*Starting Scene*

Not even a few minutes passed since the brief conversation between King Trost and Yuki as the continuous snowfall in Icela has picked up quite a bit. This makes it difficult for the small number of guys guarding the castle's wall to see through the barrier while most of them remain in the artillery towers. Even with that fact, the men don't fret too much about the lack of visibility if anyone were on their way due to having total confidence in the barrier's ability to keep out unwelcome visitors. Unfortunately, that would turn out to be a huge mistake on the guards' part as a vast horde of rugged characters from different nationalities, dressed in rough, brown attair, advance towards the castle after managing to ascend the immense mountain without showing any discomfort from the severe cold that the weather's producing while led by three distinctive individuals.

Out of the three leaders, one is of dark complexion as he's the tallest and most muscular of the trio while quite slim with moderately buzzed, dirty blonde hair. In addition, he carries a machete strapped to his lower back in a horizontal angle, wears a similar apparel to the large sums of people behind him while there's a minuscule fire emblem stationed at the left pectoral region of the brown-eyed male's shirt. For the other two guys, they're both light-skinned with one wielding an Asian resemblance thanks to his narrow, dark brown eyes and thick, straight, bronze-colored hair that fully blocks his forehead as he has on a black yukata with a bright yellow outline. Simultaneously, the third figure, who contains velvet eyes that perfectly matches his pompadour hair, is dressed in a velvet/black jumpsuit with black boots like the two companions beside him have on.

The pompadoured character's the first one to speak while journeying next to the Asian-styled man's left and remarks without diverting his gaze from the castle, "We sure are lucky that the weather kicked-up. I was fading in and out on what we were gonna' do once we got here."

Before the Asian could utter a rebuttal, the dark-skinned fellow cuts in with a narcissistic tone during him walking to the yukata-endowed person's right and setting his sights onto the male who recently talked, "What a stupid thing to say! There's only one thing TO DO!" He lifts his right hand to his face prior to quickly closing it into a fist and gives his companion a confident smile. "Break right in and frag anything that moves!" The tall individual shifts his attention to the men poised rearward. "Right, you guys?!"

The group promptly let out a supportive roar, throwing their fists skyward.

A dull behavior appears on the velvet-eyed guy as he temporarily stares at the blonde and then asks after a few seconds of silently walking, "Are you some kind of idiot, Bel?"

Bel retorts with an annoyed scowl rapidly surfacing. "Go fuck yourself, Quinton!"

The multiple men traveling behind the trio couldn't help but mildly laugh at the brief argument.

At the same time, the Asian heavily sighs out of frustration with his head hanging and eyes shut. After that, the bronze-haired man hastily pulls his head to gaze onward until peering at the foggy sky with a fierce expression and unexpectedly detains his walking.

That instantly forces all of the guys following to cease their advancement while Bel and Quinton are the only ones who don't, giving their comrade a confused look before both of them collide into the invisible barrier. A second later, the pair fall onto their ass and generate a disgruntled groan.

Bel soon yells with both hands over his nose, compliments of him receiving the full brunt of the impact there. "God, damn it!"

In Quinton's case, he harshly shakes his head in the odd attempt to regain his bearings prior to snapping his head up as he planted both hands onto his now crossed legs with a light bruise marking his right cheek. "What the devil was that?!"

The yukata-wearing adult replies with minimal emotion, wielding his focus toward the blotted sky, and detects that the snow falling above the castle is incapable of entering after a certain point. "There's a barrier."

Everyone directs their concentration to the Asian while profoundly bewildered.

Not even a second after that, Bel reverts his eyesight to the castle with a lot of aggravation displayed. "What's up with that?! Nobody said anything about a barrier!"

Quinton quickly gets to his feet as he shifts his focus to the dark-eyed person as he's very mad. "Hey, Clock! You knew that was there and you let us run right into it, didn't you?!"

Clock scoffs out of minor annoyance. "As if I would take any enjoyment in you two morons hurting yourselves. I just noticed it myself. Had the both of you been paying attention, instead of fighting among yourselves, you wouldn't have hit it like the idiots that you are."

Quinton clenches his right hand while raising it forth. "Huh?! Try saying that again, you narrowed-eyed freak!"

Clock ignores Quinton's challenge, traversing around him and takes a few steps forward to stand inches from the barrier while casually commenting, "It will be best if we manage to get inside without them being aware... Though I doubt we will be able to, going along with Bel's typical strategy... So there's no better choice." He momentarily pauses to steadily inhale deeply with his eyes shut as the other members curiously watch him. Afterwards, Clock opens his eyes as they temporarily light up prior to firmly declaring, "Time Halt!"

With no warning at all, the raging snow storm stops in mid-air.

Concurrently, Quinton, Bel and the rest of the horde stand still while observing Clock with not a single one of them moving. Clock eventually maneuvers himself to the barrier's location while no difficulty is presented as the snow hurriedly resumes to fall.

