133 Chapter 133: Knights of the Round

I watched nonchalantly as the rubble rumbled atop the crater where Yamada Yuji was buried. With a roar, the gigantic, glowing form of Yamada threw off the huge concrete chunk and rose to his feet, a gigantic halo blazing over him.

Huh? Is it me, or did he just got bigger?

I frowned when I noticed that Yamada was now towering over twenty meters, and his form was slightly differently. He resembled more a specter, a ghost, than a human, shimmering with holy white energy. An angel, perhaps?

"Didn't I tell you?!" Yamada roared. "My special ability is Miracle Warrior. The bigger the pinch you force me into, the more powerful I become to overcome it!"

"So you're ripping off Bleach now?" I demanded, annoyed. "How about you change your name to Gerard?"

While I said that, I used the obligatory Absolute Appraisal because apparently readers love to see blue tables and status screens. Don't ask me why. I personally was getting sick of them, but I had to continue to appeal to readers or I would lose another few hundred followers and get several dozen more 0.5 ratings.

Name: Yamada Yuji

Species: Human

Job/Rank: Elite Guard/Hero

Special Abilities: Miracle Warrior

"Elite Guard?" I muttered, shaking my head. "As in…Kobayashi's elite guard? Has the guy gotten so egocentric to the point that he has other heroes serve him as his elite guard?"

"Shut it!" Yamada hollered. "I won't allow you to insult the boss!"

Right. Okay. Maybe Yamada was brainwashed or something. Then again, he was always Kobayashi's loyal lackey even when we were back on Earth, so it was possible that he was acting on his own volition.

"Well, it doesn't matter how big you grow." I cocked my head and gestured to Ryuu. "I'll just kill you over and over again until you run out of mana to regenerate."

"!"

"Hah! You can try!"

I didn't even bother to retort. Sending a telepathic message to Ryuu, I waited for him to launch another barrage of devastating spells. Dozens of magic circles materialized in the heavens, fiery meteors emerging from within to point downward on Yamada's position.

Yamada, to his credit, merely stared up at the meteors and smirked, as if he knew that they wouldn't hurt him.

??

I frowned when I saw his self-assured expression. The guy definitely had a trick up his sleeve. No matter, I might as well find out what it was and then counter it accordingly.

Go!

Ryuu nodded briefly and launched the Draconic Meteors upon Yamada's location. However, before the flaming meteors could reach his position, they were swatted off course and slapped away by gigantic swords, or blocked by immense shields.

"?!"

"We're going to need Titans of our own," I muttered, almost in disbelief. What I wouldn't give for a legion of Titans…god-machines with blistering firepower that could level entire continents. A Warlord Titan, 2 Reaver Titans, escorted by 4 Warhound Titans. That might almost be enough to challenge the thirteen gargantuan knights that now stood protectively over Yamada.

But there was something amiss.

"This…isn't your special ability as a Miracle Warrior, is it?" I asked skeptically. Having used Absolute Appraisal, I didn't see any Knights of the Round special ability in Yamada's stats. It was highly unlikely that he was the summoner of these things.

"Oh, you catch on quick." Yamada grinned. "No, of course not. These are the boss's Knights. He has the ability to command these divine Knights of the Round and destroy any enemy that dares challenge him upon his holy ground."

So Kobayashi's confidence wasn't misplaced after all. That must be why he was provoking me to come fight him on his homeground, to attempt and invade his city if I could. If he had summoned these Kights of the Round earlier and sent them after my naval armada, they might have been bombarded to oblivion before they could cross the distance, and I doubted they could fight well in water. They would surely sink under the sea.

But here, in Havia City, they were in their element. They were the most imposing enemies I had ever face, each one a god in its own right. Not entirely a god-machine like those in the Titan Legions of Mars and other forge worlds, but almost as powerful.

If only we have the technology to create such god-machines…

My thoughts were laced with a little regret, but I had no choice but to make do with what I had. There were no titans even in the present world, so how could I expect a world that had just recently emerged from the medieval period and embedded in the throes of the birth of the industrial revolution to begin producing such goliaths?

"Ryuu!"

I shouted a warning to my ancient dragon zombie, who was already reacting to this new threat by firing another barrage of spells, which were nullified by the Knights' sanctified armor. One of the knights raised its consecrated sword and unleashed a lance of holy energy that nearly pierced through Ryuu, but missed.

