Editing City Series:Volume5b Chapter17 (section)

===Heinz Berge’s Schreiben: Entry in Grösse Panzer Rot Löwe’s Memory Bank===

“The current Schreiben reaction speed is approximately x126.”

I have lost the right half of my vision.

My hearing has been entirely lost.

I estimate my left arm’s joint has been damaged. I cannot move it.

“The current time is 14:02:30.”

Four seconds have passed since the atmospheric explosion.

The battle continues. I am below the Arc de Triomphe. I can still see fire around me.

But the previous explosion extinguished most of it. The intense flames ignited by Flamme Bal’s Ober Emblem are gone, so the only fire remaining is that licking across the surface of the fuel flooding the plaza.

The heat is subsiding. A slight shimmering covers the surviving left side of my vision.

<The enemy is nowhere to be seen.>

I conclude they took some sort of action to perform the final strike.

The fire is gone and I can still move. And my right arm is functional. As long as I do not step too strongly with my legs, I can run too. I guess that Rot Löwe was able to resist the impact of that atmospheric explosion because it was designed to endure supersonic impacts.

Paris’s Panzer Kavaliers are skilled. That female one used the power of the Ober Emblem to change the flow of battle. Now Phillip Missel has done the same.

I conclude they did very well.

Something similar once happened to me.

There it is in my memories.

This is a memory I was never able to recall before.

Is this the result of the forced revival mentioned in the previous Geschäftlich Schrift? 

I lack the emotions to find this strange. This memory was revived because it is necessary. 25 years ago, I fought an Ober Emblem user I encountered in the Morvan Mountains of Bourgogne.

“The current Schreiben reaction speed is approximately x139.”

I compress my reaction speed so I can think while battling the enemy.

I recall that memory.

When I encountered Sourire in Bourgogne 25 years ago, it spread the wings of its Ober Emblem, wielded a spear, and slayed my men. The attack that destroyed my right arm was made with the spear that obliterated the Klein Panzer under my command. It was made while turning around and…yes, it was a powerful horizontal sweep of the spear, just like that female Panzer Kavalier tried to use against me at the end of that battle.

I understand.

I must have recalled this past attack back then. That is why I managed to dodge it and forcibly end that battle.

When that heavy spear strike hit me and sent me flying back 25 years ago, I let out a scream as the enemy rushed toward me.

I screamed.

For a Panzer Kavalier, that is a cry of critical failure because it means abandoning the Schreiben records.

I will not do that now.

But at the time, I was possessed by fear and abandoned the fight as quickly as I could manage.

I only survived because Sourire went berserk.

I have never fully activated an Ober Emblem, so the details of this are unknown to me.

Back then, Sourire raised its spear and prepared to pierce my Panzer, but that never happened.

Even more ether enveloped Sourire’s Ober Emblem.

The ether armor and skeletal structure surrounding Sourire’s body tried to transform into something other than Haute Ange.

That should have been impossible.

An Ober Emblem is carved into the Panzer’s armor, so it is immutable. Once activated, the different parts join together to create a specific shape and amplify the power output, but they cannot take a different form.

Yet Sourire definitely tried to change its Ober Emblem in that moment.

The wings rose toward heaven even more magnificently and the Panzer created by the Ober Emblem crumbled away. An Ober Emblem rearranges the Tons of the metal and oil creating the Panzer and transforms its structure into something else. The change begins from the surface and the ether gives the Panzer the very form of the Ober Emblem’s Message.

It fell apart before that transformation could be reversed.

While Sourire opened the mouth that had originally been its speech device and raised a bestial roar into the heavens, the wings on its back bent and retook the shape of the broken extra tanks in midair. Next, the right arm extended to nearly twice its original length before shattering and transforming back into the original components.

After that, I heard mechanical screams from the right arm, right chest, and neck.

A moment afterwards, I stood up and charged forward in something like a tackle. I sliced the enemy in two.

Which resulted in-

<nowiki><I</nowiki> see some faint light.

Out of the corner of my vision, I see something flying toward me from outside the Arc de Triomphe plaza.

The lights number 6 in all.>

The Verbesserung cuts off my thoughts and drags my mind back to reality.

The Grösse Panzers surrounding the plaza have fired on me.

I take that as a sign of the battle resuming.

“The current time is 14:02:33.”

In real time, 7 seconds have passed since the atmospheric explosion.

The enemy is trying to end this with their attacks.

<But Expert de Épée is nowhere to be seen in the plaza.>

The enemy has some kind of plan.

I start by confirming the incoming attacks. Based on the angle of fire, 4 of the 6 will hit the Arc de Triomphe’s exterior wall and one will pass below the arc. Only the last one will hit me, so I need only intercept that one.

I cannot raise my right arm in time.

And I cannot use a sonic boom.

Thus, I jab my heavy cleaver in that direction, piercing the bullet.

<The incoming bullets are all frozen arrows. My heavy cleaver can shatter those.>

I shatter it.

Ice cannot defeat the void.

My heavy cleaver even slices through the very phenomenon of freezing brought on by the freezing Ton.

<Ice smoke ruptures, covering my vision.>

It all happens in silence since my hearing devices are broken.

<At the same time, four of the frozen arrows strike the arc.

It is frozen white.

On a late-July summer afternoon, that famous stone structure is transformed into an icy gate with a visibly white chill rising from it.>

“The current time is 14:02:35.”

My metal skin feels the chill.

<My cooling device regains full functioning as if new life has been breathed into it.>

The enemy’s strategy makes no sense.

They were using fire to attack until now, so why the sudden change to ice? This attack actually helps me by letting my cooling system work again.

Thus, I conclude this is part of the enemy strategy.

I will be in danger if I cannot figure out why they would turn the Arc de Triomphe into ice.

I must search for the important points around me.

The enemy is not here.

The arc has been frozen.

And the enemy likely still has their Ober Emblem fully activated.

The 30-yard flame sword created by the fusion of Third Flame Emperor and the Ober Emblem is not exactly sharp, but it provides a powerful blow.

I think.

“The current time is 14:02:36.”

The Panzer Kavalier known as the strongest must not lose. I will not scream. My enemy, Phillip Missel, has fought this far while keeping his scream contained within.

He must not even be considering the possibility of screaming.

I think.

Will he scream when I achieve my victory here?

It will all come after the battle has been decided.

This enemy is top rate, so I cannot let my guard down.

I can predict the general strategy. The enemy is using the Arc de Triomphe as a wall to remain hidden from me. He has not left this plaza. He is not the kind of Panzer Kavalier who allows himself to run away.

Then what is he hoping to accomplish here?

“The current time is 14:02:38.”

It all comes down to the Ober Emblem’s attack power.

That 30-yard attack can easily smash the arc now that it is ice.

I guess the enemy plans to slice through me and the arc while it hides him. Gunfire is useless against me and close-range swordplay is meaningless, so he will use a wide-range attack from outside my field of vision.

But a question remains.

Will the enemy come from the right or left side of the arc?

There is only one answer. It is all the same as when I fought that black dragon.