Time slipped by, and before Aziz knew it, the exercise — now between the Republic’s First Aerial Division and Ark City’s own fliers — had resumed. Once again, hundreds of dim white lights emerged out of the floating city on the other side of the arena, before swarming forward in tens of smaller groups.

In response, the three battalions of the Republic broke up into their companies, creating a total of twelve discernible groups, before scattering. To his side, he could feel the others watch on with unease — with such elevated capabilities, no one in the building expected the Republic’s fliers to even eke out a draw.

Holding his breath, Aziz watched as the two sides made their first pass at each other. To his dismay, he could only see blue Shells in that first pass; blue was the colour of the Republic’s Shells for this exercise. If they lit up, it could only mean that they had been hit.

Other adjustments made to everyone’s Dynamos for the purpose of this exercise was the restricting of Dynamos to only a slow descent once their Shells received three hits. Once that happened, all other functions would lock up. The Shell around the eliminated flier would light up brilliantly, protecting the fellow as he or she dropped onto the ground below.

More than fifty such spheres had appeared in the first pass, and all of them were blue in colour.

“Avalanche Battalion, Beta Company, annihilated.”

Chatter filled the room immediately.

“And that was just the first pass, right?” Titania asked. “Imagine losing more than a hundred troops in the opening salvo. Even though we outnumber them two to one, we didn’t even land a single hit.”

“It’s due to the sheer speeds Ark City’s fliers are moving at,” said Aziz. “They’re at what, 410 now? They aren’t even bleeding off any speeds at the traditional weakpoints like turns.”

“The Republic’s defeated,” said Marie. “No suspense about it. Doctrine states that the only way to deal with overwhelming numerical disparities is to get up close, where the prospect of friendly fire will blunt our numerical edge. And given OPFOR’s insane speeds, they’ll be running circles around our troops for the next few minutes, while grinding away at any stragglers.”

A huge stream of fire tore the sky apart, but it was too off the mark to deal any damage. The scattered white lights broke up into even smaller groups, before plunging into the huge group of blue lights. Shells lit up by the hundreds, as OPFOR fliers slashed through the First Airborne.

“Avalanche Battalion, annihilated. Stardust Battalion, Alpha and Charlie Companies annihilated. Thunderbolt Battalion, Delta Company annihilated.” The officer manning the reading station paused for a moment. “Ark City’s 144th Squadron annihilated.”

“What a ruinous rate of exchange…” Aziz shook his head. Ark City’s airborne forces were grouped into really small squadrons, around twenty men strong. Taking out one squadron sounded nice on paper, since it was a really…unique word to Aziz, but if one looked at the numbers, it was obvious that the numbers were lopsided.

“Half the division’s blasted out, and we only got one squadron out of their entire wing. Twenty out of six hundred.” Oberon’s voice was rueful, which was a first to Aziz, who had spent the first few years in the military training under the hellish husband and wife duo. “At this point, it’s not even about ability anymore. It’s about the sheer technological gap.”

The scattered white lights surrounded the half-strength division, which was clustered together now. Whirling around the cluster of thick defences, the white lights shot off into individual, unpredictable orbits, laying down fire with sheer impunity.

Normally, scattering like this placed individual fliers in a perilous position; they couldn’t pool their defences together. However, with such insane speeds and unpredictable manoeuvring, were defences really needed? Aziz wasn’t sure if that was the case.

Grinding away at the thick wall of Palisades, the white lights dodged shot after shot. Occasionally, a few lucky hits would occur, but since three hits were required to actually trigger their Dynamo’s lock, nothing would happen. Before long, the Palisades began to flicker out…and that was when the casualties began to mount.

“At this point, I think we need to have new doctrines,” said Aziz. “We haven’t had a chance to go up against such overwhelming opponents until today, and I get a feeling that Ark City’s been hiding some of their greater developments. Had such a group appeared in the Second Extermination, I’m quite sure that more than eighty percent of the beastfolk would still be alive today.”

“This group’s the product of Ark City fighting off three successive years of demon invasions, not just their technological advantage,” said Marie. “They had so much actual combat that they’re whooping the elite forces of the Five Lands. It’s not something we could have done. Besides, they’re laying down deadly accurate fire while moving at such insane speeds. That’s only something that comes with years of experience.”

Aziz thought back to their own troops. “True. We move in companies because we cannot guarantee the accuracy of every hit and we want to pool our Palisades together, but they’re moving in squadrons of twenty soldiers. They’re relying on individual ability more than anything else.”

“And such ability can only be trained,” Oberon muttered. “Dear, do you know what I’m thinking?”

“That we also need to place some emphasis on individual skill?” Titania replied.

“Exactly.”

Their eyes turned to Aziz, who felt a small shiver run down his spine.

“Colonel,” said Oberon, “I’ve heard that you’re the best flier of the Republic. If not for Marshal Marie’s superior equipment, she would not be able to overcome you.”

“Therefore,” continued Titania, “we propose an addition to this exercise.”

“The inclusion of a personal spar between the officers of all nations taking part in this exercise.”

Aziz watched the last four blue spheres fall from the sky, overwhelmed by sheer numbers. If he didn’t get it wrong, that were the company commanders of Thunderbolt, who had put up a darn good struggle.

“That sounds great,” said Marie, “but I think we can limit it to a smaller scope. Just the trainers and commanding officers of all forces here. After all, getting our fatigued officers to move out once more is nothing short of cruelty. What do you think?”

