City Series:Volume6d Chapter5

Chapter 5: The Ruin Races

7/24/1943 19:20 – 19:51

I don’t want to run away

Those words are testing me

I don’t think it was running away

That caused me to leave the preexisting path

Unreif Germane

Right bubble: Unreif Germane Structure

1st box (right to left):

Part 1 – Before

(Sections 1-5)

• History before the Messiah

• The world is in disarray

2nd box:

Part 2 – The Messiah

(Sections 6-26)

• The Messiah appears and goes to sleep

• Includes the 6 songs

3rd box:

Part 3 – The Emperor

(Sections 27-58)

• The emperor’s reign and decline

• Beginning of the vacancy era

4th box:

Part 4 – After

(Sections 59-68)

• History after the emperor

• The millennium song

A collection of stories concerning the events of the past thousand years. The apocalyptic concepts of Norse Mythology are used as a foundation to tell the story of the collapse of the old order and the rise of a new order.

The 68 sections are divided into 4 parts (some theorize the 30-odd sections of Part 3 were the original story and others theorize there was once a 5th part) and the parts tell the story of before, the Messiah’s arrival and activities, the emperor’s reign, and after.

The longest part is Part 3 related to the emperor, but the Messiah’s Part 2 is the most well known. That is mostly because the story of the Messiah, the knights, and the dragon is told as a children’s story and six of its sections have been adapted into six songs adored by bards, so when people refer to the Unreif Germane, they generally are only referring to the Messiah’s story.

But like so many other historical texts, the Unreif Germane has a complicated history and there are many different versions with differing details, so research is still ongoing.

Part 1

Hazel ran through the night as the sirens blared.

She ran westward, using a path behind the row of storehouses on the base. It was a narrow path and the sky glimpsed between the tall storehouses was colored the red of warning lights. The main road ran along the other side of the storehouses on her left and she heard vehicles roaring up and down it.

…The search has begun in earnest.

She had thrown off her slippers, so she only wore her surgical gown, coat, and choker.

Her hair was a mess as she pumped her arms and moved her legs to run.

“I never think anything through, do I!?”

…But they said a Heavy Barrel is flying here.

She needed to get somewhere she would be easily noticed and thus easily rescued.

Her plan was to head east near the main gate where a small runway bordered the forest. She would be visible from the sky there and she could always turn into a cat and escape into the forest if necessary.

…That’s the one exit from this walled base!

She remembered the terrain from her time up on the terrace. After running between three storehouses, she would arrive at a waterway. If she moved from there to the main road, crossed the bridge, and continued another half a mile, she would reach the main gate.

She ran and hurried. She wiped the sweat from her brow with her coat’s sleeve and faced forward.

The path was narrow. She was done for if they had an ambush set up, but this was far safer than using the main road.

The storehouses on either side of her contained maintenance equipment. Even at night, the ground was stained noticeably dark with oil and large tires were stacked up on either side of the path. The tire piles grew and the available width of the path shrank.

Her pounding footsteps rang in her ears and her nose only detected the scent of rubber and machine oil.

All sorts of vehicle parts and metal materials were bundled together and placed between the tires or leaned against the storehouse walls.

She checked to see if there were any Devices among them as she ran, but as expected found nothing.

She breathed a disappointed sigh and kept running with the sirens ringing in her bones. Her breathing was heavy but she wasn’t out of breath.

…My training has paid off.

She smiled bitterly at that. Then she faced forward again.

The tires stacked up on either side reached nearly as high as the storeroom roofs now. The piles of black rubber ended about 100 yards ahead, the length of another three storehouses. The backroad ended there.

She could see the waterway’s railing past the valley of tires.

…I need to turn right toward the main road and cross the bridge.

She would need to cross two small intersections between storehouses before that.

The first intersection was about 20 yards ahead.

She picked up her pace to pass through it in a hurry, but then she felt something like her right foot stepping on a stone.

“––––––!?”

Oops, she thought, but it was too late.

She had stepped on something sharp.

She felt no pain, but her second step felt like her right foot had stepped in mud.

The realization that she was bleeding nearly sapped her of her strength, but she shook her head and powered through it.

