[Current location: Holy castle]

"What the hell do you mean Gryphon Fang fortress was conquered!?" – shouted the pope king.

"Yes…..Sir." – said the injured soldier as he bowed his head.

"The entire fortress…. Was conquered in a single day by the vampires."

"…."

"Sir. This isn't good one bit." – said the elderly paladin.

"Gryphon Fang fortress wasn't just extremely well build fortress against monster and demon attacks, but it also had extremely powerful natural advantage thanks to the bizarre of the mountains and other surrounding structures."

"Not only that, but a lot of our gryphon riders and monster hunting specialists were operating in that place."

"And yet, it only took day for the vampires to take over that fortress."

"But didn't you used adventures to slow them down?! Shouldn't that had also weakened them as well?!" – said the priest.

"Yes…. It did worked….. But not enough." – replied the elderly paladin.

"The power that the vampire posses is far more problematic than we had thought."

"Especially that 'flying metal island'."

"Not only it can drop army of vampire elite soldiers right on top of us, but that thing can also bombard us with explosions."

"This is what had happened…." – said injured soldier.

"Our gryphon were shot down and before we could react, vampires had already managed to make their way into the fortress."

"Not only that, but a monster made out steel appeared….. And he straight up ripped apart the fortress master in front of everybody eyes."

"Only first half of the battle was real battle….. But afterwords? It was pure massacre."

"All of our defenses were shattered right in front of our eyes and our elites were hunted down like game." – said the traumatized soldier.

"…"

"Take him away and give him some proper rest." – said the elderly paladin.

"Yes sir." – said extremely heavily armored knight as he then helped out the wounded soldier get out of the throne room.

"…"

"What about the dragons?" – asked the pope king.

"According to the intel, the dragons started pushing into our territory, but we are able to keep things even with them." – said knight.

"At the rate things are, we would be able to push them back and reclaim our lost territory."

"That was our original thought process."

"But right now?"

"It will be hard."

"In order to deal with spreading vampire infection as well as other members of the organization, we were forced to relocate some of our forces."

"We can still keep dragons at bay."

"But not kick them out."

"And from now on we would also need to take drastic choices."

"Agree." – said the elderly paladin.

"Specifically, we need to do something about that flying vessel of theirs."

"As long as that thing is over our heads, vampires will always have major advantage against us."

"We need to somehow take it down that thing or at least lock in place."

"Flying is out of options, before you are going to even ask." – said queen of the wind dragon clan.

"Gryphons and the wind dragons are much faster than this giant thing, but when it comes to defense and offensive power, it easily outshine us both."

"If anything, fighting against this thing in the skies is straight up dead sentence."

"The thing that would at least do something do it would be something with extremely long attack range."

"But beside that, I wouldn't even dare to attack it head on."

"Well, we tried to do a long attacks, but it didn't worked." – said the elderly paladin.

"They also have long range attacks, so whenever we would fire a bullet, they would just drop an entire cannon ball on us."

"Each time may I add as well."

"So yea, this plan may not work out."

"If not, then any other bright ideas you genius?"

"…"

"Huh? Why so quiet?"

"Enough. Both of you." – said the pope king.

"Right now, we are in position to bicker amongst ourselves."

"For now, focus on vampires."

"Find any weak points they have."

"Try different things."

"There is no such thing as 'unbeatable'."

"Once you find any weak points of theirs, exploit it."

"And use it to destroy that giant ship."

"Got it?"

[Meanwhile: Sky Behemoth Ship – Strategy room]

"Hm…."

"So…. What is up with the colors?" – asked Maparapara as she stared at the giant map that was spread on the wall.

"Well, the red color is us, blue empire and green the dragons." – said Phantasia.

"Huh…. We conquered way less than I've had thought." – said Mordred.

"Nah, we conquered a lot already." – said Hunter.

"The holy empire is just that massive."

"However, if I were to say what is the bigger problem…. It would be both players and angels."

"They can revive later on, allowing them to replenish their forces nonstop."

"But this also makes them use up resources." – said Phantasia.

