“The targets are the commanding personnel and the nobility. I will not forgive anyone for stealing from the people or mocking the ones who have surrendered. However, show the people who dare to fight back whatever you’ve got!”

[8th Level Holy Magic]

[God’s Blessing]

This was a two-fold buff amplification magic with an incredibly wide range; it would strengthen the buff magic spells much more than what Davey had done before.

“Follow the Saint’s lead with blood and iron!”

“I am full of strength!”

“I feel a whole lot younger!”

A huge number of buffs had just been cast on all five hundred guards; Haven couldn’t help but think that he was dreaming. He watched the people who seemed to have superhuman powers charge toward them while shining with white light. It was only when he saw the charging and shouting guards enter the fortress did he realize that this was an invasion.

The formerly unbreakable fortress walls had been broken. The fightback from the royalist army was unexpectedly fast, precise, and destructive.

* * *

It seemed like Duke Bariatta only left the minimum number of soldiers behind, since he thought the fortress would never be invaded. There were about five thousand of them, but most had been forced to conscript. Furthermore, the sudden barging of guards with superhuman strength, speed, and new armory put the fortress in chaos.

“P… Please don’t kill me!” Count Colson, a former member of the nobility, the master of the fortress, and Duke Bariatta’s entourage who never thought that anyone would attack this place, bowed in front of Davey and begged for his life.

“Count Colson.”

“Y… Yes! Your Highness!” Count Colson answered, trembling. He wanted to try and survive in any way that he could.

Davey said, “Dozens of corruption cases regarding profits through illegal slavery. There are even countless cases of you acting violently with the duke’s support.”

“Pardon?”

Splatter!!! As soon as Count Colson stopped talking, a part of his body was sliced off by Blue Ribbon, which was surrounded by blue energy.

“Keugh! Kuk…”

“No one help him. He can slowly experience death until he completely bleeds to death.”

Then, Davey glanced at the five hundred guards who were lined up in a straight line.

The gigantic fortress, the largest one in the Rowane Kingdom protected by five thousand soldiers, was taken over in less than two hours. About eighty percent of the five thousand men had been forced to fight. As soon as they got the chance to live, they did not let it pass and threw off their armor and abandoned their weapons to surrender immediately; the fight was over in an instant without the need for a huge army or modern weapons.

As long as their leader was someone with monstrous powers who had become a human grenade and blew up the fortress wall, the guards weren’t scared. In fact, they were in awe of Davey’s holy magic that made them as strong as knights who had trained with mana. The moment Davey kept his promise of safety and strength, he was no longer just a little boy whom they had to follow; to them, he truly felt like a Lion of God who descended from heaven.

“Hurrah!! The Saint!!!” Gordon, a group leader shouted without missing a beat.

“Hurrah!!!” At the same time, Freeman, who always followed what Gordon did, put his hands up in the air and shouted as well. “Hurrah!!!”

An uncontrollable wave of emotion spread through the crowd.

Davey frowned slightly at the loud shouts that made his ears ring. He then stared at Count Colson who was trembling on the ground.

Count Colson looked like he couldn’t believe what had happened to him. He looked upset.

‘You dare look like that when you have taken everything and done inhumane things?’

“Quiet, you guys! Since I intend to keep my promise, we’re moving forward to the next fortress! Any complaints?!”

“No, sir!”

“I will follow you forever!!”

Davey felt a little satisfied by the guard’s loud answers. He minimized the number of problems that would occur at the territory after he left, then pulled out his crystal and said, “Marquis Peiltris, it’s me. March on.”

‘You and the royalist army just have to sit back and watch.’

This was what Davey had started, so he was going to be the one to protect the innocent and punish the guilty. Starting with the Verbooth Fortress, his army marched on with incredible speed.

* * *

“Shriek! P… Please, Your Highness!”

“Count Latos.”

Count Latos was one of Duke Bariatta’s entourage. He had fattened his own pockets by selling the kingdom’s military supplies overseas, covered it up using Duke Bariatta’s power, and then made his residents pay for the missing supplies.

“I… I have committed a sin worthy of dying!”

“Then, you should die.”

“Keugh!”

With a terrifyingly loud slice, a large man fell to the ground with a whimper.

Like Count Colson, none of their punishments were to cut them up into a thousand pieces. They were to experience death very slowly. A quick death was like an escape in some ways, but it was too complicated to make them all into slaves, so this was the next best solution.

“Viscount Clitohith.”

“I… I admit to my crime! I surrender! Your Highness! The right of a captive…!”

“Bullshit.”

Splatter!!

Viscount Clitohith was part of Duke Bariatta’s entourage, and he was a pedophile who had passed the ‘Droit du Seigneur’ for girls around ten years old.

‘Die, you disgusting pig.’

As for Count Cocoulja, he had been caught sleeping through an emergency. He thought the enemy would not be able to get to him. He was also part of Duke Bariatta’s entourage and had also been given this position by buying his title.

In a day and a half, a few of the fortresses protecting Duke Bariatta’s territory were destroyed. The other fortresses weren’t as specialized for defense as the Verbooth Fortress, but they were at least prepared for an attack and had a substantial number of soldiers on the watch, though it was not as many as the Verbooth.

