The thought of simply descending straight into the army’s formation and crushing them with sheer strength crossed Henry’s mind. He even almost acted upon that impulsive thought but he held himself back. He was here for reconnaissance. He had next to zero clue as to what the enemy is capable of. He remained above the clouds as he spied on the army.

  The war machines were truly the highlights. Without those tools, the army looked petty and weak. No doubt their strength came from those war machines. Even from where he was, Henry could sense the spells cast on the war machines. He had no idea what the spells were for but it could only be one of two reasons or both. The spells were either there to strengthen the war machines’ firepower or make them more durable, or both.

  The soldiers themselves numbered around ten thousand and more, Henry made a quick count. If all the four tribes of Ulrum banded together, they could overwhelm the army, but that was not taking the war machines into account.

  Henry expanded his field of surveilnce. The army was still marching across the pins and ftnds. They were still hours away from the hills. No matter how Henry looked at it, there was no way for the army to ascend the hills with their heavy and bulky war machines. They couldn’t have not seen the hills waiting in front of them and yet, they marched on. This could only mean that they had a method to ensure their war machines could cross the hills.

  “This isn’t good,” Henry mused to himself as he continued with his reconnaissance.

  In the middle of the army formation, there was a tent and it was moving. Upon a closer inspection, Henry realised the tent was hoisted upon a spider-like golem machine. The tent looked out of pce. Henry had no doubts that the tent was where the commanding officer and other executives would be. The fact the centre of command was so gring and overt made it all too good to be true. A single firebolt would be enough to set the whole thing on fire and probably burn all the executives along with it.

  Henry snorted at that thought. “As if it would be that easy.”

  The soldiers surrounding the tent and the spider golem were no ordinary soldiers. They were Syers and there were hundreds of them. Oddly enough, there were no Syers elsewhere in the entire army except around the tent. Henry didn’t know what to make of this. He had no experience in warfare in the backlines, only the frontlines. Therefore, he wasn’t sure if hoarding all of one’s power in one spot was a good idea. A single Inferno Breath would take care of those Syers for good, providing there were no defensive mechanisms in pce.

  Henry could sense Murux on the war machines but there was none on the tent or the spider golem. It was either careless neglect or the spells cast on the tent were perfectly concealed to the point that even Henry couldn’t detect. The tter reason was not unsound but looking at how conspicuous the tent was, Henry was leaning more to the former reason.

  “Isn’t this a wonderful opportunity?” Henry wondered.

  A single Inferno Breath would send the whole army into chaos if that was truly the command centre and it was truly unprotected by spells. It was incredibly tempting to put that thought into motion. It would save Ulrum from a devastating war. However, if he was wrong, he could expose himself for nothing and the army would be more prepared and alert than ever.

  “...Would it truly be for nothing if I was wrong?”

  It was a foolish thing to do. It was a risk, a gamble, one that would cost all the advantage they had against the army. The fact that not once did the army take extreme measures in watching over the sky simply showed that they were in the dark about Henry’s existence or at the very least, what he was capable of. Ulrum would be at a disadvantage by losing the element of surprise.

  Be that as it might… Henry still couldn’t refrain from seizing this opportunity. On the off-chance that he was right, the war would essentially be over and his women would be safe. In the end, it was all about his women. If it came to a war, they would certainly participate in battles. It was inevitable but if he couldn’t prevent it, he hoped to stall it. Besides, the real war was still on the horizon. Ulrum couldn’t afford to waste time and effort on this prelude.

  With those points in mind, Henry made his decision.

  The army will burn, right here and now.

  Gathering up his breath and heat until his throat was bulging, he then unleashed a bzing storm upon the army. As the sun was behind him, his colossal fiery projectile looked no different than the sun… but that was until the sun seemingly grew too big and close for comfort. Only then did the soldiers realise that it was no sun. By then, it was all too te. The vortex of fmes crashed down into the tent, swallowing the Syers that surrounded it.

  Whatever the spider golem was using as its fuel to make it move, it appeared to be dangerously compatible with fire as the spider golem exploded like a mini-nuke. The fmes and shockwave spread out to the vicinity. The mages tried their best to cast spells but what the spells were, Henry would never know as the mages were swallowed by the fmes and shockwave. With just that single breath, more than half of the army was decimated and around a quarter of the war machines were destroyed in the inferno.

  A mushroom cloud sprouted from where the spider golem had been.

  Henry watched the entire chaos unfold beneath him. He couldn’t help but let out a whistle of awe. “Holy shit… I am dangerous.” The words contained a bit of self-reverence and a whole lot of fear, the fear of what kind of person he would become. With such power, anyone would easily get drunk on it and Henry didn’t think he was an exception.

