At that moment, the night became as bright as midday.
And there was no enemy easier to distinguish than the black knight floating in a sky as bright as midday.
"Large enemy formation sighted! Bearing 0-1-5! Gunners ready, fire!"
The moment the battery commander's order rang out, the twenty Anti-Air Guns deployed on the rooftops of the high-rise buildings unleashed fire all at once.
Dudududun-!
The successive roar of guns woke the port of Albion, which had been submerged in silence. Pitch-black bullet marks bloomed in the very center of the wyvern swarm.
"Enemy aircraft, distance 3000!"
However, the situation was a little different from the defense of Sarsen fought at midday.
Because they were fighting in the dead of night under the light of flares, the Wyvern Knight Order had closed in on the Anti-Air batteries.
"Enemy aircraft, closing in!"
"Hey, you bastard! I said don't shoot the same spot! Where's the fire control officer!"
"We're short on Proximity Fuses!"
Those gathered at the port in Albion's 5th District were not elites like the air defense units of Sarsen.
The air defense units hastily created in only a month were soldiers who had received nothing but basic training. Anti-Air combat was unfamiliar to them.
With two battalions and sixty Anti-Air guns hastily thrown into the mix, confusion was inevitable.
"Adjust the gun angles! Autocannon gunners, find your positions yourselves! There's no time to give orders one by one right now!"
"Enemy Wyvern Unit! Closing to distance 2000!"
"Get ready quickly! They'll soon enter autocannon range! Where are all the gunners!?"
The soldiers, poorly trained and inexperienced in combat, were attempting an air-defense mission in unfamiliar terrain. Naturally, they struggled to cope.
3 minutes into the battle.
Even though a total of ninety Anti-Air Guns had gathered, their actual firepower amounted to less than half that.
However, it was not only the Anti-Air Artillery who fell into confusion.
"Argh, my eyes...!"
"Gwaaah!"
"Shit, everyone turn off your Night Vision Spells!"
The eyes of knights transcend those of ordinary humans.
Moreover, some knights were even using Night Vision Spells to fly smoothly at night.
When a light source as intense as the sun rose in that situation, it was only natural that the knights' eyes would be blinded.
Of course, knights are human weapons capable of cutting people down even with their eyes covered.
But this place was a chaotic battlefield where 300 wyverns had gathered.
The wyverns' deafening cries overwhelmed the knights' senses, leaving them unable to orient themselves.
In that situation, Anti-Air fire continued.
With no clear view in any direction, knights fell one after another. No matter how great the knights were, they could not help but be thrown into confusion.
"Everyone retreat! We'll regroup first and then launch an air strike!"
"What bullshit! If we pull out now, we're all dead! Everyone charge!"
"Argh, not this way, you dumbass!"
Knights who had lost their sense of direction collided in midair, and amid that, Anti-Air Guns poured down fire. Comrades flying beside them suddenly vanished.
Reports of friendly casualties were not coming in properly, and even the orders meant to control the situation became tangled, so the confusion only worsened.
Whether it was the Southern Anti-Air Artillery or the Western Knight Order, they had both fallen into complete chaos.
In situations like this, the side with the longer range was generally at an advantage.
Either way, as long as they kept firing Anti-Air guns into the enemy's formation, they were bound to hit something.
"Enemy, slowing down at distance 1800!"
At 4 minutes into the battle, the difference became stark.
The Southern Army continued firing its Anti-Air guns despite their poor accuracy, while the Western Knight Order milled about helplessly in the sky.
"Autocannons, all fire!"
"The distance is too far. At this range, we won't hit properly!"
"It doesn't matter. We only need to add to their confusion."
Thus, just as the Knight Order barely regained its senses amid the confusion, the autocannons deployed along the coastline began firing bullets all at once.
Thousands of 20mm rounds swept across the knights' field of view like a torrential downpour.
With bullets pouring in from every direction and nowhere to dodge or hide, the knights' advance ground to a halt.
In battle, morale is half the fight.
Their initial high morale had completely collapsed, making any further attack impossible.
Amid the chaos, with neither the extent of the damage nor the number of survivors clear, even Charles Raymonds had to admit that the attack had failed.
But it was not over yet.
It was clear that all of the enemy's forces had gathered here.
If they retreated now and used the Wyvern Knight Order's outstanding mobility to attack somewhere else.
Then they could inflict more damage than they had suffered.
After making that calculation, Charles looked around and ordered.
"Tch, retreat! Retreat and regroup!"
Charles's order spread through the Knight Order via each commander.
Only then did the knights begin to turn around, but... by then it was already too late.
Behind the wyvern swarm.
In the airspace illuminated by Flares, the flames of Anti-Air Guns, and the light of passing tracer rounds, five Destroyers had already taken their positions.
From the beginning, the South had no intention of letting the enemy Wyvern Knight Order, which had come this far, escape unscathed.
The commander of the Destroyer Squadron looked at the sky and ordered.