As that transpired, the other members seem a bit dumbfounded by the fact that Clock's standing a bit further than he was previously while glancing at them and sharply gestures his head. "Come on. The attack starts now."

Bel's briefly stunned until snapping out of it, turns sideways to focus on the huge amount of men and throws his left fist into the air with a stern demeanor. "You heard him, men! Let's show them what the Burn Troop is all about!"

The Burn Troop immediately respond with another roar before rushing pass the three leaders as they're fairly masked, both visibly and vocally, by the heavy snowfall. It takes up to the point where the large group have almost reached the wall's door for the guards in the two nearest artillery towers to notice. They desperately try to get their weapons ready, however, are unable due to multiple streams of red-colored fire hastily ramming into the towers, hurled by some Burn Troop members,  as both them and the men stationed within the structure are set ablaze. Meanwhile, many of the other Burn Troop personnel direct their efforts onto the giant doors via fire-based attacks as the entrance slowly starts giving in with intense scorching displayed.

*Scene Change*

King Trost frantically veers his attention to the left so he can look behind himself with worry brimming, continuing to be in Yuki's bedroom. "Something's not right."

Yuki blinks out of intrigue, watching her father from her bed. "What do you mean?"

Trost answers while hastily heading to the sole window in her quarters. "My barrier's been disrupted." He checks outside through the window without opening it and is promptly overcome with surprise as he's incapable of depicting a thing inside the fierce snowstorm that consumed the entire castle. Not long afterwards, Trost discerns several flashes of light where the defensive walls are located as he mutters in worry while bent onward via both hands mounted upon the window's ledge, "It has begun."

Yuki departs from her bed and travels to the king's backside with faint fear exhibited. "Father... What's going on?"

King Trost confronts Yuki with urgency resonating. "We must go!" The adult swiftly grabs a hold of Yuki's right hand via his left limb as the two run out of the pink-haired girl's room with Trost not even thinking of grabbing his possessions that he left onto the decorative coat hanger.

Yuki's profoundly confused by King Trost's sudden actions as she speaks during the pair's journey down the spiral path that leads them to the lower levels, "Where are we headed, father?! And you have yet to tell me what's occurring! Are we under attack?!"

Trost nods, retaining his attention on where he's going. "Yes, we are! That's why it's imperative we get to a safe place until the fighting is over!"

Yuki's eyes widen from stress and asks in a stutter, "B-But where?!"

Precisely when King Trost was about to reply, the duo at the Throne Room's doorway while seeing Dante and Ilya already waiting there as the white-haired girl has all of her golden accessories on again. After that, relief can be seen upon the king's expression as he delightfully states while situated in front of the two individuals, "Thank goodness you both are here!"

Ilya sharply nods with a stern composition as she's poised ahead of Dante, who's leaning against the cement wall that's next to the chamber's door while gazing toward the stairway with his arms entwined. "You can thank Dante for that." She glances over to the young man by commandeering her head to the left a tad. "He fortunately saw the assault start." Ilya then reverts her vision to the king and Yuki as she points at the room's entrance with her left thumb since it's toward her western sector. "Let's go in here for now and properly analyze the situation."

Trost firmly nods while Yuki's aggravated merely by the sight of Ilya, but soon witnesses that Dante's grinning at her and invokes a light blush prior to the princess desperately diverting her gaze from him. 

Following that, the quartet enter the chamber and rush to the big window so they can verify the status of those valiantly battling to prevent the enemies' infiltration. At that very moment, it's displayed that the wall's dual-doors are blown open with a powerful, fiery blast as a good amount of the snow that accumulated on the castle's grounds has melted before hastily becoming covered by the repetitive snowfall.

As that transpires, quite far back, the three leaders observe the Burn Troop members take out two artillery towers and hurriedly go around the wall to launch an onslaught onto the remaining posts stationed at the castle's rear. 

Afterwards, Clock shifts his sight to Quinton and Bel as they still stand at opposing sides of him while plainly uttering, "What are you two waiting for? You know what needs to be done."

Bel glares at Clock, gritting his teeth a little. "And what are you going to do?!"

Clock retorts with no change to his demeanor. "I must take a small break." He places his focus upon the castle. "I went a bit overboard in order to immobilize that barrier. I'll do some recognizance in the meantime."

Quinton temporarily stays quiet until nodding at Clock. "Fine. Me and Bel will handle the important part. Just be sure to have the Burn Troop's back if anything troublesome happens."

Clock's eyes meet with Quinton's. "Alright."

That said, Bel and Quinton part ways with Clock while making it pass the Burn Troop personnel fighting a handful of chainmailed men, having barely evaded getting caught by the first attack of fire as they're fairly inside the castle's grounds. Unfortunately, the members of Icela aren't doing too well against the Burn Troop since it's a battle of fire against wooden arrows, the advantage clearly going to the Burn Troop. This is where the two leaders vanish from sight while the fierce wind and heavy snowfall finally commences to diminish, but doesn't negate the fact that over two feet of snow had piled up in such a short period of time following the barrier's disappearance because of the castle's high altitude.