  The soldiers erupted into cries and screams of terror. Though they possessed advanced machinery for their time, their battle garments were nothing to write home about. It did little to protect them from sudden fiery assault from the sky. If anything, their armour only made them more susceptible to the fmes and extreme heat.

  There were more than two kilometres of distance between Henry and the army but even so, the soldier’s death throes and agonising wails were all too clear to Henry. From where he was, the soldiers were akin to ants. The sight reminded Henry of a distant memory when he was still a human, a child. He remembered witnessing the neighbouring kids pouring molten steel into an ant colony underground. He couldn’t remember when they got their hands on molten steel but that piece of memory became vivid at this very moment.

  While Henry was reminiscing about his past, the air around him suddenly began to shimmer. Henry didn’t know what they were but he was certain that it couldn’t be anything good or harmless. He rolled out of the shimmers, only to find himself in the same situation again. He beat his wings hard and propelled him forward, but the shimmers followed him.

  Then, something struck him from below. It felt solid and hard but only for a while. He gnced down and saw a bunch of mages standing in formation and aiming their staffs at the sky.

  “Damn it… Should have gotten rid of the mages first and quickly.”

  Now that he was exposed, this was the end of his reconnaissance.

  Henry cursed at his hubris, but there was no use reprimanding himself now. He tried his damndest to dodge the barrage of spell projectiles while also dodging the shimmers that he had no idea what they were. The spell projectiles barely hurt him but they were enough to slow him if they hit. If he was slowed, he would be surrounded by the shimmers. Eventually, that premonition became a reality.

  A part of his tail failed to escape the shimmers as they shone intensely. Then, Henry felt as if something caught his tail and pulled on it with all the might in the world. Fortunately, the power of his wings far exceeded the unseen force that was dragging him down. However, this momentary drag was enough for the shimmers to catch up to Henry.

  “Oh… shit.”

  Henry wondered if this was what his victims felt when he cast Gravity on them. Pulled by an unseen force, Henry was forcefully dragged to the ground from high above the clouds. He tried to fight it but the force came not just from below but also above, as if something was pressing him down from above and something was pulling him down from below.

  So far, there was barely anything in this world that his skin wasn’t impervious to. The things that could make him bleed could be counted on one hand, though gravity was still an undetermined factor and he didn’t want to ascertain it. Henry estimated he must have weighed a few tonnes and falling at such a height with such a weight— no matter how one sliced it— the outcome was terrible.

  As a st act of desperation, Henry took on a smaller form but he was still being dragged down. He then assumed his human form. The force was still there but it was lighter. He could at least move his limbs, but he was still plunging downwards at a speed that exceeded the terminal velocity.

  Henry waited until he was a few tens of metres away from the ground before assuming his true form. The sudden change of weight disperse his falling momentum but not all of them. Still, it was enough to not turn him into a mush at the point of collision. His fall created a storm of dust and sand, clouding the area.

  Using this chance, Henry returned to his human form. Now that he was on the ground, he no longer felt anything pulling or pushing him down. Whatever the shimmering spell was, Henry guessed that it was used for grounding aerial targets. A good strategy but only against usual aerial enemies. Henry might be less effective on the ground than he was in the air, but to the human soldiers, that difference was insignificant.

  Henry dashed towards the mages, taking advantage of the dust and smoke. He could smell the mages’ confusion. Even if they couldn’t see him through the smoke, they could still see his silhouette, but they were looking for a silhouette as rge as a building.

  Henry reached the two mages closest to him. They were both women and they were quite young, but that didn’t matter to him. This was war and the side that hesitates will surely lose. Henry muttered a brief apology as he swiped his cws across the two mages’ necks. Before their lifeless bodies had even hit the ground, Henry moved on to his next targets. He intended to kill as many of them as possible before the smoke and dust cleared.

  Henry found a mage on the ground, cowering underneath a tree that had lost all of its leaves. Four soldiers surrounded the mage, protecting him.

  “Mages are valuable, huh…” Henry observed.

  He leapt into the air and nded on the tree without alerting the soldiers. He could have killed them with his spells but that would also give away his position, so he opted for close-quarter kills. He descended on the mage, turning him into a spt. Before the soldiers could react, he lopped their heads off with a swing of his tail.

  Just as Henry was about to move on to his next victim, a strong gust of wind appeared out of nowhere and cleared the area of all the smoke and dust.

  “There!!” someone shouted with great vehemence.

  “Oh fucking great,” Henry cursed.