Despite losing their entire vanguard, their roars revealed that the fallen soldiers meant little to diminish their morale; it was just part of their plans.

Eversnow's remaining forces' morale was affected instead of the orcs.

Even with the small victory, it was clear the real fight had not begun yet.

Kasine’s eyes narrowed, breath slipping out in a slow sigh as the katana materialized in her hand.

“Lady Kasine…”

Liaranna tried to say something, but Kasine raised a hand, silencing her.

“I know, I’m just getting ready… I hate wearing armor.”

Kasine entered the watchtower, but not before shooting a look back at Lazar and Alain, her gaze sharp and pointed, “No peeping!”

The two centenary men were left feeling like boys being scolded by a beautiful aunt.

Meanwhile, in front of the forest down south, Kamus slashed through undead after undead while dodging the worms that came out of them.

Simultaneously, Sienna launched Fire Wave after Fire Wave, burning the undead and worms alike, the air thick with the reek of scorched rot.

“Damn! Your father was always a slow caster, but isn’t he taking a little too long?! I have a bad feeling about all of this. They are stalling us here.” Kamus shouted between slashes.

The same scene repeated itself in all four directions around the barrier. With only eight people covering a 2-kilometer radius, the task wasn’t impossible, but it wasn’t easy either.

Neloph, on the eastern side, flew past Sahvus, who sat in meditation as he shouted a question, “How long?!”

“Another hour!” Sahvus shouted back and waved his hand at another group of undead.

Neloph watched the scene with a frown, ‘These incoming undead waves are slowing his Grand Spell. Dammit! We need to end this quickly!’

Licarus and the others were faring no better.

They had enough stamina to stay like that for days, but this situation seemed too bizarre for them, and with the Necromancers hiding the traces of the Kasulla inside the barrier, they couldn’t rush in and risk being infected.

They realized that this was a maneuver to hold them there, and it was working as they couldn’t risk the Kasulla’s escape.

At the same time, King Alonso and Hannah continued to cross blades in the sky above Winterheart.

Madalyn, commanding the other count mages, raised the defensive formation to deal with the shockwaves caused by the blows they exchanged and the aftermath of the spells they released.

Still, the battle was so intense that the mages had to remain in rotation because of how much mana they were using.

The people in the Royal City had varying reactions.

The weak hid and cowered in fear inside their homes, stores, or any other establishment as the fight started.

However, those strong enough to withstand the crushing pressure clung to rooftop edges, eyes wide, the cold wind whipped at their cloaks while they strained to watch, hoping to gain insight.

In the castle dungeon, after slaying more than a hundred guards, Prince Afonso and the other General who came with him finally reached the cells where Marcel and his daughter, Sandra, were imprisoned.

Seeing the Prince, Marcel, who was brutally beaten and covered with signs of torture, sighed in relief, “I knew it… cough, cough, I knew my big brother would come for me… ugh!”

The Prince and the General said nothing, only fed them a couple of recovery potions, and, carrying them, they turned to escape the dungeon’s prison.

But even from within the dungeon, the impacts and shockwaves of the fight outside caused trepidation throughout the whole palace.

In the sky, Hannah quickly raised a Mana Shield as a wave of golden fire clashed against it, barely even scraping it.

“How long are you going to keep me waiting to see your full power, King of Whiteland? Even my grandson can cast better spells!”

King Alonso frowned deeply at her mocking words.

That was one of his strongest spells, but that was something he only noticed now.

This was his first real fight after swapping his cultivation to Spirit Magic.

His spells had become weaker, and he couldn’t understand why.

The reason was that he didn’t convert his Core like Sokram did to the others.

Another thing weakening his magic was that he continued to cast spells through logic instead of emotion and intent, which weakened the effects of Spirit Magic.

Hannah had realized that, too.

Although Alonso was also a Tier 10 Semi-Perfect Existence like her, he hadn’t mastered the intricacies of the new energy he was using, making him a lot weaker than her.

“Since you only seem to want to stall for time, you leave me no other choice. Let me show you, puny human, what real Magi is!”

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Hannah raised her hand, and the sky brightened red.

Three spears of brilliant, crimson-hot fire coalesced in the sky, radiating an intense heat that could be felt even on the ground far below, shot in lightning speed.

Cast instantly, as mana flew from Hannah like a tsunami as she called forth, “Spears of Destruction!”

Alonso quickly cast his most powerful defensive spell.

“Golden Walls of Aetherium!”

A golden array appeared below his feet, and a glassy wall of poorly mixed spirit essence and mana raised around him just in time.

But as he felt the impact, he realized just how much Hannah had been holding back until now.

“Boom! Boom! Boom!”

Three gigantic spears of fire slammed into Alonso’s barrier.

The impacts resounded throughout the skies of Winterheart, each blow shaking the sky and splitting the air with a deafening roar.

The first cracked Alonso’s barrier, the second crushed it completely, and the third just didn’t kill him because of a life-saving artifact that he sacrificed to save himself.

Still, Alonso was hurled back as he spun through the air, the wind howling past his ears as he fought to right himself.

That was precisely what Hannah wanted.

Without the city below them, she no longer needed to keep holding back.

The barrier provided by the artifact remained intact.

But Alonso couldn’t understand why the difference between their power levels was so vast.

Unable to accept that he was weaker, he waved his bladed staff toward the incoming Hannah.

“Frost Rain, Swords of Ice!”

The air grew sharp with a biting cold as hundreds of jagged ice blades materialized in the sky, piercing the wind as they shot toward her.

Hannah quickly raised her Mana Shield again.

Reinforcing it this time, as she would never underestimate an enemy of the same level, but none of the ice blades conjured by King Alonso drained more than a sliver of her mana.

