While the mercenaries of the Four Winds mercenary legion had their attention drawn to the spectacle being put on by their deputy commander, the final clash between the Heavenly Star mercenary legion and the Wolf Moon mercenary legion had already begun.

What little remained of the Heavenly Star mercenary legion's cavaliers were also led back into battle by Luphen. At the moment, the Heavenly Star mercenary legion still had around 800 men left, while the Wolf Moon mercenary legion only had around 300.

With such a massive numbers advantage, the Heavenly Star mercenary legion should've theoretically been able to end the battle very quickly, but both sides were utterly exhausted, so the battle was progressing at a very sluggish pace. This was the problem with fighting on the battlefield. Prior to an outcome being reached, neither side could take a rest. No matter how exhausted or hungry they were, they couldn't just call a lunch break on a battle.

Furthermore, with the unmatched Talan wreaking havoc on the battlefield, the Wolf Moon mercenary legion was only becoming more and more fearsome as the battle wore on, and the situation was quickly becoming very troublesome for Luphen. The main problem was that he was no match for Talan on a one-on-one basis.

On the other side, Larwood and all of the Four Winds mercenary legion's martial artists were watching the clash from not far away. As for all of the magicians and archers, they were called onto the airship by Erwin, and the airship was hovering in the sky directly above Larwood. Thus, the Four Winds mercenary legion was able to closely observe the battle both from the ground and the sky.

"Brother Erwin, that man is the one who led his men to steal our airship from us," Christine said as she pointed down at Luphen.

"I see. Does that mean he took all of your precious belongings as well?" Erwin asked.

"He did. When they first came onto the airship, they were only able to find some cargo, so they asked me and Father whether we had any precious items on the airship. Initially, I said no, but that man from the Skycourt Kingdom deceived me. He told me that if I hand over all of the precious items on the ship, then he'd let us go. Father's injuries were already extremely severe at the time, so I agreed, but that bastard took all of our precious belongings from that compartment before throwing the two of us in there," Christine said in a resentful voice.

"That's very shady of those Skycourt Kingdom pigs. I'm going to make him cough up everything he took from you," Erwin consoled with a smile, oblivious to the fact that Luphen had already been extorted by Larwood earlier.

"That bastard also said that given all of the precious items on our airship, I must come from a wealthy family, so he captured me as a hostage so he could blackmail my family for money in the future. I don't know where he thinks he's going to get money from after almost killing my father!" Christine said in an enraged voice.

Erwin nodded in response. "So what you're saying is that they almost killed the person they were planning to extort without realizing that it was your father. Damn, these Skycourt Kingdom mercenaries are way more ruthless than we are. Not only did they take all of your precious belongings and the airship, he's even planning to kidnap you for extortion purposes!"

"That's why you have to avenge me, Brother Erwin! These are terrible, terrible people. If you're not going to do anything, then I'm going to drive this airship down and crush him to death!" The tone of Christine's voice was extremely fierce, and it didn't sound like she was joking at all.

There was still dried blood caked all over her face, and coupled with the furious look in her eyes, she was putting on a terrifying display to behold. Erwin was worried that she would actually follow through on her plan to launch a suicide attack with the airship, so he hurriedly consoled, "I told you that I was going to make him cough up everything he took from you, didn't I? You can count on me to make him pay for what he did."

At the same time, a rather depressing thought occurred to him. It seemed that none of the women who had appeared recently in his life were normal people.

...

Meanwhile, Luphen was being chased around by Talan in a very sorry state. Talan's long blade had already sliced many gashes onto the suit of heavy armor he was wearing. Thankfully, the suit of armor was of a very high quality. Otherwise, many of his internal organs would've already been exposed to the fresh sea breeze blowing in from the coastline.

"Don't jutht thit there and watch, my friendth, hurry up and help me! If I die here, you won't be able to get any Loonieth out of me!" Luphen was yelling at Larwood in a panicked voice while frantically fleeing from Talan.

