Once the shield was in place, a barrage of spells began pouring out from the tower's battlements and spires, both its range and damage enhanced by the Battle Fortress's built-in magic.

The explosion shook the surface of Almudegi's scales, sending out flashing shockwaves in the snake's body.

Almuji roared, and a loud bang resounded across the sky, turning the blue sea white. It hisses at these man-made structures, striking them with strong winds and torrential rain. An emerald bolt of lightning struck the Melbourne Tower, scattering the shield and sending harmless sparks to its inhabitants.

"Oh my God, Gunther. "It's a mess for a sultry female voice to loudly announce your city around the trio. Where's the black sun that Eric keeps nagging?"

"If we want to break this thing up, we've got to work together. Uther's rugged voice came, and his baritone pierced through the noise too much. You're going to have to clean up the port in a few weeks. ”

When the first spell pierced Almuji's scales, Gwen felt a sharp pain in her chest, as if someone had pressed an ice axe under her fingers and was peeling her hand. Whatever the viper feels from the attack, it is passed directly to her through their empathic connection.

Gwen exclaimed, holding her head in her hands.

"Gwen!" Gunther cursed, quickly trying to explain the situation to the judges in each tower.

Gwen felt her pain and suffering, and she felt her connection with the snake diminishing. As if in response to her fall from grace, the enchanting "air" that lifted Gwen to a high place dissipated.

Gwen suddenly felt a little staggered, and suddenly, she realized that she was half a kilometer away.

"Gunther!"

Her handicraft brother caught her. Gwen felt Gunther's strong arms propping up her abdomen, fingers digging into her skin thickly. Before she could thank him, they began to go downstairs. The weight of the other two women was too heavy for a flying enthusiast. Gwen and Gunther glanced at each other, but neither of them commented.

"Gwen, let the snake go, now!" Gunther turned the conversation to the crisis at hand.

"Almuji!" Gwen begged the snake to escape. "Get out of here!"

Almuji replied that in a verdant jungle, wildfires, raging tornadoes, and raging lightning strikes rained like drops. If these usurpers want to harm its lives, it will send them back to Earth.

"No!" Gwen pleaded. "Almuji, you must go! Please, you can't defeat them!"

Gwen recalls that Alicia said that a master of the Battle of Ten could use a tower against a mythical beast. Although Gwen had a feeling that Almuji might be more powerful than a thousand-year-old dragon, she didn't mind testing that hypothesis; not now, hopefully never.

In her mind, Almuji is nature, part of the landscape, resembling an ancient and sentient continent. It didn't stand up to humans, at least until Elizabeth and her ilk tried to steal its eggs. It had no reason to intervene in the city until Gwen begged it to destroy the usurper.

Even if humanity erases itself from the face of Oceania, Almuji will be very happy, completely happy. She didn't want the creature to become a pariah, another casualty of the selfish conflict of her people.

"Almuji!" Gwen pleaded. "Go back to the place where all rivers come from, and never go back to heaven on earth!"

"Don't shoot!" Gunther roared into the information spell. "This creature is not hostile to us! it only eats the Void Mage and the Black Sun!"

"Ridiculous!" Uther's voice came with a voice of exasperation. "There are no such creatures!"

The mythical snake moves its body upwards. To the surprise of the judges of the two towers, it did not attack them. Instead, it found a safe space between the two towers and began to rise towards the sky.

"I'm quitting," Lin announced, Walken confirmed your claim. ”

"That man's words are worth more than goblin shit. Uther's voice was a bit of a call, which reminded Gwen of a hound.

"I don't care what you think. Yun Ye's voice was very relaxed and temperamental, is it time now? Sidney had just quarreled. Regardless of what happened to Walken after this, let me start by apologizing on behalf of our faction. We still have a lot of reconstruction work to do. ”

"Uh-huh!" Uther was not at all pleased.

When both towers stopped intercepting, the serpent lifted its majestic head and rose into the air. As suddenly as it appeared, it scattered into shards of shimmering light, forming a rainbow that spanned the space between the two suspended towers.

It was a surreal sight.

Just a few minutes ago, they were locked in a fight to the death, and now this scene is like a scene from Elysium.

"Goodbye, Almuji," Gwen chanted beside them, barely audible.