And what little it did take, she recovered in a single breath.

“You will pay for looking down on me, human!”

Hannah shouted, but her raging shout carried an undertone of mockery.

Thanks to what she learned from Sokram, she could see through his lack of understanding of Spirit Magic.

Thinking of her grandson made a grin form on her face, Hannah quickly dispelled her mana shield, and she vanished in a flash of thunder.

Alonso completely lost sight of her, not knowing from where her next strike would come.

He looked right and left, extending his sensory field as far as he could, and then, “Crackle!”

A chain of lightning faster than anything he had ever seen hit him.

The artifact in his hand was crushed into pieces, and his body was shot down from the sky. The shield provided by the artifact vanished, and his body skidded through the snowy ground of the plains outside the city.

“Fuck…” Alonso cursed as he felt his whole body hurting.

Ever since he reached the Semi-Perfect Level, no one had stood up to him.

He had become the absolute ruler among the human Kings in the Northern Continent.

Only the King, Dukes, and Duchesses of Dracony, the Sirens of the Northern Sea, and the two emperors from the small empires in the southern part of the Northern continent could ever pose a threat to him.

Only now that he stood before someone of the same level did he understand how shallow his power was.

He used his staff to support his body, his mind in turmoil.

He failed to understand why her magic was so much stronger than his. But just as he began considering that his life could end in this battle, his communication crystal lit up in his right pocket.

Activating it, a message resounded aloud, “My King! The Prince and the Steelhearts are safe! They just crossed the teleportation formation in the Blueheart estate. I’m going to your aid, please hold a while more!”

Hearing his General's voice brought him a brief sense of relief, but it was too short-lived.

“Slash!”

Alonso tried to roll away from Hannah’s incoming blade, sensing her appearing beside him, but he was a second too late.

He felt a sharp, searing pain as he lost all sense of his left arm, and the weight of his staff was gone.

He heard his own scream as his body fell to the ground.

And just as his body hit the floor, he heard Hannah’s voice, “It seems I was right about you having more people infiltrated in Norwinter, hm? Lucien is young, but he shouldn’t be so gullible, sigh...”

Hannah raised her sword to finish him off, but, desperate for survival, the King pleaded.

“Wait! If you leave right now, you may still have time to save the boy you adopted!”

Alonso shouted, raising his hand for her to stop, only to raise his other arm.

“Shing! Tuf, tuf.”

The sickening thud of his severed arm rolling over the snow was muffled by his own scream.

“Stop, fucking lizard bitch! Aaaah! You’re going to lose the boy you adopted! If I die here, no one will order the orcs to stop their attacks!”

Hannah hesitated, and that was all the opening the masked General needed to rush in and activate another artifact.

But Alonso knew that if he didn’t make Hannah leave, that artifact wouldn’t save them.

“Speak!”

Hannah ordered lowering her weapon, but not her guard.

“Eversnow, the city near the border, is under siege. It’s my escape strategy to make you rush there. The attack started at the same time I arrived, and most of the powerhouses of that city were lured away because of the Kasulla I planted south of there. If I give the order, the orcs will withdraw.”

Hearing Alonso’s words, Hannah’s heart tightened.

“So that’s your real trump card, hm? My grandson.”

Yet a grin formed on her lips, a mix of pride and killing intent shining in her eyes. “But you’re a fool, that little dragon is scarier than I am!”

Hannah raised her hand to the sky, and five lightning bolts tore through the sky, converging in the same spot, forming a bigger and stronger one. “Let me show you something he gifted me. So you can reach the Nether knowing how much of a monster he is… Piercing Lightning Spear!”

As her hand swung down, Alonso and the General’s vision blanked, and the brightness of the lightning flashing light was the last thing they saw.

From afar, the people watching from the walls of the Royal City saw a colossal serpent of lightning coiled through the clouds before striking down, its body crackling with blinding arcs.

Even from a considerable distance, the thunderous sound, the shockwave of the impact, and the intensity of the mana in the spell did not just shock them.

It made them realize that the Duchess was far more powerful than they ever knew.

Hannah quickly cancelled the spell, not allowing them to disintegrate, knowing that Kings often carried many treasures with them, things too valuable to be left in their treasuries.

Once the dust cleared, with a wave of her hand, the two burned bodies and their belongings were summoned to one of her rings, while their spatial rings ended in her hand.

Using her movement technique, she rushed back to the Royal Palace.

Her heart urged her to rush back to Eversnow, to rush back home.

But in her mind, she was eager to see what Sokram would do to keep their family safe.

In Whiteland, as soon as Hannah killed King Alonso, every citizen in Whiteland received a message from the Records:

[The King of Whiteland, Alonso di Whiteland, is dead.

If no challenges are raised for the throne by Trial of Combat, in one day on your planet, 30 hours, the next King recognized by the Primordial Infinium Records will be the Crown Prince, Afonso di Whiteland, by default.]

The entire country froze for a moment, and then… Chaos spread throughout the nation.

The message, as always, was straightforward, clean, and unapologetic.

The devastating news struck the whole nation with waves of shock and fear.

The King was one of the strongest powerhouses of their continent, but who could have killed him? The answer was something Afonso knew well: The Duchess of Dracony killed his father.

Marcel fell to his knees, having received the same message, tears falling down his face.

The King of Whiteland wasn’t just his King; Afonso was like a big brother and a father figure to him.

He was a visionary who shared the same dream as Marcel.

The dream of bringing back the purity of all races.

A dream to return the world to the primordial stage.

But now, without him and his power to back them, would they ever be able to reach it?

That night, the nation of Whiteland had much to cry for.