"All ships, prepare for Anti-Air combat!"
Destroyers armed with four 76mm Naval Guns and autocannons lined up in a row.
Moments later, Anti-Air fire began toward the rear of the Wyvern Unit.
Each time the roar of guns spread out over the sea in succession, the retreating Wyvern Knights fell one after another.
In the midst of the chaos, it was only after losing more than twenty knights that Charles could grasp the situation.
A retreat route had never existed in the first place.
"Kh, retreat in an orderly fashion! Break through the Anti-Air fire net and evade to the north!"
Kwaang-!
Charles's shout was buried by the explosion of a Proximity Fuse and vanished meaninglessly.
What took its place was confusion.
Piiiiii-
A whistle split the chaotic battlefield.
Flares fired by the five Destroyers once again obscured the vision of the retreating knights.
Bullets flew in from all directions. Orders were drowned out by explosions and scattered, and fellow knights continued to die.
Rage at losing comrades, judgment clouded by Flares fired from all sides. In that situation, the choice most Wyvern Knights made was one.
If they were going to die anyway, they would take revenge before dying.
-Waaaah!!!
Most of the remaining knights began charging toward the city, the only thing faintly visible in their blurred vision.
5 minutes had passed since the battle began.
Already, more than 100 wyverns had crashed into the sea.
***
Kukung-! Kung, kugung-!
The knights threw themselves toward the port where coastal guns continued to spew fire.
5 minutes since the battle began. With the initial dizzying confusion somewhat under control, the ninety deployed Anti-Air Guns began to unleash their full firepower.
Every few seconds, the guns lined up along the coast flashed.
The relentless 20mm autocannon fire battered the Aura surrounding the knights, while wyverns unable to wield Aura were torn apart and fell in bloody chunks.
"Charge... Aaagh!"
Pueong-!
A knight fell with a sorrowful scream, and hundreds of bullets pounded his entire body. The less skilled knights had already been riddled like beehives and sunk deep into the sea.
Each time another comrade fell into the darkness.
Each time the relentless hail of bullets chipped away at their Aura.
Each time a knight, trained by the West over decades, fell to the hands of a newly enlisted soldier.
A single unease rose strongly in everyone's hearts.
The thought that the age of knights had come to an end.
Pueok-!
The upper body of a knight who was unluckily hit directly by an Anti-Air Gun vanished. He was a veteran who had made a name for himself in over 100 battles.
Seeing a knight worth a hundred men vanish in a single shell burst filled the knights behind him with unease.
They were shaken by the realization that the lowly commoners they despised could easily kill even the noblest knights.
It was a situation in which ordinary humans would have felt terror.
But the emotion that rose first in the knights was a little different.
"This cannot be allowed."
3rd Knight Order Commander Joseph gritted his teeth.
Since the founding emperor established the Empire a thousand years ago, knights had always been noble.
Since the founding of the Empire, the Wyvern Knights had become the Empire's sharpest sword and annihilated all enemies who stood in their way.
In his eyes, the very idea of commoners daring to kill knights was absurd.
Anyone who dared stand against the Empire's finest weapon was undoubtedly an enemy of the Empire itself.
"How dare you lowly commoner scum!!!"
Joseph gripped his lance tightly and gathered Aura.
Amid the hail of bullets, several 20mm shells pierced his Aura barrier and struck him, but he ignored the wounds and charged ahead.
He would eliminate those bastards and crush anyone who dared oppose the Empire's Knight Order.
Those who looked up at the sky despite being commoners deserved Heavenly Punishment.
Joseph, having drawn up a great amount of moonlight Aura, leaped into the air and shouted.
"For the Empire!!!"
[ Meteor Spear ]
The knight who rose into the air turned into a beam of light and plunged down.
When the moonlight plunged down where three Anti-Air Artillery batteries were gathered, the shells detonated in a chain reaction and caused a massive explosion.
The uncivilized commoners guarding the air defense battery melted away in that explosion.
"Kuh, cough..."
Joseph also suffered great damage from the explosion, but he was a member of the 3rd Knight Order, one of the most elite Knight Orders.
Even if he could not use Aura right away, after a little time he would be able to fight properly again.
"Foolish bastards. To dare set their sights on the sky..."
Joseph kicked aside the corpse caught at his feet like trash and swept away the smoke with his lance-
"...Huh?"
He ended up making eye contact with a group of Infantry.
There were ten enemies holding heavy machine guns, their entire appearance covered by coats, helmets, and masks.
They were enemies whose magical power, though clearly sensed, was not very strong.
But due to an inexplicable fear felt in his instincts, he unconsciously stepped backward.
"Is your life precious, knight?"
An elite unit that guarded the Grand Duke of the South, Kyle Leopold, from the closest distance, speaking in a distorted mechanical voice.
"1st Imperial Guard Platoon. We will annihilate the specters of a bygone era."
The Imperial Guard joined to finish the battlefield.