Editing Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance:Volume13 Chapter7 (section)

===Part 3===

"The west side's barrier is broken, send troops over immediately!" "Fear not, just strike them down!" "Princess maidens go strengthen the barrier, holy magic users go heal the injured!"

Faced with the fierce onslaught of countless ice dragons, Winter Gulf Castle was trying its best to maintain the defensive line.

As a secure stronghold and border defense center of Ordesia, Winter Gulf Castle could not fall that easily. Nevertheless, if these fierce attacks continued at this rate, the isolation barrier protecting the castle was going to reach its limits sooner or later.

"Calm down. Ice dragons are a type of dragon with excellent flying abilities. Ordinary weapons cannot pierce dragon scales but the wings are not that resilient. Aim for the wings&mdash;"

Dressed as a maid, Milla Bassett was patrolling the surroundings of the castle walls, directing the ordinary soldiers manning the catapults. Despite losing the contracted spirit in her Demon Sealing Eye, she used to be an elite knight serving under the Principality of Rossvale's Rupture Division after all. Her tactical command skills were quite superb.

"...Milla, are things okay?"

"Mireille-sama, do not come out here. Hurry and return to the castle&mdash;"

"...Yes, yes. But I'm worried about you, Milla..."

Mireille's emerald eyes harbored unease.

She only knew Milla in her maid phase and knew nothing about the Milla Bassett who was born as a military weapon and belonged to the knights serving the Principality of Rossvale.

Milla gently stroked Mireille's head.

"...I am fine. Thank you."

Normally expressionless, she smiled faintly.

At this time, cheering came from the plaza at the foot of the castle walls.

Milla looked back to see Rinslet exiting the castle gates. Natalia of the Wolf Ritters had brought Rinslet back.

"Onee-sama!"

Mireille could not help but smile.

"Ohoh, Princess!" "The princess has returned!" "Thank goodness she is safe and sound..."

"Everyone, my apologies for making you wait."

Having entered the castle from an underground passage, Rinslet gave encouragement to the wounded soldiers while climbing the steps leading to the top of the castle walls.

Natalia hastily followed behind her.

"Princess, the castle walls are very dangerous. You should at least command from the inside&mdash;"

"No, I shall command from here. Taking the lead on the battlefield's frontlines is part of my obligations as both an Ordesian noble and an elementalist. Furthermore&mdash;"

Standing openly on the castle walls, Rinslet raised her bow elemental waffe.

Firing numerous arrows into the air, she shot down ice dragons that were flying in the sky.

"I enjoy being the center of attention."

With a fearless smile, she nocked her next arrow.

"...Sigh, that is the kind of person who the princess is."

Natalia laughed wryly and shrugged.

"We cannot lose either!" "Wow, the princess is watching!"

Rinslet's heroic figure standing on the castle walls seemed to be rousing the soldiers' morale inside the castle.

Set up on the castle walls, the catapults and ballistae fired in succession upon the ice dragons that were frozen and fallen on the ground.

"...By the way, the numbers are too great."

"Yes. Indeed. Unless the ice dragon king Zirnitra is defeated&mdash;"

While using a spear elemental waffe to pierce an ice dragon's wing, Natalia concurred.

Rinslet directed her gaze towards the center of the forest in the distance.

Zirnitra was currently rampaging at the Forest of Ice Blossoms, blowing trees down.

(To think that the guardian spirit of Laurenfrost would be destroying the forest...)

Furthermore&mdash;

(Judia...)

She was concerned about her younger sister's sudden disappearance.

(...Where on earth has she gone?)

"...Princess!"

Natalia yelled acutely as an ice dragon penetrated the barrier and collided towards the castle walls.

Their foothold collapsing, a large amount of rubble was falling onto the plaza below. The screams of soldiers were heard.

"...! The barrier has been..."

"Winter Gulf Castle's barrier makes use of the leylines in the Forest of Ice Blossoms. Most likely, Zirnitra's revival has disrupted the leylines in the area, causing the barrier to lose its original power."

Damaging the castle walls, the ice dragon attacked Rinslet.

"Princess&mdash;"

At the last moment, Natalia blocked in front, using her spear to defend against this strike.

Instantly, the spear elemental waffe shattered into particles of ice. She had apparently depleted a great amount of divine power through sustained combat against the ice dragons, causing her contracted spirit's power to reach a limit. Natalia's spirit&mdash;a small wolf very similar to Fenrir&mdash;dissipated into particles of light and disappeared.

"...!"

The ice dragon opened its jaws, preparing to use dragon's breath.

"...Not so fast!"

Rinslet instantly nocked three arrows and fired them simultaneously. Two struck the wings while one hit the interior of the mouth. Losing control, the breath exploded, causing the ice dragon to fall down the castle wall.

"Let the soldiers retreat to the castle. I will hold the ice dragons off from here."

Since the barrier was broken, ordinary soldiers who were not elementalists would have a tough time fighting dragons.

Swiftly issuing orders to Milla Bassett who was in charge of commanding the west side, Rinslet then hurried over to Natalia who had collapsed on the ground.

"Princess... A thousand... apologies..."

"Natalia, you should go back inside the castle walls too."

"But&mdash;"

"Don't worry. I shall take care of defense here on my own."

Rinslet stood up and readied five arrows at the same time.

She shot them simultaneously. The freezing arrows struck down multiple ice dragons at the same time.

"Princess, when exactly did you acquire such power..."

Looking up, Natalia was staring wide-eyed.

As Team Scarlet's archer, having obtained victory throughout the harsh trials of the Blade Dance, Rinslet's current power level was enough to rival spirit knights on active duty.

Furthermore, this was the territory passed down generations of the Laurenfrost family, the place best suited to bringing out the full power of the local spirit Fenrir.

&mdash;But that was not all.

Currently, her body was also harboring another power that she had never possessed before.

(...What is this feeling&mdash;)

Opposite to the divine power flowing in her body, unknown divine power.

Every time she used the power of spirits, that power would gradually strengthen.

It was the power she had felt during the kiss with Kamito in the ice cave at the Kyria Mountain Range.

Her heart kept beating faster while her emotions heightened more and more.

"Go forth and blow, raging storm of ice&mdash;Icicle Storm!"

Using high-level spirit magic released through her elemental waffe, she blew away all of the ice dragons swarming towards the castle walls.

"Huff, huff, huff... Finally, I wiped out half of them..."

Rinslet kept panting. Despite striking down the majority of them, the numbers in the air were still increasing. The temporarily frozen ice dragons were also going to break out of the ice eventually.

"This castle cannot... fall yet."

Suddenly, the ice dragons' fierce assault stopped all at once.

"...Huh?"

Rinslet could not help but exclaim.

It was a very bizarre sight.

As many as hundreds of ice dragons&mdash;

...were facing the same direction, completely motionless in the air.

"...What... happened...?"

The ice dragons' gazes were directed towards Zirnitra that was flying through the sky.

ROOOOOOOAAAAAAR!

Zirnitra roared towards the sky.

The atmosphere shook as a result. Then the howling blizzard in the Forest of Ice Blossoms was instantly blown away.

In the next instant...

"&mdash;Princess, look!"

Natalia pointed at the sky and called out.

The ice dragons in the air surrounding the castle were all flying towards Zirnitra.

"..."

A strange silence arrived.

The soldiers in the castle were all exchanging glances with puzzled expressions on their faces.

"What on earth happened..."

Just as Rinslet was murmuring to herself, a sharp pain suddenly appeared on her left hand.

'&mdash;t... Rins... let...!'

"Iseria-sama!?"

'&mdash;Listen to me... I have... something, I must, tell you.'