"I won't deny that. There's no point in wasting time bickering with each other. Let's decide this once and for all!" Cameron raised his sword and charged into battle against Lazaar, while Gilgen looked on with a slightly dazed expression, still reeling from brushing shoulders with death just now.

The Wish sword was like a dragon that had just been awoken, and it was radiating scintillating golden light.

With a thunderous roar, King Cameron swept his sword through the air with sufficient force to split mountains and part seas, releasing such a brilliant burst of golden radiance that everyone on the battlefield was led into thinking that a new sun was about to rise from the Marrod Plain.

He's been holding back this entire time! Gilgen thought to himself upon seeing this, and a chill ran down his spine as this thought occurred to him.

It could be said that this attack from King Cameron had stunned everyone on the battlefield, with the exception of one man, who remained completely unmoved. Prince Lazaar raised his Bai Ze sword, charging directly toward the incandescent radiance with unwavering resolve and boundless courage.

He cut a proud figure amid the golden light, and the aura emanating from his Bai Ze sword wasn't inferior to that of the Wish sword in the slightest, pouring forth like the endless waves of the sea.

A resounding clang rang out as the two swords clashed, and deep within the boundless radiance, Bai Ze and Wish began to tear at one another, while countless bursts of sword energy erupted all around them, instantly taking the lives of over 1,000 troops from both kingdoms.

Meanwhile, Mistress Faye was still standing atop the city wall, and she cast a glance toward the two people locked in battle in the sky, then turned to Lana as she said, "Let's go. It's time for us to join the battle as well."

Lana nodded in response, and the two of them rose up from the top of the city wall together.

Mistress Faye was the youngest grandmaster magician in the Effer Kingdom, and she drew her silver serpentine staff. Around a dozen bursts of blue-gray energy surged out of her fingertips before revolving around the staff, slowly making their way to its tip. As soon as the energy came into contact with the silver snake on the tip of the staff, eerie red light immediately began to glow from the snake's eyes, following which plumes of smoke and mist erupted out of the snake's mouth between its fangs, sweeping directly toward Count Friar's forces.

The blue-gray mist began to permeate throughout the 30,000 reserve troops, and all of the soldiers who inhaled it instantly had their pupils turn the same blue-gray color, shortly following which they began to suffer from a series of negative symptoms. Firstly, they would lose their sense of balance, followed by uncontrollable vomiting. Count Friar cast his gaze around him to find that all of the affected soldiers were throwing up green bile, and after they had nothing left to throw up, the soldiers would collapse to the ground and fall unconscious, following which their bodies would slowly disintegrate into puddles of putrid green liquid.

In contrast, all of the Burmen cavaliers who were charging toward Count Friar's troops had already lowered the visors attached to their helmets, and it was clear that they were very familiar with the spell that Mistress Faye had just unleashed.

"Don't inhale the smoke! Prepare for battle!" Count Friar yelled.

Before Count Friar had a chance to rearrange his own troops, the enemy cavaliers had already arrived, and a fierce battle quickly broke out on the southern side of the Marrod Plain. In the sky above, Master Piro was originally keeping an eye on the battle between Cameron and Lazaar, but upon noticing the situation unfolding on Count Friar's side, he immediately rushed over to provide his assistance. With a wave of his beechwood staff, the mist began to disperse, and in the blink of an eye, most of the cloud of toxic mist had already disappeared.

"Since when did you become so vile and heartless? All of these people that you're killing are soldiers of the empire!" Master Piro denounced as he glowered at Faye, and judging from his expression, it seemed that it had been many years since he had last been this angry at anyone. Perhaps it was because he was completely caught off guard by the fact that a magician of the same caliber as him would unleash such a sinister spell, particularly against her brethren from the same kingdom.

"I don't care about any kingdoms, I am loyal only to Prince Lazaar. Once I kill all of you today, your so-called kingdom will cease to exist anyway," Faye replied in a cold voice.

"You can say whatever you want, but you'll have to back up your words with your actions," Piro said with a cold expression.

"That suits me just fine," Faye said as a faint smile appeared on her face. "You don't know how many years I've been waiting for this opportunity."

Piro didn't say anything further as he took the initiative and struck first, releasing a burst of white light from his beechwood staff, which hurtled directly toward Faye at an alarming speed.

"You're using your magic power restriction again? Don't you get tired of using the same old tricks every time?" A disdainful look appeared on Faye's face as she swept her silver staff through the air, instantly conjuring up an azure magic shield to ward off the oncoming spell, keeping the burst of white light at bay several dozen feet away from her.

After crashing into the magic shield, the burst of white light split up into several smaller bursts that began to skirt around the magic shield to continue flying toward Faye, who remained completely unfazed as she released several bursts of red magic energy from the tip of her serpentine staff in retaliation. The divided bursts of white light appeared to be quite small and feeble, yet they were able to easily devour the oncoming streaks of red magic energy.

As a result, the radiance emanating from the bursts of white light grew a little brighter, and they also gradually expanded from thin lines into spheres.

This spell has the ability to devour magic energy! Looks like the old bastard does have some tricks up his sleeve, Faye thought to herself in a surprised manner as she observed the white balls of light around her.

With the white spheres hovering around Faye, all of the elemental matter around her had been completely sealed away, so no matter how immense her magic power was, there was nothing that she could do.

