9 The Invincible Royal Family

[Haste]! [Shadow]! [Fire Imbue]!

Three buffs were cast in an instant.

Haste – a spell that increased the speed of the target, allowing for greater mobility.

Shadow – a spell that caused every movement of the target to leave behind a blur of afterimages, meant for confusing the enemy.

Fire Imbue – a spell that imbues a target with the element of fire, causing every collision with the enemy to result in a small explosion.

Rose's sword immediately burst into flames as she rapidly closed the distance between her and Berghis.

With [Shadow] in effect, Rose did not do something as foolish as charging straight at Berghis. Instead, her zig-zag movements resulted in a massive blur of afterimages, preventing anyone from picking out her true body.

Upon seeing this, Berghis immediately stopped looking down on his opponent and focused all his attention to the fight. Right from the start, the other party had already started moving at a speed that was superior to his own, so there was actually a chance that he might lose if he did not give his fullest!

Berghis' eyes shifted quickly from one afterimage to another, frantically trying to identify the correct target.

[Haste]! [Giant Strength]!

As one of the strongest nobles, Berghis was no pushover either. He naturally would not fall so easily to such a direct offense, otherwise he would not have survived his many trips into the midst of the battlefields.

There!

Berghis hurriedly swept his spear to his right, and the sound of metal striking metal immediately followed. At the very last moment, he finally managed to discern Rose's true body from the afterimages and blocked the strike from her sword.

But that was not the end of the attack.

Bang-!

The flames on Rose's sword instantly concentrated at the point of collision, and with a loud blast, the flames exploded towards Berghis.

Berghis coughed out a mouthful of blood as he staggered backwards from the powerful explosion. His face paled immediately. The explosion was far stronger than he had expected!

This could only mean that Rose's mastery of [Fire Imbue] was at an extremely high level, much higher than anyone he had ever faced!

He turned to look at Rose, who had a worried expression on her face.

"Are you all right, Lord Berghis?" Rose eyed the blood that Berghis had coughed out earlier, and could not help but ask.

She had only done a probing strike, so how did the opponent already end up in this state? Did Berghis not know the effects of [Fire Imbue]?

"I am fine! Continue with your second move!" Berghis could only wipe away the trail of blood leaking from his lips as he regretted announcing that he would let the opponent take the first three moves.

Had he known that the opponent was such a strong warrior, he would never have agreed to it even if someone paid him to do so!

Rose hesitated for a bit before nodding, then she stretched out her open left palm towards Berghis.

[Fireball]!

This was the same spell that Roland had used on his opponent outside Windfall Inn just a day ago, and involved sending a ball of fire towards the targeted direction.

This time, the target was obviously Berghis.

[Magic Shell]!

With one swift motion, Berghis used both hands to slam his spear down in front of him, even managing to pierce the pole end a few inches into the ground.

Holding firmly onto the spear with both hands, Berghis stood his ground as a magical shell appeared around him, shrouding him in the form of a hemisphere with the spear as the centre.

A flash of bright light blinded every untrained eye as the fireball collided with the magic shell. Following the flash of light, a loud explosion sound promptly followed, sending out a powerful blast wave that threatened to knock everyone off their feet.

"What?" Berghis could not help but exclaim in shock as the magical shell crumbled, completely unable to withstand the onslaught of flames!

All he could do was watch in disbelief as the shell shattered upon impact, and the flames burst through towards him.

Berghis had no backup plan, and the ball of fire struck him mercilessly.

Thankfully, part of the damage from [Fireball] had been mitigated by [Magic Shell], but what remained was still more than sufficient to knock Berghis off his feet, causing him to fall backwards onto the ground.

Everything happened in an instant, and a cloud of black smoke had blocked off everyone's vision during the collision.

It was only when Berghis was knocked out of the cover of the smoke and fell onto his back that everyone understood what happened.

Berghis coughed desperately as he slowly climbed back to his feet. At this moment, the look on his face had completely changed. The proud and arrogant expression that the Marquis had at the start was now completely replaced by one of despair.

If he still could not comprehend the difference between he and his opponent, then he would truly be undeserving of his status!

After the two moves from Rose, Berghis already had a clear idea of his opponent's magical prowess. In terms of magical prowess alone, he was far inferior in comparison, like a mouse against a lion!

Everyone exchanged weird glances as their hearts went out to the Marquis.

Just by standing from the side, they could feel the power behind the moves executed by Rose. How much pressure must Berghis be under in order to directly face such powerful attacks?

And to top it all off, Berghis had actually promised to take three attacks from Rose. After the previous two attacks, there was still one more left!

Berghis could feel his focus blurring, and his own heartbeat sounded like rolling thunder as it felt like it was amplified a thousand times in his mind.

He was familiar with this feeling.

This was clearly the feeling of having come close to death, one that he had already experienced a few times on the battlefield!

