First stand

Chapter 33

As the battle unfolds within the city, Sir Valiansteel strives on his own journey, deep within the lands of Valebryn. What he embarked on was a grueling task that no one but him could achieve, something that is only reduced to a myth nowadays, buried after countless centuries of history.

A vast, desolate landscape surrounded him, illuminated by the faint sunlight piercing the thick clouds above. Unrecognizable from its state in the present, but eventually, he started recognizing landmarks that had survived into the modern day.

A few hours ago, once the Demon Lord’s castle had been spotted approaching, Sir Valiansteel was immediately granted permission to activate Valebryn’s ultimate weapons, legendary relics created thousands of years ago and important instruments that shaped the course of the kingdom’s history.

But their immense power was not easy to harness, and to prevent the risk of them being misused, the leaders of the past had decided to hide these weapons somewhere they could never be disturbed…

The past.

Deep below the surface of Valebryn, guarded by unreachable caverns, a snapshot of the land’s past peacefully lies dormant, stuck in a timeless stasis, waiting for the day it is needed. Only very few people know of the entrance to this domain, and as a separate realm from reality, the flow of time within it is also irregular.

After what felt like weeks of searching, Sir Valiansteel had finally done it. He had finished gathering hundreds of special relics scattered across the barren landscape—banners, broken weapons, armor pieces. Each told the story of the forefathers who laid the foundations of the kingdom with their literal blood, sweat, and tears. They would only answer to someone who truly knew what Valebryn stood for, and after experiencing its harsh past through the stories of each relic, Sir Valiansteel had passed their first test, and now his next one began.

The tall pile of relics turned into liquid gold, spreading across the ground in a radiant tide under Sir Valiansteel’s boots. From the pool of gold, several towering figures formed around him, representing the values that formed the kingdom.

A figure on one knee, wielding a massive war hammer.

“To endure the ruin, we became the foundations.”

A lady on one knee, carrying a massive shield.

“To weather the storm, we became the sanctuary.”

A crowned king on one knee, holding a sword in front of him.

“To guide the lost, we became the path.”

The Steelstorm Sheriff looked up at the figures, and his trusty weapons appeared before him, their dark gleam illuminated by the sunlight—shotgun in one hand, and katana in the other.

“To grant Valebryn a future… I’ll drag y’all into the present.”

…

Back at the surface, the siege of Valebryn continued, and no side appeared to be stopping anytime soon.

The walls of the kingdom were being fought over, each side trying to keep control of the best vantage points in the city. Consequently, the outer regions had sustained the most damage, worsened by the effects of the initial clash between the armies.

Countless smoke columns rose into the sky, and the sound of distant attacks rang in the air. Thankfully, the citizens of Valebryn had already been evacuated earlier, and for that, the warriors of Valebryn and Jaruna no longer needed to worry, letting them unleash their full display of powers and abilities against the invaders and even the playing field.

The Arks containing civilians were already on their way to nearby kingdoms, as part of several protection treaties from the past, leaving zero risk for them to be harmed. However, several nobles, and especially the Royal Family, had decided to stay in the city, acting as a command center where the kingdom’s armies could be coordinated, as well as providing support wherever needed. A large portion of the enemy legions targeted the Silver Crown Palace, but its defenses proved to be very hard to penetrate.

Another place, however, was also being focused on by the enemy, and its defenses were not as great.

The Canopy of Names remained under attack, and so far, its protectors had endured. Several groups from other areas of the city had also arrived to defend it, turning its surroundings into a brutal warzone. A group of Valebryn’s best mages coordinated to raise a shield around the sacred Canopy, which in turn healed every Valebryn warrior in the city, extending its blessing to the warriors of Jaruna, and sometimes even bringing fallen warriors back to life from minor fatal injuries.

Its constant support had started annoying Noctis, and so they began redirecting more and more of their forces towards the tree. But they soon realized that their sheer number alone would not be enough to break through its defenses.

Several waves of golden, fleeting light slashed through entire hordes of enemies, along with a dark, full metal suit of armor soaring through the air and raining down long-range artillery shots across the kingdom. They did not expect this level of opponents protecting their target, but two girls, in particular, caused a few of the enemy forces to redirect their attacks elsewhere.