At the same time, Trost's group sees what's occurring as the king's sadden by the scorched, dead bodies that he witnesses at the vaguely recognizable armory towers while thinking, "My God..." He then tightly clenches his right hand while maintaining it lowered to his side and thinks, "Those men had families... People that needed them..." The pinkish-haired gentleman quickly questions out loud in anger, "And they died for what?!"

Ilya and Yuki rapidly implement their concentration onto King Trost, each standing on opposite ends of the adult with concern emanating. 

For the wavy-haired Caucasian, all Dante does is drop his head a little with his eyes shut and takes a deep breath prior to exhaling it out. 

Not long after, Trost persists his speech while trying to ease his wrath, however, just isn't able to do it. "I'm not worth dying for! I should be the one paying with my life! Not them!" He grinds his teeth, resting his gaze downward in the process. "I decided on marrying an Einsburn to secure our country's safety! I'm the one who was required to do everything in my power to keep that marriage afloat!"

Yuki lifts her right hand as she cautiously reaches out to the king's left arm. "Father..."

Ilya's on the verge of delivering a comment, when suddenly, Dante cuts between her and King Trost to abruptly push the window's doors open via both hands as he's presently positioned atop the ledge while facing outside. After that, the trio issue Dante a shocked behavior as the hazel-eyed beauty frantically blurts out, "The heck are you doing?!"

Dante rebuttals without deviating his attention from the people currently battling while pulling out both of his gloves from his right, back pocket and inserts a hand into the one it corresponds to. "What does it look like? I'm gonna' do my job."

Ilya's eyes widen as she's quite baffled. "You can't be serious!" She views the numerous men assaulting the guards via streams of fire. "There has to be at least 50 of them out there!" Ilya reverts her focus to Dante as she's leaning towards his right to depict his face, being a few steps behind. "They all seem to be Fire Spellcasters to boot!"

Dante gleefully nods after planting both hands onto his waist. "That's what makes it so exciting!"

Yuki and King Trost's jaws drop in unison. "What?!"

Dante veers his attention to Ilya. "I'll deal with those guys. You take care of the king and Yuki, okay?"

Ilya momentarily hesitates, gawking at her companion before releasing an exasperated sigh with her eyes closed as she straightens her posture. "Fine, I promise..." The white-haired teen gradually gives Dante a halfhearted grin once she reopens her eyes. "Be careful though."

Dante tenaciously nods prior to steering his gaze back outside, gestures both arms into the air while having his hands balled into fists and shouts, "Here I go!" He does a quick squat with his arms lowered to be stretched out to separate sides as he sustains his sight locked towards the battle and launches himself into the clouded sky while arching his body rearward in an almost back-flip motion. Unexpectedly, Dante spins his constitution forth to do a curled, multiple revolution front-flip, descending to the terrain in the center region that comprises of the vicinity. Right as he's about to come into contact with the ground, the punches the it via his left hand while producing a huge wave of snow.

Thanks to that, the earth rapidly spreads throughout, representing the massive force that single strike wielded, as quite a few of those fighting and small buildings that have been also set ablaze during the combat are covered by it. This results in all of battlers to stop amidst setting their concentration upon Dante while the green-eyed individual removes his left fist from the partially cracked landscape where he's now located.

Dante eventually straightens his composition and confronts the large sum of men staring at him with his eyes shadowed by his hair because of the blonde's head being hung a little. Then, the human aims a sly smirk toward the crowd while slanting his head to the left and utters in a somewhat menacing manner, "Hey, guys... You mind if I join you?"

Meanwhile, Ilya and Yuki are contorted over the window's ledge as they watch Dante with an awestruck expression. Afterwards, the the pendant-endowed teen lets out a loud sigh while not approving of Dante's recent actions and vaguely cocks her head to the right. "Gee, what's up with him and fighting?"

Yuki peers at Ilya while showing some worry. "Do you think he'll be okay? He has no magic, after all."

Ilya fixes her posture, places her right hand onto her hip and turns her head to the left so she can make eye contact with Yuki while substantially calm. "Yeah, he will." She draws her focus to Dante again. "Although I have no clue if he's really capable of handling all of those guys, despite them being Class D from what I can tell... But you obviously saw what he just did."

Yuki nods without taking her eyes off Ilya. "Yeah, what was that? How could he do something like that?"

Ilya smiles at Yuki. "I'll explain later." The beauty detaches herself from the window to journey towards the Throne Room's doors while retaining her eyes on Yuki. "But for right now, we should go to the lower level. That way, it'll be easier to escape the castle if they manage to break in."

Trost nods as he stands approximately three meters behind Ilya. "Good idea."