He stretched out his hand in front of himself, and through his blurring vision he could still see clearly that his hand was trembling weakly.

"Lord Berghis…" Rose frowned in worry, but Berghis raised his trembling hand to stop her from saying more.

"I promised you three moves, so three moves you shall have!" Berghis decisively took out the vigour potion that he had just received, and looked at it with mixed feelings in his heart.

So it had truly come down to this.

The king had actually gotten exactly what he wanted. Even from the moments before the start of this fight, he had already been dancing in the palm of the king's hands.

Even so, Berghis made up his mind quickly, and decisively downed everything in one go!

"Lord Berghis!" Rose shouted out in shock.

The vigour potion was not meant for the fight!

But what's done was done, so Rose chose not to make a big fuss over the issue. At least not on the surface.

After taking the vigour potion, the colour on Berghis' face significantly recovered, and his hands were no longer trembling.

"Come at me!" Berghis shouted resolutely.

Right now, he no longer had any thoughts about winning the fight.

All he was thinking of was to protect his honour by fulfilling the promise that he made earlier, taking all three moves from this fearsome opponent before him!

This way, at least people could see that he had chosen to let the opponent freely attack him. So ending the match after suffering from the attacks was not a true disgrace.

What he feared was people mocking him for overestimating himself, asking the opponent to make three moves yet he fell after two.

As the Head of the Tonquello family, his honour represented the family's honour, and thus he could not allow it to be sullied!

Rose was not in the best of mood at the moment, seeing that her master's vigour potion was wasted just like that. Hearing Berghis' resolute shout as if he was proud of wasting the potion, Rose's mood plummeted even further.

"If you say so, Lord Berghis," Rose's voice was extremely cold as the light in her eyes disappeared.

The mana within her mana reserve started to empty out at an alarming rate as she expended it all on preparation for the next spell.

Her clothes fluttered gently as a small breeze picked up around her, summoned by the intense usage of mana.

"This…" Berghis could feel the magical power being accumulated in front of him, and it gave the seasoned warrior goosebumps.

At this moment, he felt a familiar feeling well up from within him, locking down his movements and freezing him in place. It was a feeling that had eluded him for so, so long.

Fear.

Pure, genuine fear.

How long had it been since he last had this feeling?

He had always thought that after conquering the battlefield, there would no longer be anything else that could faze him. Yet now, it was actually away from the battlefield that he once again experienced fear after so many long years.

Who exactly was this monster that was standing in front of him?

It was not just Berghis who was feeling this way either. Every warrior standing in the assembly hall was shocked! This huge mana expenditure, was her mana reserve limitless?

What kind of divine level spell was she expending this much mana for?

[Supreme Amplification – Fir-

"Rose, stop!" Roland's voice resounded clearly in everyone's ears as if he was speaking from right beside them.

Rose was startled by her master's words, and immediately calmed down. She quickly suppressed the expended mana, expelling it upwards into the sky.

It caused an extremely powerful shockwave to erupt upwards, but it was difficult to detect as it travelled unhindered towards the sky, and only the truly skilled were able to notice it.

Berghis was one of those truly skilled warriors, but seeing it only caused his face to pale once again.

This was no joke.

Even though his opponent had already stopped her spell halfway, Berghis could feel that even if he was only hit by the shockwave caused by expelling her excess mana, there was still the chance that he might die from it!

His knees buckled and he fell to the ground, watching as his opponent took a few deep breaths to calm herself down.

Such a powerful warrior…was actually acting as a personal maid in the palace?

If he were in his top condition, Berghis was confident that he would be able to take on at least thousands of soldiers on the battlefield just by his own individual strength, as long as he was allowed to sustain himself with vigour potions. But judging from the difference between them, the other party would probably be able to do ten times that amount.

That would mean his opponent was equal to at least ten thousand soldiers on the battlefield! And yet she was acting as a mere personal maid!

Wait…a personal maid…?

At this time, an unbelievable thought struck Berghis as his face warped in horror. His line of sight left Rose, and slowly travelled up towards the top of the wooden platform where the royal family was standing.

Three princesses and one prince, all of whom had a personal maid standing beside them…

Could it be that all of them possessed strength on par with his opponent?

No! Not just that! There was no reason to believe that the other maids within the palace were much weaker either!

The royal family! Just what kind of power had they been hiding from the rest of the nobles?

And how many more cards do they have hidden up their sleeves that he did not know of?

He recalled his earlier thoughts that his Tonquello army would be able to match the Royal Army in battle. What a joke! He was nothing but a fool!

It was no wonder that the king had openly mocked him through his personal maid's actions! Even the king must have been truly laughing at him deep in his heart!

After all, now that Berghis had a clearer idea of the power of the royal family, the armies of every other noble family could only pale in comparison, almost to the point of being insignificant!

In other words, the Royal Army was truly invincible in the realm!

So what was there to keep the king from openly provoking the nobles?