Elizabeth stood alone, one woman and one sword, like a golden goddess of war.
Without hesitation, she charged forward to face four Astral Archmages head-on—including Hohenheim of the Ecclesia of Sacred Brilliance and the Dark Mechanicus's "Darkweaver."
Her Judgment Sword Intent was absolute and tyrannical, each strike imbued with the will of cosmic judgment itself.
With overwhelming dominance, she pressed the four opponents so hard that they could barely defend, unable to even find room to counterattack.
Wherever her swordlight passed, the law domains of the coalition forces shattered like fragile glass.
On the other side, Walter's figure flickered through the void like a phantom.
Having only recently ascended to Astral Archmage rank, facing three veteran opponents of equal level pushed him to the brink.
His movements were erratic and ghostlike, relying mostly on evasion, shadow curses, and psychic shockwaves.
Occasionally, he would deliver a lethal counterstrike—though slightly overpowered, his endurance was astounding, tightly restraining all three enemies.
Above them all, the ancient dragon Fiona had revealed her Astral Ancient Dragon form—an enormous, moving fortress that shielded Lilith's Team Star behind her vast wings.
Her dragonfire scorched all it touched; her claws tore through enemy battleships.
Under her protection, Team Star operated in perfect safety.
Lilith, standing amid that cover, cast vast fields of Starlight Barrier and Celestial Bombardment again and again.
Though this was her first time participating in a battle of such immense scale—her pale face betrayed her nerves—her gaze grew firmer with every spell she released.
She was growing stronger before everyone's eyes.
Below the Archmage-level duel, the battlefield was chaos incarnate.Dalton's subordinate races and allied forces—equipped with top-tier gear and unified formations provided by Dalton—were fighting with power far beyond their natural limits.
Even outnumbered several times over, they met the coalition forces blow for blow, sometimes even seizing the upper hand.
Despite their numerical disadvantage, Dalton's army—driven by superior "hardware" and unyielding morale—held their ground against the coalition's tide-like assault. In several sectors, they were even advancing.
At the height of this violent clash, a silent figure behind Leo stirred.
Aragis, motionless until now, slowly opened his eyes beneath his star-blue helmet.
Those eyes were devoid of frenzy or bloodlust—only cold calmness, as still and eternal as deep space itself.He inclined his head slightly toward Leo.
Leo's eyes flickered—he had clearly expected this.
The next moment, Aragis vanished without a sound.
The Imperial Fleet Appears
Far away in the depths of space—near the primary wormhole leading into the Aresia System—an overwhelming fleet emerged from the warp.
The Luminous Empire's Glory Blade Expeditionary Fleet glided out of the wormhole like a tide of steel.
It was not vast—barely over a hundred warships—but every vessel radiated divine brilliance, etched with ancient runes that pulsed with power far beyond any coalition fleet.
At its head sailed the flagship Imperial Sovereign—a moving temple of war.
The energy it emitted rivaled even the power of an Astral Archmage.It was a weapon capable of annihilating entire star systems.
Inside the command chamber stood the expedition's commander:
Calvin, the Blade of Judgment—a Luminous Empire general and Astral Archmage in his own right.Clad in ornate platinum armor, his hawk-like eyes stared coldly into the violent energies of the distant void.
"Chaos… The struggle of insects,"he said flatly.
"Accelerate. Find the Princess. Any obstruction… kill without hesitation."
But just as the fleet fully exited the wormhole—an anomaly struck.
Aragis Blocks the Empire
Before the Imperial Sovereign, the void shimmered—and a lone figure materialized out of nothingness.
He wore simple star-blue armor with no ornamentation, holding an equally unadorned spear.It was Aragis.
The moment he appeared, a pressure vast as the Starsea itself crashed down—an invisible weight that distorted light and space alike.
The Imperial fleet's forward momentum came to an abrupt halt, as if the very universe itself had frozen.
