-1581- The original armored beetle

"What... what's happening!?"

"What's going on!?"

"Is it an earthquake!?"

"Idiot! How could there be an earthquake in a floating city!?"

"Then what exactly is happening!?"

In the audience, one by one, people who hadn't yet understood what was going on started to feel uneasy and panicked.

Even Kanata, Chloe, Yuri, and Mena, as if sensing something, held their breath and gathered together.

As for Annerose in the VIP seating, her face shifted multiple times, and finally, she could no longer sit still.

"You three, prepare yourselves! Mobilize all the Sky Wizards of Vebel that we can gather...!"

Annerose shouted at Emilie, Cris, and River.

"Your Holiness...!?"

"What exactly is happening?"

"Is that the real body of Zeth?"

River, Emilie, and Cris were all caught off guard.

Only Annerose seemed to understand what was coming, gritting his teeth.

"Zeth Wiegert, that bastard, is preparing to abandon all previous plans and launch a final battle to settle the score with humanity!"

Anneloget had grasped this much.

"What?"

Emilie, Cris, and River were instantly shaken.

But it was true.

"Zeth is worried that if Rorelai is given more time, he will create a large number of small high-grade mana reactors to form an army of high-grade mana users, posing an unimaginable threat to the Armored Beetles."

Annerose spoke bitterly.

"So, he's become impatient, unable to subdue humanity slowly anymore. With the Sky Wizards Martial Arts Festival's proxy war thoroughly ruined by Rorelai, he has decisively initiated the final battle, intending to use brute force to completely conquer humanity!"

Perhaps, after Rozen summoned a dragon horde on the Ninth Artificial Floating Island, bringing forth beings from another world different from the Armored Beetles, Zeth had already started preparing as a precaution.

Now, Zeth's real body had appeared, proving he was ready to use his final tactic to wage war against humanity.

Anneloget could guess what that preparation was.

Although logic said it shouldn't be that, given the current situation, it could only be that.

Anneloget's guess was immediately confirmed.

"————"

The previously noisy arena suddenly became quiet for some unknown reason.

Annerose quickly raised his head.

Immediately, she saw it.

She saw the scene of everyone in the arena staring, dumbfounded, at the sky.

At some point, the sky had darkened.

In that moment, everyone in Vebel saw it.

They saw —

"Rumble...!"

The floating city continued to tremble.

That was because an enormous creature had flown from afar and now hovered above the floating city.

It had a body resembling a reptile.

It was armored with black scales.

It had a massive crocodile-like mouth, large enough to swallow the entire floating city in one bite.

It had claws like front limbs that seemed capable of tearing through the earth, and it flew with two large fins on either side of its hulking body, resembling a giant black whale in the sky. But its savage appearance and menacing aura made it clear this was no gentle creature.

Without a doubt, this was an Armored Beetle.

And not just any Armored Beetle — this one was more than three times the size of the floating city, an unprecedentedly massive Armored Beetle.

Surrounding this massive Armored Beetle were countless others, swarming like flies, bees, locusts, and bacteria.

Although most of these Armored Beetles were of the small species, there were plenty of medium and large variants, along with many mutant types, forming a terrifying army of Armored Beetles like never seen before.

Their numbers could only be counted in the billions.

At the very least, there were billions of them.

The incomprehensibly large Armored Beetle led this terrifying army, descending upon Vebel.

"Clink..."

Something dropped to the ground, making a clear sound.

"Is this for real...?"

Kanata, Chloe, Yuri, and Mena stared at the terrifying Armored Beetle hovering above Vebel, their hearts skipping a beat.

One by one, the people were at a loss for words.

Even in the VIP seating, Annerose and the others were the same.

"As expected..."

Annerose wore a bitter smile.

"It... it actually came...!?"

Cris was stunned.

"This is impossible...!"

Emilie was in shock.

"That's..."

River was completely dumbfounded.

The same thing was happening in every floating city where people could watch the live broadcast of the event.

One by one, they all stared at the scene, frozen in place, unable to respond.

Even Rozen, seeing this terrifying Armored Beetle, couldn't help but have his pupils contract.

No matter how much he had calculated, Rozen could never have predicted that Zeth would summon such a creature in the end.

But this was no obscure being.

"You haven't seen it before, have you?"

Zeth's voice rang out slowly.

"Let me introduce it to you."

Zeth gazed at the overwhelmingly massive and terrifying Armored Beetle, speaking calmly.

"That is the portal that spawns Armored Beetles, the source of the Armored Beetles, the stronghold of our kind, and the connection between this world and ours — the Gate."

—The Gate.

It was the passage between two worlds — the Gate.

"It is the original Armored Beetle. It granted our kind the jutsuryoku and trials to arrive in this world. It was also summoned by the largest-scale summoning ritual performed by the human magical faction four hundred years ago."

Zeth explained this as though stating a simple fact, devoid of emotion.

"It is the beginning of everything, as well as the end of everything. It was supposed to only appear at fixed coordinates, impossible to move at will. But it seems to be quite fond of the taste of high-grade mana. So, in secret, I disassembled the three large high-grade mana reactors set up in Vebel, smuggled them out under my authority, and used them as bait to lure the original Armored Beetle here."

As a result, the Armored Beetles spawned from the Gate gathered, and the Armored Beetles attracted from the other world also swarmed around it, forming Zeth's greatest army.

This was Zeth's full military force: an army of billions of Armored Beetles and the power of the original Armored Beetle.

"Bringing out this creature means I'm ready to use everything I have and settle the score with humanity."

Zeth raised his cursed sword, pointing it at Rozen.

"If I don't kill you here, the Armored Beetles will have no future."

Given this, there was only one path left — to fight to the death.

"Come, the war begins."

With Zeth's declaration, countless Armored Beetles surged forth from the sky.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh————!"

The people's screams finally filled the air, sounding like the trumpet of war.