Having heard Trost's reply, Ilya grabs a hold of both door handles without looking since she was briefly focused on the king and pulls them open before seeing ahead. A split second after that, astonishment immediately engulfs Ilya as she's suddenly face to face with a human-sized, rectangular mirror that oddly enough isn't reflecting the dame's image. Then, the headband-wearing girl's about to speak, however, is interrupted by two arms swiftly gripping Ilya's shoulders and harshly tugs her into the mirror with only permitting a distressful cry from the chick.

Yuki and King Trost are instantly overcome with concern after directing themselves toward the doorway as the pink-haired teenager yells out while staying where she's standing, "Miss Know-It-All!"

Trost includes his own outburst following Yuki's with his eyes wide open. "Miss Henseka!"

A sinister laugh soon reverberates from the mirror until the object vanishes without a trace.

Right after that, King Trost dashes to the door with his right hand planted on it's edge while searching for Ilya, but can't find her anywhere. Ultimately, the adult takes in a big gulp, snaps his head to Yuki without removing his hand from the door's edge and hastily motions to his daughter with his other hand. "Come, Yuki! It isn't safe here!"

Yuki's completely stunned as she can barely utter out, "But... Where's Ilya?"

Trost retorts with fear resonating in his eyes. "We currently can't worry about her! We MUST get somewhere secure!" He hurries to Yuki, grabs the princess' right arm with his left hand and pulls her to follow him as they exit the room without shutting the door. Doing that, the two swiftly walk down the flight of steps as King Trost attempts to put his daughter's mind to ease. "Anyway, my dear Yuki... Ilya is a Velkry Spellcaster. I don't believe she will be defeated so effortlessly."

Yuki observes her father's posterior after sadness establishes itself and struggles to keep up with him, compliments of how difficult it is to run in heels, as she thinks, "Hope you're right."

Simultaneously, Dante's quiet for a while and takes into account every detail of those in front of him with a happy attitude. "Now that I'm closer up, there's a pretty good number of you here. Around the ball park of 50, just as Ilya said... Though that's not everyone." The young gentleman settles his vision specifically onto the very few chainmailed individuals, who are actually the farthest from Dante because of the Burn Troop having gradually pressed them towards the giant wall while clearly exhausted and injured. Plus, the two, fire-filled, artillery towers are slowly put out by the descending snow as Dante shouts to the guards with no change to his demeanor, cupping both hands around his mouth. "Hey! You all did really well! I'll take over from here, so get out fast!" He points to the presently doorless entrance via his left hand.

Astonishment promptly plagues the chainmailed characters as they maintain a firm grip upon their crossbows and share an insecure glance with each other. At the same time, almost every Burn Troop member between Dante and the guards start to laugh at the blonde, however, doesn't bother Dante whatsoever as he plainly ignores their action amidst folding his arms together while awaiting the guards' answer. Not long after that, the humans hesitate a bit prior to complying with Dante's request while steadily turning toward the entrance that's a couple of meters beside their right and leave while one whispers to another, "Do you think he'll be alright? There's a lot of them."

The second guard responds to his companion with uncertainty. "I doubt it. Spellcasters do have the bad tendency of being too full of it, most of the time."

The person who asked the question nods. "You got a point there. Even ours are like that."

A third guard chimes in from behind, portraying worry. "I only hope the king and princess will be okay."

A fourth man joins from the first guard's left and talks in a disgusted tone. "The king alone would be fine. If that little girl was killed, I could care less."

Dante instantly hears that last remark while his behavior briefly falters with his right hand slightly clutching his left arm and thinks as he stares at the source of that comment, "I'll be sure to remember that for later." His happiness then resurfaces as he smirks at the Burn Troop and nonchalantly says, "So, before we get started, it's merely fair I warn you bunch of the guaranteed hell that I'm gonna' inflict on you. I didn't do it when I took out your friend roughly five days ago, but he pissed me off. That was a terrible mistake."

One of the Burn Troop personnel raises an eyebrow out of curiosity, inquiring to no one in specific, "Friend? Who the fuck is he blabbing about?"

Another member rebuttals without taking his eyes off Dante as he's stationed to his companion's right. "I don't bloody know."

One more male steps in from the other region while radiating confidence and speaks with a deep voice. "It doesn't matter! This guy's screwed either way! He may seem strong after that small performance of his, but there's a hundred plus of us in total!"

A fifth guy interjects himself, nodding in agreement from the far left end. "Yeah!" He then throws his right fist into the air. "He stands no chance!"

That having been declared, all of the Burn Troop men let out a war cry in unison and begin to charge at Dante with minimal thought.

Due to that, Dante chuckles as he bends onward with both feet together and hands behind his rear while intensity gleams in his eyes without deviating his attention from the Burn Troop. "I love it when people foolishly rush in, head first."

*Scene Change*

A closed-off, empty guest room gains the main focus while on the same floor as the room Ilya and Dante were going to be staying in. Afterwards, a rectangular mirror materializes at the end of the quarters as it levitates right above the floor prior to spitting Ilya out with a quick cry escaping the hazel-eyed beauty's lips, harshly hits the floor via her right side and slides over it for a couple of seconds while having her eyes shut. Once that's done, Ilya slowly pulls herself together by sitting up with both hands planted onto the floor for leverage, her legs jointed to the white-haired teen's left. Meanwhile, the chick peers at the mirror after her head was momentarily hanging and gives it a dirty glare while trying to restrain herself. "Who are you?"