Gunther's iron-hearted gaze fell on the two of them, and his voice was low and serious. "Gwen, whatever happens, everything about snakes is between you and me. ”

Gwen nodded. That's what she wants.

Alicia nodded weakly, too, her body boneless, emaciated in the arm Gunther was holding. Her long eyelashes fluttered, and she didn't move. It was a long day for all of them, especially for Alessia.

"Is Elizabeth still alive?" asked Gwen, if she could escape?

Gwen shook her head.

"I don't know. Almuji couldn't tell. In Almuji's eyes, we are all usurpers of the land. The only thing I can confirm is that Almuji has taken everything in the Void Sun. ”

"That doesn't mean anything. ”

"I'm afraid not. ”

Gunther's expression stiffened until he forced himself to take a deep breath. The next time he spoke to Gwen, her craft sibling's voice was much softer.

"No, it doesn't matter. No matter what happens, Sobel loses all his profits, thanks to you. All the energy, all the power, is taken away by your snake friends. I bet the start of this ritual would cost her a lot of things. ”

"Almuji," Gwen interjected softly.

"Huh?"

"Almuji, that's the name of the serpent. ”

Gunther tipped the name in his mouth a few times.

"Keep it in your heart, Gwen. The name of a mythical being has immense power, and it gives power to those who are able to summon it. If Almuji could hear you, if you had that connection, then this is a rarity that many will covet. ”

Gwen agreed.

"Can you ask again, and how much does it cost?" asked Gunther carefully.

Gwen's hand subconsciously moved to the unicorn pendant, where only a little bit of Almuji's elemental essence remained.

"I don't think so," Gwen replied, her voice filled with a bleak sense of loss.

"What a pity," Gunther sang holy, but perhaps, for the best. For yourself, for Almugi. ”

Gwen couldn't agree more with Gunther. Almuji is not the creature they deserve in this world.

Now that the danger has passed, the three men slowly descend, and soon they will land on the broken steps of the Sydney Tower, checking the true extent of the damage.

Gwen was still safely in Gunther's arms, resting her head on Gunther's chest, feeling the heat of his body and facing the cold wind blowing from the sea.

"It's just us now," Gunther's voice trembled a little.

This man is right. Gwen reflected solemnly. For the three of them, for Henry Kilroy's students, Elizabeth Sobel's legacy would be the chain of their fate. They will not have peace, no comfort, no restful sleep until they find her, put her head on a silver platter, and present it to the Magrik regime.

"Is it cold?" Gunther asked, Gwen nodding dignifiedly.

"Okay, let's land for a hot coffee," Gunther replied, saying that it had been a long day. ”

Gunther Schultz was disgusted with loose endings.

Sydney's paladins watched as the medics tied up Alessia on a floating stretcher, and Gwen followed her sister in handicrafts, wrapped in a thick blanket and drinking a glass of cocoa.

The girls are safe and sound, and he finally has the privacy he needs to think about the future of being plundered.

Under the Melbourne Tower, dusk brings the light of dawn. Sydney, known as the crown jewel of Oceania, is the most prosperous frontier city, but now it is a shell of its glorious past.

On its ruined façade, three towers hovered, their beams of "light" long white fingers groping their way in the darkness below in search of a target. From the CBD, rows of oily clouds rise from destroyed skyscrapers and plundered suburbs, and from time to time there are calls from people to their terrible labor. In the space between the tower and the city, five or six battle mages flew around in groups, stopping every now and then to put out a fire, or start a new one.

Gunther tasted the pungent, hot air and pinched his tongue. The city won't be safe for the foreseeable future.

Until people are flooded in the gutter of the city, like the gutter of the flooded.

It is said that the Nome riots in areas where they felt unhappy and oppressed, making them a no-go zone for rescue teams. Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of civilians need medical care.

There are countless people, names and mages, still trapped under rubble, collapsed passageways, paths, and highways.

Rebuilding a shielding station is an infeasible task.

Efforts to rebuild infrastructure.

Political obstacles to the resettlement of new immigrants in the city, including the mage and the submissive Noem.

Labor takes years, even decades.

Gunther is reluctant to admit it, but Elizabeth has made a terrible point: towers are the answer, and they are also its greatest weakness. In the ivory hall, the best lack conviction and the worst are passionate.

As a gentleman mage who spent his childhood in a first-tier city, Gunther worries that the future will not go well.

