"National Teacher! National Teacher! I leave it to you!"
Rag IV, King of Nord, turned frantically to his advisor, the robed figure standing at his side.
Jano, the so-called national teacher, stepped forward with his hands clasped confidently behind his back. His expression was calm, even smug.
"Looking at the situation, the Rose Kingdom must have gathered a band of wandering mages," he said coldly. "But do not worry—rabble is still rabble."
Rag IV's panic quickly eased. His fear melted into a grin.
"Yes, yes! You're right. Then it is our turn. Show them what true power is!"
Jano was no ordinary man. He was a wandering mage, once a promising student of the prestigious Dragon Mage Academy in the Central Region. There, he had studied the arcane arts for more than a decade, climbing steadily in strength. But his ambition had led him astray. When he reached the bottleneck of his magical growth, he turned to forbidden research—demon magic, a dark and dangerous branch strictly outlawed.
The Academy discovered his studies and expelled him without hesitation.
Disgraced and furious, Jano fled the Central Region. He wandered across the continent until he reached the Western lands, a barren frontier where magic was scarce and weak. Here, among people untrained in the true arts, his power seemed unmatched.
The Nord Kingdom welcomed him with awe. To Rag IV, a man who lusted for empire, Jano seemed heaven-sent. He was exalted as the "National Teacher," a symbol of arcane strength that would carry the Nord banner to victory.
Yet, Jano himself was disdainful. To him, these Westerners were little more than peasants. Even this war, the siege of Rose, had seemed beneath him—until now.
The power unleashed upon the walls had unsettled him. That storm of fire and steel—only magicians could have produced such devastation. And yet, those weren't spells. They weren't anything he recognized.
"It seems," Jano muttered to himself, "I must use my true cards after all."
He reached into his robes and touched a scroll. It pulsed faintly with violet light, covered in countless runes. It was a forbidden spell—one that could silence magic itself.
Yes, once this scroll was unleashed, no mage within its range could cast a spell. Their power would be stripped away, leaving them helpless.
"So what if Rose has many magicians?" he sneered. "Once this scroll is cast, their magic will be useless. Then they will fall like sheep before the slaughter."
Ambition burned in his chest. He saw it already: after this victory, Rag IV would worship him completely. With the Nord Kingdom's strength devoted to him alone, he could raise an army, return to the Central Region, and crush the Academy that had dared to humiliate him. He would slaughter every mage who mocked him and carve out a new empire—a demonic empire, ruled by his hand alone.
Smiling, he stepped forward.
"Forbidden Spell—now!"
The wind howled. His dark robe flared as if alive. The scroll burst from his sleeve, glowing brilliantly, and soared into the sky.
From the battlements of Rose, Gavin Ward watched with narrowed eyes.
"What's this?" he muttered as a streak of violet light arced across the sky.
Above the city, the light exploded. A vast rune circle spread across the heavens, violet and crackling, enveloping the walls before vanishing into nothing.
The Rose knights gasped. Some staggered back, clutching their weapons in dread.
On the field below, Jano lowered his hands and smirked. "Hmph. The Banning Spell is complete. Victory is ours."
He turned, smiling disdainfully, his back to the wall.
On the battlements, the American soldiers Gavin had summoned blinked in confusion. They touched their rifles, their helmets, their chests. The violet light had passed over them harmlessly.
For a moment, silence hung. Then one soldier chuckled nervously. Another tapped his rifle barrel.
"Still works," he said.
The others nodded. They had braced for death when that strange light had fallen, but in the end, it had done nothing more than sparkle like fireworks.
The Rose knights were bewildered. Why had the thunder of those strange weapons fallen silent? They did not know that Gavin's men had only paused to check themselves.
From below, Rag IV misread the silence entirely.
"The movement stopped!" he shouted. "The national teacher has succeeded! The enemy's magicians are powerless!"
His voice boomed over the ranks. Morale surged like wildfire.
The survivors of the earlier charge—barely three hundred out of the original thousand knights—roared in fury. Their eyes burned red through the slits of their helmets.
"Kill them all!"
"Vengeance for our brothers!"
The war drums thundered. The entire Nord army, fifty thousand strong, surged forward like a roaring sea. Shields locked, ladders raised, their battle cries shook the air.
Rag IV threw back his head and laughed. "Fifty thousand will storm the walls! Gavin Ward, your head is mine!"
Atop the walls, Gavin's lips curled into a cold smile.
"So they've gathered all fifty thousand in one place? Perfect."
His eyes gleamed. "Artillery support team—activate!"
A translucent screen shimmered into view before him, visible only to his eyes. The battlefield spread across it like a map, every soldier, every movement marked. He focused on the ground where the violet light had descended—the place where the enemy mage had stood.
"Let's see if your magic can withstand artillery fire," Gavin murmured.
In the city below, the ground trembled. With a thunderclap, twenty massive M59 155mm artillery pieces materialized, their black barrels gleaming in the sunlight. They stood like silent beasts of war, waiting to breathe fire.
"Fire."
The first volley was like the wrath of heaven.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Twenty guns roared together, and the world seemed to shatter.
The shells screamed through the air, arcing high before crashing down among the Nord ranks.
The impact was apocalyptic. Entire squads of soldiers vanished in bursts of fire and steel. Dozens were shredded instantly, bodies torn apart, armor hurled into the sky like leaves in a storm.
Jano spun, eyes wide. "What—what is this?!"
Another shell landed near him. The explosion tore men apart, flinging their broken bodies across the field.
"Impossible!" he cried, panic flooding his voice. "This isn't magic—what is this power?!"
The sky whistled again. A black shape fell directly toward him. He froze, mind blank.
Then came the blast.
The shell struck and detonated. His protective wards shattered like glass. Fire and shrapnel consumed him, ripping his body to pieces.
Jano, the great national teacher, the pride of Nord, the would-be emperor of a demonic empire—was obliterated in a single instant.
The shockwave hurled dozens of Nord knights aside, their screams lost in the thunder.
The slaughter spread across the battlefield.
Rifles rattled, machine guns roared, and artillery shells rained down like falling stars. The Nord army dissolved into chaos. Soldiers screamed, fled, or simply collapsed under the relentless fire.
Those struck directly were torn apart; those nearby were crushed under the shockwaves. Blood, armor, and flesh painted the ground.
The army that had seemed like an unstoppable tide only moments ago was reduced to a sea of corpses.
From the rear, Rag IV stared in horror. His mouth hung open. His sword slipped from his grip. His face turned white as the battlefield burned before him.
"This… is this… the wrath of God?" he whispered.
Just moments ago, he had dreamed of empire. Now, his fifty thousand troops were gone—erased as though heaven itself had judged them.
His body trembled. His mind broke. He screamed, voice raw, despair twisting every word.
"No! My knights, my army—!"
But before he could finish, a shell landed near him.
Boom!
The explosion blasted him off his horse. His body slammed into the ground, blood streaming from every orifice. His heart stopped before he could rise again.
The mighty King of Nord was dead.
Silence fell over the battlefield.
Then came the system's cold voice in Gavin's mind:
"King Nord has fallen in battle."
"The morale of the Nord Kingdom collapses. Their army is in full rout."
"The battle is over. Kill count: 23,678."
"Reward: One Five-Star Lottery Draw."
"Killing Points can be used to purchase technology, weapons, and troops in the mall."
Gavin exhaled slowly, his eyes still cold. The war was won.
For the Nord Kingdom, it was not just a defeat. It was annihilation.