The sinister laugh from before echoes as more floating mirrors start to appear one by one at every direction, forces Ilya to be overwhelmed with horror amidst gasping. During that, a man's voice expels throughout the room and maliciously exclaims, "If you really want to know, why don't you get naked for me?! Then, I'll tell you!" He laughs in a maniacal way.

Ilya grits her teeth while mumbling, "Great... Another freaking perv..." She promptly yells with anger brimming, "Are all of you perverts or something?!"

As he arrogantly answers, the male exits the mirror Ilya was spat out from while revealing himself to be the pompadour-wearing Quinton. "Most of us." He menacingly chuckles. "That's simply how we and the boss rolls."

Ilya's eyes narrow with seriousness overtaking her. "How disgusting."

Faint excitement overruns Quinton's face and swiftly brushes his pompadour a bit via his right hand. "Whoo-hoo! I like a girl with spunk!"

A scowl adds onto Ilya's person while tightly clenching both hands, grinding her teeth with mild grunting sounds reverberating thanks to being annoyed. Following that, the light-skinned dame abruptly hoists her hands to have one over the other as her golden staff takes form within them in a vertical angle. "Enough crap! I don't appreciate that sort of talk that demeans me just because of my sex!"

Quinton smiles upon lowering his right hand to his side. "We'll see if you can still say that while I'm banging your brains out."

Ilya's aggravation boils over as she navigates the gold staff above her head. "Shut up!" The beauty then slams the bottom of her staff onto the floor with the two gold rings mounted on the blue gem suddenly part from it and rapidly spin around the item as Ilya states in a commanding tone, "Burst Stream!" A golden outline hurriedly encompasses Ilya's body while waiting for the gold pillar of light to shoot from the floor beneath Quinton, but for some odd reason it doesn't. This causes Ilya to exhibit stress as she's no longer overcome by the golden outline and quickly straightens her posture. "What's going on?!"

In response, Quinton brings his right hand ahead of himself and gestures southward with a proud grin. 

Ilya immediately looks down while surprised to witness that the terrain below her has been replaced by another large mirror as it unexpectedly glows the same color that her weapon did. As a result, terror plagues Ilya since a certain thought crossed her mind and utters in fear, "Oh, no!"

Quinton regains his maliciousness. "Oh, yes." He snaps his right arm skyward and firmly states, "Reflector Shot!"

Eventually, the Burst Stream that was intended for Quinton is relentlessly released as Ilya hastily defends herself by using her staff like a shield while choosing to jump backwards. Luckily, this concluded with minor damage from the blast due to it mainly sending the teenager flying into a mirror that's behind the white-haired Spellcaster. Either way, Ilya couldn't help showing discomfort at the moment her back collided with the mirror and struggles to stay on her feet, considering she didn't allow herself to fall upon the landscape, as her eyes are now shut. 

In the meantime, the gold ray disperses during Quinton's observation of Ilya with his arms entwined. "Not bad. You took your own attack magnificently, even though my reflector shot includes a little extra to it. I guess beating you with your moves won't work out too well."

Ilya painstakingly opens her eyes to deliver Quinton an agitated expression, keeping her staff close to her person via both hands after the pair of gold rings rested back onto it's gem, as an automatic action when the tool is near the female and thinks, "So, this guy's clearly a Mirror Spellcaster. To create them from nothing and utilize my Burst Magic against me will be hard to get by..." She glimpses behind herself and registers that the mirror she ran into is perfectly unscathed, leaving the teen in shock while persisting her thoughts. "And it's also durable! How am I going to win?!" Ilya returns her gaze to Quinton, whose confidence is still apparent, while immense pressure weighs down upon her. After that, the hazel-eyed girl takes a few steps onward, gets into position with her right foot toward Quinton's direction to be ready for what's next, points the staff at the adversary and declares in a determined manner, "But I won't give up!"

Quinton raises his left eyebrow with a hint of skepticism and vaguely cocks his head to the right. "You're randomly in high spirits." He then fixes his head's angling while demonstrating a creepy smile. "That's something I want to see once I got you on all fours."

Ilya sharply retorts while maintaining her stance. "Give it your best shot, trash!"

*Scene Change*

King Trost and Yuki had made their way through the second floor without knowing Ilya was actually situated at that floor. In addition, they arrived at the first floor, however, the king believed it wouldn't be a good idea to go outside for the obvious fact that there's a battle raging on there, ultimately compelling him to take Yuki into the kitchen as it's completely empty. With that, the pair frantically enter the dining room before shutting the door behind them in case someone unwanted comes searching for them, although they ended up going to the worst place for them to be in. The reason for that is because of the vast amount of blood splattered all over both the dinning room's walls and large table while every one of the servants have been gutted by someone. Not much later, the two individuals discern Bel sitting where Trost normally would at the other end of the table with an innocently-looking, young maid's severed head perched next to him while eating food from a small bowl.

