Melusine swiftly summoned her armor, and at the same time, the treasured sword in her hand leapt from its sheath, pointing straight at the distant sky. Although Aslan's attention had been mostly on the various swords brought by the attendees of this gathering, that didn't mean he had completely ignored Melusine.
Her sudden action gave Aslan quite a fright. Because he had been in such a good mood, his heart skipped a few beats, and his thoughts wandered even further off track than usual. The moment Melusine drew her sword, he almost thought he was about to meet the fate of some scumbag from a school drama.
But upon closer inspection, he realized that his dragon's attention wasn't on him at all. Then what was it that had drawn her focus—and even prompted such an aggressive posture?
Aslan lowered the sword in his hand and cast his gaze toward the distant horizon as well. There—was that a black speck?
Birds? No, didn't seem like it. A faint but growing sense of pressure was beginning to spread from the edge of the sky. Some hunters, whose senses had been honed through years of tracking prey, had already vaguely made out what was coming, and their faces twisted in fear.
"Dragons! There are dragons! A whole swarm of them!!"
Their cries immediately drew the attention of those nearby. And once people clearly saw what was converging toward them, chaos began to spread rapidly through the crowd.
What had been a festive gathering instantly turned into a chaotic market square. Even the surrounding soldiers found it impossible to maintain order.
Although it was still the twilight of the Age of Gods, and bipedal wyverns weren't exactly unheard of in the wilds, this was the first time such a large number of dragonkind had gathered to launch a direct assault on a human settlement.
Some knights, swords in hand, instead chose to charge to the front lines.
At this point, turning and running wouldn't help any individual knight survive against so many dragons. On the contrary, fighting alongside their fellow knights gave them a better chance—at least they could entrust their backs to one another. After all, those who had been invited to this gathering weren't vagabonds or wandering mercenaries.
If luck was on their side and they managed to defeat so many wyverns, perhaps those on the front lines might even gain the favor of a noble lord and rise to glory.
Meanwhile, Morgan, who was seated within the great hall, chose to ignore the unfolding chaos. Whatever happened, she could always teleport away with magic. In fact, this was the perfect opportunity to see how the bloodline of King Uther would perform. From what she'd observed so far, all she could tell was that the boy did seem to like weapons and armor—and had a surprisingly good rapport with fae folk...
Now, with this wyvern attack, she could finally see what kind of combat ability this boy possessed.
Still, there was a question lingering in Morgan's heart: the boy wasn't holding the Golden Sword of Assured Victory. Could he really be the prophesied King Arthur?
"Rooooaaarrr!!"
One wyvern after another dove from the skies, prioritizing those wielding swords. After all, something had attracted them here—and to these dragons, swords were treasure. As for the humans holding them, they were just food.
Weaker knights were knocked to the ground by the wyverns' divebombing strikes. Sharp claws would seize their swords, and then gaping maws would tear them apart, blood spraying in all directions—reduced to nothing more than meat for the flying beasts.
As the scent of blood thickened in the air, more wyverns—drawn initially by some mysterious lure—began to lose all sense of reason. Driven by the frenzy of bloodlust, one could almost imagine a thought echoing through their minds: Well, since we're already here, why not stay for dinner? It's not like we monsters need to be polite.
"Melusine, it seems your kin aren't particularly friendly."
Aslan pulled out his forging hammer, then picked up a knight's sword from the ground—decent quality, but nothing special. He took a deep breath. With a sharp clang, he brought the forging hammer down on the blade, and the sound of metal striking metal rang out crisp and clear, drawing everyone's attention.
With every strike Aslan landed on the sword, a rune in the language of the fae was etched into its surface. As the runes were inscribed one by one, the sword began to glow with a brilliant radiance. Although the base quality of the blade couldn't actually withstand the power of so many fae runes...
Aslan had no intention of using it long-term anyway—so long as it could get him through this fight, that was enough.
One wyvern spotted Aslan and dove toward him—but before it could even get close, a slash of brilliant blue light cut down from the sky. The charging wyvern was cleaved clean in two.
Melusine landed lightly on the ground.
With her speed, there was no way her attack could be followed by ordinary eyes. "I don't consider those low-level wyverns the same kind of being as me. I mean, clearly my dragon form is way more elegant than those things!"
As she spoke, she turned to glance at a wyvern that had tried to sneak up on her. Her golden eyes radiated an unspeakable pressure. That wyvern trembled mid-air, performing an emergency stop—and naturally, this abrupt halt caused a chain reaction among the swarm.
One by one, the wyverns crashed into each other, limbs tangled into a mess. Melusine turned around and kicked the mass of tangled beasts, sending them flying. They smashed into the ground far away, and even from that distance, the sound of bones shattering was clearly audible.
"It's done! Let's test my theory out on these wyverns!"
Aslan lifted the sword in his hand, now shining with dazzling brilliance. With a twist of his wrist, the blade began to transform—fusing sword and gun, becoming a hybrid weapon that could, at the very least, channel the user's magical energy as ammunition.
Although Aslan had plenty of magical power, he didn't know how to use magic itself. A weapon like this could help him avoid wasting his potential. And once he learned proper spellcasting, he could start engraving magical circuits onto these weapons.
Perhaps then, he could even create something like a mana annihilation cannon—or replicate great spells like [Grand Order/Chaldea Security Organization]. Of course, achieving that level of power would require an extensive mastery of magical theory.