"Hmph! What a cunning rat!"

Hearing Jia Xiu’s reply, Graham felt no frustration. On the contrary, he breathed a sigh of relief.

’The Caster refused to show himself, relying only on these tireless metal creations to besiege us. This meant...’

’He wasn’t confident he could defeat me and Jia Xiu in a direct confrontation. He was far weaker than I’d anticipated.’

’If I can just find where he’s hiding...’

At that thought, Graham stomped down with both feet.

"BOOM!"

With a dull thud, the solid black flagstones collapsed on impact, leaving a deep pit.

Simultaneously, the giant Magical Guide Structure advancing on them suddenly froze in place.

The next moment, its massive body broke apart, exploding into a shower of metal fragments.

"Jia Xiu!"

With a backhanded sweep of his sword, Graham instantly cleared away the swarming smaller Mechanical Bodies and barked,

"It doesn’t matter how deep he’s hiding..."

The Extraordinary Knight’s brow was furrowed, his sharp gaze fixed on the city’s depths.

His eyes locked onto an exceptionally tall High Tower, wreathed in a vortex of purple-black Energy.

"That has to be the city’s core. If we destroy it, these annoying hunks of metal should stop."

"You’re right, Dean Graham, but..."

Jia Xiu’s eyes narrowed, his Dagger a blur as it precisely parried the surrounding attacks. At the same time, he calmly offered his analysis.

"Our opponent is a Caster. You know how troublesome these types of Extraordinary Professionals can be. If he’s lurking in the shadows..."

The Assassin’s form blurred, and he perfectly dodged a volley of whistling metal fragments.

"That spire is likely a decoy. The area around it is probably riddled with traps, just waiting for you to walk into them."

"I understand your concerns, Jia Xiu..."

Graham suddenly plunged his Longsword into the black flagstones at his feet.

In an instant, a visible current of pale white energy surged across his powerful frame.

Immediately after, the once-level road surface suddenly buckled and split apart.

"RUMBLE!"

With a deafening roar, the black flagstones shattered like brittle glass. A massive fissure shot forward, as if a great beast was rampaging beneath the earth.

The Magical Guide Structures, unable to dodge in time, lost their footing and tumbled into the bottomless chasm of Darkness.

Having temporarily halted the metal creations’ assault, Graham let out a heavy breath.

He turned to look back at the soldiers locked in a bloody battle behind him, and a flicker of pain crossed his eyes.

When they first arrived at Broken Stone Canyon, before the Magic City Jiles had reawakened, they had faced the White Robe Cultists of the Truth Church.

Even though forbidden experiments had turned those cultists into monsters covered in Crystal Clusters, the soldiers under Graham’s command had still driven them back again and again.

The tide of battle had been in their favor, but...

Facing the Magical Guide Structures, the soldiers did manage to suppress their Fear and fight valiantly.

But human stamina has its limits. How could they possibly contend with a tireless metal tide?

He and Jia Xiu could move freely with their Extraordinary Power, but the common soldiers were being bogged down and overwhelmed by the surging tide of Mechanical Bodies.

Every second of delay meant another loyal Warrior might fall, reduced to a cold corpse.

This was something Graham absolutely could not tolerate.

"But if this drags on any longer, these soldiers will be completely wiped out."

Jia Xiu’s expression didn’t flicker in the slightest at those words, and his eyes remained as cold as ice.

As a member of the Shadow Kill Organization, his long career in espionage had long since eroded many of his human emotions.

’In his eyes, the only value of common soldiers in a war was to serve as cannon fodder—to wear down the enemy and take some of the pressure off the Transcendents.’

’They had already fulfilled their purpose. Whether they lived or died now was irrelevant.’

But, knowing the Dean of the Knight Academy’s temperament all too well, he wisely kept these thoughts to himself.

After a moment of contemplation, he spoke slowly.

"Dean Graham, I understand your concern, but... please give me a little time. Let me try to scout out the Caster’s position again."

"If I still can’t pinpoint his location, I’ll go with you then. How does that sound?"

Graham’s brow remained furrowed, but he finally nodded.

"Alright, Jia Xiu. Be quick."

Before the words were even out of his mouth, the Assassin’s figure blurred like a melting wax figure, vanishing into the Shadow of the crumbling ruins in an instant.

Graham took a deep breath and swung his Longsword again, cutting into the fresh wave of Magical Guide Structures.

However, even with a Transcendent as their Guardian, the soldiers’ pained groans continued to rise and fall.

Witnessing this, Graham moved even faster, his blade a flash of lightning.

But even so, it was futile.

As a Knight renowned for his immense physical Power, if he were facing these Magical Guide Structures alone, their numbers wouldn’t pose a true threat, no matter how vast.

Crushing these tireless metal creations was as easy for him as squashing a bug.

Even the giant Mechanical Bodies were no exception.

But protecting every soldier’s life amidst an onslaught like a surging metal tide was not his forte.

With the battle lines stretched so thin, even with his astonishing speed, there were always places he couldn’t reach in time.

The battle continued as a difficult tug-of-war between offense and defense.

Time wore on, but the number of Magical Guide Structures showed no sign of decreasing. They seemed endless.

The number of soldiers, however, was slowly but surely dwindling.

"Damn it!"

He saw another soldier fall, struck in a vital spot by a metal fragment fired from a small Magical Guide Structure, blood spraying from the wound.

Graham cursed aloud, but the swing of his Longsword never faltered.

’Why isn’t Jia Xiu back yet? Did something happen to him?’

The thought flashed through Graham’s mind, but he felt no hint of blame or resentment toward his companion.

He glanced around. The territory of the Magic City Jiles was still expanding.

A turbid, purple-black sludge devoured the land like a living thing. Sinister spires and ruins burst forth from the mire, rapidly taking shape within the churning fog.

It seemed as though the entire Broken Stone Canyon, and even the lands beyond, would be completely consumed.

The area was too vast.

Even for someone with Jia Xiu’s skills, finding a Caster who was deliberately hiding in this massive, ever-expanding labyrinth of treacherous ruins was like finding a needle in a haystack.

Just as Graham was about to lose his restraint and charge heedlessly toward the tall spire in the heart of the city, his keen hearing picked up an unusual sound.

A faint, clamorous noise, distinct from the roar of clashing metal.

"What is that...?"

Graham’s brow furrowed. He pushed off hard from the ground, launching himself into the air like a cannonball.

Using the recoil from slaying a giant Magical Guide Structure to launch himself even higher, his sharp gaze shot toward the source of the sound like a hawk’s.

The next moment, a faint smile broke across his face, which until then had been as taut as stone.

There, in the churning mist, a contingent of Warriors clad in blue and white armor had cut into the battlefield like a sharp knife.