Then someone emerged onto the intersection up ahead. It was a Geheimnis Agency soldier.

He aimed his flashlight her way and slowly turned his body her way.

He hesitated once the flashlight shined directly on her, but…

“I-I found her!” he shouted.

Hazel held out her hand as if to split the flashlight beam and stopped, her right leg stumbling.

And from behind her…

“She’s over here!” shouted another voice.

She was surrounded. Her reflexes decided which way she needed to escape: up.

She would climb the tires to her right – the south. Climbing the ones to the north would only have taken her further from the road. If she could hurry up them and cross the roof to reach the bridge…

…The soldiers on the ground will have a harder time tracking my movements.

As soon as the thought occurred to her, she sank low, bent her body, and used her limbs like springs to climb up the tires.

Part 2

Hazel climbed the 10yd pile of tires without toppling them and without losing her own balance. She relied on her initial speed. She relaxed her tension, she held her breath, and she did not hesitate.

She was just two stacks away from the top level. Then she had to jump up another yard to reach the edge of the storehouse roof.

But then her right foot slipped on her blood.

The itchy pain of the wound opening shot up her leg to her spine.

“Ah.”

The tension she had relaxed to climb the tires came back as the tension used to endure the pain.

…That’s not good.

Just as she decided to relax her tension again, she recalled the year before when a dog had bitten her at AIF HQ, she had Altered, and she had climbed the outer wall of the barracks as a cat.

Comparing that to this was silly, but it still nearly made her laugh.

She worked to resist the pain, tension, and laughter while moving her arms and legs.

“…!”

She reached the top.

She took a breath, feeling the tire tower swaying beneath her feet, and then grabbed the storehouse roof at chest height and climbed up it.

The sheet iron roof provided much more solid footing.

She took another breath, stood up, and tried to walk. But the unwashed roof had sand-like filth and dried limescale on it, which got in her right foot’s wound.

She fell to her knee. She sat with her back to the main road to the south, took a breath, and looked around.

She viewed the base from a lower vantage point than the terrace. She could see two storehouses to the west, three to the east, and four to the north. A few long concrete buildings and the forest were visible past them.

Lastly, she saw more concrete buildings across the road behind her.

When she sent her gaze east along the road, she saw the waterway and its river about 100 yards away.

“I need to reach that point.”

She kept low so she wouldn’t be detected and turned the sole of her right foot skyward.

In the warning lights, she could see her toeprint highlighted by a dark wetness. The big toe was bleeding from an inch-long crescent moon gash. The blood dripped down the sole of the raised foot.

It tangled around her ankle and continued on toward her shin. The sensation sent a shudder down her back.

“It’s no use.”

She couldn’t escape outside by turning into a cat here.

She clenched her blood-wet hands a few times to refocus herself. She grabbed the bottom of her surgical gown and used her nails to tear through it.

With a ripping sound different from paper, she created herself a strip of cloth from the bottom two inches of the gown.

“If only I had a Device,” she grumbled, placing the center of the cloth on her right Achilles tendon, stretching it out, wrapping it around her big toe, and wrapping it back around her ankle. She wrapped it around her big toe again and then side to side around the center of her foot.

She used it to hold her ankle in place, not to stop the bleeding of her toe. That protected the toe and still let her walk with the rest of the foot.

With that done, she stood back up.

She looked around.

The night glowed red. The red warning lights were joined by the red Lives of impatience floating across the entire base. The red sound of the 1st alarm accelerated that impatience. The summer night breeze felt refreshingly chilly and she finally realized how heavy her breathing was.

“I need to hurry.”

She pressed her right foot’s toes against the wavy sheet of iron and climbed to the flat peak of the roof before crouching low and walking east like a cat. The bandage felt a bit ticklish on her foot, but it kept the roof’s filth out of her wound.

Once she arrived at the center of the roof, she heard a loud noise from the road to her right.

The roar of metal continued on without end.

She gasped and looked over to see a pair of towers there.

The green towers resembled smokestacks and rose past the edge of the roof.

The towers weren’t the only things rising past the roof. She saw a piece of metal resembling a 3yd-wide bowler hat and then the 15yd-wide metal chest and shoulders supporting the towers came into view.