"Holy Terra…"

I gaped when I saw the holy lance of light burst through the heavens, tearing through clouds and disappearing into space. If that attack had hit…

That did it. No more holding back. I summoned the full force of my dragons. Zombie wyverns, the zombie dragon, whatever. I didn't hold anything back and sent my flock of zombie wyverns to escort Ryuu and aid him in fighting the thirteen Knights. There was no way Ryuu could fight all thirteen Knights of the Round by himself.

But even as they hurled themselves into the saintly Knights, screeching and slashing, their talons and spells barely left a scratch on the saintly Knights' sacred armor. Instead, one of the Knights cut a zombie wyvern down with its gigantic sword, setting the poor creature ablaze and disintegrating the huge beast in mere seconds.

"You've got to be kidding me."

Well, no matter. I would just…

"Thousand Astral Graves!"

…call upon my most powerful necromancy spell, one that would buff my zombies to their utmost extremes. At least, that was the plan, but…

"?! What's going on?!"

None of the gigantic gravestones materialized. Despite activating the spell again, I couldn't call forth my Thousand Astral Graves to buff my zombie dragons. Gritting my teeth, I tried to suffuse the area with my mana, but there was something rejecting it, impeding it. I could still cast other spells and summon other zombies, but…

"Hah! Did you think we wouldn't know what you're capable of?"

Yamada was roaring with laughter as he watched me struggle to summon my Thousand Astral Graves. Clapping his hands gleefully, he placed his hands on his hips arrogantly and leered at me. I stared back at him impassively, refusing to give him the pleasure of knowing that he had me in knots, but he continued to gloat.

"We know what you can do. The boss has already planned in advance and prepared countermeasures for your spells. We heard how you summoned zombie dragons to defeat the rest of the class, so the boss readied his Knights of the Round to defeat your zombie dragons. Furthermore, this is our ground, our territory. You're an outsider, a foreigner trying to invade our homeground. This space won't respond to the likes of you. Havia City is completely under our control – every bit of space, every inch of land. Your spatial buff spell won't have any effect in our territory."

A bead of perspiration rolled down my face when I comprehended what Yamada was telling me. "In other words, you've already prepared for my invasion."

"Something like that." Yamada glanced in the opposite direction and his sneer grew wider. "And don't bother counting on the Iron Knights to come to your aid. Ishida is more than enough to defeat them by himself. He's on a completely different level from the rest of the class. The only one who can match him is me!"

"I was never planning on relying on them," I muttered, and then shrugged. "Well, we'll have to do this the hard way then."

Above, another wyvern combusted when a Knight hacked it down. Ryuu and the remaining dragons tried to circle around and evade the Knights' attacks to the best of their ability, but their numbers were dwindling while they were barely able to even hurt their opponents.

"It's over, Tanaka. Your weaknesses have been exposed. You're no match for me, never mind the boss. You'll die here!"

Laughing boisterously, Yamada pounced forward and swung his huge broadsword down on me. He must have expected to crush me to the dirt, for his expression suddenly twitched and turned into that of surprise when I simply parried his massive blade with my Blood Dragon Sword. The barriers that my Redwood jacket generated rippled as they absorbed the tremendous impact, but otherwise I remained standing, almost unaffected by his strike.

"You…! How?!"

I smiled coldly. "Even with these preparations, you vastly underestimate me…no, I should say, you underestimate my comrades. Why do you think I brought an entire army to your doorstep? I always knew I couldn't just walk up to Havia City and expect to defeat you, Kobayashi and every single hero by myself."

As if to punctuate my statement, a trio of crimson beams lanced out from a company of super-heavy Hellblades and slammed into one of the Knights. The convergence of the superheated lances of energy pierced through whatever divine protection the Knight possessed and bore a hole through its blessed armor.

Not wasting the opportunity, Ryuu gathered a ball of black flame in his jaws before firing it at the exposed vulnerability. The Knight shuddered before toppling over, his form wreathed in black flames the color of void, being immolated from the inside out.

The other surviving twelve Knights seemed to tremble at the demise of their comrade, turning uncertainly to the ancient dragon, who banked and soared higher to avoid a retaliatory strike from the biggest among them. The remaining zombie wyverns provided a more than adequate distraction, unleashing their own black flames to blot out their view.