This magic power restriction spell unleashed by Master Piro had just debilitated over 3,000 Skycourt Kingdom magicians not long ago, and it was now acting upon a single person.

Of course, as a grandmaster magician herself, there was no way that Faye would be defeated so easily. Her expression remained completely unchanged as she let go of her serpentine staff, allowing it to hover in mid-air. She then brought her hands together to form a rhomboid shape before closing her eyes as she began to chant an incantation.

Meanwhile, Erwin was fighting on the battlefield on the Marrod Plain, and he couldn't help but have his attention drawn to the battle between the two grandmaster magicians. Thus, he stopped what he was doing and rose up into the sky, listening carefully to the incantation that Faye was chanting, upon which he noticed that she was also using the ancient magic language. This led him to wonder whether Mistress Faye had also read "A Discussion on the Ultimate Damage of Magic", which had been given to him by Professor Hawk.

But judging from her appearance, Mistress Faye seems to be a lot younger than Professor Hawk. Could they really be romantically involved with each other? Erwin thought to himself with a perplexed expression. He recalled that Lana had once mentioned that her teacher was once a student of the same cohort as Professor Hawk at Teedus Academy. At the time, Erwin had suspected that the relationship between the two wasn't so simple, yet even though there seemed to be some evidence supporting this notion, he was only becoming more doubtful about this possibility. After all, there seemed to be a massive age gap between the two of them based on their physical appearances.

Unbeknownst to him, the age of a woman couldn't be gleaned just from looking at her face.

Just as Erwin was becoming absorbed in his own thoughts, Mistress Faye had already completed her spell, and a pair of pyramids that were glowing with azure light were conjured up, one above her, and one below her.

The white balls of light in the surrounding area seemed to be powerless against this spell, unable to seal away the elemental matter around the two pyramids, nor devour the magic energy within them.

Erwin looked closely at the pair of pyramids that had just been conjured up, and it occurred to him that this spell of Mistress Faye's had a similar function to his light shield. The space within the pyramids was still isolated from the outside world, but the difference was that elemental matter was still present in the space, and time was also still flowing inside it.

Piro wasn't surprised to see that Faye had used an ancient spell to dispel his magic power restriction. After all, he wasn't expecting to be able to defeat Faye with this spell alone in the first place.

The space within the pyramid began to expand at a rate that was discernible even to the naked eye, and it quickly encompassed the dozen or so balls of white light, but it was continuing to expand, showing no signs of stopping.

Even from such a far distance away, Erwin could sense that the expanding rhomboid space was aggressively devouring a certain type of elemental matter in the surrounding area. However, Erwin had no idea what Mistress Faye intended to do with this elemental matter.

"Starfall!" With a loud cry, Mistress Faye provided the answer to the question in Erwin's mind. With a wave of her hand, a layer of purple began to appear over the clear, blue sky, and a short while later, day had transitioned into night, and countless stars had appeared in the sky. Everyone from both the Skycourt Kingdom and the Effer Kingdom could sense the sky growing darker overhead, and everyone reflexively looked up at the sky to see what was happening, upon which all of them were stunned by the scene unfolding before their eyes.

First, a single star began to fall, followed by a second one, and soon, clusters of stars were beginning to fall in rapid succession. Streaks of white light hurtled through the purple night sky, presenting a spectacular sight to behold. It was a marvelous scene that presented beauty and peril in equal measure.

All of the falling stars had already concealed the entire sky, and even Cameron and Lazaar paused momentarily in their clash to look up at the sky with awe and wonder.

"Look out for the falling stars!" Cameron roared at the soldiers of the Effer Kingdom on the battlefield.

At the same time, Gilgen and Friar were also commanding their own troops to evade the falling stars. Erwin, Sherry, and Lanyon naturally followed suit, instructing the mercenaries of the Four Winds mercenary legion to take evasive measures.

"All court magicians, conjure up your magic shields!" Professor Hawk was instructing all of the Effer Kingdom's court magicians to conjure up magic shields above the allied troops.

There were still many court magicians present on the battlefield on the Marrod Plain, so Onean decided to go to the southern battlefield, where there was a greater need for magicians, then conjured up a magic shield above the reserve troops led by Count Friar. Erwin noticed that Onean was traveling toward the southern battlefield, so he didn't feel the need to go and find his own father. After all, with Onean's powers, surely she would have no issues protecting the general of the reserve troops. In contrast, he was more worried about the likes of Kaiba and Sherry, who were very eager to earn accolades and make their mark on this war.

Right as Onean was unleashing her spell, she noticed a red-haired figure standing not far away, and the latter had just raised a magic shield above the soldiers of Burmen.

The red-haired woman seemed to have sensed Onean's gaze, and she turned to her as well. Thus, the two of them stood in mid-air above the battlefield, looking across at each other under the purple night sky.

If the Pillow Sword Tournament hadn't been cut short, the two of them would've clashed in the grand final. However, this stage seemed to be a more appropriate one for these two exceptionally talented female magicians to battle it. There was so much on the line that losing was not an option for either of them.

One couldn't help but wonder what Erwin would feel if he were present to see this.

...

The falling stars were drawing closer and closer with long tails of white light trailing behind them, and looking up at them, one could easily be forgiven for thinking that the sky was falling.

What a formidable magician she is, Master Piro thought to himself as he looked up at the heavens.