Lazaar was initially planning to pin the blame for killing the king on Gilgen, which was why he had left Gilgen alive in the end, but if Onean were allowed to return to the capital, then that plan would completely fall through. Lazaar had aspirations of returning to Sarus to adopt the role of protectorship to control a puppet king, or replace the royal family and become king himself, and for either of those plans to come to fruition, he couldn't afford for his own reputation to be tarnished.

"She's just a little girl, so she won't be able to stir up much of a storm, but it would still be troublesome to allow her to live," Lazaar said with furrowed brows. "However, the only place she can go to is Sarus, so we can always intercept her."

"Father, should I lead some troops to intercept them?" Aiden asked.

"Young Mistress Lana has already led 1,000 soldiers toward Newen," Sirius interjected.

"Oh? Would you look at that? That sister of yours is far quicker to react than we are," Lazaar said as he turned to Aiden with a smile.

"Did you say Lana went after them?" Aiden asked with a surprised expression as he turned to Sirius, following which an amused look appeared on his face. "I don't think she went to intercept them."

Lazaar immediately understood what Aiden was implying, and a dark look appeared on his face as he said, "You should go as well. Take 5,000 soldiers with you, and don't let them get past Windmetal Fort."

Aiden immediately did as he was told and departed.

"Onean and that son of Count Friar are both very promising young magicians, so I fear that they may not be so easy to capture. Just to be safe, I think you should go with them too. If you don't manage to capture Onean, then go straight to Sarus with Aiden. At the very least, we have to stabilize the situation in the royal court first," Lazaar said as he took a glance at Sirius.

Sirius nodded in response upon hearing this, then turned to depart.

Lazaar cast his gaze toward the departing army of the Skycourt Kingdom, then recalled back to the few conversations that he had shared with Gilgen, and he couldn't shake the feeling that Gilgen was a little too familiar with the state of the Effer Kingdom. Furthermore, he had a feeling that General Gilgen may have also been involved in the incident where Jeff had been poisoned during the Pillow Sword Tournament.

Lazaar then thought back to Cameron's deployment of troops during the battle, and he couldn't help but think to himself, The fact that he commanded a fool like Jenkins to lead the vanguard means that he most likely wanted Jenkins dead as well. 

Thus, it was clear that Cameron was convinced that Jenkins was the mastermind behind the Pillow Sword Tournament incident, and Lazaar had once thought this as well, but was that really the case?

Now that I think about it, the timing of the Skycourt Kingdom's invasion was absolutely perfect, suspiciously so. Is it really a coincidence that they launched their invasion right before the Pillow Sword Tournament incident? If the mastermind of the Pillow Sword Tournament incident has been in contact with Gilgen this entire time, who could the mastermind be? That person definitely wouldn't be Jenkins. If he's been secretly in contact with Gilgen, then there's no way that he would've rushed to his death like an idiot. Also, there would also be no reason for Gilgen to kill an ally hiding in the Effer Kingdom's royal court. In that case, who could this mastermind possibly be, and what is their objective for planning all of this? Is it just so Cameron and I would turn on each other? If that's the case, then they certainly achieved their goal. But in that case, why did they get Gilgen to launch an invasion as well? Is it so that they can have Cameron killed by me and Gilgen? 

There were many questions swirling around in Lazaar's mind, and these questions were far more troubling to him than some princess with no one to rely on. His mind flicked through a list of names from both his and Jenkins's faction, but he couldn't figure out for the life of him who this mole could be and what their objective was, and that made him even more perplexed.

That night.

Cloudseek City, the southwesternmost city of the Skycourt Kingdom.

It could be said that this was the longest day of General Gilgen's life. Even though he had fought for half a day and fled for half a day, he didn't appear to be tired in the slightest, and the reason for this was the head that was sitting on his desk. Whenever he looked at it, he would be overcome by a rush of excitement. Even though the owner of the head had sliced off a good chunk of his leg, reducing to him a hobbling cripple, that did nothing to rain on his parade. He cast his gaze toward the severed head, which was still glowering furiously even in death, and he chuckled, "I know you're angry, but you can glare at me all you want, it's not going to do anything. Take a look at this."

Gilgen waved an open letter in front of Cameron's face as he spoke. "What a pity for you. You're never going to be able to find out who was the one that betrayed you and led to your downfall."

In the far north.

"Your Highness, you've already been staring at this shattered Fall Crystal for ran entire afternoon. What is the problem?"

"Something's happened..."

"What's happened?"

"Something terrible has happened in the south."

"The south? Where in the south? Do we need to go there?"

"... No, there's no need for that. All we need to do is wait here..."

Erwin and his group were like a pack of tireless animals, speeding through the night on horseback with absentminded looks on their faces.

Each of them was absorbed in their own thoughts, and behind each weary and dejected face was a story.

The most moving of the stories belonged to none other than Erwin and Onean.