As he does that, Bel sets his vision upon King Trost and Yuki prior to issuing them a delighted smirk, having noticed their royal attire. "Hey, look at that! You must be the king and princess!" He briefly wipes his mouth clean of any food via his left hand, using the detached head's semi-long, dark hair and continues talking as he eats. "This sure is my lucky day!"

Yuki gawks at Bel for a considerable period, unable to get over what she saw the character do with the maid's hair. After a few seconds of being tormented by it, the blue-eyed girl desperately covers her mouth with both hands as she's on the verge of vomiting while torquing her body forward and thinks, "Oh, God! He... He KILLED them!" Yuki hesitantly peers at the maid's head with tears commencing to form while thinking, "And he's using her  as a napkin...! What's wrong with him?!" Her eyes suddenly widen, feeling substantially light-headed with a feminine voice popping inside her mind and coldly remarks, "Why do you even care? It's not as if she was your friend or anything." The pink-haired girl grabs a hold of her head with horror resonating in her eyes as the voice continues to speak. "She was just like all the others. Don't waste your time pitying that bitch."

Meanwhile, King Trost witnesses Yuki's composition with worry rapidly establishing itself amidst thinking, "No...! It couldn't be...?!"

Without letting Trost finish his thought, Bel puts down the fork he was using so he could rise to his feet and promptly cracks his neck by tilting it left. "Well, I'm finally done." He evilly grins. "Time to claim what rightfully belongs to the boss."

Trost snaps his concentration to Bel with a grand sum of urgency displayed.

Bel soon grips onto the table's edge where he's poised, and with no real effort, flips the entire object over.

That causes the table to head straight toward the duo as Yuki hasn't realized what's happening until the last instance.

Fortunately, King Trost steps in front of his daughter while doing a fast gesture via both arms stiffened towards opposite sectors of his body and produces a barrier more than big enough to block it.

Right when that occurs, the table totally breaks apart with Bel angled upright and releases a long whistle to show that he's impressed. "So, it was you who crafted that giant ass barrier."

Yuki gradually dismounts her hands from her head as she's astonished by Trost's actions while her tears immediately dried up. "Father, you-"

King Trost interrupts Yuki while keeping his eyes glued on Bel. "Yuki, run!"

Yuki's blinks out of confusion amidst straightening herself and asks in a stutter, "W-W-What?"

Trost replies after veering his head to the left to lock eyes with Yuki. "You heard me! Get out of here!" He resets his focus onto Bel. "I'll hold him off as much as I can!"

Yuki rebuttals with uncertainty brimming as she partially advances toward the king. "But, father!"

King Trost fervently shouts, "Please, Yuki!"

With that outburst, Yuki's eyes dilate while dumbfounded by Trost's plea before finally giving into her father's request and turns away to rush toward the door. Then, as she attempts to

open the door via her right hand clutching the knob, the girl experiences an intense heat from it and lets out a pained scream with her eyes shut while retracting her appendage.

Trost's greatly startled, hurriedly directing his sight upon his daughter with fear overflowing. "Yuki!"

At the same time, Bel mildly laughs and travels toward King Trost while his hands twitch a little. "Did you enjoy my surprise? To be honest, I wasn't sure it'd work since it's a new trick I recently developed, but at least it did. I really don't know for how long, though. Probably enough for me to get the job done, I bet."

King Trost makes eye contact with Bel as Yuki holds her burnt hand and tries to manage through the pain while Tundra's ruler is quite distraught. "You... You're a Fire Spellcaster, aren't you?"

Bel answers with a somewhat taunting attitude while almost reaching Trost. "Eh... Close, but no. I'm Bel, the leader of the Burn Troop... A Heat Spellcaster."

Bewilderment overwhelms Trost and thinks, "That's worse!" He then registers that Bel is too near him for comfort, deciding to expand the size of the barrier to prevent the enemy from getting through, as he thinks, "That should do it."

Unexpectedly though, having ceased his journey, Bel chuckles as he's only a foot away from King Trost while the two are approximately the same height and inquires in a stuck-up method, "Do you honestly believe this will stop me?"

Trost's immediately baffled with Yuki positioned behind him while staring at Bel from over her father and is still clenching her right hand via its counterpart.

After that, Bel slants his head to the left, greatly amused by the king's reaction, and confidently informs him, "Even though I'm not the one who took down that barrier you had outside,

I know that I can." His body's temperature steadily starts to increase as a minuscule quantity of steam emanates from him. Following that, Bel elevates his left hand to mount it onto King Trost's barrier while demonstrating a cruel smile. "I'll show you." More heat expels from the Burn Troop leader.