“Is that Army Division Chief Karl Schmitt from before!?”

That enormous Heavy Barrel stood more than 20 yards tall, not including the “towers”, and it was being carried to the surface by one of the underground hangar elevators.

It was so big. Hazel stood atop a 10yd rooftop, but she only came up to his waist.

She froze for a moment when the pair of sight devices glowing on his facial structure turned her way.

Immediately afterwards, a pair of large shapes landed on opposite edges of the storehouse roof with her in the center.

8yd metal giants had alighted on the roof without even whipping up the wind.

The one to her left was blue and the one to her right was red.

“Wha-?”

She didn’t even get the full word out before swallowing it in acceptance of what had happened.

…Am I surrounded?

She calmly thought through her situation.

Karl stood motionless in front of her, his arms ready at his hips.

The Heavy Barrels to her left and right had their Ober Emblems activated and wings spread, using that lift to stand atop the roof. Even Hazel made a lot of noise walking along the iron roof, but they stood only on their right toes.

Behind her, she could hear the soldiers gathering on the backroad she had climbed from.

“I am surrounded, aren’t I?”

The Heavy Barrels to her left and right asked a question without shaking or even wavering.

“Where do you think you are going?”

Part 3

Hazel faced Karl ahead of her and considered that question.

She hung her head a bit, but she soon looked up and answered.

“To where I think I should be.” She looked to the Barrels to the left and right and brushed up her hair. “Um,” she began. “You wouldn’t believe me if I promised to return once everything is in place, would you?”

“No, unfortunately,” said the red one.

“Our master, Kaiser Schwert, ordered us to take the Messiah’s life if she were to escape,” continued the blue one.

That came as a shock to Hazel.

…So not everyone in the Geheimnis Agency agrees about me.

She made a note of that while turning her thoughts to Alfred.

Then she heard a pair of metal noises.

They came from the blue Barrel to her left readying its rifle and the red one to her right pulling out the short sword hidden within itself.

“So you are running away?” boomed Karl Schmitt’s voice in front of her.

He nodded while looking down at her.

She frowned a bit at his nod and pressed her right foot against the roof.

The cloth made a wet sound and the cold blood soaking it got on the roof.

She faced forward while standing in her own blood.

“I am not running away. And I will no longer make excuses either.”

She took a breath.

“I am simply pointing out which answer is correct.”

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, a bullet and a short sword strike rushed in from the sides.

She leaped forward just beforehand.

She rolled herself down the sloped roof and toward Karl’s chest.

The sound of the bullet hit her along with a shockwave and Karl’s hand moved in from the right.

“–––––!”

She looked behind herself for just an instant. The red and blue were moving to launch a second attack.

But something was missing there.

…They’re always with that white Heavy Barrel! Is it here too!?

That question led to a flash of insight as she leaped from the roof just before Karl grabbed her.

She leaped out into the empty space above the road.

She floated in the air as a precursor to falling.

But Karl’s giant hand pursued her to scoop her out of the air.

She viewed his hand.

“I won’t let you catch me!”

She read the timing from the wind Lives wrapped around his metal fingers and kicked off his finger.

She used the force of his finger to launch herself toward the main gate.

She used her feline agility and the Heavy Barrel’s hand to propel herself through the night sky.

She was 20 yards up, so falling would mean death. But this was enough.

…I know it is!

She only needed to do one thing, but she didn’t have much time to do it.

She hurried. Still lying face up in the air, she breathed in to calm herself. She lay in the night sky and faced the stars and moon. She opened her mouth with her eyes on the moonlight situated at the highest point of the sky.

Her Messiah eye glowed red as she spoke the Text necessary to resolve this.

<The Messiah…>

She used her Beweisen.

<The Messiah calls the emperor.>

Part 4

It arrived suddenly.

After starting her fall, Hazel turned to view the ground 20 yards below her. That was when a dull sound like breaking rock reverberated through her body.

She thought it had to be Karl’s footstep, but while the massive Heavy Barrel was turning her way from 30 yards away, he had not taken a step yet.

The blue and red Barrels were flapping their wings and performing attitude control in the air near where Karl’s fist had missed her.

…Then what was that sound!?

