Just as Muryan led the battered Wing Clan fairies to make a last stand at the mansion, a streak of light fell from the sky, followed by a loud crash and a cloud of dust.
The light landed right in the center of the Fang Clan's attack force. As the smoke cleared, new hope rose in the hearts of the humans and Wing Clan fairies defending the mansion.
"It's a Fairy Knight! Thank goodness!" a human soldier in iron armor called out.
"That's Fairy Knight Lancelot!" another flying Wing Clan fairy reported after scouting. "Reinforcements from Camelot!"
"The damn Fang Clan are finished!" the Wing Clan cheered, their earlier despair swept away.
But Muryan, as Gloucester's lord, couldn't feel happy. With the chaos inside and the Fang Clan's attack outside, Gloucester was half-ruined, and the breached gates had let in many Mosses from the wilds!
Mosses, born from cursed fairies, were like the fairy version of zombies: a fairy might turn into a Moss after dying, losing purpose, or being attacked by one. This was why even powerful, Moss-resistant fairies were revered by others.
With rioters and Fang Clan attacking from inside, and Mosses infiltrating from outside, Muryan's commercial city was finished. She and a few trusted kin survived, but her dream of revenge seemed impossible.
Muryan recalled a fox woman from NFF who had traded with her, but with Britain's upheaval, that ally also vanished. Muryan could only laugh bitterly—did she sense my impending doom?
Meanwhile, Melusine was rampaging in the assault's center. Fang Clan fairies couldn't even see her movements before their bodies were sliced apart. As a dragon fairy, Melusine's power was unmatched by any Fang Clan elite present.
Screams, blood, and corpses filled the battlefield. Muryan was dazed—could her deadliest foes be such cannon fodder before a Fairy Knight?
After quickly wiping out all enemies besieging the mansion, Melusine flew up again, searching for something, but found nothing and landed before Muryan.
"…All besiegers here are destroyed," Melusine said, removing her mask. "But most of Gloucester is now overrun by Mosses, and their numbers are growing. My advice is immediate evacuation to Camelot."
"What's the point of being Wing Clan chief, or a great fairy with a domain..." Muryan laughed bitterly. "In the end, my enemies still humiliated me?"
"…It's not your fault," Melusine said after thinking. "Your hated enemies—the last Fang Clan in Manchester—are already destroyed. The fairies attacking here were just refugees fleeing disaster."
"…What?" Muryan froze. All her enemies were dead? Did all her efforts mean nothing...?
Shocked, her mind and fairy domain both wavered.
"Snap out of it!" Melusine shouted, pulling Muryan back from the brink of Mossification. "Your real enemy is the one who lured the Fang Clan to attack Gloucester!"
Hearing that, not only Muryan, but all the surrounding fairies became enraged. Why would anyone be so evil? Why target the Wing Clan?
"My mission, besides rescuing you, is to find that person," Melusine said, projecting an image of a fairy for everyone to see—a Wind Clan fairy. "Has anyone seen this fairy? He calls himself Fairy King Oberon."
"I've seen him!" Muryan said through gritted teeth. "He came to Gloucester and tried to recruit me for an anti-Morgan resistance, but I refused!"
"Did you see him during this attack?" Melusine asked, frowning.
"No," Muryan shook her head after thinking. "The attackers were all Fang Clan, but some free fairies in the city did join them."
"Looks like he got away again," Melusine sighed. "His plot is massive; it can't be explained in a few words. I'll help you evacuate to Camelot—Her Majesty Morgan will reveal the whole truth."
Saying this, Melusine pulled out a Mirror, opened a water-mirror portal, and led the remaining humans and Wing Clan fairies through. Once all had left, she took off for the northern royal city, Edinburgh.
With Gloucester's fall and massive fairy casualties, the land's accumulated curses had reached the threshold for awakening the Three Great Calamities.
But thanks to Aoko Aozaki, the Beast Calamity, Barhuest, had been forcibly floodgated by the Fifth Magic, and now slept peacefully in the castle as a Fairy Knight, her curse redirected elsewhere.
Meanwhile, Melusine, as the Flame Calamity, had already been removed as a threat by Aoko, with a protective Name bestowed—so the rise in Britain's curse did not affect her at all.
Of the three calamities, only the Curse Calamity remained: the divine corpse of Cernunnos in Camelot's central chasm. Although Aoko's massive mana was holding it back, that power was finite.
So long as fairies didn't die en masse, it could be suppressed—but now, with multiple cities destroyed in short order, Cernunnos was being fed more and more power, and the binding spell was reaching its limit.
The final battle against the Curse Calamity was approaching. All of Aoko's allies were urgently gathering every available force at Camelot.