"To be honest, I don't really want to help that lispy bastard from the Skycourt Kingdom, but just seeing Talan's face fills me with a sense of rage. Whenever I think about what he did back in Windmetal Fort, I want to slice him up and leave his body out for the vultures to eat!" Chase was clearly still holding a severe grudge against Talan for everything that he did back in Windmetal Fort.

Despite Larwood's cold and calculating nature, a cruel smile had appeared on his face as well. "Objectively speaking, the best course of action would be for us to join the battle near its conclusion, but I also really want to kill that bastard whenever I see that ugly face of his."

"Then what the hell are we waiting for? Let's get out there and kill him!" Kaiba was the type of person who preferred action over words, and he slapped his own horse on the back as he raised his spear, galloping directly toward Talan on horseback.

Larwood and Chase exchanged a glance and a smile, then immediately followed along behind Kaiba.

Prior to departing, Larwood left Sherry with a parting instruction. "Continue waiting here with everyone else, and keep a constant eye on what the Wolf Moon mercenary legion and the Skycourt Kingdom mercenaries are doing. If an opportunity arises, you have permission to lead our men into battle and kill all of the remaining enemies."

As had already been established, Luphen was a very sly and crafty individual, and he intentionally lured Talan out of the battlefield, thereby creating an opportunity for Larwood and the others to surround him.

At this point, Talan had also spotted Larwood and his friends, and he spat viciously onto the ground with a hateful expression, thinking to himself that it was perfect that all of his enemies had gathered in one place so he could take them all out together.

Up in the airship, Erwin could see that his friends had joined the battle, and he immediately cast a levitation spell onto himself, flying out of the airship so that he could carefully observe the battle unfolding down below in mid-air.

Luphen could see that Larwood and his friends were extremely eager to face Talan in battle, so he saw this as a perfect opportunity to slack off while Larwood and the others did all the work. Thus, he halfheartedly swung his silver whip through the air, pretending to attack Talan with all his might, but in reality, he was barely making any contributions. As a result, the battle quickly turned into a three-on-one clash between Talan and Larwood and his friends.

In the heat of battle, Larwood and the others failed to notice this, but hovering high up in the sky above, Erwin immediately identified what Luphen was doing. Thus, he cast around a dozen instant-release spells toward Luphen in rapid succession, all of which had been imbued with negative status conditions.

Luphen's reflexes were very sharp, and he dodged to the side before rolling along the ground a few times to evade all of the oncoming spells. He then got up with a furious expression and was just about to hurl a torrent of abuse at the person who had attacked him, but he didn't dare to say anything upon identifying Erwin as the one who had cast the spells.

"I'd advise you not to try any funny business. Otherwise, you'll only be hurting yourself," Erwin said in a cold voice as he looked down at Luphen with a hostile expression.

Luphen was quite wary of Erwin after seeing Erwin vanquish the entire airship of Heavenly Star magicians on his own, so he could only nod up at Erwin with a fawning smile on his face. 

Erwin gave him another cold glare, then pointed his staff at Talan, and this time, Luphen didn't attempt to slack off again as he rejoined the battle.

...

Even though Talan was a very formidable warrior, he was beginning to struggle in the face of four opponents at once. To compound his woes even further, all of his four opponents were extremely dirty fighters who weren't ashamed of stooping to even the most unscrupulous of tactics. Of course, Kaiba was far less of a dirty fighter after learning that set of spear techniques. At the very least, he was already a lot more virtuous in battle than the other three. But then again, that really wasn’t saying much.

Luphen was quite a dirty fighter himself, but not as dirty as the likes of Larwood and Chase. The two of them were working together in a seamless partnership, constantly striking at Talan's eyes and crown jewels, and Luphen realized that he was still too honorable a fighter upon seeing this.