She heard it again and managed to ascertain its location this time.

It came from the road she was currently falling toward.

A sound like something tearing through rock rumbled from the underground facility. She also heard the sound of heavy metal tearing and snapping as the source revealed itself.

One portion of the road broke and lifted. The pavement swelled up like someone tugging upwards on the center of a cloth.

“Come to me, Neue Kaiser!” shouted Hazel, twisting her body.

The tip of the protruding asphalt broke open and a black metal fist burst out.

The yard-wide fist was surrounded by chunks of asphalt and pieces of the underground structure as the hand opened and extended its fingers upwards. The force of the movement sent the scraps of metal and asphalt flying away.

The rumble whipped up the wind.

The open hand jutted straight up, revealing a shoulder joint covered by a Panzer Kleid.

“!”

Hazel landed on the metal palm.

The metal hand supporting her continued to move upwards in the powerful wind. The wind blew from the shoulders, face, chest, hips, legs, and toes to break through the ground and emerge onto the surface.

This was Neue Kaiser.

The sight devices in the facial structure shined bright. Its output levels remained at near overdrive. She could tell no one was piloting it.

…It’s unmanned, but its owner showed me it can be remote controlled at the library last night.

All of its thrusters were currently being used to keep it floating above the road. Its actions came from its nature as a Heavy Barrel, from its Lives and the combat records in its memory, and from the will sent out by Hazel’s Messiah eye and Hazel herself.

“Thank you,” she said atop its hand.

It answered her thanks by landing back on the ground after bursting up from the underground hangar.

With a metal crash loud enough to shake the ground, the white 11yd machine stood on the road and roared.

“––––!”

Its voice rattled the windows of the nearby buildings and caused the three Heavy Barrels about 50 yards away to back up just a bit.

Part 5

Hazel noted the lack of wings on Neue Kaiser’s back.

Meanwhile, Neue Kaiser moved its hand toward its right leg and lowered it with her on top.

…Riding it out of here would be best.

She realized Neue Kaiser had been staring straight ahead this whole time. It was looking west, toward the enemy.

“What are you-!?” she shouted but stopped midsentence.

An explosion erupted in the direction it was looking. It was a much louder version of the air explosion when a Heavy Barrel took flight.

She turned that way to find a wall rushing toward her.

That was Karl Schmitt. His Heavy Barrel was like a 20yd-tall fortress and he was using his thrusters to fly above the road toward her. His left shoulder was held out front for a shoulder charge.

He was after Neue Kaiser.

The explosive clash only took an instant. Hazel watched as Karl passed in front of her, plowing into Neue Kaiser. Their weights made a horrible metallic crash and Neue Kaiser was pushed away.

With a sound like shattering glass, the road broke into a spray of asphalt. They were headed toward the bridge and their weights would be enough to destroy it.

But Hazel caught Neue Kaiser in her gaze.

It was being pushed away by Karl’s great size, but it was still in control of itself and it had not been crushed. It held onto Karl’s left shoulder with both arms.

It had not given up, so she raised her voice.

“Neue Kaiser!”

<The Messiah commands the emperor to fight.>

She raised her right arm.

“Show me what you can do!”

Her request was answered before it was even complete. A second explosion of air erupted shortly before the bridge.

But this one did not come from Karl. It came from Neue Kaiser.

The two machines’ movements were evenly matched, so they poured in all of their power but remained motionless.

And it did not end there.

Wind Lives were gathering behind Neue Kaiser. It could keep going.

Seeing that, Hazel nodded with strength in her eyebrows. She swung her raised arm forward. She swung it forcibly down toward the blue and red Barrels standing on the road.

“Full power!”

Neue Kaiser answered her shout with a roar from its voice device.

All of its thrusters produced a third air explosion behind it.

Slowly but surely, it gathered acceleration and pushed Karl back.

“Mh!?”

An unthinkable voice came from Karl’s voice device.

Wind blew from his leg armor and back as well.

The wind raced down the road, rustled the leaves of the trees lining the road, and shattered the thin windows one after another.

Standing within the scattering leaves and glass shards, Hazel snapped her right fingers.

“Don’t give up!”