"What the hell are those tanks!?" Yamada screamed. I shrugged.

"Super-heavy tanks. Titan killers equipped with volcano cannons. Not that you would understand. Besides…" I swung my Blood Dragon Sword and knocked his gigantic form back. "Don't you think you should worry about yourself first?"

"! You…!"

Yamada was hollering in rage, but I was deftly avoiding him with an agility I didn't know I possessed. Now, Yamada's superior size was working against him. He might possess immense power and unrivaled physical strength (still no match for my Redwood jacket, though), but he was slower and clumsy, unable to follow me as I darted around him.

"Shadow Lunar Fang!"

Spinning around, I launched a crescent-shaped blast of black mana at him, causing him to stagger from the explosion. Roaring, he swung his broadsword down, but I effortlessly evaded it, then jumped on top of his blade. Running along the length of his sword, I ducked under a hook from his huge arm, and then lunged at his face. Black energy rippled along my blade before I unleashed a second Shadow Lunar Fang at near pointblank range.

"Gah!"

Yamada staggered from the blow, but he somehow managed to lash out with his other hand. I flipped over his gigantic fist, spinning my body in midair, before I landed on his immense forearm. Without even bothering to regain my balance, I hurled myself off his arm before he could squash me with the pommel of his broadsword.

"You…pesky bug!"

"Yeah, well…I'm glad I'm bugging you."

Yamada spluttered angrily, unable to form coherent words. I ignored him and continued to race away. He swung his broadsword down again, but I managed to dodge it, throwing myself to the side and rolling on the ground as his gigantic blade pulverized the ground and sent a shower of earth, rock and concrete high into the air.

"Stop squirming around, you bug!" Yamada bellowed. I scoffed at him.

"What, and let you hit me? Are you stupid?"

The guy had to be delusional if he truly believed I would just lie down and let him hit me freely. Then again, most of my former classmates were insane and idiotic, so I couldn't dismiss that possibility entirely.

"You're no match for me! Just give up and let me kill you!"

This guy…I give up.

"Says the guy who can't land a single hit on me," I taunted instead. Yamada bristled and swung his broadsword again cleaving a building in half. Again, I easily evaded his attack, ducking under falling debris and weaving my way through the broken building.

To my horror, I saw bloodied corpses falling along with shattered concrete. Yamada hadn't bothered to minimize collateral damage and didn't care if he dragged innocent civilians or his own allies into his attacks.

"Hey!" I shouted. "What about your people?! You shouldn't be attacking your own allies!"

Yamada smirked when he heard that. "The boss is right. You're naïve and too stupidly kind-hearted for your own good. Who cares about the people of Restia? They're just expendable pawns. NPCs that don't matter. They should be honored to die for our sakes!"

His voice rang through the district. I saw that his soldiers and safely hidden civilians were listening in, but none of them reacted. They were too brainwashed by Kobayashi's Kingly Disposition that they would zealously obey the heroes' callous expenditure of their lives no matter how unreasonable it was.

"Besides, it's your fault that they died!" Yamada shouted eagerly. "If you would stop refusing to let me kill you, then they wouldn't have to die!"

What kind of twisted logic was that?! Not only was he cruelly sacrificing the residents of Restia, he was laying the blame on me. As I said, the guy was truly delusional.

Well, I already knew all that. I had suffered this delusional abuse long before I came to Restia, and knew how distorted their minds were, and how insane they were. There was no point questioning their logic.

There was only one thing to do. Kill them.

"So if you understand, stop running about and stand still! Let me kill you!"

I merely jumped away from another crushing strike and landed on his blade. Pushing my glasses up my nose, I regarded Yamada coolly.

"Your idiocy is really exasperating."

"You…!"

Roaring, Yamada swung his hand to smash me, but at the same time I clicked the V button the moment I saw the icon at the bottom left of my glasses flash ready.

"Standby for Titanfall."

Matsukaze's voice whispered in my ear. The next second, he came crashing down upon Yamada's position, pulverizing him into the earth. The log scrolling across the bottom right of my screen, I mean glasses, indicated that Yamada had been Crushed by Titanfall.

The next moment, he burst out of the ground, radiating fury.

"You…!" he bellowed, his face red from both rage and humiliation. "I'll kill you! I swear, I'll fucking kill you!"