"Stop,"Aragis spoke softly, his voice carrying through every ship, reaching even Calvin's ears.
Calvin's face, usually tranquil as still water, hardened for the first time.
He could sense it—within that seemingly ordinary knight surged a power that even he, a veteran Astral Archmage, found… threatening.
"Who are you, to dare obstruct the Imperial Fleet?" Calvin's tone was glacial.
"This path is closed."
Aragis's reply was curt. He raised his spear slightly, the tip pointing toward the Imperial Sovereign.
"Your power is too great. It will devastate the world below."
"Devastate the world? Nonsense!" Calvin's eyes flared with wrath. "The Empire needs no one's counsel! Step aside—or die!"
He struck.
From the flagship's bridge, Calvin extended a single fist.
A colossal hand of pure holy light—condensed from the Empire's divine laws—smashed through the void toward Aragis, carrying enough power to obliterate a star.
Aragis remained perfectly calm.
He simply thrust his spear forward once.
No blinding radiance. No grand explosion.
Only where the spearpoint met the divine fist—space itself collapsed, forming a tiny black hole.
The Empire's radiant attack vanished into it—devoured utterly, leaving not even a ripple behind.
Calvin's pupils contracted.
"Annihilation Law?! Who are you?!"
Aragis did not answer. His form blurred—and vanished again.
A heartbeat later, he stood before the Imperial fleet once more, tracing a complex arc with his spear.
"Void Battlefield—activate."
At his low command, reality warped.
The surrounding void twisted into a grey realm without stars—a sealed dimension forged by Aragis's own power.
Calvin found himself dragged into it, separated from his fleet.
"Impressive… but do you think you alone can stop the Empire?"
Enraged now, Calvin entered the Void Battlefield as well.
The pressure of two beings—each surpassing the limits of Astral Archmage rank—clashed, shaking the isolated dimension to its core.
Calvin's Holy Light Law surged like a vast ocean, while Aragis's Power of Annihilation devoured and dissolved everything it touched.
Their strikes were silent, yet each carried force enough to rewrite cosmic laws and extinguish stars.
The longer the battle raged, the more astonished Calvin became.
His opponent's realm might have been a tier lower—but his control over the Annihilation Law, the precision of his timing and mastery, made Calvin feel like he was dueling an ancient weapon forged from pure will.
Aragis stood unyielding, a boulder in the eternal dark—calm, immovable, implacable—occasionally countering with bursts of lethal speed that forced even Calvin to defend.
While their titanic duel raged unseen beyond the main battlefield, its impact was immeasurable.
The Battlefield Turns
Back in open space, with Calvin drawn into the Void Battlefield, the Glory Blade Fleet was not entirely trapped.
Under the deputy commander's orders, nearly a hundred Imperial ships broke free from the spatial distortion and surged toward the Aresia frontier like leviathans tearing through a net.
But what they saw left them stunned.
Instead of a princess besieged and desperate, instead of chaotic forces clashing over treasure, they found… a cosmic graveyard.
Countless wrecked warships floated in silence—most bearing the insignia of the Rivenblade Dynasty or Dark Mechanicus.
The debris field whispered of a war just fought—so fierce that even the stars had been scarred.
Residual energy storms still twisted across space like glowing nebulae.
Entire fleets of Level 1 civilizations had been annihilated—only scattered, panicked vessels remained, fleeing aimlessly at the edges of the battlefield.
The Imperial officers—veterans who had seen true galactic war—frowned in unison.
They knew the cost of maintaining order in the cosmos, and what destruction like this could mean for the structure of space itself.
All this… for a "treasure"? To them, it was barbaric, shortsighted.
Yet what shocked them most was the situation now unfolding.
The vastly outnumbered defending fleet—marked by its archaic, almost rustic design—was not losing at all.
It was winning.
The Dalton Fleet advanced steadily, its hulls enduring impossible punishment.
Their firepower wasn't elegant, but each strike was heavy, precise, and devastating.