Neue Kaiser accelerated again, producing another air explosion to push further forward.

Karl could not stop himself from being pushed back by the overwhelming movement of the air.

Neue Kaiser accelerated with great force to keep pushing. It never came to a stop and accelerated further.

The white Heavy Barrel instantly pushed through a lot more ground. It pushed through Karl’s great size and the air resistance. It raced past Hazel and even past the hole it had created.

Sparks scattered rom Karl’s feet. He had given up on pushing back and cut his rear thrusters. He instead planted his feet on the ground to stop Neue Kaiser with this own weight and balance.

But Neue Kaiser would not stop. The Messiah eye would not allow it.

<The Messiah hears the emperor’s victory song.>

Neue Kaiser roared and lowered its hips.

At max thrust, it held Karl’s left shoulder and bent backwards.

It whipped up the wind while attempting to lift Karl.

Its roar never ceased, joining the cry of the blowing wind.

Just as the massive green Heavy Barrel attempted to lower his hips, the Neue Kaiser lifted him as if placing him on its chest.

“–––––!”

In less than a second, Neue Kaiser twisted its body and threw Karl. He was thrown 20 yards down the road where the red and blue Heavy Barrels waited.

Karl fell back-first onto the pavement, his metal crying out in protest and his limbs bouncing once while his Panzer Kleid and armor panels slid along the road due to his inertial weight. The red and blue Barrels quickly fled into the sky while Karl slid down the road and crashed into a building.

The sounds of the crumbling building rang out for a while.

All the wind blowing down the road rose skyward in search of an exit.

Hazel looked to Neue Kaiser’s back where it stood at the ready about 20 yards away.

…It’s time to leave.

She brushed back her windswept hair and prepared to speak her Aerial Words.

But she instead heard the Aerial Words of someone else’s Beweisen.

<The Emperor believes in himself.>

Part 6

Neue Kaiser suddenly fell to its knees. Like its power had been switched off.

The white Heavy Barrel was no longer under the Messiah’s control.

Hazel immediately realized why.

“Alfred Maldrick.”

“Do not defile my true name with your Heidengeist lips.”

A scratchy artificial voice arrived from dead ahead.

Someone stood in front of the large Heavy Barrel half buried in a building.

The slender man wore his long hair tied back and carried a white sword Device.

Alfred walked toward her. Slowly and without rushing.

Her reflexes told her to run the other way. The 10 yards between them was about the same as her distance from the bridge behind her.

…He’ll catch up if I try to run.

She cast her eyes in every other direction and saw truck lights gathering on the other side of the bridge behind her.

Soldiers wielding submachineguns and capture nets were waiting behind the storehouses and other buildings to the left and right.

And Alfred walked toward her from the front.

A few trucks drove up from the smaller roads on the left and right and quickly lined up behind him.

But he did not even look back.

Hazel saw Heiliger, Müller, Schweitzer, and Lowenzahn step out of the trucks.

She saw Lowenzahn take a step toward her with the hem of her uniform whipping in the wind. Lowenzahn’s eyes were on Alfred, not on Hazel.

“Stop, lieutenant! The Erlkönig has been sent from Germania to deal with the approaching enemy craft! Isn’t preventing the Messiah’s rescue more important than killing her!?”

“And how long will it take for the Erlkönig to arrive?” He twisted his head around to look up in the sky. “Destiny is gradually moving beyond your predictions.”

He viewed Neue Zinnober and Neue Blau hovering in the air.

They silently deactivated their Ober Emblems. Bluish-white ether light scattered from them and then they landed and kneeled behind Alfred.

The asphalt audibly broke below them, but Alfred did not rush.

He continued his leisurely pace.

“This is the perfect timing. Everyone should be realizing the truth right about now – realizing that there is something wrong with a world so weak it can be saved by a single individual.”

He opened his mouth and sang in the scratchy voice of his artificial vocal cords.

The wind blows, the night blows, the dragon awakes, the people move, the dragon roars

The wind arrives from the north / A path arrives from the north

The knight descends as a knight / The dragon soars high as a dragon

All is a path to the north star / All is a story of an insurmountable wall

“The report from the North Sea says an Allied bombing fleet is crossing the North Sea to arrive here in Hamburg. This country will suffer a severe wound while we are preoccupied with this Messiah.” He took a breath. “What did Sir Graham want from us? Did he want us to be led astray by such…trivialities?”

