"Meteor Shower, Gladius.

　The forty-eight brilliantly glittering meteors attacked the surrounding fake knights, the faux-knights.
　The [Dagger] that pierced the cockpit changed its trajectory towards the golden skeleton that rolled down from inside it.

Shape Change [Mode Change], Sphere [Sphere]!

　The dagger transformed into a round sphere and crushed the entire golden skeleton. The golden skeleton was crushed by that blow, which was weighted with Gravity, and the entire core of the golden skeleton was crushed, and the fake knight that was on it also dissolved and disappeared.

''It's still troublesome compared to normal mutants. You don't have to look for the nucleus, though.

　I let out a small breath in the cockpit of my private plane, Regingrave.
　I'm sure you'll be able to find a way to make the most of your time in the city. It was easier for the hammer type to crush and finish off the golden skeleton as well.

''Search. Purification Range Distribution Map in Isengard.
"End of search. Show me.

　A map of Isengard is projected from the smartphone set in front of the cockpit. The blue area is the cleansed area and the red area is the area where the "divine magic poison" still remains.
　On the map, the cleansing has already reached the Golden Palace. If it was in this state, it was safe to assume that the Divine Demon Poison would no longer be effective.
　It's time to call Morohana and the rest of the team, leave the mutants in charge of the Sacred Tree, and then we should go and defeat the evil spirits.
　After alighting from the Regingrave, I contacted Morohana and her sisters and used the gate to summon them to me.
　I'm not going to be able to get a good idea of what's going on.

Hm. I'm not sure if it's the same as usual, but I think we'll manage it.
''Are you still under the influence of the 'divine Devil's Poison'?　I've been cleansed a lot.

　Sister Morobane's words made me feel a little uneasy. Perhaps it was on her face, but sister Karina and uncle Takeru gave a small smile.

''We're connected to the poisoned earth, you know. Even though we are humanized, we are still lower class gods. We are sensitive to even the slightest defilement. It's just a little uncomfortable, but that's not a problem.
We can take care of this with a little gusto. We'll take care of it, you do what you have to do. The World God is watching you in the castle.

　Apparently it's okay. The three of them tapped me on the shoulder as if to encourage me. You can be sure that you will be safe here as long as Morobane and the others are around. In that case, I'll just do what I do best.
　I gave Morobane Sis a large sword and a long sword made of crystal wood, Karina's sister a bow and arrow and a hatchet, and Uncle Takeru's uncle the gauntlets that I gave Ende as well from 【Storage】. I matched uncle Takeru's with Ende's. I'm sure he'll be happy to see you. Maybe.
　All three of them took the weapons in their hands and ran to the battlefield as if they couldn't stand it. Fast. How hungry are they for enemies?
　I'm sure they'll be fighting fake knights [faux] and the like in the flesh....... Yeah, it's all good here.
　I put Regingrave back into [Storage] and return to the others.

''Let's go to work, that is?
You're going into battle, aren't you?

　When I entered the tent, Yae stood up with her beloved 'Tohka' sword in her hand and the shining sword that Hilda gave me when we met. Were there people here who couldn't bear to fight?

''Yes. I called the Morohana sisters here earlier. The 'Holy Tree' will be fine now. All we have to do now is head to the Golden Palace and beat the evil gods.

　Everyone gives a small nod. They all don't seem strangely self-conscious, as usual. As expected, or rather, what can I say? They're ballsy. I think I'm the one who's most nervous.
　I call Ende and the others over the phone and tell Rain, the leader of the knights, that I'm heading to the Golden Palace.

I understand. I wish you a safe return.
Yeah. Well, I'll be back in a minute.

　We open the [Gate] and we move to the capital of Isengard, the industrial city of Isenburg.
　The fourteen of us heading there are me, Yumina and all of my fiancé, Ende, Mel, Ney, and Lise's three Freys girls. I'm sorry, but Paula will be staying behind.
　After transitioning from [Gate] and stepping into the land of Eisenburg, we are often left speechless by the scene.
　What spread out beyond the transfer was a desolate cityscape, thick black clouds, and countless corpses lying around.
　There is no longer a trace of the city that was once ruled by the King of Magicians and called the Machine Tool City, and Eisenburg has already become an abandoned city.

''I've heard about it, but this is terrible...''

　Else murmurs softly as she looks around.
　As Bastet and the others had reported, the corpse is less damaged. Even so, their clothes and other items of clothing are tattered, indicating that they were exposed to the rain and wind for a long time.
　All of them had a look of anguish and were out of things. Umm, a bit of a horror story........

