at how they managed to recruit this many people—began taking cover. All of them were panicked by the development around them, so their teams and formations collapsed.

  Many of their mages managed to cast barrier spells that protected themselves and their comrades, while others managed to hide using cover in the terrain, but otherwise, Stella’s attack was brutal.

  The rain of light from the sky sliced, pierced, and gutted dozens of cultists on the ground. Most of those hit died in an instant, while the unlucky ones bled out brutally on the ground.

  Most of all, every unit of the Death God Cult was now effectively suppressed. Their morale nearly gone, each of them was looking up at the skies and their surroundings with pure paranoia.

  Their ability to respond would be severely limited.

  That was when Marcus gave the order to charge.

  Heinrich and Manfred’s wyvern knight teams rushed forward, with Marcus and Stella leading the charge in the center. Most of the villagers at this point had already either fled Eisenfeld or hidden in their homes.

  When they reached the western approaches to Eisenfeld, all that were outside were panicked cultists. They barely managed to form a battle line as Marcus’s unit lunged forward.

  Thus, when the White Watch and the wyvern knights slammed into the cultist defense lines, the enemy melted like butter. Stella and Marcus made quick work of the unfortunate fools with their swords, and the same was true with the wyvern knights.

  Soon, however, the rest of the cultist defenders managed to reorient themselves into a semi-proper defensive posture. Crossbowmen and casters rushed into their firing positions, and within seconds, Marcus found himself tanking a few arrows and fireballs.

  The wyvern knights themselves also began suffering from the volleys sent by the cultists. But their armor, which was enchanted, managed to largely resist the enemy attacks.

  Marcus and his team continued advancing unobstructed.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “Go rush into the parish,” Marcus ordered Stella. “Take Heinrich’s team with you. I’ll clear out the surroundings with Manfred’s team.”

  “Alright,” Stella nodded. “Should I fight Salvador Magath on my own?”

  “Do you think you can do it?”

  The two stared at each other as around them, the wyvern knights and cultists battled each other, with each wyvern knight taking down two or three cultists on their own.

  Stella nodded, though it was clear that there was some hesitation on her part.

  “Heinrich!” she called out. “On me! We’re going to the church!”

  “Alright,” Heinrich kicked a cultist that he stabbed off his sword. “Everyone, let’s follow the lady and kill the cultist commander. For Sordale!”

  “For Sordale!”

  While Stella and Heinrich rushed toward the church held by the Death God Cult, Marcus turned to Manfred, who was currently commanding his men effectively at taking out the cultists rushing through the streets.

  Three of his men were currently in melee, holding the frontline, while behind, the two crossbowmen that they had were firing arrows downrange. After looting the fallen cultists, they had quite the arsenal of enchanted arrows after all, so they were free to fire with impunity using their skills.

  But Marcus needed more firepower.

  “Alright, everyone. Clear the way for me, please. I want to try something out.” Marcus sheathed his secondary rapier, keeping only one blade on his right arm. Then, he aimed his palm at the cultists approaching him.

  This would be the first time that Marcus used magic in combat.

  Now, while one would expect that Marcus would use something flashier for the battle, recently, he made a realization. Fireballs were cool and all, but they were a bit too hard to control.

  There was too much risk of friendly fire for a newbie like him. That was worrying, as he didn’t want to accidentally burn Stella’s clothes in combat while he was an amateur mage.

  So, while they were en route here, Marcus had been practicing a spell he picked off from Stella’s grimoire. It was called [Rock Barrage], an improvement to [Rock Throw].

  As he conjured the spell, a brown spell circle appeared in front of his palm. His invocation was still quite amateurish, with many imperfections in his spell circle construction. His mastery of the spell was currently only at 42% after all.

  But when he chanted out the spell’s name, channeling an overwhelming amount of mana from his DIamond-rank manacore, a hail of small jagged rocks came out of his spell circle.

  His attack was wildly inaccurate. If this was a [Fireball] spell, the chances of him burning himself instead of his enemy would be high. But when he was just throwing rocks at the enemy, it wasn’t a problem.

  A sadistic grin grew on his face as he threw an overwhelming amount of mana into the spell.