With that final word, he stopped and took a fighting stance.

…Here it comes!

Hazel jumped, but a certain sound pushed her onward.

The sirens were all the proof she needed that someone was approaching the base.

She nodded at that fact, regathered her strength, and took off running. With all her might.

She trampled the glass shards and chunks of asphalt scattered across the road.

She looked back to see Alfred take his first step.

He crouched low as if bending his body in two and took a slow but powerful first step.

“Do you still claim you don’t wish to run away!? Then prove it, Messiah!”

Once his foot touched the ground again, he took his second step. With the third step, he broke into a swift run like he was trying to run up the wall. His footsteps rang loud.

…He’s going to catch up!?

Hazel swallowed the scream threatening to escape her throat.

Then her right foot’s bandage caught hard on the ground. The blood soaking it had increased its friction, making it catch on the asphalt.

Before she could even cry out, the bandage attached itself to the ground and her blood-soaked toe slipped within it.

She tripped.

To protect herself from the glass shards on the ground, she twisted around to land on her right shoulder.

“Ow.”

The pain hit her and her momentum slid her along the ground some, but she planted her hands on the ground soon enough.

She tried to stand when crimson Lives pierced her from behind.

A murderous gaze approached, carrying the Lives of killer intent.

…I need to get up.

She could tell the wound on her toe was tearing wider. As much as her mind told her to stand up, her foot felt numb.

Her body couldn’t keep up with her will.

That fact scared her and she collapsed back down before she managed to get on her feet.

She planted her hands on the ground again and reflexively looked back.

Alfred was there. He was still 10 yards away, but that distance was meaningless.

“Ah.”

A single tone rang from his voice and a Bust attack instantly filled the space between them.

White light loudly swung down toward her.

But Hazel did not shut her eyes or avert her gaze.

She simply stood up and ran, albeit while looking back.

…I won’t give up.

The sirens rang in her ears, that one thought filled her mind, and the white explosion hit her.

The road was engulfed in light.

At the same moment, something dropped from the sky.

Part 7

Something landed in front of Hazel.

It looked like a giant wall to her.

It dropped with enough force to break into the road surface but instead came to a sudden stop between her and Alfred.

His “ah” attack crashed into the wall and the light exploded.

The light shattered on the other side of the wall and the wall shook violently.

But the wall remained hovering more than a foot off the ground and did not fall.

The wall had blocked Alfred’s Bust attack.

Protected by the wall, Hazel took a few steps back. The wind vanished and a few of the light Lives produced by Alfred danced around her in long strings.

She took a few more steps back and stopped once she could see the entirety of the wall.

Everyone else was equally motionless. The surrounding soldiers and Heavy Barrels had all come to a stop.

She looked dazed.

But she had not stopped from the relief of surviving the Bust attack.

She had identified the wall as the white light faded and the warning lights and other outdoor lights shined on it.

It was a 30yd-long aerial warship resembling a blue blade.

She knew its name.

But her gaping mouth was trembling too much to move. Her eyebrows drooped and she took a breath before finally getting her voice out.

“What is happening?”

She was answered not by a voice but by the loud flapping of wings in the sky.

A line of wind passed by in the dark blue moonlit sky overhead. The wind took the form of a dark shadow. The twin-winged silhouette was a Heavy Barrel.

“Schwarz Löwe!”

Hazel’s drooping eyebrows shot up in joy and she raised her head. Tears fell from her upturned eyes.

The black Heavy Barrel vanished beyond a building at the far end of the road and she heard it land.

That was enough for her to nod. She viewed the blue craft in front of her, clenched her fists, and inhaled.

…It’s time to leave here.

A voice from behind seemed to respond to that thought. A woman’s voice.

“Yes, Hazel. Do that.”

Hearing a sound like splitting stone from the same direction, she looked back.

The blockade at the other end of the bridge had been breached.

For some reason, the trucks that had formed the blockade were missing.

And someone stood in the center of the gap where three trucks had been before.

“Lehrer.”