''Fuyao-san!
"Whoa!

　When I turned around at Linse's words, the corpse of a man lying on the side of the road stood up and was about to attack me.
　The sight of him attacking me with his white eyes turned white and his tongue sloppily sticking out was exactly like a zombie itself, and I felt an indescribable fear.

''[Slip]!
Gosh, man!

　The zombie lets out a sort of groan and falls over, hitting the ground hard in the face.
　Ah, that startled me. It's scary when you're unexpectedly pressed, after all.

''[Flame, come, swirling spiral, Firestorm]!

　Without a moment's pause, Linse unleashes her flame magic.

''I knew it. The golden skeleton is the end of a soul-eaten human being's life. Look, look at the heart.

　Just as Lean said, when I looked at the golden skeleton's chest, I saw a red golf ball-sized 'nucleus' hidden by the breastbone. Without a doubt, this guy has become a mutant species.

''Restia style sword technique, the fifth style, the 'spiral'!

　The sternum of the golden skeleton was instantly caught by Hilda's sword tip as she dove in.
　With a twist, the blow easily shattered the golden bone and even shattered the nucleus beneath it.
　The golden skeleton, whose nucleus was crushed, dissolved into sludge and disappeared while emitting black smoke.
　This was how they had created the golden skeleton, after all.

''Looks like I made too much noise, Winter Night.
What?

　Ende's voice brought my gaze back to my surroundings from the molten golden skeleton, and the corpses lying around me rose one by one and came towards us. ''Ugh, that's disgusting.

''Won't their purification magic work on those guys?
'If it was a normal zombie that would make it disappear, but since the thing is moving because of the bones inside it will probably end up being useless.
"Mmm.

　Yumina ruined it, and Sue roared. Suu has the attribute of light. If it was a normal undead army, they could have swept him away.......

''【Ice, entangle, ice-binding curse, ice binding】''

　The zombies that were coming towards this direction due to the magic released by the cherry blossom were frozen in their legs and stopped moving. As it was, Lean's magic exploded in rapid succession.

''【Come on, windflame, flaming whirlwind, Ignis Hurricane】!

　A tremendous tornado of fire burns down the surroundings around us. It is a synthetic spell of fire and wind obtained from a grimoire in the Library of Babylon.
　The power of this spell is so great that it turns the bodies of the zombies that were trying to flock to us into charcoal one after another.
　This is the only magic that can annihilate the body. That bone has also inherited the characteristic of Frase that 'magic is ineffective'.
　But then Yae, Hilda, Roo, Else, and by the way, Ende jumped in there and in the blink of an eye, they shattered the golden skeleton's weakness, the core. It's not like I haven't done anything, either, so I use Brunhild to shoot out a few nukes.

''I guess it's safe to assume that all the corpses in the city have turned into golden skeletons.
But why did he attack me all of a sudden?　It hadn't moved before...

　Sheathing his twin swords, Lou murmured as he looked at the melted remains of the skeleton. Surprisingly, it was Ende who answered the question.

''Those things share some common characteristics with the Freys, you know. They probably responded to everyone's heartbeats. In fact, they didn't even give Mel and the others a second glance.

　Speaking of which. There was certainly no golden skeleton that went towards them.
　Mel, Nei, and Lise have a small [Prison] strung around their nucleus that blocks out all sound in order for the three of them to not be detected by the mutant species. Was that what kept the mutated golden skeletons away? Although what it is blocking is not the heart sound, but the resonance sound peculiar to Fraise.

So we're walking along side a sleeping hexenbiest on the side of the road, beating a drum. That's supposed to wake you up, right?

　I see. Well, I see your point. That's what they do.

Anyway, we have no need for this place. Let's get on our way to the Golden Palace.

　I call up the Regingrave from 【Storage】. Everyone also called up their own aircraft and climbed into the cockpit.
　I'm sure you'll be able to find out more about it. I'm sure you'll find a lot of people who are interested in this kind of thing. It's a good idea to have a single Meru on board at most.
　I'm sure you'd like to ride in Linse's Helmviges, which is in flight form, but neither of us seem to have any intention of leaving Mel's side.
　Linse and I ride in the sky, while everyone else rides on the ground and heads for the Golden Palace.

I'm sure it's a good thing that Winter Nights are good, being able to fly. You have to make sure that Dragoon can fly too!
With my flight gear, I could fly the Dragon Knight's Dragoon, but...
''You can't move fast if you have that stupid big shield........ They're too incompatible.''