  The wyvern knights from Manfred’s team all ducked down desperately to avoid the onslaught of his clumsily executed spell. The enemy mages, most of them staring with disgust at his badly invoked spell, tried to cast barrier spells to protect themselves.

  In the end, it was all useless.

  Marcus just threw more and more rocks at high speed using [Rock Barrage], and eventually, the enemy’s bluish barriers cracked, and the cultists behind were turned into ugly pieces of meat.

  The damned rocks, after all, were travelling at such high speeds that one hit was enough to pierce someone cleanly or sever one’s limbs. Within a minute, the streets, which were filled with more than a hundred cultists, were silent.

  Save for a few cultists, filled with holes, letting out dying gasps while crawling in the pool of their blood.

  “...Good sir,” Manfred spoke up from the side. “You suck at using magecraft, don’t you? That was the most inefficient spell I’ve yet seen.”

  Marcus turned to the wyvern knight, slightly offended. Maybe he should have just used his swordplay instead and avoided humiliation. His dreams of being a proper [Mage] seemed to be always far out of reach.

  Now, he looked like some bastard who desecrated magecraft. Manfred did have a point, because Marcus unreasonably used up nearly forty percent of his mana reserves for that stupid spell. Maybe he shouldn’t be throwing them around while he still hasn't mastered it.

  With an annoyed tone, he clicked his tongue.

  “...I’m trying my best.”

  Heinrich was having a hard time trying to keep up with the powerful White Watch lady in front of him.

  For now, he reserved to mentally call her ‘Miss Anna’ because, well, that was the name that his stupid mind could come up with. The other guy, he just mentally called him Sir Asshole, because the man’s tone practically fit that description.

  He had the tone and mannerism of the overbearing type of officers in the military. He was the type who would bust your ass for not meeting a direct command or for breaking protocols. He was exactly the type of officer that Heinrich hated.

  It was why he counted himself lucky when he and five of the survivors from their squadron were assigned to her, especially when he knew what this woman was capable of.

  Not only was she kinder, more considerate, polite, and generally more agreeable to work with, Miss Anna was also quite the capable mage. As Sir Asshole said, she was an archmage of sorts. Quite frankly, Heinrich half thought that she was the next [Saint] because of her healing capabilities.

  Now, he never saw a [Saint] in action, ever. He didn’t even know what the last saint, Princess Stella Rosette vi Sordale, looked like. But he was quite sure that, based on their history, description, and rumored abilities, they mainly specialized in light magic and holy magic.

  This archmage certainly fit the bill. She probably was a powerful [Light Mage] of the church, perhaps someone who got tired of the Holy Church’s inaction against the Death God Cult. Most likely, she was at diamond rank and above.

  Thus, it was easy to cut through the cultists ahead of them. While Miss Anna led the way using her sword, alongside these white bolts of light that flew around her and stabbed anyone who got close, Heinrich and his men only had to deal with the stragglers that she was leaving behind.

  “We’re getting close now,” Miss Anna said as she looked back at them, her voice light and gentle, even with her long sword dripping with cultist blood. “Just stick with me, and I swear, we’ll get through this.”

  Heinrich stabbed a cultist gasping for air on the pavement before nodding at Miss Anna, impressed by her combat abilities.

  “Keep pushing,” Heinrich said. “We've got your back.”

  “I appreciate it!”

  She then continued leading their assault.

  Soon, they reached the church itself, which was guarded by dozens of cultists. Strangely though, they didn’t open fire with their staves and crossbows. Instead, there was a singular man standing in front of them, wearing the white robes of the Holy Church.

  “Welcome, welcome!” the priestly-looking man shouted. “It appears that you’ve all finally reached my domain. That means I must introduce myself!”

  With a slight theatrical bow, the cultist masquerading as a church official grinned.

  “I am Archbishop Salvador Magath, the head of the Ministry of Justified Acquisitions.” He raised his head and stared straight at Miss Anna, who stood ahead of Heinrich’s group. “Welcome to your final resting place, dear guests. The Parish of Abundant Arsenal warmly welcomes you all!”

  Right then, as he extended his arms wide, the gems on the rings of his fingers glowed. Multiple bolts of light of different colors appeared in front of them.

  What the hell is that?

  With a shout, Miss Anna immediately used a spell to create multiple gold-colored barriers around them.

  “Goodness, all of you, please take cover!”