Erwin's heart was filled with despair and depression, and he felt as if this night were never going to end, as if the light of day would never come. He couldn't tell if the night had always been so dark or if it were simply reflecting the darkness in his heart. He felt as if his gums had already been aching for a very long time, and he knew that his own body had to be exhausted to the extreme, but he also knew that there was no chance for him to rest now. There was no way that Lazaar would be willing to let them go, so he was forced to suppress his own grief and continue to ride on ahead, even though there seemed to be no hope on the horizon.

He didn't even dare to think about his own father. When in a state of extreme denial, one's brain would begin to selectively ignore the source of one's trauma. However, the body of Professor Hawk sitting on his saddle served as a constant reminder to him of what had just happened. He was doing everything in his power not to linger in the past, but the image of the last time he saw his father was still clear in his mind. The harshness of reality was constantly tormenting and mocking him, and he wanted to fall to his knees and beg, to implore reality and himself to simply let him have some peace, but the two refused to comply with such a wish.

Ironically, if it weren't for the fact that these moments of despair were constantly eating away at him, he would've already collapsed from exhaustion. Ever since he returned to his senses after unleashing those two new moons, he had been on the brink of falling unconscious this entire time. If it weren't for the trauma of what he had just witnessed constantly tormenting his mind, he would've already fallen off his horse.

He wanted to scream into the endless night, but he knew that wouldn't do anything to assuage the pain. He turned to look at Onean, who was riding beside him, and he found that her normally exuberant golden eyes were filled with nothing but hollowness and despair.

He was already deep in the pits of despair, yet he discovered that there was someone next to him in even more despair than he was, and he had no idea what to say to her. Perhaps the most saddening thing in the world was drowning in despair, but having to put on a strong front to console someone in even more despair than you were. For some reason, he recalled a quote from a certain philosopher: "Life is always pushing us ever-forward, not allowing us to pause or reminisce."

"How about we bury them?" Erwin suggested in a careful voice as he cast his gaze toward Onean.

Onean didn't appear to have heard him at all as she continued to ride along in silence.

"I said let's bury them," he repeated as he grabbed the reins from Onean's grasp.

Both of their horses gradually slowed down, and the entire mercenary legion behind them also began to slow down. Everyone took this moment of respite as an opportunity to catch their breath. They had just endured a grueling battle, and now, they were being forced to travel at a breakneck pace, and many of the mercenaries were already on the brink of fainting.

Onean turned to Erwin and stared at him blankly, seemingly still having failed to hear what he had just said.

"Let's go bury them," Erwin repeated once again.

Onean's eyes immediately widened with horror upon hearing this, and she was staring at Erwin as if she were staring at a harbinger of death.

Erwin looked back at her in silence, then heaved a faint sigh. He knew that she was rejecting reality with every single fiber of her being.

"Sherry, get everyone to take a rest, and we'll continue a little later," Erwin instructed. "Also, get a couple of mercenaries who still have some energy left to follow me up the mountain."

Sherry looked around to see that everyone was already on the brink of collapse, and he heaved an internal sigh, volunteering himself to go with Erwin.

At this point, Erwin didn't really care who was coming with him. He lifted Professor Hawk's body down from the saddle of his horse, then cast his gaze toward Onean. Sherry immediately approached her to lend her his assistance, but she had already removed Master Piro's body from her saddle before hoisting it onto her shoulder in one swift motion.

At this moment, Gwen slowly woke up on Kaiba's back, and with the faint radiance being given off by the fire that had just been lit, she was able to see Erwin and Onean, each of whom was carrying a body on their shoulder. Initially, she was dazed and confused, but the memories of what had transpired earlier in the day then quickly flooded into her mind, and she began to shed tears in silence.

Thus, Erwin and Onean began to trudge up the mountain with each of them carrying their teacher's body on their shoulder, while Sherry followed along with an awkward expression.

When it came to manual labor tasks like carrying people and digging holes, the use of magic could significantly lessen the workload, but neither Erwin nor Onean seemed to be willing to adopt such an approach. Both of them were using their staves to dig holes onto the ground, and Sherry could only look on from the side, at a loss for what to do.

"This is not a bad place to rest, Professor Hawk. You'll be on a mountaintop, looking out at the sea, so you'll have some good scenery to look at. I'm afraid this is the best I can do for you," Erwin said as he looked at Professor Hawk's body after laying him to rest in his crudely dug grave.

As for Onean, she continued to remain silent as she stared at Master Piro in a completely expressionless manner.

Both of them had a tendency to be very restrained with their emotions, so they weren't the type to bawl their eyes out and express their grief through overt displays of emotion. Instead, these emotions became part of their personalities, shaping who they were and leading them in different directions in life.

Both of them knew that this wasn't just a funeral. Instead, it was a ceremony of sorts, one in which they were bidding farewell to their pasts. It could be said that in the wake of the battle on the Marrod Plain, both of them had lost the protection of their father figures. Thus, it was entirely up to them to forge a path forward for themselves.

"Let's go. We have to keep going," Erwin said as he removed his own cloak and draped it over Onean's shoulders, then turned away, no longer looking at the two tombstones behind him.

On one of the tombstones was written: "Here lies the pillar of the Effer Kingdom, Master Piro", while the other tombstone simply had the words "A good teacher and a good friend" inscribed upon it.