　Ende blurts out, but that's not a good thing. It's because the concept is different to begin with. The Dragon Knight 《Dragoon》 is a plane that specializes in driving on the ground. And my Regingrave was built by combining everyone else's aircraft know-how, though.
　After escaping from the outskirts of the industrial city of Eisenburg, we found ourselves in the wilderness as far as the eye could see.
　Black clouds blocked the sunlight, and even though it was daytime, it was dark as daylight.
　As I walked straight through the wilderness, I could see a cluster of golden crystalline bodies, the Cluster, that emitted an eerie glow. The fact that it is still visible from this distance means that it must be a rather huge cluster of crystals. It certainly looks like a palace.
　I took a step back and stopped. What should we do from here?

"They've definitely noticed us, haven't they?
'They've noticed. There's a group of golden skeletons in front of the palace coming this way.

　When I zoomed in on the camera at Yumina's suggestion, I saw that the golden skeleton, which had been wandering around in disorder in front of the palace, was indeed walking towards us.

''I wonder if it's my turn to be here.''

　Lean's black aircraft, Grimgelde, stepped out from us.

"I'm going to raise the specter of war. Let's make a splash.

　The chest armor of the kneeling Grimgelde opened up to reveal two Gatling cannons. The two large cannons on his back slowly descended to his shoulders.
　The six Gatling cannons on the left and right arms, and the head Vulcan cannons, as well as the two-stage, eight-round missile pods on the shoulder armor, lumbar, and legs, aimed forward.
　The heel anchors are lowered. Preparations are complete.

"Simultaneous fire 《Full Burst》

　With Lean's proclamation, a storm of shells erupted from Grimgelde all at once. Basically, there's no way to run out of ammunition in the frame gear's firing system. They are transferred from one Babylonian ammunition depot to the next. If the ammunition magazines are empty, it's possible to run out of ammunition, but before that, the Grimgelde will overheat.
　The golden skeleton will be blown to pieces by a tremendous rain of shells. We don't know if it hit the nucleus or not. The earth and the skeletons are all blown together.
　Amidst the sound of explosions, crushing sounds, and the torrential rain of shells, the golden skeletons were breaking apart and glittering in the air.

''It's flashy, that it is...''
"It's amazing what you can do with that much firepower.

　Well, hey. It's like saying, I'm firing 【Explosion】 continuously without a break. Moreover, changing the power of each shell that is fired. I think that such a full burst of simultaneous fire 《Full Burst》 is impossible for anyone other than Lean and me.
　The hail of shells shot out without interruption. The power of these shells gouges the earth and even changes the terrain with ease.
　The annihilation warfare bombardment type frame gear that hides an overwhelming destructive power over a wide area, that is the Grimgelde.
　After a few minutes, the rain of shells finally stops. White smoke billowed out of Grimgelde, stopping its movement.
　Grimgelde has a weakness in that it requires a certain amount of cool time after the simultaneous firing 《Full Burst》.
　In order to cool the feverish aircraft, cooling magic is deployed in the magic circuitry of the engraved magic on the armor. Numerous lines of blue light run across the black body, blowing up steam. It takes about twenty seconds for it to restart. During that time, Grimgelde is completely defenseless.
　Because of this weakness, even Lean doesn't fire a single shot 《Full Burst》 during a normal battle. It is only when there are many allies around to protect them, or when they can fire from a reliable place of safety.
　When the dust from the large volume of dirt that had been rising, 80 to 90 percent of the golden skeletons that were heading towards us had stopped moving and were about to disappear while blowing out black smoke.

''King, I hear something........ A cracking sound......... In front, from that pile of crystal bodies.''

　When the cherry blossom ears caught it, a crystalline pillar in one corner of the Golden Palace snapped off from the base, and a group of fake knights, or faux-knights, crept up from the hole created by the break.
　With various dark-gold weapons in their hands, I felt a strange sense of discomfort at the sight of them moving in a disciplined manner.

'I heard that Mel caught the resonant sound of General Xeno on the winter night. He's in that group.''
What did you say?

　I switch the camera to zoom in on the communication from Ende. Among the many fake knights, there were several fake knights with spiky armor. Among them, I could clearly see one large, leader-like fellow with a head shaped like a chicken crown. Is that it?

I'm sure. I'm sure that's what Xeno is riding on. And the ones riding on the sharp fake knight around them are also probably Xeno's men brought in from the Crystal World. 'It moves differently from the other aircraft.

　General Xeno, who was said to be the strongest of the battle species of the Flaze, and the most powerful of them all. A new enemy was blocking our path.