"Brining back angels each time does consume some energy."

"Not only that, but the vampire infection is spreading around."

"So, they would have even harder time gathering 'faith'."

"Anyway, why are you only here Mordred?" – asked Maprapra.

"Oh, the others were sent on the mission and I've kind of logged off extremely late….. So, they went without me."

"Hm…. Well, we needed at least one of you here, to explain the current details of the situation, so it isn't so bad for you to stayed behind." – said Phantasia.

"Anyway, after your team return, would you mind going to the general Vioranh?"

"He will probably need you in the next upcoming mission regarding the temple city of Moi."

"Ah, that place." – said Mordred.

"This will be fun."

"Anything else?"

"Nope." – replied Phantasia.

"We have already told you all important bits."

"You are free to go."

"Got it. Cheers." – said Mordred before then leaving the room.

"…"

"He is gone." – said Hunter as she pressed button on her mask, causing it to open up.

"Anything?" – asked Phantasia.

"Still nope." – replied Thanatos.

"But I can tell they are planning something."

"Maybe after the war end."

"Or at one point."

"I don't think they are planning on betraying us."

"But there is chance they may decide to 'disappear' for moment."

"Hm…..Okay." – said Phantasia.

"Anyway, regarding the current flow of the war."

"What do you think?"

"Hm?"

"Well, isn't it obvious?" – asked Maprapra.

"We are winning obviously."

"True…. In a sense we are winning." – said Thanatos.

"Any big battles that we had fought so far were easily won by us."

"Even this fortress only took a day to be conquered."

"At this rate, we should win the war."

"But the dragons are still fucking up over and over again."

"And from what 'Kid' told us, they are still refusing any support from us."

"For crying out loud."

"I knew dragons were prideful bastards and all, but this?"

"This is just plain stupid."

"But they didn't acted this way the last time we fought side by side, right?" – asked Maprapra.

"Why are they acting like this?"

"Because of their pride."

"The dragons were losing nonstop."

"Against the dwarves, they were unable to do shit because of the dwarven anty dragon weapons."

"Against the elves the earth dragon clan could not move one bit at all."

"And against the demon god forces where they were just getting brutally demolish in head on combat."

"They needed HELP each and every time."

"True."

"They do own us and by that I mean a lot."

"But that also wrecked up their pride a bit."

"Especially the rulers of each clans are pretty much brain dead."

"Specific the fire dragon clan….. They are really and I mean REALLY over prideful."

(There is also the mystery regarding the light and nature dragon clans.) – thought Phantasia.

(We still don't know their game.)

"Either way, we will have to go and help out the dragons."

"Eh?"

"But they still didn't requested a support." – said Thanatos.

"Yea…. But we need them to be active." – said Phantasia.

"We are not conquering the empire territory as fast as we hoped for, so we need to change up strategy."

"We will need to force enemy to focus on us or we need to go and directly assist them."

"What do you think 'Kid'?"

"Hm…" – 'Kid' used a giant spinning chair, revealing himself to the group.

"!?"

"Wait, when did you got here?" – asked surprised Maparapara.

"Pretty much from the very start." – replied "Kid".

"Anyway, regarding those two options you just said, I think we will really have no choice but to pick one of them."

"I will hold a quick meeting and discuss this with the others."

"By the way…. What was that about not trusting Arthur and his team?"

"…"

"Just as it sounds." – replied Phantasia.

"I don't trust that guy one bit."

"He is too 'good' as a person, if you know what I mean."

"So it was better for me to tell you about this, instead of just waiting until something really happens."

"…"

"You are saying that….. But he is really strong." – replied "Kid".

"I think he is one of the strongest adventures I've encountered so far, including you."

"And this isn't all."

"He isn't trying to hide it, so I think it is far if I say this."

"About his powers."

"?"

"Wait, you know something about his class?" – asked Phantasia.

"Yeb." – replied "Kid".

"I'm one of the highest members of the organization, so obviously I know few things."

"And one of those things I know is the divinity."

"Specifically the divinity of the true gods of this world."

"That bastard possess the divinity of a elder god."