Editing City Series:Volume6e Chapter8 (section)

===Part 5===

Hazel saw the wall of cloud growing in front of her eyes.

She should have seen the lights of Hamburg up ahead, but they were hidden by the thick clouds.

She kept her eyes on the path ahead and sang while flying above the forest and above the river flowing between the trees.

<Follow the path to a familiar face / while walking side by side>

“Are you doing alright, Berger?”

<Your hand and voice might reach them>

“I’m fine. More importantly, we’re about to enter its territory.”

<But the moon sees it not>

The enemy made its move without warning. A giant shape burst through the clouds up ahead and flew toward them.

The great shadow dragon was more than a mile long and vaguely resembled Sylphide.

“Erlkönig!? But we can’t afford to lose any time here!”

<The Elf King refuses the Messiah’s approach.>

The dragon with a white streak on its black body accelerated until their relative speeds erased the distance between them.

In the instant before they collided, a long shape passed by above their heads.

…''Eh?

<The gatherers begin their party>

Hazel looked up to see a familiar dragon. The great water dragon was transparent with its outlines shining bluish-white in the moonlight. A harp note rang from atop the dragon and a woman’s voice joined it.

“I have come to fulfill my promise, Messiah. With my assistance, you can break down the wall and reach your destination.”

The giant water dragon charged ahead.

It opened its maw wide and bit down at the shadow dragon, instantly crushing it with its water pressure.

“Allow me to demonstrate the power of Geheimnis Agency Navy Division Chief ‘Wasser Meister’ Lillie Telmetz.”

With the sound of breaking metal, the shadow dragon’s Lives broke down.

The water dragon flew on ahead, its body scattering shadow Lives for the wind dragon to consume.

<A wall separates the pair>

“Messiah, hurry past those clouds,” said Lillie, pointing forward.

But more shadow dragons burst from the clouds ahead. These were what the remaining 6 Erlkönigs had become.

Lillie strummed Mondnacht’s strings and several water dragons flew up from the river below. Suddenly, two beams of light shot from the forest.

Those were Drache Kanone.

A giant Grösse Panzer was racing down the mountain road through the forest.

Karl Schmitt shot a barrage into the sky with Jeanne on his shoulder.

The Drache Kanone light pierced the Erlkönig dragons and Jeanne raised her voice.

“Finally joined the rest of us, have you, Lillie!?”

<As they follow the same path with the same words>

A new voice came from below.

“Then this must be our post. We must ensure the Messiah can reach Heiliger.”

A two-hull ship was approaching the cloud wall down and to the left.

The voice coming from it was Müller’s.

The fighters following the two-hull ship intercepted the dragons and the two-hull ship launched a Drache Kanone while moving on ahead.

Two of the Erlkönigs turned toward the two-hull ship. They soared upwards before creating a roaring wind and circling back down.

The two of them dodged the weapons fire from below and drew out a fearsome arc to charge toward its deck from either side.

But Hazel saw familiar people on the deck.

The short old man in a white coat on the right deck was Elrich. The tall, bald old man in a three-piece suit on the left deck was Witzmann. They both held weapons.

The one in a white coat had a headphone in his ear and wrapped some kind of cloth around his hand.

“The beast doesn’t seem to understand that a Panzer Emblem is a mass of ether,” he said before reciting his Text and racing toward the incoming fang.

His raised right hand produced a sound like shattering glass and shined bright.

The afterimage of its shining light drew out his fist’s path as the space around him shattered.

He approached and then struck.

“It doesn’t spread as well as fire!”

When his blow caught the fang, the fang of ether shattered.

The Erlkönig dragon’s yellow eyes widened at the suddenness of it. A wire attached to the cloth wrapped around Elrich’s fist connected to the music player in his pocket.

“A beast that does not fear power deserves destruction.”

The second destruction-spreading punch struck the dragon in the cheek.

That single attack caused the shadow dragon’s entire body to explode.

With a glance over at that, Witzmann readied his pen and notepad on the other side of the deck. He showed no concern about the rapidly approaching dragon, sent his pen racing across notepad, and then nodded.

“I’m better at this than Bermark, you know? I just rarely do it because it’s so exhausting.”

He tore off the notepad’s top sheet and held it out toward the dragon.

The soaring dragon’s eyes saw what was written on the paper.

Emblems were drawn on all four corners of the white paper and an intricate pen drawing of a dragon with mouth wide adorned the center.

“Lifelike, isn’t it?”

Witzmann smiled and tore the paper down the center.

The dragon in front of him was torn in two with the sound of tearing paper.

Before it could even scream, he folded the paper and tore it a second, third, fourth, and fifth time.

After seeing the dragon scatter through the sky in 32 pieces, he put his hands on his hip and laughed.

“Messiah! Go deal with Heiliger He can get so sentimental!”

“Since when did you care so much for your superior officer?” asked Hazel, sounding amused.

She looked up into the sky where Lillie was smiling with the moon at her back.

Hazel smiled too. She squeezed Rein König and Sylphide overtook Lillie.

She glanced down at her watch to see the minute’s hand was at 32.

…''Another 80 miles to Germania!

When she faced forward again, she saw a tower in front of the cloud wall.

An aerial ship with an extra-long cannon barrel had crashed into a crater-like lake in the forest.

Suddenly, the surface of the lake rippled and several water dragons formed. The transparent dragons bathed in the moonlight and used their great strength to smash the black aerial warship and throw its pieces into the sky.

Sylphide charged in.

Its transformation was instantaneous. The wind dragon swallowed the entire Gard-class aerial warship and grew to nearly a mile long while a single long horn grew from its forehead.

It let loose a long, high-pitched bestial roar and broke through the cloud wall.