Thanks to that, King Trost's barrier fluctuates at random regions, leaving the pinkish-haired male astonished, while yelling out in dismay, "This... Can't be transpiring!" The fluctuations eventually pick up the pace with steam expending as the barrier's currently deteriorating from where Bel's hand is planted, invoking a panicked gasp out of Tundra's ruler until valiantly declaring, "I will not let it end like this!"

At the exact second Trost finished that sentence as he was striving to reconstruct the barrier, Bel swiftly grabs his machete with his right hand, yanks it from the strap and thrusts the weapon through the blue-eyed king's torso.

In conclusion, some blood splattered onto Yuki's face because of her remaining behind her father while engulfed by shock and disbelief prior to uttering, "Fa..." Tears rapidly return as the memory of her mother and sisters' death takes shape in her mind as the teen cries out, "Daddy!"

*Scene Change*

Dante maintains his previous placement with ten Burn Troop personnel sprinting towards him. Despite the obvious lack of thinking exhibited on the charging men, several other members deem this as a perfect opportunity to hurl some streams of red fire to catch the green-eyed lad off guard. Sadly for them, Dante knew that would happen through hearing a few of their thoughts, and instead of being hit by the flames, removes his hands from his backside while doing a normal dash toward the small swarm of people in front of him. This results with the Burn Troop's attack narrowly missing blonde's rear while crashing onto the landscape.

Afterwards, the first ten men reach Dante as the human defends against each one in a passive manner by simply blocking their random strikes on him while also avoiding many via fast footwork. The reason the young individual is utilizing this approach is so he can analyze their fighting capabilities. While that happens, more Burn Troop members join the fist fight due to them not wanting to use up too much of their Spellcaster powers as a decent number of them spread out around to implement their magic upon Dante when they discern an opening. Of course, Dante knows about that plan as well and purposely doesn't leave a blind spot while finally making his move.

To commence, Dante evades a guying attacking from his right by back stepping and administers a mighty, right elbow to the posterior of the opponent's neck since he stumbled forth after missing the Caucasian. Then, two personnel lunge at Dante from behind, however, are both met with an elbow to their gut without the wavy-haired gentleman even looking while the duo are sent backwards to the ground. This ended up allotting a couple of the Burn Troop members, waiting for an opening, to launch an assault with their fire. Sadly for them, it's unsuccessful due to that group not warning their comrades as Dante was sharp enough to grab one that had just thrown a punch at him via his shirt and hoists him into the air while using the man like a shield.

With that done, the Burn Troop member is set on fire while screaming in agony.

Proving to be an opportunist too, Dante does even more damage by tossing the guy into three others, causing them to also instantly catch on fire, as he hastily fends off another collection of charging foes.

Concurrently, many of the characters who are keeping their distance brim a stunned conduct, compliments of Dante's extreme actions, with one uttering to nobody in specific and is quite pale, "This guy isn't real... He used him as a shield and threw him at our guys without debating."

A second man adds in with anger while concentrating on Dante's high-paced maneuvering, "Damn him! I'll make him pay for that!" His hands are then consumed by flames before releasing a barrage of small fireballs at Dante as he lets out a battle cry.

During the onslaught's progression toward the green-eyed male, Dante glances at them prior to their arrival as he leg sweeps a Burn Troop personnel. After doing that, the lad weaves his body accordingly to elude the barrage while joyfully grinning as his eyes are keyed onto the man attacking him.

The Spellcaster becomes frustrated after several failed attempts and yells while temporarily halting his assault with both hands clenched, "Stop moving so much, you annoying insect! Take my attacks like a man!"

While the man said that, Dante hits a few additional Burn Troop members with multiple, different right-handed punches to their abdomen or faces as he chose not to utilize his left hand and even reserves the use of a single seal. That being accomplished, the blonde aims his attention towards the angry adult with a nonchalant demeanor. "Oh, really? Then how about this?

If you want, you all try at once and I'll receive it straight on. Here..." He vaguely slouches onward before doing a back-flip to hurl himself away from the numerous men, lands where he stood at the beginning and motions with his left hand. "Come on. This oughta' suffice for you bunch, right?"

An enraged scowl portrays itself upon most of the Burn Troop personnel, including the initial challenger, as they commence to generate fierce flames on their hands. Soon enough, twenty- five members join together while confronting Dante, and in unison, send out countless streams of fire that merge as a large fireball is forged.

In the meantime, Dante excitedly smirks during the fireball's advancement toward him with it completely melting all of the snow that's nearby. Just as the projectile is a few meters away from making contact, the item user spreads out his legs a bit in preparation while the letter on his Sealing Glove lightly glows and thinks, "Let's check how this trick goes." Dante dashes toward the fireball, entering it in no time, with the collision of the two creating a backlash of fire that sets a few buildings ablaze.

The Burn Troop briefly have a smug look of achievement presented while the fireball erupts, although are promptly dumbfounded at the sight of Dante's silhouette calmly standing where it blew up while the human's revealed to contain only some faint burns with his Sealing Glove no longer emitting a red glow after the flames completely clear out.

