The players from the Arpen army smashed into the Haven shield wall like a tide. Although they didn’t actually inflict much damage, it was a huge psychological blow to many of the Hermes characters. However, their past war experiences has allowed them to cool down and calmly deal with the sudden appearance of Hess Tiger. They quickly ordered their mages to saturate the areas in front of the shield wall with spells like an AoE poison spell which fills the area with toxic fumes, killing off most of the Arpen beginner players. Weakened, the Arpen players were not able to break through the shield wall and reach the ranged units in the back (there was a short scene about a young girl urging her siblings to fight on. Apparently, it’s clear in her mind that Arpen=good and Haven=bad lol). Upon seeing their shield wall holding up, the Haven commanders sigh in relief, commenting on how the shield wall+ranged unit formation was extremely effective.
Pale and his group are teleported to the castle and Surka immediately dives off the cliff to the clashing armies. Romuna teleports (or is teleported) to a good position for casting fire magic (something about having a good wind direction and a clear line of sight to the enemies), Irene heads to the back to casts blessings and heals, Bel and Hwaryeongun perform near the palace, and Pale begins shooting. Weed’s sister and Zephyr remains, and Violations asks why Zephyr hasn’t gone to fight yet. Zephyr, being the playboy he is, replies that although the battle is important, he thinks she is even more important. As such, he will stay with her to protect her (it mentions something about “greasy talking” haha). Weed’s sister shakes her head and says something (something about her grandmother telling her about what a man should/shouldn’t do to/for a woman? Idk), and then walks towards the battlefield, with Zephyr following her.
Scene changes to the floating island where a lot of the Avian race has gathered. They are annoyed and irritated at the fact that they are prohibited from fighting. One of the players (?), an Eagle avian, complains to the Golden Bird and asks why they can’t fight. There are many other similar questions thrown about but the Golden Bird simply ignores all of them. We learn a little bit about how the new players create Avian characters. Apparently, they can select the egg that they want to be born from, which decides what type of Avian they are. The variety and choices of eggs depend on the Avian race themselves (I may be completely wrong about this). For example, if more sparrow-Avians lay eggs, then more people are allowed to choose the sparrow race. There is also a mention of a Thunderbird race here. The complaints gradually grow louder, with the Avian branch of the Porridge cult having the loudest complaints (?), when suddenly Weed appears, stunning all of the players to silence. The Golden Bird flies to his right shoulder while Eunsae/Esuna sits on his left. Weed gives a speech about the humble origins of Arpen, describes the battle going on, the tax hikes that would happen if the Arpen kingdom loses, and asks if the Avian race could help with Arpen’s plight (during this/slightly before his speech, the Avians were going wild. One person even wanted Weed to sign his/her wing). The novel compares Weed’s speech to the speeches of politicians during the elections (basically, the audience would accept and follow whatever the politicians say). Weed ends his speech and there was a short silence, where he was wondering if they had seen through his speech. However, the Avian race immediately burst into applause, pledging that they would follow Weed and began taking off in a humongous flock.
The Avians reach the battle and start trying to divebomb the ranged units of the Haven army. They are met by a large wall of arrows and ice magic, and they start falling out of the sky. Hess Tiger then jumps down from the palace, summoning a Pegasus (because he’s a “friend of the forest”) and rushes towards the Haven army. He is immediately noticed because all of the blessings that the gods have bestowed upon him has literally given him a shining halo and the Haven commanders order all ranged units to concentrate fire on Hess. Deuraka asks on the guild chat about the abilities of Hess Tiger, but he was told that the information department didn’t bother investigating Hess (seeing as they thought there would be no possibility of that information being useful). Thousands of spells fly at Hess Tiger, the most noticeable being spears of ice more than 30 meters long, and a Hermes wizard remarks how there’s no way the Pegasus can dodge in time. Hess pulls out his scimitar, uses a skill which envelops the sword in high temperature flames (google trans: “Deterioration of the Blade”) and swings it at the ice spears. There is a large amount of steam and ice fragments, and the Hermes wizards confidently declares that it’s over. However, he is shocked when he suddenly receives a message about how the backlash from the destruction of the ice spears has reduced his mana to only 32.8% and causes a 14% reduction in his wisdom stat. Watched by the shocked Haven army, Hess shouts at the Arpen army to continue their attack.