Those who witnessed the first one could no longer determine if this person was their friend or their foe. She wielded a massive, heart-shaped club, completely drenched from head to toe with blood. Only one look was needed to figure out that it did not belong to her, but to the countless broken body parts that paved the trail of carnage behind her.

The horde of Noctis warriors had started staying away from the girl, but one particularly confident general decided to step forward to try to contain her. The girl dropped her club and the warriors cheered for him.

“Don’t worry, brothers. Let me handle this child—”

He could not even finish. The magical girl dashed forward so fast that she left behind the layer of blood covering her, letting the enemy appreciate her cute frilly dress and twintails for the first time.

She turned the general’s head toward the soldiers behind him, pierced his eye sockets to get a more secure grip on his skull, and slowly ripped his entire body in half, returning the bloodstain to her freshly cleaned appearance.

The horde was frozen in fear, even though they surrounded and outnumbered her by a hundred. Her weapon flew back toward her hand, shrinking to its original wand form.

“All of you… you’re all evil, right?”

They vigorously shook their heads in fear, even the bravest, most intimidating ones. All of them cowering before a magical girl.

“Good people don’t lie… but you all just did.”

She raised her wand above her, and it started glowing with a pink light.

“Evil people like you all need to be punished. And I won’t be gentle about it.”

A pink wave of energy pulsed from her wand, and the skin of all Noctis soldiers around her was instantly peeled off.

…

The Noctis forces on the other side of the Canopy were not faring any better.

The streets and buildings around them had started twisting and turning into themselves, along with lights and even the pull of gravity itself. They could no longer distinguish front from back—the sun shone from behind them, the ground above their head, and with every step they took, their bodies appeared in different places.

This zone encompassed an entire side of the barrier around the Canopy, and they had no choice but to pass it. Directly teleporting inside was not possible, and teleporting within the complex chaos of the labyrinth was a surefire way to separate your body parts into twelve different areas.

The only one able to freely traverse the zone was a young female Knight, wearing a beret and casually walking through everything.

In the infinite fractals and reflections of the labyrinth, the soldiers of Noctis could only watch as the girl raised her hand and snapped her fingers.

Bracing themselves for the worst, they opened their eyes and saw… nothing. The girl had simply disappeared from view, but they noticed they could not move.

What they never realized was that she had already unraveled the labyrinth of reality, leaving all of their bits and pieces floating around everywhere, still completely alive and operational.

…

Under the Canopy’s shade, Captain Eiren continued to sustain the barrier, along with several other mages—when all of a sudden, an urgent announcement from the Palace rang out.

“Attention everyone! The castle is preparing a large-scale bombardment on the entire kingdom!”

Captain Eiren quickly flew up to have a better look, and all he could do was watch as hundreds of massive glyphs appeared in the sky, gathering the rubble scattered all over the kingdom, as well as pieces of buildings torn away from the ground. Eventually, hundreds of massive projectiles hung in the sky above Valebryn, ready to unleash destruction upon everything.

He quickly opened his book and created the widest barriers he could manage. The glyphs disappeared, and the meteor storm descended into the city, as everyone held their breath, praying for a miracle.

And a miracle they did get.

A bright, massive purple flame burst into existence near Silver Crown Palace, casting its light above everything and shaking the entire kingdom with its appearance.

The people closest to the roaring flame—the nobles and the Royal Family in the Palace—noticed the young man at its center, wearing the mantle of the Aetheryn Order.

They had seen this flame before, half a century ago, and it immediately put them on their guard. But the young man simply looked at them and flew into the meteors.

He stopped high above the kingdom, and with a snap of his fingers, the massive projectiles were covered with the same purple fire around him, and stopped their descent at once, floating in mid-air as if they were simply bubbles blown by children. He pointed a finger at the Demon Lord’s castle, and the swarm of flaming meteors started flying towards it, even faster than they had fallen. The barrier protecting it tanked a few hits, but eventually shattered, leaving the castle to receive the full force of the attack and ultimately fall outside the kingdom’s walls.