And their defenses—unbelievable.
The coalition's beams, magic barrages, and kinetic shells barely scratched their armor—it was as though their ships were forged from neutron star matter.
"Impossible… such resilience…""Their technology looks primitive—but their base materials… this strength is beyond anything known!"
Among the high-rank combatants, the situation was even more one-sided.
Dalton's warriors wore battle armor powered by near-infinite energy sources, endlessly replenishing stamina, mana, and vitality.
Their endurance was monstrous.
The coalition's elites could sometimes gain an advantage early on—but once the fight dragged out, Dalton's soldiers would overwhelm them through sheer persistence.
And at the center of it all shone Elizabeth—a sun blazing across the battlefield.
Her Judgment Sword burned with celestial flame as she fought four Astral Archmages alone.
Each strike tore through the fabric of law; each swing forced her enemies back.
Hohenheim's sacred light dimmed, and Darkweaver's shadow nebula was in tatters.
Dalton's army had begun its counterattack.
The Starsea Alliance was in chaos—casualties piled high, morale collapsed, and the outcome was clear.
"That… that's the power she protects?"
The Imperial fleet's deputy commander—himself an Astral Archmage—stared at the live feed in awe.
They had come by Imperial decree to rescue the princess—only to find that the "princess" was the one dominating the battle.
As the Imperial fleet's aura spread across the battlefield, its chilling pressure descended.
The collective might of a high civilization—the disciplined terror of countless wars—fell like ice upon the already shattered coalition.
"Luminous Empire! It's the Luminous Empire's main fleet!"
"We're finished! Run!"
Panic consumed what was left of the coalition.
They fled without looking back—forgetting treasure, forgetting orders—only desperate to survive.
But the Imperial fleet ignored them.
Their gaze was fixed on one figure in the void—a golden warrior shining like a valkyrie.
Twenty Astral Archmages and one Astral Envoy-level elder—led by the deputy commander—broke formation, streaking through the stars toward her.
Dalton's champions—Elarielle, Walter, and the others—immediately tensed.
Was the Empire here to strike at Elizabeth? To seize her?
Even Elizabeth herself hesitated for a brief instant, a flicker of complex emotion crossing her violet eyes.
Then—the unimaginable happened.
Those twenty Astral Archmages and the Envoy did not attack.
They halted a short distance away…and in perfect unison, knelt upon one knee in the void.
Before everyone—foes, allies, and fleeing remnants alike—they bowed their heads deeply with unmistakable reverence.
The Astral Envoy spoke first, his voice solemn and resonant, echoing through the silent battlefield:
"By decree of His Majesty the Emperor, we have come to receive Your Highness!"
"We pay homage to Princess Elizabeth—may Your Highness be ever victorious!"
Twenty Astral Archmages repeated as one, their voices merging into a tide of sound that swept across the stars:
"We salute Your Highness the Princess!"
Silence.
A silence deeper than death.
The fleeing armies froze. Dalton's warriors forgot to cheer. Even the surviving leaders of the Rivenblade and Dark Mechanicus could only stare, speechless.
The mighty Luminous Empire—one of the apex powers of the Starsea—had not come to claim treasure or plunder…They had come to kneel before the commander of Aresia's defenders—their Princess.
Elizabeth hovered in the void, her golden armor gleaming under starlight.
She gazed at the kneeling imperial elders and the familiar, radiant fleet beyond.
A storm of memories and emotions surged within her heart.
But in the end, all of it condensed into a barely audible sigh—and a posture straight as a blade, embodying the will of Dalton itself.
Raising her hand with calm authority, her voice rang clear through the stillness:
"Rise."
In that moment, she was not only the Princess of the Luminous Empire,but also the Commander of the Dalton Astral Guard Legion.
Far away, in the command room of Dalton Town, Leo watched the scene unfold on the holo-screen.
A faint, almost imperceptible smile curved his lips.