"The Kingdom is under attack!!!!"
"Stop screaming over the small stuff, if it's an emergency, we will sort it. Take a seat and have some cake, I'll handle the rest." Aster shrugged.
"No, you are coming with me~" Julius popped in and grabbed Aster and vanished, leaving the rest too shocked for words.
Asta who saw the smoke and chaos in the capital rushed out to fight and Leopold followed right after, Fuegoleon sighed at this and started formulating the plan of action while the mage from the Golden Dawn made a realm replica of the capital to display the exact happenings outside.
The plan of action was made and the Maic Knights jumped in action as they rushed to face the dead that walked the capital. The five spots that were under attack were distributed between the groups and they started culling the zombies on sight.
The people were saved and the zombies were going down faster than they rose.
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"Hey! That's weird even if it came from you Julius, why did you bring me here to a place I have no idea where it is..." Aster asked the blond man.
"Because we are here to take care of the roots of the issue this time around." Julius smiled, but there was a serious look in his eye.
"I brought you here because of this mural, as a fellow connoisseur of rare and magical things, I hoped you could help me decipher something from this," Julius spoke as he pointed to a slab in the middle of the room with ten slots, of which three were filled.
Aster took a closer look despite knowing very well what it was and what it did, "well, this is written in elvish, the language of the elves. The interesting part of this are the stones, they each have a slot to fill in this intricate and complex magical circuit."
"Good, can you decipher what it does?" asked the excited Julius.
"Calm down Julius, do I look like an elf or something? But there is something you must know, that race was loved by mana and the history is written by the victors. Now, give me some peace and quiet while I try and figure out the runic clusters." Aster spoke with mock-seriousness which earned him the peace he needed to study the slab.
Even if he knew what the slab does, he did not know how did it work and since he was here, why not figure that out.
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Meanwhile, in the capital...
The Magic Knights gathered at the five spots that were under attack and were sent off to who knows where on a grassland, while the witch called Catherine started terrorizing the people and devouring their vitality.
Yuno came to the rescue and fought her tooth and nail, even managing to awaken the wind spirit from her slumber to deal the deciding blow, but the witch crashes near Charmy who was having a great main course cooked by the royal chefs.
"Give me, give it to me..." the witch growled and Charmy who was fiercely protective of her food refused, her refusal being met with a refusal from the witch, she punched the witch with her cotton magic that had the form of a sheep. <anime logic>
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Fuegoleon who was caught off-guard by the spatial magic fell into the enemy's trap and suffered the loss of his limb and was on the brink of death with his wound losing blood rapidly, edging him ever closer to death.
Upon seeing his brother's critical condition, Leopold loses his guard and lets Rades, who has been released from Fuegoleon's restraints, ambush him. While Noelle tries to prevent Fuegoleon from dying from blood loss, Valtos and Rades try to leave as they have completed their mission.
To their dismay, Asta prevents Valtos from transporting his teammate as the former beat Rades with his fists. However, reinforcements arrive for the two rogue mages, which leads Asta to shift his attention toward them.
Asta and Leopold begin to rampage over the five rogue mages, who came to assist Valtos and Rades. Unfortunately, the Knights are unable to defeat any of them and Noelle is also unable to protect Asta and Leopold with her spell as one of the mages critically wounds them.
However, before the rogue mages are able to kill Leopold and Asta, the Knights who had been transported away by Valtos, return. The rogue mages identify themselves as members of the Eye of the Midnight Sun and immediately escape through Valtos' spell with one of the mages taking Asta with them as they leave.
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Back in the hideout of the Eye of the Midnight Sun...
Aster was still busy decrypting the runes and Julius listened to his conjectures while chipping in his two cents. Sensing the arrival of the people who owned the place Aster and Julius share a look and nod.
"Welcome back folks, we have been waiting for you guys, right Julius?" Aster chuckled.
"That's true though, but let's do the niceties first. So, how did you like the capital?" Asked the Wizard King in all his seriousness.
Asta who was awake by the time was shocked to see Aster and the Wizard King together in the enemy's base. The hooded mages had their grimoires open to attack them but Aster simply tapped his foot on the ground and the mages were frozen up to their necks, completely subdued.
"You want to be the Wizard King, right? Then look closely, this is nothing but a fraction of what you have to surpass." Julius spoke as he looked at Asta.
"Can you stand?" asked the wizard king as he extended his hand, but Asta on the other hand is unwilling to accept it and got up on his own to show his determination and perseverance.
"So, you guys start chatting, what is this interesting-looking slab and what does it do and where did you learn elvish? Even I nor Julius have never seen a book regarding that to date and you rag-tag bunch have something like this in your hands, start chatting or I will reduce the temperature." Aster spoke as he spared the bunch a cursory glance.
But before any of that could happen, a bright flash of light appeared and vanished with the captives and the slab before they could do something about it.
"Shit, I could not read the coordinates. Damn, that was definitely light magic, where is Ryu when you need him... that sleazy bastard never got into touch... ahem... Well, I still have one captive, let's go back to the capital, we can take our sweet time interrogating him." Aster sighed.
The three returned back to the capital with the captive in tow and shocked the others with their sudden arrival. Julius handled the scene like a pro and Nozel on the other hand swore revenge on the person behind the assassination attempt of Fuegoleon.
The Magic Knights swore to get stronger and Leopold took the family oath, to be the next Wizard King and declared that he will become the strongest, and surpass his brother.
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Back in the HQ of the Black Bulls.
Magna and Luck returned from their mission and were peppy about getting the spotlight once again, but Asta revealed that he was promoted to a Third Class Junior Magic Knight, of which Magna had no idea whatsoever what that was...
"You guys have been in the Magic Knights without even knowing that... it's a rank among the structural chain of superiority in the Magic Knight Corps. There are the Junior, Intermediate, Senior, and Grand Magic Knight ranks and each rank has five divisions from the fifth to first class."
"Going with that, you better start treating Asta as your superior..." Yami took a deep drag from his ciggarette.
Charmy who had been promoted to Junior Magic Knight First Class, made them bow to her and seeing that Yami chuckled and revealed that Aster was a Third Class Senior magic Knight, which made all of them bow before Aster who chuckled at the comic sight before him.
Yami declared a vacation for Asta who wanted to train despite his injuries and Finral decided to drag him to a mixer.
"I'll pass, I have a slab to decrypt," Aster said, making a replica of the slab he found in the base of the Eye of the Midnight Sun.
Noelle who saw this once again ascertained that Aster already had someone he liked.
A/N: The normal chappie of the day and I will get you the bonus for getting me past 1200 tonight and for the review bonus, it will be tomorrow.
Keep feeding my addiction and I will keep pumping chapters ~
Stones~~~~~~