A woman in a purple uniform had just finished swinging a German military spear up from below.

Her eyes remained closed, but she was smiling. She swung the spear back down.

A moment later, three military trucks dropped from the sky.

“!?”

Everyone on the road ducked as the three trucks crashed down onto one of the buildings built alongside the road. A corner of the building collapsed from roof to 3rd floor like someone squishing a sponge cake below their finger. The trio of noises sounded like shattering stone.

With that as her cue, Lehrer raised her voice.

“Sylphide! Take her inside!”

<The Wind is a guardian dragon.>

Hazel turned around to see Sylphide opening the cockpit hatch on its upper surface.

The blue craft tilted toward her, telling her to climb in. However…

“Out of the way!” roared Alfred’s voice.

A loud impact followed and white light exploded on the other side of Sylphide. And not just once. A second, third, fourth, and fifth shout followed – the last one the most intense.

“Ah.”

Sylphide was blasted over Hazel’s head.

“!”

Hazel ducked down and Sylphide twisted itself around and ascended above one of the buildings. Its lower armor was cracked and broken, exposing its internal structure.

And with Sylphide moved out of the way…

“Are you running away?”

Alfred was not out of breath and stood firm in his diagonal stance.

Hazel noticed his gaze turn toward her just once before turning toward Lehrer behind her. So she shifted to the left to let him see the woman.

She looked back to see Lehrer walking this way. She tilted her head and spoke to Alfred.

“Do you think Hazel is running away here?”

“If she’s going to go on and on about not wanting to run away, the only other option is to fight.”

Instead of responding, Lehrer gathered bluish-white Lives on the blade of her raised spear. She gathered the wind Lives blowing through, called them to her, and hardened them into a blade.

Hazel gave an honest assessment of what she saw.

…The density and speed at which she gathered them is impressive.

Whether Lehrer was aware of those thoughts or not, she spoke to Hazel.

“Hazel, once you fight your true battle – not a simple skirmish like this – you will find you too can do this much. Because power is acquired through necessity.”

Lehrer threw away her glasses and opened her eyes – one blue and the other dyed red.

Hazel froze briefly when she saw those eyes.

But that was all.

…I knew it.

“You were the one who went to sleep at Alfheim in the picture book, weren’t you?”

The surrounding soldiers understood the implication.

“The Messiah!?”

Their confused shout changed the atmosphere hanging over the road. Confusion Lives raced out in every direction.

At the same time, Lehrer ran forward. She twisted her body to keep her balance while swinging her spear around and adding on more wind Lives.

Hazel also ran, like she was in sync with the woman. Her hurting right foot dragged a little, but she could still run. She had legs and they could move. And she had the willpower to move them.

So she ran. A great presence moved behind her. She knew who that was: Alfred.

“Ah.”

He released his voice just as Hazel and Lehrer passed each other.

Lehrer swung down her attack.

“Ah.”

Her loud tone crashed into Alfred’s Bust attack and tore a large hole in the road.

Part 8

The boom of an explosion and a cacophony of destruction tore up and boiled the asphalt.

A 20yd-radius hole was created and the destruction spread as it collapsed further on its own.

The ground below was hollow thanks to the underground hangars. Burning and breaking sounds combined as the buildings on the edge of the hole failed to support their own weight, collapsed from the foundation, and slid down into the pit.

Black smoke marred the sky and the Sylphide flew even higher.

The only thing on the edge of the hole was Alfred after avoiding the explosion. His two targets were nowhere to be seen.

“Did she hit my attack from above, overpower it, and tear this hole in the ground?”

He stood up, clenched his teeth, and looked back. The first thing he saw on the road were two Grösse Panzers.

“Nein! Carry Neue Kaiser belowground and have its wings installed. After that, deal with Schwarz Löwe. Can you handle that?”

“What will you be doing, Master Alfred?”

He looked to the ground.

Dark dots drew out two trails along the heated asphalt.

“Two trails of blood. One would be the Messiah’s foot wound and the other must have been from my attack on that Buster.”

There was a bit of blood on his Rein König as well.

He suddenly looked up toward the two Grösse Panzers again.

“If those two plan to run away, then I must hunt them down.”

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