At the moment, Erwin could only stand by and watch from above. The five of them were fighting in very close proximity to one another, so if he were to unleash any spells at Talan, they could easily end up as friendly fire. Even for spells with tracing properties, they had to be able to access their target. At the moment, Larwood and the others had surrounded Talan from all directions, so there was nothing that Erwin could do.

Talan took a glance down at the chainmail armor around his stomach and waist to find that several gashes had already been sliced into it. Wounds had also been inflicted onto his body through these gashes, and blood was already beginning to seep out before slowly dripping down onto the seaside sand beneath his feet.

His fierce eyes were wide and brimming with killing intent as he swept his gaze across his four adversaries. All of a sudden, he let loose a loud roar, then unleashed two ferocious attacks with his saber in quick succession to force back both Larwood and Luphen by half a step.

This gave him the space that he needed, and he raised his blade high up above his own head before unleashing an almighty blow.

Larwood and the others had all witnessed this attack before. This was the first of Talan's signature three killing strikes.

Chase was situated behind Talan, and the attack struck him with tremendous force. Chase was already mentally prepared for this, and he raised his longsword to ward off the attack, but the power behind the strike was extremely devastating, and Chase wasn't able to keep it at bay. As a result, he was sent stumbling back close to 20 steps, and by the time he finally drew to a halt, an extremely terrifying wound had been sliced onto his body, stretching all the way across his chest and his stomach. Furthermore, he was wearing a suit of Falcon Beak Lizard scale armor. If he had been wearing a suit of normal armor instead, that attack would've perhaps already split his body cleanly in half.

Chase was the weakest of Talan's four adversaries, and that was most likely the reason why he had been targeted by Talan. Talan's objective was very clear: he wanted to eliminate one of his opponents with a single blow so that this would become a three-on-one battle instead of a four-on-one affair.

Erwin immediately descended next to Chase before casting an advanced healing spell onto him. Even so, blood was still flowing out of the wound that had been inflicted onto Chase's body, and it was clear that this wasn't an injury that could be healed with magic.

"Fuck... That was... more powerful than I expected..." Chase said in a slurred voice with blood gushing out of his mouth.

"Lie down and don't speak. Magic doesn't seem to have any effect on this wound, so we'll have to find an alternative method of treatment," Erwin said with furrowed brows.

After sustaining such a severe blow, Chase didn't have the energy to speak anymore anyway, so he laid down and did as he was told.

Larwood and Kaiba were furious upon seeing the state that Chase was in, and they began to attack Talan with increased ferocity.

Kaiba's spear techniques possessed astounding power, but Talan wasn't having any trouble dealing with his attacks. Even the most powerful attack that Kaiba had learned from Erwin's spear-wielding opponent during the Pillow Sword Tournament only managed to force Talan back by half a step.

Larwood took advantage of the opportunity to attack Talan from behind, while Luphen swept his silver whip directly toward his legs. Talan used his blade to block Larwood's sword, then lowered his own center of gravity and adopted a horse stance to withstand the blow from Luphen's whip.

Thus, even with the three of them unleashing their most powerful attacks at once, the only damage they were able to inflict upon Talan was a slight gash onto his leg from Luphen's whip.

At this point, Larwood's trio was already panting heavily from exertion, and a derisive sneer appeared on Talan's face upon seeing this. "Are you out of breath already? Is this the extent of your power?"

The tide was quickly turning in Talan's favor, and in this dire situation, Erwin had no choice but to enter the fray as well.

Beneath the dim light of the sun and under the dark clouds in the sky, a vast storm of purple swords quickly took shape.

With a wave of Erwin's staff, the countless purple swords rapidly descended, converging to form a gargantuan sword during their descent, hurtling directly toward Talan's head.

Talan's brows furrowed slightly as he looked up at the descending sword. He swept his blade through the air, unleashing bursts of blade intent that resembled a series of undulating mountains and valleys, easily forcing back Larwood's trio. After that, he stomped a foot down onto the ground, and his foot sank deep into the sand down below, following which he launched himself up into the air to face Erwin's attack without any fear or hesitation.