In the skies, Ace watched with a cold glint in his eyes as the O’Brien army retreated with their tails tucked between their legs.

  “If I wasn’t at the third rank, there was no way my attack would’ve done such little damage,” Ace muttered unwillingly, causing Amira, Killian, and Leoo gre at him.

  “Hmm?” Ace said when he saw the way his friends were staring at him. “What did I do?”

  “You’re only at the third rank as a mage, yet you were able to perform an attack strohan any of us!” Killian snorted.

  “Are y to make us feel bad on purpose?” Amira asked threateningly.

  Ace immediately raised his hand as if to surrender. He truly hadn’t meant anything by it; he just wao inflict as much damage as physically possible.

  Still, he had to admit that they weren’t wrong.

  Sihe momearted training to be a warrior, he khat with his bloodline, he was a more than talented in the ways of a warrior, but it looked like his talent as a warrior paled in parison to his talent as a mage.

  Lyrin wasn’t pletely wrong in his assessment when he guessed that the mage iion was at the sixth or seventh rank, as the spike in power when infusing the ws into a spell would only go so far, but what he could never have known was just how powerful Ace’s soul was.

  It had to be remembered that to cast a spell, the body must be able to provide a suffit amount of mageford then use spiritual energy to trol that mageford summon enough elemental essence from nature to truly form the spell.

  It was impossible for a mage to simply rely on the elemental magefor the body.

  Take a forbidden spell, for example. The magefor the body of the average saint-level mage could only provide 1% of the amount of esseneeded. The other 99% only be provided by nature’s elemental esse was the reason why saint-level mages had such high amounts of spiritual essenpared to warriors of the same level.

  So even without the aid of his insights into the ws of fire, purely with his incredibly powerful soul, Ace was effectively no weaker than a mage at the peak of the sixth rank, despite only being at the peak of the third.

  .

  .

  .

  Whilst Ad his group made their way back to the Rohault camp, the O’Brien Army were retreating back to their o, and uhe Rohault Army, their morale was anything but high.

  “General,” One of the ordinairy ninth rank warriors of the O’Brien Army called out from Lyrin’s side. “Those attacks… Was that a saint?”

  “I don’t know,” Lyrin said, a grave and pensive expression hanging on his face as he repyed the attacks over and over in his mind.

  Truth be told, part of him wished it was. If it were, he couldn’t be bmed for their failure tonight. As strong as they were, they were simply inparable to even the weakest of saints.

  If the Rohault Empire really had broken the unspoken rule of mortal wars and invited a saint to support them, then not only would he be in the clear, but it would allow the O’Brien Empire to send out their own saints, and it wasn’t a secret that not only did the O’Brien Empire have more saints, but their stro saints were also more powerful.

  If this war truly became a battle between saints, the O’Brien Empire would definitely make quick work of their long-time enemies, but therein y the problem – If he could think of this, then so too could Murciel!

  Even though saint-level experts could easily hide their power to make it seem weaker than it actually was, why would they show their insights into the ws of nature at all? It would make far more sense just to perform an ordinairy spell and suppress the power to the eighth rank without infusing their attacks with profound mysteries.

  Whehought to there, as much as he hated to admit it, he khat Murciel was more than likely telling the truth. Those attacks really came from another mortal.

  “Ruchim,” Lyrin suddenly called out to the el who had inally posed the question. “I need you to return to the Capital and inform the Emperor about everything that happened here today.

  Make sure you don’t add anything unnecessary or leave anything out. Just give the cold hard facts.”

  “I uand,” el Ruchim replied seriously.

  sidering all the facts they currently had at their disposal, it would be simple to say that the Rohault Empire invited a saint to ruin their pns and deal severe damage to their forces, but if the expert iion weren’t a saint, like he suspected, the punishment he’d face would be far worse.

  As such, the best option was to simply y out all the facts for the emperor a him decide how to proceed.

  Till then, he o focus oraining the Rohault’s iable adva as much as possible.