It was a long journey, but the guards following Davey looked lively. They had their full strengths as if they had just begun the war.

It wasn’t just the nobility who were shocked by the stupid and reckless movement of the Heins guards Davey had selected.

“Oh my…”

Marquis Peiltris was confused when he first received Davey’s message. To be frank, this was a battle they had no chance of winning; Marquis Peiltris knew that something like this was bound to happen, but it was also true that he slightly hated Davey for taking such unexpected action so blatantly.

However, Marquis Peiltris was loyal to the kingdom; he had to do anything to keep the kingdom and his king safe. He had been up many nights thinking about how he should defend and counterattack when he was fighting thirty thousand men with only ten thousand. He also couldn’t expect the third Swordmaster in the kingdom to fight alongside him, since they had to protect the capital. But…

[You can come now that it’s been cleared.]

‘What is he talking about?’

In bewilderment, Marquis Peiltris thought that this feisty prince had charged in with his army of five hundred. When that turned out to be true… he was shocked at the situation presented to him. Part of the huge fortress wall, which was thirty meters tall and ten meters wide, had a perfectly circular hole. It was like something had exploded. The edges were incredibly clean and smooth.

Starting with the Verbooth Fortress, the one place he thought would be the most difficult, Marquis Peiltris felt a headache coming on as he kept hearing news of victories.

* * *

Slam!!!

“How did this happen?! How did four or five fortresses be taken over by a mere army of five hundred men in less than three days??!!!”

As Duke Bariatta screamed in rage, the armored old man looked tense. He said regretfully, “It seems that we have deeply underestimated Prince Davey’s stigmata.”

That was the only possible explanation; Davey had received a stigmata, the miracle of God, and he was able to use some sort of power because that stigmata was different from normal ones.

Although the stigmata wasn’t the reason why the wall had been blown into pieces, it was the only thing they could think of. They only knew that Davey had the stigmata, and nothing else.

The problem was that this speed couldn’t be possible from what they knew about stigmatas. Even if they attributed the destruction to the stigmata, as the firepower of a high-level holy magic spell the Holy Empire’s current pope had used in the past was similar to that of a few high-level mages using their magic all at once, they had no explanation for how fast the guards were moving. The location of the fortresses that fell after Verbooth's defeat could take six hours and up to a few days to travel to. The guard’s speed could be possible if they were all on horses, but it was simply impossible by foot. Their speed was like…teleportation.

Thud!

“Th… There’s an emergency! Even the Yallis Mountain Fortress, one of our last lines of defense, has been taken over!”

The atmosphere in the conference room grew cold. One of the nobility with a large physique urgently ran in and shouted. They couldn’t tell who was the one attacking anymore. They had taken over a huge part of the kingdom according to their airtight plan, but now their core defense was being wiped out.

“I will try to stop them.”

“Marquis Enza…”

“Prince Davey is stronger than we had expected, but I am Swordmaster; I will not be taken down that easily. While I stop him, march to the royal palace. You should be able to go without a problem if you use the remaining routes.”

The problem was how long Marquis Enza was going to last.

“I will go, too. I will kill that damn Davey with my own hands!”

Duke Bariatta’s head began to hurt when Carlus started acting recklessly as well. Then, he glanced at the silent man who kept his arms crossed.

‘Vampire Pace.’

Duke Bariatta wasn’t amused by the vampire waiting nonchalantly and not doing a single thing. He asked, “Hey, you. Shouldn’t you help as well?”

“…”

“This situation happened while helping you with what you wanted,” Duke Bariatta pointed out coldly.

Pace, who was staying quiet, smiled eerily. Then, he undid his arms and approached Duke Bariatta while staring at him.

“What…?” All the nobility looked on at Pace’s sudden actions in confusion.

Then…

“Keugh… Wheeze!”

Pace charged toward Duke Bariatta in seconds and held him up by the neck.

“Y…Your Excellency!”

“You!!”

Surprised by Pace’s sudden actions, all the nobility pulled out their swords; even the ones who have never wielded a sword had to carry one during a war.

Carlus shot up from his seat and shouted in the midst of the heated situation, “What are you doing?! I demand you to let him down now!!”

Pace stared at Duke Bariatta with a terrifying smile before letting him go.

Thud!! Duke Bariatta hit the ground and he coughed with raspy breaths.

“I am not your servant. I think you are forgetting that.”

“You…”

“Get it right, inferior human. You have no right to order me around. The only person who can ‘suggest’ something to me is that prince who signed a contract with me.” Then, Pace turned around and said, “You will hear good news in an hour. I will personally teach him a lesson and silence him.”

Pace walked out and no one said anything to him, because he released a sudden killing aura so terrifying that even Swordmaster Marquis Enza stopped in fear.

Marquis Enza, who was staring at Pace’s back in silence, turned to glance at Duke Bariatta with a frown. He didn’t like the fact that the duke had frozen in fear.

“I will take five thousand men and have Prince Davey’s head. Wait.”

If those two were stopped and if they lost all of their army, Pace would come for Duke Bariatta and the rest next. Knowing this for a fact, the gathered members of nobility hoped that their plan was good enough for them to hold out for the next few days.