I Can Copy And Evolve Talents

Chapter 1350: The Only Hope

The invisibility dome that had been helping the Empire’s army stealthily approach Ryugan’s gate was gone. But that did not help the situation as anyone would have thought it would.

Instead, it only made matters worse.

There was no weapon in their arsenal, no machination or siege engine, that could breach the vast distance between them and the Empire’s army.

The Empire’s cover had been blown, and still there was nothing Ryugan could do to fight back.

They knew it. The Empire knew it too.

The Captain leaned on the parapet, looking at that impossible distance with pain in his eyes. His knuckles had gone pallid against the stone.

Meanwhile, far away, two men knelt and held a gigantic bow between them while a third carried a javelin taller than himself. He was already nocking it to the bowstring, pulling it back with his entire body.

There were rows of soldiers like this, all of them filling the Empire’s frontline in groups of three. Two kneeling and bracing the weight of each massive bow while the third lifted a javelin arrow, nocked it, and pulled back with terrific strength until the rope of the bow had gone so taut it looked like it might snap.

Then they released.

With explosive force, the javelins went flying, covering hundreds of meters in less than a moment while whistling across the air like the cries of dying birds.

At long last they arrived at Ryugan’s airspace and bombarded their walls and gates, releasing a thundercrack sound that traveled across the sky and quaked the wind itself.

Ryugan was completely helpless before their enemy.

’What kind of weapon do they have? What manner of men are these people? This should be impossible.’

Ryugan had centuries of compiled experience facing the Empire. When soldiers enrolled in the army, the first thing they were taught was how to fight a Reimgardian soldier. The Kingdom had always been confident that there was nothing about their enemy they did not know.

So this was too alien for them. They had no answer to tactics like this. Who even besieges their enemy from hundreds of kilometers away?

The insane part was that it was working.

The Ryugan soldiers stared at the distance, all of them lost. Even the Captain found himself frozen at the parapet, utterly without recourse. No orders came to his lips. There were no orders to give.

Another round of javelins slithered across the distance and ate into the wall sections and the gate. The gate itself absorbed the damage, shuddering but holding. The walls could not. Stone exploded outward in a spray of debris, and the ramparts shook so heavily that soldiers stumbled and grabbed for handholds.

Even the gate was only a matter of time. Or to be more accurate, a matter of volleys.

The Captain stood there, staring at the gate he had sworn to protect. It had barely been an hour since the attack started. The Empire had done nothing but throw their javelins from an impossible distance, and it looked like they were going to take the gate in just one hour.

It would be utterly humiliating for them as a nation if the Empire took their gate in a single hour. The General had granted him the order to protect this gate even if it cost his life and to buy the Azure Airers as much time as he could.

But that was the problem. How much time could he afford at this moment? All he could do was stand and watch the city gate fall.

The Captain turned and stared at the vastly burned land to the north.

’They’re the only hope.’

Whoever had thrown what destroyed the forest was their only solution, their only way out of this. The Captain had heard of the strange person who had been crowned an Archduke and given command of the nation’s army, holding supremacy even over the General himself.

That was what the rumors said, anyway. But the army’s loyalty, especially the aerial squads, still lay with the General. Nothing could change that. Still, the rumors mentioned a very strong man, someone who had even defeated the Gentleman of Ash and Flame.

Any Captain knew how impossible it was to defeat the Gentleman of Ash and Flame. And yet...

The Captain, among many others, wanted to believe it was just exaggeration. But in a moment like this, especially with the devastation that he had just seen with his own eyes, he found himself wishing... hoping.

He inhaled and exhaled heavily.

Just in that moment, another round of javelins were flying toward them. But all of a sudden there was another projectile from the northernmost corner where the arrow of light had flown. Something else pierced through the sky. There was a white one first, then there was a black one.

They were blurry, and most soldiers could not see them. But the Captain could. He would not be a Captain if he couldn’t see what others missed. He was a Master, after all.

Both arched across the air and flew toward the wall with devastating speed.

The first was like a white and gold blade made flesh, piercing through the wind with wings of light. The second was like a living shadow, something that felt wrong, something that should not exist. The white figure with their cloak flowing back created a stark contrast against the dark shape that flew ahead of them.

Then the Captain saw the white figure draw the string of their bow.

The bow itself was strange, beautiful, too. But the Captain did not get the time to appreciate its beauty.

A deafening sound resounded across the air and the arrow flew, clashing with the first javelin just before it crashed into the gate.

The javelin flash froze. Its momentum died instantly, and it dropped to the ground like a dead bird.

The archer had not only released another arrow before the Captain looked up. He had released five more in barely a moment.

Five arrows flew, intercepting the javelins and freezing them instantly. Frozen spears fell from the sky like hail.

He was already shooting more. The white creature flying ahead of him had gone far forward, raising a spear of light and clashing with the javelins that would have destroyed the walls. Where the spear struck, javelins shattered into fragments of ice and metal.

The Captain stared.

For the first time in an hour, he breathed.