Dante, witnessing the group's expression, arrogantly comments, "This is real funny. Despite you guys combining your strength, it didn't amount to much. There's still a lot I got to learn about Spellcasters." He tilts his head to the right while closing his eyes with a sincere grin appearing. "Hopefully, you fellas can do more to entertain me."

*Scene Change*

Ilya firmly stands at a fair distance from Quinton, keeping her stance, and doesn't take her eyes off him. Soon enough, the beauty cautiously advances towards the pompadour-haired man as she thinks, "Easy, Ilya... Don't rush it. After what transgressed earlier, I know now attacking with Burst Stream won't pan out too well." Ilya's eyes narrow with seriousness brimming while thinking, "The only way would be to make direct contact with him. For me to do that, I have to get closer."

Quinton randomly starts laughing as he cocks his head back with his eyes shut, causing confusion to plague Ilya, and ultimately remarks in a narcissistic voice, "All of my opponents are  the same! Once they realize long-range strikes don't do jack, they try for close-range!" He locks eyes with Ilya while a demented smirk creeps in. "But that's where I'll have to disappoint!"

Ilya exhibits urgency while thinking, "Darn! He's going to try something!" The white-haired girl hurriedly sprints onward to bridge the gap while saying out loud, "I won't give you any chance!"

Quinton lifts his right arm to his side, containing his hand's palm aim towards the ceiling, and radiates confidence. "As if you could even stop me." The male immediately descends into a mirror that had formed beneath his feet.

That forces Ilya to abruptly halt as the mirror that Quinton slipped into vanished while the several others around the hazel-eyed individual momentarily gleam. After that, the teen frantically analyzes her surroundings while an ominous feeling consumes her and uttering to herself, "He's in one of these mirrors..."

Quinton responds with no alteration to his personality. "Correction, I'm in ALL of them! And it doesn't end there!"

Ilya's overcome by horror while glimpsing everywhere in a panic. "What?!"

A second later, four of the levitating mirrors encompassing Ilya from different directions suddenly turn to a horizontal angle prior to flying straight at the girl with great speed.

Ilya becomes frightened at that sight and hastily ducks in time to avoid two of the mirrors colliding into each other, which were initially going for her head, while entirely shattering before raining down multiple glass shards onto Ilya. This forces the pendant-wearing character to cover her head without releasing her grip on her staff while luckily not being injured by the fallen glass as she mutters with her eyes set upon the mirror's debris, "That sure was dangerous! If I was even a LITTLE slower, I would've been-"

Just when Ilya was about to finish that thought, a bad sensation arises as she instantly commandeers her gaze above herself and depicts that the second pair of mirrors originally aiming at the dame with the two that crashed, are floating roughly five meters away in a vertical pose. Following that, both objects drop onto the light-skinned chick with the exact velocity from earlier while Ilya quickly leaps to her left and narrowly evades them. Afterwards, as those two mirrors break upon hitting the terrain, Ilya swings herself to confront the broken glass that's flung throughout the quarters while attempting to sustain some composure. "This is ridiculous! To make mirrors move like that is insane! They're so fast, even if I were to try to use the Immobilization Spell, it wouldn't work because of my limited capabilities!"

Quinton maliciously chuckles with a mirror suddenly appearing right behind Ilya. "That's the great thing about my magic being boosted up by Devil's Circuit."

Ilya snaps her head to focus on the mirror positioned at her posterior while asking with distress, "Devil's Circuit?! I thought Dante had destroyed it!"

Quinton finds Ilya's outburst quite intriguing as he speaks from within the mirror that faces the staff-wielder. "Is that right?" Realization then is heard from the velvet-haired man's voice. "Oh...! You're that girl from Velkry! The same one who took out those idiots we sent to get the prototype!" He pauses for a bit until talking in a nonchalant tone. "So, this Dante guy you mentioned is the person responsible for its destruction, huh? And here we thought one of our guys screwed up and made it explode." Quinton softly laughs while sounding arrogant. "Though it wasn't a big deal that he did, we'll be sure to make your friend pay dearly."

Worry expels from Ilya amidst her turning toward the mirror and thinks, "Oh, no..."

After that, while Ilya was distracted by Quinton's words, another mirror flies in from the beautiful girl's backside, rams into her rear via its top end since the mirror was in a horizontal angle and slams the young lady onto the mirror in front of her. Due to that, a shock look envelopes Ilya as the mirror's glass shatters in a slow motion manner with unimaginable pain coursing through her body that's sprawled across the mirror and is blankly staring at the ceiling while losing her hold on her staff.

Simultaneously, Quinton proudly smiles thanks to seeing what occurred to Ilya from inside the dimensional space of his created mirrors that can only be described as a never-ending plethora of faded colors similar to the Aurora Borealis and ominously states, "Right after I fuck you to death." He lets out an evil chuckle.

*Scene Cuts To Black*

To Be Continued...