The Strongest Dull Prince’s Secret Battle for the Throne

"What a tasteless thing to do."

While muttering this, I dodged an attack from the resurrected Nigel and used a magic blast to remove the hood from the second person. It was revealed to be the late Oliver von Rohlbach, the former captain of the Eighth Imperial Guard Knights who had died during the imperial rebellion.

He was a noble man and he remained loyal to my father until the end. My father was deeply saddened by his death.

He would never have sided with Wilhelm while he was still alive.

But now:

"As expected of Silver. You really live up to the rumors with your myriad of attacks."

Oliver spoke as he and Nigel pointed their swords at me. It was an impossible sight—a loyal captain of the Imperial Guard and a rogue swordsman who defied the empire's laws standing side by side to challenge Silver.

But this was the reality.

"Surely you're not thinking of uncovering the identities of all of us before being satisfied, right?"

"Then hurry up and deal with them. This stalling is tiring."

Jack fired arrows to restrict the movements of the remaining four enemies and thanks to his arrows, the number of attackers coming at me was limited. If I didn't reduce their numbers, they would keep coming.

"Are you two so confident that you'll finish us off quickly?"

"Do you think we'll be that easy to defeat?"

Oliver laughed as he spun his sword in his hand. This carelessness was uncharacteristic of Oliver. It seemed that while he retained many of his living traits, probably due to the memories carried over, his personality had still been altered by the possessing demon.

Knowing that was enough. As for their powers, it would be wiser to prevent them from using their abilities rather than trying to analyze them. Knowing their powers wouldn't help us much in predicting or analyzing the abilities of the other enemies.

With these thoughts in mind, I dodged the attacks from the two who struck at me from both sides by stepping back. I fired back some magic bullets at them, but they deflected them effortlessly. They coordinated perfectly to thrust at me as I retreated, but their thrusts missed.

The two who pursued me had attacked an illusion. The illusion of me was crafted with extreme precision, capable of deceiving even masters momentarily and they mistook the illusion for me and attacked it. In the meantime, I had teleported behind them.

Everything happened the moment I fired the magic bullets. I made them focus on the blasts, created the illusion, and teleported.

I soon reached out to grab their necks and as they turned to face me, it allowed me to grab their necks, they probably thought that they could escape.

They aimed for my arms, confident they could sever them.

But that was not to be.

"What!?"

"This is...!?"

Fine, thread-like barriers wrapped around them, gradually enclosing them. Though thread-like in form, these barriers had the strength of compressed ordinary barriers.

Regular attacks couldn't cut through them, so with their movements now hindered, soon they were cocooned.

"Did you capture them?"

"No."

I refuted Jack's words as I continued chanting while holding their necks.

"I am the one who knows the silver truth. I am the chosen one of true silver. The silver lightning descends from the sky, races across the land, and incinerates all. The heat of the silver lightning is a divine symbol, its sound a divine roar. Lightnings of the heavens and dark thunders. Silver lightning, roar in my hands, to demonstrate the will of the heavens—Silvery Lightning."

It was an extreme close-range silver extermination magic. The magic that was unleashed from both my hands brought destruction upon them and unless they possessed some special authority, escape was impossible.

Two massive silver bolts of lightning shot out, reducing them to ash and obliterating even the ash.

Confirming the absence of any remaining sensation, I lowered my arms.

"Two targets eliminated."

"That leaves us with four more."

Two of their members were eliminated without them even realizing it. Six of them had been needed to restrict our movements. Now with only four left, it wouldn't be as easy for them.

However, the remaining four didn't seem to be serious yet. Their objective was clearly to buy time, with the loss of two seemingly within their expectations.

While thinking about this, one of the four placed their hand on the ground. The magical sword Flame God, which Nigel had used, rose from the earth.

It was a demonic sword that was comparable to Dis Pater and it could likely withstand even the silver extermination magic. Judging by its undamaged state, Nigel must have released it before being obliterated, or he was forced to release it.

Recovering Flame God was apparently more important than rescuing Nigel and the other person. Well in that situation, rescuing them would have been impossible— as evading Jack's restraints and breaking through my thread-like barrier would have been too much for them.

The detached nature of their actions was telling.

"Time's up."

As one of them murmured, the four used teleportation devices simultaneously.

"How many precious magic devices do they have?"

"Did they flee?"

"No, they acted like their mission was complete."

"So their stalling worked."

While nodding at Jack's words, I sensed an enormous magical presence. It was coming from the south and I looked up to see a massive light ascending into the sky.

"The Celestial Sphere... No, six colors?"

The Celestial Sphere I knew had five colors. Soon a semi-transparent barrier appeared, covering the entire Empire.

Judging by the appearance, it looked like the defensive magic Celestial Sphere, but the Sphere shouldn't have the power to cover the whole Empire.

"What's going on here?"

"They've isolated the Empire from the outside world with a barrier."

"For what purpose?"

"To divide our powerful forces and buy time."

"Can't we teleport in?"

"If it's like the Celestial Sphere I know, then no."

Even so, creating a barrier to cover the entire Empire and adding conditions to prevent both entry and exit was overkill.

Magic isn't omnipotent and such large-scale magic should have some sort of flaw.

"Let's investigate."

"Teleportation?"

"I’m not sure where the barrier ends. We'll fly instead."

"Again...?"

Jack muttered wearily.

"And where are we?"

"Probably the provincial state."

"Oh, what a close call. We almost caused damage to my daughter's country."

He seemed tired of stalling and had probably considered taking out one or two quickly with a strong attack.

It was fortunate that we had managed to eliminate two at that time as it would have caused unnecessary damage to the provincial state had the battle stalled for longer.

"Let's go."

"Don't sound so pleased! You enjoy dragging me around."

"I'm not happy about dragging you around."

"Then what is it?"

"Finally... the enemy is making their move."

If neither side made any significant moves, the battle would drag on. Our current move was the revival of the allied forces. In response, the enemy used the barrier that is now covering the entire Empire.

As long as the moves continued, eventually the enemy would reach their limits. That moment would be the perfect opportunity to defeat Wilhelm.