**Chapter 68**
—
A single Death Knight was slaughtering all the guards of the Bandit Alliance stationed there.
*Not enough yet.*
Dale’s Death Knight was nothing like the crude abominations commonly crafted by lesser necromancers.
In life, it had once wielded the strongest swordsmanship on the continent—its blade even felling the so-called Divine Sword. What Dale had recreated was no mere corpse soldier, but the *Proxy of the Sword*, a reflection of that very technique.
Thus, Dale’s goal for his Death Knight was twofold:
First, to perfectly restore the hero’s sword and allow the knight to truly be reborn as a *Proxy of the Sword*.
Second, to make it learn ceaselessly—like the deep learning of an artificial intelligence—swinging its sword endlessly, training itself through repetition and accumulating data.
The development of an **“Automatic Formula.”**
When that was complete—when Death Knights could move beyond Dale’s direct control and wield the hero’s sword on their own—then he would project that formula into the thousands of Death Orders sleeping within the Ducal Fortress.
There would be no need to command each one individually. The “Automatic Formula” would project the hero’s swordsmanship directly onto their black blades, overlaying them with the power of a true hero.
Dale imagined the sight of thousands of Death Orders, their swords reflecting the hero’s, reborn into the *ultimate form of battle*.
Death Knights clad in conceptual armor—an army of the god of death, **Anubis**.
To that end, he honed and refined his Death Knight’s swordsmanship again and again, encoding every motion, every strike, into an automated process.
Only Dale—who had once made even the world’s greatest sword kneel—could possibly attempt such a feat.
By now, the guards of the toll collection post had finally mustered a counterattack in full armor.
But before Dale’s Death Knight’s blade, they were nothing more than living sacrifices—data to be collected for further refinement.
—
—
Hamburg City Hall.
“Intelligence reports that Count Robert is leading the Bandit Alliance’s forces to move ahead of schedule.”
The mayor spoke carefully, a wide map of the region spread across the table.
“Additionally, the mercenary company they hired has also begun marching with them…”
“Well, we did burn down their toll stations and cut off all their chains,” Dale replied with a nod, as though expecting this all along.
“They must be getting nervous and moving prematurely.”
In siege warfare, the defending side always held the advantage, not the attackers.
So far, everything was unfolding precisely as Dale had planned.
But to him, mere victory wasn’t the issue—it was *how cleanly* that victory could be achieved.
Neither the Bandit Alliance nor the mercenaries had a magician. In this world, magicians were rare assets, and none would swear loyalty to some petty noble or mercenary group.
Their only real threat was Dale himself—and even then, he was merely a 3rd-Circle magician. No matter how impressive his feats seemed, they likely believed sheer numbers would be enough to overwhelm him.
“There’s nothing to worry about.”
Beyond the laws of the Empire, this was a battle without rules—a clash of men and steel.
It was time to test all the strength Dale had built so far.
He might not yet compare to the Black Duke, the Crimson Marquis, or the Holy Swordmaster, but as an *irregular*, he would see just how far an individual’s power could warp the flow of an entire battlefield.
How much of a hellscape could he create through his “mass destruction magic”?
The curiosity thrilled him. He could hardly contain it.
—
—
Against the Black Armor Company, the Bandit Alliance and the mercenaries had only one viable tactic—
To surround the Imperial Free City of Hamburg and force its surrender through a swift siege.
That was the curse of this world: supply lines.
And so, as Dale gazed at the encircling enemy lines along Hamburg’s city walls, he thought calmly,
*“Using the city walls for a defensive engagement isn’t such a bad idea.”*
After all, Hamburg still possessed its own garrison in addition to the Black Armor Company’s troops.
And the enemy had no magicians; their soldiers, mercenaries included, were no better trained than the militias of minor lords.
*“A little recklessness won’t hurt.”*
Dale’s expression remained even. There was no harm in stepping into the spotlight—it would only enhance the company’s reputation. Besides, as commander, he trusted his subordinates completely.
“Sir Yones.”
“Yes, Commander?”
Dale turned to his lieutenant standing by his side.
“How about we take the boys out for a little walk?”
He was referring to leading a mere hundred heavy infantrymen—against a force of two thousand surrounding the city.