Her eyes turned to Aziz, who could only nod in reply. Fortunately, he had spent some time training after Marie’s spiel of work-life balance, but…

Making the arrangements, the four swept out of the building. Gathering the others, the small group took to the skies, where their Ark City counterparts were already ready and waiting.

A whole host of unfamiliar faces greeted them as they neared the centre of the battlefield. Most of them looked young, very young. At first glance, Aziz marked most of them as around twenty to twenty-five years old, and more importantly, he couldn’t help but note that virtually all of them had the same rank as Marie, back at Ark City.

The one in the middle stepped out. “I’m Lieutenant Nalus, leader of 1st Squadron. I heard that you wanted a duel?”

Aziz looked around the people behind him, flummoxed. None of them seemed particularly interested in going against a kid like this, especially Titania and Oberon, who were sixty-plus years old.

He scratched his head and floated forwards by a few metres. “This might be a tad awkward for me to say after we arranged for this impromptu battle, but would you want to challenge our company commanders instead? They’re also Squires too. It’ll be an unfair battle if any of us were to battle you.”

After all, a Knight had substantial advantages over Squires. The small proto-Fief that Knights had meant that their reflexes, speed and strength were an order of magnitude greater than most Squires. Only outliers could pose a challenge to most Knights, and—

“Don’t worry,” said Nalus. The silver streak in his hair glinted dimly in the night. “I can defeat regular Knights.”

But none of us here are regular Knights by any sense of the word… Stewing over his sense of impropriety, Aziz floated back and nudged Marie for some help.

“What?”

“Do something,” Aziz whispered back. “We don’t want to break their confidence!”

“Well, get Colonel Cecilia to move, then. She’s the weakest of all us present,” Marie replied.

Cecilia had been the commander of Thunderbolt’s Beta Company, but she had been promoted repeatedly due to her outstanding performance. Marie had placed her as the commander of Avalanche shortly afterwards, and she had done an excellent job in greasing the training wheels.

“She’s still ten or so years older than this kid, though.” Aziz exhaled. “Forget it, I’ll just play around with Nalus first. You try to get Ark City’s wing commanders and trainers to come along.”

Stretching his limbs, he returned to his earlier position. “Let’s have a small bout first, Nalus. What say you?”

“Suits me.”

The others dispersed, while Aziz backed away by ten metres or so. Checking through his equipment, he nodded at Oberon, who immediately got the message and raised his hand.

“When I bring down my hand,” said Oberon, “the battle will start. Battle ends when either party’s Shell is destroyed.”

Aziz nodded. He’d accepted Minister Pauline’s offer to pick out a treasure from the Holy Temple’s vault, back during the Conference of the Four, but fate saw it fit to deprive him of an Engine. Granted, most Knights didn’t have Engines either, but it was a sore point whenever he saw Marie having fun with hers.

However, it would mean that the gap between him and the kid before him was narrowed, since he didn’t have an unfair advantage of an Engine.

“Three, two, one…begin.”

Shots flew as Aziz propelled himself forward, Straight Shot in hand. A small knife was fixed on its very end, pointed directly at Nalus, shaking as Aziz fired repeatedly. Bobbing and weaving through the small storm of fire Nalus was laying down, he closed in on the kid.

From the very start, Aziz had no intention of entering long-range combat with Nalus the moment he saw the kid’s weapon. The youthful commander had taken out an artefact that was far more elaborate than a Straight Shot; it could fire more than ten shots in a single second, and Aziz had a feeling that this was just the tip of the iceberg.

Sweeping the Straight Shot in his right hand at the kid, Aziz took out another Straight Shot, one that was modified to be a lot more portable than the first. Pulling the trigger rapidly, ten or so ripples appeared on Nalus’ Shell…but it didn’t break.

From the look in Nalus’ eyes, it was something not out of the norm. Alarm bells rang in his head, and Aziz blasted himself to the left with a forceful expulsion of qi. Tens of metal fragments shot through his previous position a heartbeat later, slicing through the air at speeds that would have broken his Shell if it hit.

Leveraging on the small opening Nalus’ failed counterattack had revealed, Aziz fired both Straight Shots at him. This time, Nalus didn’t seem to want to take it head-on, but Aziz wasn’t going to let him make a break for it. As his two artefacts ran dry of qi, he discarded them and charged forwards, closing the gap into melee range.

Drawing a small machete, Aziz hacked out at the Barrier — no Shell could have taken that many hits from a Straight Shot. His attack bounced off the transparent bubble around Nalus, but the shockwave of that mighty swing had shaken the kid somewhat. Doubling down on his offensive, Aziz took out a second machete and began to hack wildly at the Barrier, assaulting his target from all directions.

The silvery, Straight Shot-like artefact swung out as Aziz sought to make a grand cleave through Nalus’ barrier, and sparks flew as the two weapons met. For a moment, Aziz felt weightlessness grab hold of him, before his vision flew wildly, as an incredible strength coursed through Nalus’ weapon to send him reeling.

He could taste a sickly-sweet liquid in his mouth. Whatever that had just happened was probably an Ability from Nalus’ Engine — there was no way he was using a Dynamo like he was.

It took him less than a second for him to stabilise, but a storm of fire was already heading in his direction. His machetes danced wildly, crushing projectile after projectile. For a moment, Aziz thought that he could weather the incoming storm of fire by slicing through them with a Knight’s speed, but he forgot to account for one thing.

Even if the body didn’t break, his equipment could. A wry smile appeared on his face as the two machetes started to chip.

His weapons, along with his Shell, shattered a few seconds later.