Battle of Rolanda

The Battle of Rolanda is the decisive Imperial attack on the Roland capital, where military strategy, dynastic vengeance, and personal recognition collapse into one violent confrontation. Ordered after Sahaqiel warned that the mass exodus of souls signaled the Black King's attempt to gather power, the campaign brings Jack, Selfia Cordelica, Roland Cordelica, Lancelot, and the Black King's forces into direct conflict. Its most devastating revelation is not the fall of a fortress but the discovery that the black-armored knight who has opposed Jack is Mike, Jack's uncle, whose final act is to absorb Roland's attack and tell Jack that he is proud of him before dying.

Causes and Strategic Stakes

The immediate cause of the assault is the perceived threat posed by the Black King's movement of souls. Sahaqiel argues that the mass exodus is a prelude to concentrating power and that delay could leave no one alive to care about the dead. Selfia therefore authorizes Jack to do whatever is necessary, orders Admiral Skirita to prepare the fleet, promises reinforcements, and declares that she will meet the force on the way to Roland's home. Her decision makes the campaign both a military operation and a family reckoning: Selfia explicitly wants to confront her brother, Roland Cordelica.

The Imperial plan is built around containment rather than an immediate frontal duel. At the outskirts of the capital, Selfia's flagship, the Middle Finger, reports that the forces are in position, demonspawn interception teams have been deployed, and the blockade is complete. Ivan reports that the Black King remains inside the capital citadel with Roland, so Selfia and the assault force intend to enter first and trap both enemies within the city. Jack is specifically warned to conserve his strength, placing his individual power inside a larger operation involving tanks, MECHFrames, armored soldiers, airships, and the Imperial navy.

The Assault on the Capital

After days of fighting, Jack reaches the air above the golden palace used by Roland, who has proclaimed himself king. The setting makes the political conflict visible: beneath black winds, Jack faces Roland before the gates of the golden castle while Selfia's airships prepare to fire. Roland is identified as both a usurper and the Black King's White Knight, binding the disputed throne to the supernatural power that the Imperial forces are trying to contain.

Selfia immediately deploys troops to prevent an enemy retreat. Roland denounces her for sending her supposed puppet instead of facing him herself, points his golden blade at Jack, and accuses the queen of cowardice while her navy fires indiscriminately on the city. Jack lands in a ruined street of concrete and rubble, with Roland's soldiers positioned in bombed-out houses and defensive dugouts around him. Their reluctance to attack allows Jack to enter the defensive line almost openly, but the apparent standoff quickly becomes a contest between Roland's challenge and Selfia's operational command.

The confrontation escalates when Roland reveals that the golden weapon is Excalibur. As he prepares an Anti-Army skill, Jack detects Roland's core changing from purple to silver. The battle's mechanics make a point-blank clash especially dangerous: Anti-Army skills can cancel one another in open conflict, but when activated at close range their collision can implode the effects, concentrating and mushrooming the mana rather than simply neutralizing it. Roland appears willing to exploit the presence of Selfian troops, perhaps expecting Jack to hesitate before unleashing such force near his own side.

Jack answers with Manawraith Tempest, while Roland invokes Excalibur through Exaltation: Judgement Slash. Roland's blade releases a beam of radiant energy that pierces the heavens; Jack's skill creates a hurricane at point-blank range in the city center, tearing apart the surrounding structures. The collision removes sound and light from the scene before a brilliant explosion rips the battlefield apart. The siege thus reaches its critical turn not through the gradual capture of the capital but through two competing assertions of power that threaten to destroy the city around them.

Mike's Sacrifice and the Recognition

When the explosion clears, a shadow knight stands before Jack with almost half his body missing. The knight has not been facing Jack. Instead, he turned his back and took the brunt of Excalibur's special properties, which had merged with Roland's Anti-Army skill and cut through Jack's and Sahaqiel's hurricane. The apparent enemy has therefore become an unrecognized protector at the exact instant when Jack's own attack and Roland's attack meet.

The helmet is shaved away, exposing the knight's face. Mike can barely move, but he turns his green eyes toward Jack and addresses him as “kiddo.” Jack recognizes his uncle only after the armor and helmet have been damaged, converting the battlefield's anonymous shadow into a member of his family. Mike's final words, “I’m so proud of you,” follow the recognition immediately. He then falls to the ground, and his death strikes Jack with such force that Jack can only scream in shock.

The revelation changes the meaning of the entire encounter. Mike was the specter Jack had been fighting against all this time, yet his final movement is an act of protection rather than aggression. The battle's central reversal is consequently emotional as well as tactical: Jack survives because the enemy he thought he knew sacrifices himself, while Roland's attack becomes the instrument that exposes the hidden relationship.

Extraction and Immediate Aftermath

Jack's shock is interrupted by the arrival of the Damocles, Tangerine's MECHFrame. It cuts through the Solaris's Valkyrie force and lands beside him while the battle remains active. Tangerine tells Jack that it is time to leave, secures him in the machine's massive hands, and reports that the package is secured and egressing to friendly lines.

The Damocles escapes under booster power, using its CIWs in every direction to repel Valkyrie pilots attempting to intercept it. Its superiority is emphasized through the contrast between the new machine and the MECHFrames of old: Tangerine's machine is described as a pilot melded with artificial intelligence and metal, while the older machines are reduced to relics beside Selfian Titan technology. The extraction preserves Jack's life after Mike's sacrifice, but it also removes him from the immediate confrontation at the moment of greatest personal devastation.

Significance

The Battle of Rolanda joins a strategic campaign against the Black King to a dynastic conflict between Selfia Cordelica and Roland Cordelica. Selfia's fleet, blockade, reinforcements, and interception teams represent organized imperial force; Roland's golden palace, Excalibur, and title as the Black King's White Knight turn the capital into a stage for contested kingship. Jack occupies the unstable center between those forces, treated by Roland as Selfia's puppet while being relied upon as the assault's decisive weapon.

The event also exposes the limits of military certainty. A carefully planned containment operation cannot control the personal meanings hidden inside the battlefield. Jack is told to conserve his strength, yet the decisive exchange demands a point-blank Anti-Army clash; Roland is treated as the enemy, yet the most important intervention comes from Mike; and victory is measured against the survival of the capital, but Jack's immediate experience is defined by the death of the uncle he had unknowingly fought. The battle's lasting consequence is therefore not merely the pressure placed on Roland's regime or the Black King's plans, but the irreversible transformation of Jack's understanding of the war and of the masked figure who stood against him.