In the short term, it will be faster and safer to simply transfer the precious mage goods from the city to the nearest first-tier city. In contrast, the name will continue to be rebuilt under the watchful eye of the junta. Sydney will be a city under martial law until its area is deemed safe enough for human habitation.

In the same way, a repaired tower also needs a new owner.

Walken would be lucky if he could escape permanent stagnation, and Ferris didn't have the guts to become a belligerent leader in a border city. The other mages were busy with their domains, leaving Gunther to apply for the position herself.

But Gunther is not a mage - yes, his combat abilities far surpass those of the average mage. With Uther's votes and some support votes from the Middle Way faction, there should be no doubt about his promotion. But does anyone want to take responsibility for a broken city?

Gunther realized he had done it.

This is his home, his master's city, and he will see it flourish again.

So, his mind turned to his craft sisters.

Alicia's body needed magical healing and physical therapy. Her astral body needs to be re-exercised and timed. What she did was more than what was necessary to defend the city, he would make sure she received the highest level of medical attention. At the moment when she was dying, he felt real pain, a heartbreaking regret that he couldn't give her the happiness she wanted while she was alive.

Perhaps, Gunther thought seriously: it's time. He's not young at all, and Alessia is likely to fight to the death with a rival. He believed that Henry would agree, and was even glad that someone would finally be able to take care of his wayward daughter.

As for Gwen, Gunther's feelings are contradictory. These crises seem to emerge one after the other, and they all seem to revolve around Gwen in some way. First, his master decided to take her as a protector, and then she got into a relationship with Mark Chandler. Having said and done, his master wanted Gunther and Alesia to welcome their little sister. In order to ensure Gwen would make the cut, they orchestrated the entire Inter Milan fiasco, with the intimate involvement of his owners ultimately leading to their dark place.

But Gunther knew that it was ridiculous to accuse the girl, even though he was sick of the coincidences surrounding the Gwen uprising. She is like a proverbial black cat - all who pass her path fall victim to good and bad.

"Nope. ”

Gunther took a breath of crisp cold air to sober him up. If at the last moment, his ship's sister hadn't appeared, they would most likely all be dead, and the towers would now be searching for their icy bodies in the ruins below. He should be grateful to Gwen for the sacrifices she made and for her actions, whatever they were, to help them. Whatever happened, the city owed Gwen an unpayable debt.

But all this will have to wait and see, because the fires in the city are still burning.

It's over.

The invasion wasn't over yet, but for Gwen, whatever troubles the city below had, she no longer cared.

Now she can focus on important tasks.

Pleased.

Elvia.

Wow.

She was sure they were alive. If Alesia can escape the canyon, so will her friends.

She desperately tries to wake Alessia up, asking to know how she survived and where her friends might have been, but her sister on the plane limps in Gunther's arms, spending too much time to stay awake.

She is now sitting in a hospital cubicle in the Melbourne Building.

To the doctor's surprise, Gwen was in good health. To the surprise of the doctors: she was the most athletic person they had ever met. When the doctor insisted on asking her if she would mind attending some tests, Gwen fled the room and came to Alesia's private residence.

However, her friends and mentors still have a few months to recover. At the time of her death on the last night, Gwen sat beside Alicia, impatiently waiting for the wizard to recover from poppy milk and other semi-magical potions and ointments.

Now that she was thinking alone, she was once again reminded of the past 12 hours. Scene after scene, her heart is undergoing a catastrophic change that overcomes her peaceful life with such violence and speed.

Her master died.

Her friend is missing.

Her sister on the plane - was mortally wounded.

Her city - a devastated hellscape of evil merfolk, raging wildlings and loose magical creatures.

She herself, a vengeful man, accepted a little satisfying blood debt with a smile on her face.

She felt lost and directionless more than ever. But where is she going from here, and what will the future hold? All she can think about is to run to save Yue and Avia, and she doesn't even know where or how to get there.

A message spell bloomed across her face.

Gwen replied calmly.

“... Opa?"

The voice came from the rough tenor of an angel with a mustache.

"Gwen, my little bronze Perimpon! are you alright?

Suddenly, Gwen felt like she wasn't that strong, so stoic, so strong. She felt her eyes darken, her involuntary emotions were no longer in her control, her chest rose and fell, and she could no longer hide it in it.

"Oh," she began, "Oh, action..."