—
—
To any observer, it looked like suicide.
Count Robert—the Bandit Alliance’s leader and commander of three major mercenary bands—could only think so.
He had been certain the Black Armor Company would hole up in the city and fortify their defenses. Yet now, their strongest unit, the heavy infantry, had opened the drawbridge to *face him head-on*?
Barely a hundred men—and their only support, the archers stationed atop the wall.
*“Are they trying to die?”*
No matter how impressive their tight phalanx formation, numbers alone would decide this battle.
And yet, within that formation stood the infamous *Black Prince* himself—
Dale of Saxen, heir to the Black Tower Lord, commander of the Black Armor Company, and the Empire’s most gifted genius in sword, magic, and strategy alike.
Robert knew full well the significance of having a magician within an unbreakable defensive line.
But even then, a 3rd-Circle magician couldn’t possibly chant a true “mass destruction spell,” the kind permitted only to high lords in open war.
Indeed, in all of Dale’s previous feats as commander, he had never once used such large-scale magic.
Though Robert couldn’t understand the workings of Dale’s mysterious “sniper rifle magic,” he assumed it was merely a powerful *bolt spell*—nothing more.
He did not realize that it wasn’t law restraining Dale—but rather that the law no longer *applied* to this battlefield.
*“So in the end, he’s just an ignorant child.”*
Believing this to be mere youthful recklessness, Count Robert shouted,
“The enemy is only a hundred heavy infantry!”
“Break their formation!”
“They came out to die—how foolish!”
The mercenaries echoed his laughter and battle cries, mocking their foes to mask their unease.
They had convinced themselves this was a winnable fight. Even a 3rd-Circle magician could be handled with enough steel and bodies.
“Charge!”
“Crush the Black Armor Company!”
“For the Golden Lion Mercenaries!”
The assault began.
—
—
“We die where we stand!”
“For the Black Armor Company!”
The hundred heavy infantry shouted their oaths, their shields locked tight as the enemy charge thundered toward them.
An unbreakable wall of steel.
And within that wall, their commander raised his head—not to join in melee, but to calmly assess the field from within the protective formation.
“**Weapons of Mass Destruction.**”
Dale muttered softly, unconcerned by the Empire’s laws.
But it wasn’t a “mass destruction *spell*.”
It was a *weapon*.
A word of power—an invocation that solidified the image in his mind. In truth, it was a magician’s incantation, a process of mental alignment that magnified the destructive power of magic through perfect conceptualization.
The term “weapon of mass destruction” usually referred to nuclear arms, radiation, and chemical or biological warfare. But if one traced the archetype of that concept further back, another form emerged—
The first *true* weapon of mass destruction in human history.
“**‘Gatling-type,’ twenty millimeters.**”
Unknown words to this world—formulas from another plane—flowed from his lips.
Behind him, the shadows surged, coalescing into the shape of barrels—black barrels. And there was not just one.
A multitude of black gun barrels took aim at the charging enemy lines.
“The ones in front of me,” Dale murmured.
“Move to either side.”
“Commander’s order! First and second lines—split left and right!”
“Split left and right!”
The heavy infantry in the foremost ranks obeyed instantly, their movements synchronized like clockwork.
These were Dale’s men—not merely soldiers bound by loyalty, but *custom-built troops*, trained to move precisely in harmony with his combat style.
And as they pulled aside, creating an opening—
—
—
*“Have they gone mad?”*
Count Robert’s eyes widened.
In the face of a cavalry charge, the enemy’s first ranks had opened their formation?
The commander—Dale himself—was now completely exposed.
Robert understood Dale could use powerful projectile spells. But against such overwhelming numbers, losing a few riders was inevitable.
What truly mattered was morale—the spreading plague of fear. If his men could withstand that, victory was certain.
He had drilled this lesson into them repeatedly before the battle. Now, his mercenary cavalry were charging to the death, utterly resolved.
*“So the mighty Black Prince is nothing more than a naïve child.”*
It was a fight they could win. And with such a foolish blunder, it would be a *decisive* victory.
He had no way of knowing what “Gatling-type, twenty millimeters” meant.
Behind Dale, the black barrels opened their maws—
—and from them erupted something no one in this world could mistake for anything but **mass destruction itself.**