  That in and of itself was going to be a tall rahey hadn’t lost any of their more powerful soldiers, but with the number of lower-level warriors they’d lost, the cshes moving forward would be anything but even.

  Whilst the morale of the O’Brien Army was at an all-time low, the mood in the Rohault camp was at an all-time high.

  “Everyone,” General Murciel called out when they returned back to their camp, infusing his voice with his battle-qi so everyone could hear him clearly. “Tonight, like with every rge-scale battle we face here, many of the lives of our brothers and sisters in arms were lost, but tonight ead every one of them gave their lives to help us secure a very important win -the likes of which we haven’t seen in a very long time.

  The win you all helped to secure today is ohat will be recorded and talked about for many years to e, so on behalf of the royal family and the whole of reat nation, I’d like to say thank you.

  To celebrate our incredible victory, I am granting two days of R&R from tomorrow. I know it’s not enough time for you to go back to your families, but it is enough time for you to recover from your hangovers from tonight’s festivities!”

  The General’s annou was met with the cheerful shouts of all his subordinates, who were all still riding the high of their Empire’s first major win on this battlefield.

  “In two days, we will begin a neaign where we, for the first time, take the fight to them, but until then, I want all of you to enjoy yourselves!” The General Excimed before dismissing everyone, bar Ebeze, Chukaya, and his right-hand man – el Regis – whom he led to his personal tent where the main heroes of the night were waiting for him.

  Upon seeing the three hooded figures standing calmly beside the horse-sized, bck-furred lion, whether it was Regis, Ebeze, or even the general himself, they stared at the trio in awe, especially at Ace.

  “Thankfully, we were successful,” Amira voiced, calmly breaking the silence.

  “Successful?” Regis ughed excitedly. “Princess, that’s an uatement!”

  “I’m just gd we could help,” Ace smiled calmly.

  “What you did tonight went beyond ‘help’,” Murciel replied sincerely. “Because of you, we were able to have our first major victory sihe war began. And after witnessing that st attack…

  Although deep down, Lyrin will know you’re no saint, but because he ’t firm it, he’ll have to be a lot more defeh his tactics. At least until reinforts arrive.”

  “Will the fact that he ’t firm Ace’s strength be a problem moving forward?” Amira asked, uanding the unspoken rules of mortal wars.

  “If Ace were to suddenly disappear, then Lyrin might be able tue that Ace was an undercover saint and that since we were using saints, then it would be acceptable for them to as well,” Murciel expined slowly. “But even if they ’t firm his exact strength because of his robes wheurns to the battlefield, they’ll be able to firm that he’s definitely not a saint, and that’s the most important thing.”

  As he said that, both Murciel and Regis looked at Ace, uo pletely suppress their envy. The dark-haired youth had actually aplished the ohing they both desperately desired, the only thing stopping them from reag the saint realm – prehension of a profound mystery.

  Still, as jealous as they were, they were even more impressed and in awe because although he may not be a native, as Amira’s cssmate and Aiden’s only disciple, he was still very mu their side.

  The versation remained positive and harmonious, but the only person who didn’t seem excited was Chukaya. He sported a plicated expression as he looked at them, or more specifically, at Ace.

  If he was able to remaiical before, now there was no denying it, Ace wasn’t only more talented, he was also far more powerful. It felt as though his dream of capturing the heart of his crush had all but disappeared.

  At the same time, just outside the Rohault Army’s camp Elder Ejiro who had been tasked with proteg Amira and the others from any saint-level experts that could potentially ehe fray had just ordered Duke Kaymin to go bad tell the Emperor everything that had transpired that night as he khings weren’t likely to end so simply.

  After the Duke left, Ejiro couldn’t help but turn back towards the dire of Ad the others. What was going through his mind at that moment, only he knew!

  P.S. Support me oreon listed below to read ahead - Release rate is at least 2x as many chapters every week! XD

  Currently 75 chapters ahead

  P.atreon./ACoilingDragon

  Book 6: Chapter 14 – Ace’s Brutal Hoy