Nova watched with a straight face as the three kingdoms allied and fought the Empire's army. He calmly took out the newly reforged Dreadscape from his Inventory and twirled it a few times in his hand before nodding. "Good. They're all pretty hyped up. What's left now is to use them to advance to the fourth stage."

He stepped forward and dashed toward the armies. The first ones he encountered were, unsurprisingly, the backline of his own army, which had just rushed into battle. Without much fanfare, he wrapped Aura around himself and swept Dreadscape in front of him, instantly killing dozens of knights who had never imagined anyone would attack from the rear.

When a few nearby knights realized what was happening, they turned their heads, their eyes going wide in disbelief. In front of them, Nova hadn't stopped at just one sweep, he was mowing down the army effortlessly.

"Sir…" one of the knights began, but his words cut off halfway as a spear pierced through his body.

Nova whispered, "Don't blame me. It's the system that wants your Empire to fall, I'm only here to fulfill my mission."

'I need to fight fourth stage knights, these ones give me no pressure at all,' Nova thought as he pushed forward. The newly improved wind blades shot toward the surrounding knights one after another, cutting down hundreds of second stage knights in mere seconds.

Deeper into the battlefield, he encountered more and more third stage knights from both the kingdoms and the Empire, locked in fierce combat. With swift thrusts, Nova pierced through them all, notifications bombarding his mind, though he ignored them and kept advancing.

Astonishing as his pace was, mowing through the army was nothing more than a drop in the bucket when compared to the sheer scale of the battle. More than twenty thousand knights filled the field, even after accounting for the fallen. Nova's actions went largely unnoticed, and those who did notice were swiftly silenced before they could raise an alarm.

Minutes passed, and the toll on the Empire grew heavy. With barely a third of the kingdoms' numbers, they began to falter. Though their elite knights could each hold their own against ten of the enemy knights, the kingdoms had brought mages, proving to be a massive thorn in the Empire's side. Even so, the situation unfolding on the battlefield was more dire than such numbers alone should have allowed.

The real reason the Empire began losing ground was Nova. Having entered from the Empire's backline and cutting his way toward the middle, he had already reduced their numbers from nearly seven thousand to barely four thousand and the count was still dropping rapidly.

The more Nova killed, the more the kingdoms killed as well. By drawing so much of the Empire's attention, he created a snowball effect that plunged the Empire's army army into chaos, leaving many knights gripped with panic.

Nova stepped out from the Empire's ranks and into the shared battlefield and he removed the Mask of Three Faces. 'Better safe than sorry,' he thought. As his features returned to normal, the wind began to howl. Mana was quickly pumped out from his body in a frenzy, and small tornadoes erupted across the field, catching soldiers off guard.

"A mage is casting an area attack, stay alert!" shouted knights from every faction, none of them knowing who the caster truly was.

More and more Mana drained from his wind core, and Nova grinned. 'The price for this thing is so high that only a madman would try it.' The wind surged, now four times stronger than before. Once the tornadoes fully formed and spun at full force, they tore into the four armies without exception.

"Dodge away!"

"Disengage and wait it out!"

"Who cast an area spell in the middle of the fight?! Show yourself!"

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The weaker knights were swept up instantly, shredded by the violent currents, while stronger ones managed to escape, though many with grievous injuries. In an instant, hundreds fell, and the toll only climbed as the tornadoes rampaged across the battlefield. Soldiers could do nothing but stare in horror at the whirling winds devouring their comrades.

'I don't know if it was worth it or not… but if I had a kingdom to protect, I'd never want a rank nine mage as my enemy,' Nova thought with a sigh. Without pause, he pressed forward, cutting down knights as he made his way toward the fourth stage fighters battling off to the side.

Since the Lotra/Westoria alliance, along with Blackridge, fielded far more knights than the Empire, it was taking Nova much longer to cut through them and that meant only one thing.

"Enemy in our fold! Stay alert!"