"You're welcome to try," I replied as I hopped into Matsukaze's cockpit. My Titan reared up and straightened, the shimmering dome shield disappearing. While the blue dome shield would protect me from projectiles, guns and ranged weapons, it wouldn't protect me from physical melee attacks within the dome shield itself. That said, by being inside it, Yamada would continue to take damage, but his special ability would nullify it.

Damn. I guess I can't kill him with my dome shield then.

"Die!"

Snarling, Yamada slashed with his broadsword, but I blocked it with Matsukaze's katana. Sparks flew as my Titan skidded backward, but I managed to dig in and parry his strike.

We exchanged several attacks, our blades colliding and producing hundreds of sparks that rained down on the ruined district. Occasionally, I would send arc waves rippling across and stunning Yamada, but he would recover quickly and charge at me. in one instance, he shoulder-charged me, ramming my machine with brute force and sent me staggering backward. Gritting my teeth, I phase dashed, entering the quantum dimension, and disappearing from reality – only to appear behind him. Seizing the opening, I left a huge cut across his back.

However, the near-fatal injury healed almost immediately.

"I told you, it wouldn't work!"

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Yamada roared and spun around, striking me with such strength that red klaxons rang in my cockpit. I glanced upward and saw that the structural integrity of my suit had taken a huge hit. Matsukaze couldn't endure an exchange for too long. In a battle of attrition, Yamada surely held the advantage. Already the damage was accumulating.

I had to wrap this up as quickly as I could.

"Die!"

Yamada slashed at me again, but I ducked under his swing and responded with a riposte. In a swift, fluid motion, I severed his arm, causing his limb to crash heavily and flattened a nearby car into a metal wreck.

"Aaaaah!"

Yamada screamed and staggered backward. But the next moment, his arm regenerated instantly, and he grinned.

"I told you, no matter how you hurt me, I'll just come back much stronger and more powerful than before!"

Miracle Warrior. With that in effect, he punched me with his newly regenerated arm. I parried his blow with my katana, but his strike was clearly several times more powerful than before. The servos screamed and my machine shuddered from the impact, the thin metallic frame actually folding and giving way.

"I am the boss's chosen! One of his elite guard! Nothing you do will ever be able to hurt me!"

"Yeah, yeah."

I cut off his head, but the blood between his neck and severed head seemed to elongate and reattach themselves.

Whoa, that's disgusting.

"My turn!"

Yamada slammed into Matsukaze with his broadsword, almost cleaving the machine in half. I staggered backward, fighting the controls. The stabilizers whined, unable to bear the load, and the Titan fell.

"Kuh!"

I floored the accelerator, and the thrusters flared to life. Matsukaze boosted upward and cut off Yamada's other arm, but he merely regenerated it. Chuckling, he buried the blade of his broadsword deep into Matsukaze's shoulder and I lost the control of one arm.

"It's useless. You're doomed. Finally!"

I kicked out desperately, but Yamada stood strong against the blows. Rather, it was Matsukaze's mechanical frame that was receiving damage. Yamada increased the pressure of his broadsword, and I could see the blade slowly sliding into the cockpit above.

No choice…

With the remaining arm, I sliced with the katana and unleashed an arc wave that sent Yamada stumbling backward. Yamada growled and gripped the katana with his hand, shattering the blade with sheer strength.

"It's useless! You cannot defeat me!"

"Yeah," I agreed as I worked the broadsword out of Matsukaze's frame and dropped it on the ground. "It'll be a miracle if I can win against you."

"Hah! So you understand!"

Yamada crowed triumphantly as he pounced forward, grappling with my severely damaged Matsukaze.

"So just give up and die already!"

I ignored him and shook my head. "Unfortunately, I have no time to waste on you. And since you acknowledge that it'll be a miracle for me to win against you, Miracle Warrior-san…"

I pulled the lever and punched out of Matsukaze, ejected high into the air while Yamada gaped at me below.

"…your special ability will respond accordingly."

"Huh?"

Matsukaze blossomed into a mushroom cloud, a devastating nuclear explosion that swept across the entire district and seared a scorched crater into the ground. Despite Yamada's special ability, or actually because of it, he was incinerated instantly into ash. My status chimed as it clocked in another confirmed kill of a hero.

