The First Magic World War

Charles thought to himself, "Who the heck said we're on the same side?"

The assassin spread his arms wide, resembling a huge bat, as he soared into the air and rushed out of the military camp in an instant, without even disturbing the Westwind Knights on night watch.

Charles hesitated for a moment before activating the Wings of the Hatchling Dragon to follow.

From their brief exchange, Charles had roughly assessed that this Blood Clan assassin was of a higher Transcendent rank than him, but his understanding of the Angel's Thorn swordsmanship was not as profound—the assassin had only grasped the Fourth Movement: Wings of the Hatchling Dragon. As for how many of the Asiluo Clan's Special Abilities he had mastered, the assassin hadn't used them, so it was impossible to tell.

After they left the military camp and ran for a while, covering over ten kilometers, the other stopped, turned around, and said, "Brother, you've got guts! You actually infiltrated a knight's order of the Fars Empire, and this particular knighthood is quite elite. Whose noble private army might it be?"

Charles replied offhandedly, "This is an army affiliated with the Military Knight Orders Department of the Central Government Office. It was reorganized from a local knighthood and has been through several battles. You could say they're veterans of war."

"What are you doing infiltrating the camp?"

Since the other had mistaken his identity, Charles didn't bother to correct him, thinking he might be able to fish for some information.

Julian Asilo pulled down his mask and spoke, "The Fars can't hold off our alliance with Baron, the Black Phoenix Dynasty, and the southern Beastman tribes on their own. I heard they want to form an alliance with the Inglima Empire and the Lionheart Dynasty. That's why the military department has sent over a dozen elite spies to infiltrate the Fars Empire, aiming to find out when their envoy will depart, so we can ambush them."

Startled, Charles thought to himself, "Aren't they planning to ambush me?"

He asked in a low voice, "Who will they send for the ambush?"
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Julian Asilo shrugged and said, "It's still Baron Leo!"

Charles thought, "So Leo is a baron?"

Those who rank below a duke can be referred to as lords, so many viscounts and barons often habitually refer to themselves as lords without mentioning their actual titles.

It was the first time Charles had heard that Leo was actually a baron. In Baron, one's title is closely related to one's strength, which meant Leo was a High-Level Transcendent but within the Fifteenth Order at most, probably only equivalent to Zolman, whom Charles had just killed, or maybe even less powerful.

Seeing the strange expression on Charles's face, Julian Asilo laughed and said, "You must have heard about it too. Baron Leo suffered a big loss last time he came here. It wasn't Ferdinand who died by his hand, which led to a reprimand from the military."

Charles thought, "I hadn't heard about that," but he said, "I don't know much. What details do you have? You can tell me."

Julian Asilo was a first-year student at Heidelberg University. As a descendant of a count from the Asiluo Clan, he had taken up the most traditional Transcendent training from an early age and had already become a Transcendent before even attending the university. Now, he had even stepped into the ranks of Mid-Level Transcendents. Despite his young age, his strength was not to be underestimated.

Because of the war, Baron conscripted a group of students from the university, and Julian, due to his excellent swordsmanship and mastery of the Wings of the Hatchling Dragon, which gave him lightning speed, was assigned to spy in Fars.

Being born into the Asiluo Clan, Julian had countless family elders in the military and even upperclassmen at Heidelberg University, so he was very well-informed.

Hoping to infiltrate the Westwind Knights to gather intelligence originally, Julian hadn't expected to bump into a "fellow native." Excited, he shared all the recent gossip he had heard, providing Charles with quite a bit of valuable information about Baron.

Curious, Charles asked, "Baron Leo is just a High-Level Transcendent. I heard that the special envoy the Fars are sending this time includes members of the Sacred Order. How could he succeed in an assassination?"

Julian smiled proudly and said, "Last time when we attempted to assassinate Ferdinand, we had to conceal our identities, pretending it was the work of Lady Southseraph, so we could only use equipment from Fars."

"This time, since we've already gone to war with the People of Fars, there's no need to hide our identity. Naturally, we'll be using Baron's extraordinary equipment."

"The military has specially approved five super long-range repeating alchemical rifles. Although this new equipment lacks the antispace attribute and is not convenient to carry around, it has a longer range and can fire consecutively."

"A Sacred Order individual might be able to resist a shot from the Magic-Breaking Bombshell Bullet, but what about ten shots? Twenty shots? A hundred shots?"

"No matter how thick the Sacred Order's defensive shell is, as long as we're willing to use the Magic-Breaking Bombshell Bullets, we can eventually penetrate it."

Charles pondered for a moment. If Julian was telling the truth, then the five super long-range repeating alchemical rifles, firing indiscriminately without considering the cost, really might be able to kill the Augusladin High Priest outright.

Charles also possessed extraordinary firearms and had used Magic-Breaking Bombshell Bullets to kill more than a few people, and of course, knew how effective they were, but they also weren't without weaknesses.

For example, in a direct confrontation, they weren't so sharp. When he had wanted to shoot Jonathan on the battlefield, Cyrus had used a Knights' Spear to deflect several Magic-Breaking Bombshell Bullets.

Even many high-level Transcendents, when fully powering up their Fighting Spirit for protection, could withstand one or two shots.

Also, hitting a Transcendent moving at high speed during combat required an exceedingly high standard of gunmanship. Charles had many times refrained from shooting because he wasn't confident of hitting the target and didn't want to waste the Magic-Breaking Bombshell Bullets.

Once in close combat, firearms weren't as useful as the sword and knight's spear, regardless of the ammunition used.

Unless the target was unprepared. For instance, Zolman never expected that, after activating his flame ability and using the body as cover, Charles could shoot from below in a surprise move with the anti-space sniper rifle, completely destroying his lower half with one shot.

Or in the case of an assassination since even high-level Transcendents wouldn't always keep their Fighting Spirit protection activated all the time due to its draining nature.

This is why many high-level Transcendents didn't favor extraordinary firearms and rather preferred fast-firing weapons for mid and lower-level Transcendents.

In the Old Continent, due to technological limitations, all firearms were single-shot. If the People of Baron had developed repeating firearms, Charles imagined, combined with the unrestrained use of Magic-Breaking Bombshell Bullets, it really could change the dynamic of combat among the high-order Transcendents and above.

There might even be the emergence of street gunfighting techniques he had seen on Earth in "Detective Coldfeathers,"

Or the super ability gun duels from an ancient web novel, "Slightly Sour Secret School ABC."

Julian was animated as he spoke, feeling an instant connection with Charles, as if they were kindred spirits, and he seized the moment to make a request, "Senior! You must have graduated from Heidelberg University, right?"

Charles nodded frantically.

Julian said somewhat sheepishly, "I haven't had a comfortable night's sleep in a long time. What's your status in that knighthood of Fars? Could you arrange a place for me to sleep? And if it's possible to have a bath too, that would be wonderful."

Charles...