Knights shouted after noticing their comrades dying in droves, though none managed to see what killed them. The warning, while useful, disrupted the kingdoms' focus. They shifted to guarding against unseen threats, giving the Empire precious time to recover and launch an immediate countercharge.

Nova, his clothes still spotless, strode through the battlefield. He swept Dreadscape left and right, the wind trailing behind him like a shadow. "I've weakened both armies enough. What I need now is to advance my stage while they finish each other off," he muttered.

As he walked forward, wind slaughtering every knight in his path, his thoughts remained cold and sharp. 'This is the kind of power that makes others bow their heads in submission. Whoever dares keep their fighting spirit, I'll grind it to dust. I'm getting closer to the fourth stage. My Aura has been wildly surging inside and outside my body since I joined the fray, and I can barely contain it. But when I finally do… that will be the moment I step into the fourth stage.'

After carving his way through the vast armies, Nova stepped into the zone where the fourth stage knights clashed. The moment he did, dozens of heads snapped toward him, questioning eyes narrowing, until they caught sight of the Empire's armor he wore. Instantly, their expressions shifted.

The knights of the three kingdoms frowned deeply, muscles tensing as another fourth stage foe appeared. Such knights were rare, standing near the top of their hierarchies just a step below figures like Rollyet. Their scarcity alone made them both fearsome and dangerous, and the kingdoms knew well how few among them could stand against such an opponent.

By contrast, the Empire's knights greeted Nova with satisfaction. Some even broke into laughter at the sight of him.

Nova's gaze swept the battlefield, taking everything in at a glance. Corpses clad in the kingdoms' colors littered the ground, while not a single Empire knight had fallen, only a few bore injuries, none of them serious.

'The difference is truly too large. How was a normal person even supposed to finish the mission and conquer both the Empire and the kingdoms? Is this the standard of someone who clears a Purple portal?' Nova thought briefly. Then he nodded at his supposed comrades and fixed his gaze on a knight locked in combat against three from the opposing side.

"I'll take one of them. Let's finish this quickly," he said.

The skinny knight flicked a glance at Nova and gave a short nod, while the three kingdom knights stiffened in unison.

Without hesitation, Nova swung at one of them, locking them both together and forcing the fight.

The skinny knight kept his eyes on Nova for a few moments. After confirming he was holding the kingdom knight at bay, his attention shifted back to the two in front of him both trembling slightly. He sneered. "Traitors who can't even stop shaking before me, yet you dare set your sights on the Empire? How laughable."

He smacked his lips, stomped the ground, and charged at them.

Nova's focus on the knight before him lasted only a few exchanges before boredom set in. He began swinging his spear lazily, eyes drifting across the battlefield in search of more worthy targets. 'I need to thin out the Empire's numbers. At this rate, the kingdoms will collapse in less than a dozen minutes.' Mana coursed through his body as he prepared to strike.

Meanwhile, his opponent grew bolder. Mistaking Nova's half-hearted parries for weakness, confidence slowly returned to the knight.

"So this is all you amount to? What a disappointment," he sneered.

Nova frowned. 'They're barely holding on, yet still have time to trash talk? Since he doesn't want to live I'll help him.' With a single sweep of his spear, he sent the knight hurtling toward a cluster of fourth stage knights and immediately rushed after him, his clothes fluttering though there was no wind.

Aura and Mana surged wildly, the former expanding in range while hair-thin wind blades spun into existence all around him.

Catching up to the knight, Nova muttered coldly, "Remember, you could've lived a few more minutes if you'd just kept your mouth shut."

Terror gripped the knight but Nova had already made his decision. He thrust his spear into the knight, the tip piercing clean through his chest. At the same instant, razor-thin wind blades exploded outward, streaking toward the surrounding knights faster than the naked eye could follow.

One moment clangs rang out as knights fought against the others, the next, their eyes went blank as their bodies collapsed to the ground in a series of thuds.

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