"Finally…" I muttered as I slowly drifted back down to earth. Then I turned my gaze upon the titans that were still clashing in front of Kobayashi's castle. Ryuu and the surviving dragon zombies were still dueling with the twelve Knights of the Round, supported by a company of Hellblades. Another Knight was felled, torched by the combined firepower of the Hellblades' volcano cannons and the arcane black flames of the dragons.

It would only be a matter of time before they triumphed over the Knights of the Round.

...time that I didn't have.

Closing my eyes, I ran a few calculations in my head before plotting my next course of action. I had no choice but to proceed to the castle without my most powerful familiars.

"Lord General!"

The moment my feet touched the ground, a familiar voice rang through the destroyed district. Turning around, I caught sight of Major Elia Kratz, Major Benjamin Burado, Warrant Officer Michael Marko, Lieutenant Gio Vanni and the rest of my infantry rallying behind me. Companies L and H were sweeping through the district, clearing out the buildings and flushing out the human zealots. Fortunately, it didn't seem they had taken many casualties.

"Majors. How goes the mission?"

"We lost a few men, but otherwise it's proceeding well." Elia checked her holographic screen. "It seems that Companies A, C and J will be arriving in a few minutes to reinforce and hold this position."

"Good. You guys are with me."

"Where are we…?"

Before Benjamin could finish his question, a company of tanks roared into the district, sending a spray of gravel. The hatch atop the turret of the lead tank opened and Major Daniel Dressia pulled himself up to the cupola.

"Lord General! We've cleared the southeast street of enemy armor. The way forward is clear."

"Nice timing. Daniel, you and Company T will be following Companies L and H."

"We're following you, I assume?" Gio asked, and then swiftly added, "Sir?"

"Yup, that's right." I nodded at my men and turned back to Elia. "To answer your question, Major Kratz, we're going to storm Kobayashi's castle right now."

*

While the ferocious fighting in the streets of Havia City did not cease, there was a similar battle taking place elsewhere.

One was in the western gate, where the nine members of the Iron Knights, led by their leader, Takeda Tetsuo, were confronting Ishida Ryuuji and his elite human knights.

Another was at the north, where an unexpected battle had just ended.

"I can't believe she tried to kill us!"

Kido Mayumi was still shaking her head, aghast, as she glanced down at the smoldering corpse of Igarashi Hana.

"Tanaka was right, after all." Umezu Shigeo looked grim as he regarded both Igarashi's corpse and the city. "Kobayashi, that bastard, has gone insane."

"We always knew something was off about Kobayashi-kun," Kido pointed out, and then stared sadly at Igarashi. "But I didn't know the others were just as insane. If only Hana-chan would just listen to us…"

"They are beyond reasoning with."

Inwardly, Umezu was feeling just as unsettled as his wife, but he tried to maintain a composed demeanor.

"Still…I can't believe she attacked us! We used to be…friends!"

Kido was still shaken by the encounter. They had arrived there to talk to Igarashi, but the latter refused to listen. Instead, she had labeled the couple traitors and attacked them without hesitation, even unleashing her ultimate technique. If Kido wasn't accompanied by her husband, she might actually have fallen at the start…

Umezu placed a comforting hand on her battered shoulder. Even though there were two of them, they were nearly defeated by Igarashi Hana. She had used magic that the two of them were unfamiliar with, and consequently they had taken severe injuries.

"There's no use thinking too much about it." Umezu grimly raised his head and regarded the smoking city of Havia. "One way or another, it'll be over soon."

"But…if Tanaka-kun is right, we can't let Kobayashi-kun win!"

"Perhaps not, but this no longer has anything to do with us." Umezu gently turned his wife away and led her back toward the forest. "We are no longer in any shape to help."

Kido's shoulders slumped down. "Even so…"

"Right now we'll be more of a burden than assistance. And honestly, I can't say I trust myself…"

Umezu could still hear the faint voice of insanity shouting somewhere deep inside his mind, urging him to kill Tanaka Tomoyuki. He ignored it pointedly and focused on the present. On his wife, Kido Mayumi.

"I understand, Shigeo-kun. Let's go then."

"Yeah."

As the couple left the northen gate, Umezu Shigeo couldn't help but cast one last glance at the fuming city and clenched his fists tightly.

"With this, we've repaid our debt to you, Tanaka," he whispered softly before he turned away and disappeared with his wife.