Arc 3

is the 3rd arc of Yūki Tabata's Black Clover.

The arc revolves around the invasion of the Clover Kingdom's Royal Capital by a terrorist group, who has a mission to assassinate a certain member of the Magic Knights.

Magic Knights: The Gathering
A week after the dungeon exploring mission is over, Asta has finally recovered from his then injuries. As the Black Bull members feast to celebrate it, Yami Sukehiro quickly orders Asta to give his report at the Magic Knights headquarters and assigns Luck Voltia to a mission alongside Magna Swing after he prohibited him from travelling to the Royal Capital. When Charmy Papittoson offers herself to accompany Asta, the Black Bull captain immediately rejects her request, which prompts her to leave. As Asta and Noelle Silva arrive at the Noble region, they encounter the Golden Dawn members whom explored the dungeon with them.

Klaus Lunette quickly greets him, but Mimosa Vermilion suddenly avoids Asta. When her cousin asks her, the noblewoman reveals her feelings towards Asta, which renders both of them screeching in embarrassment. After a while, they finally reach the designated venue, where they are greeted by the Magic Emperor himself, Julius Nova Chrono. The said man then brings the young Knights into a tower, where he begins to investigate the treasures from the dungeon. As he looks into Yuno's grimoire, Julius quickly asks him to activate the spell with excitement. Unfortunately, the young Knight is unable to fulfil his wish. The Emperor then decides to leave the fact that Yuno is now the owner of Sylph, the wind spirit, for himself.

Asta then shows his grimoire to him, but Julius fails to identify the writings on it. The former then summons the sword, he found inside the dungeon, and offers it to Julius. When the Emperor holds it, he quickly realizes that the said sword is absorbing his mana. Julius the returns the sword back and explains that Asta is the only one capable of wielding it, due to his lack of magical power.

Subsequently, Asta and Yuno brace themselves and ask Julius the proper path to become the Magic Emperor. Klaus immediately interrupts them as he explains the title to them, but Julius interrupts him and reveals to all of them the vital components to become the Magic Emperor. He explains that the strongest Magic Knight, which is proven from the achievements and reputation from the citizens, is the only mage who is worthy of the title. As both Asta and Yuno realize that commoners, such as themselves, are also able to aim for it, they reply to Julius with determination. Seeing their spirit and motivation, prompts Julius to praise both Yami and William Vangeance for their respective subordinate.

Afterwards, Julius invites all of them to come with him and attend a War Merits Conferment Ceremony, where he is scheduled to honor several Knights whom had accomplished better achievements than them. As they enter the ceremonial hall where the Knights have gathered, Julius asks the young Knights whether they are prepared to surpass the honorary Knights.

The awarding ceremony then begins as Julius calls the first Knight, Leopold Vermilion. The Crimson Lion member is promoted to a 2nd class Intermediate Magic Knight for his achievement of collecting 7 stars of excellence. Subsequently, Sol Marron of the Blue Rose squad is promoted to a 3rd class Intermediate Magic Knight for collecting 6 stars. Julius then honors the Silver Eagle Knights, Nebra Silva and Solido Silva, whom he promotes to a 5th class Senior Magic Knight and a 3rd class Intermediate Magic Knight respectively. Finally, the Magic Emperor calls the Knights of the Golden Dawn squad, Alecdra Sandler, Siren Tium, and Jamon Caseus, who are promoted to a 4th class Senior Magic Knight, a 1st class Intermediate Magic Knight, and a 2nd class Intermediate Magic Knight respectively. At the end of the ceremony, Julius congratulates the honorary Knights and invites all of them, including their captains, to a celebratory banquet, which he had prepared.

Additionally, he also asks them to get acquainted with the young Knights, whom he brought to the ceremony. The Magic Emperor's action prompts the honorary Knights to give unpleasant stares toward the young Knights. The scrutiny continues at the banquet after Julius left the hall for another matter, which prompts Klaus to voice his concerns over Julius' decision on bringing them to the event. In the meanwhile, Asta begins to indulge himself on the dishes as he ignores the unpleasant atmosphere in the hall. While Klaus gives his remarks for Asta's uncaring nature, Mimosa approaches the latter and shyly strikes a conversation with the Black Bull Knight.

As he observes the unwanted guests, Alecdra finally voices his complaint over their presence. The Golden Dawn Knight's comment prompts the other Knight to join in as Leopold adds a condescending remark about the former's squad. The conflict between the them forces Klaus to defend his friends, but Alecdra severely criticizes him and Mimosa for their disappointing performance during the dungeon exploration mission, which begins to annoy Asta while Yuno remains silent.

The conflict arises when Solido decides to adds his opinion by humiliating his sister, Noelle, whom has been silence since the beginning. Noelle's older sister, Nebra, supports her younger brother and further insults her younger sister. Finally, their older brother, Nozel Silva, steps in and orders Noelle to leave the hall, which finally breaks Asta's patience.

The moment Noelle tries to leave, Asta quickly takes her arm and prevents his squadmate from taking further steps. The Black Bull Knight then stands on top of a table and confronts the nobles whom have been insulting his friends. It prompts Alecdra to restrain Asta with one of his spells, but the latter easily breaks out of it. He then points his sword towards them and vows to become the Magic Emperor to shut them up.

Far at the outskirt of the Clover Kingdom, a mage sits and gazes towards the Noble region. While he talks to his corpse, he is informed that his group's preparation is complete, which prompts him to vocalise his ambition to destroy the Kingdom.

Back at the Royal Capital, Asta's action causes Nebra, Alecdra and Solido to assault the former as they ridicule the former's ambition. However, their attacks are negated by Asta's sword. Alecdra then decides to restrain the Black Bull Knight by preventing him from swinging his sword. As he announces that Asta would receive proper punishment for his action, Solido steps in and prepares another attack. As the nobleman launches his attack, Asta summons his other sword to break his restrain and deflect the incoming attack as he demands the former to apologize to Noelle.

Solido manages to neutralize the deflected attack, but his inability to defeat Asta prompts Nozel to step in. The Silver Eagle captain the unleashes his magical power, which reminds the Black Bull mage from his captain's own pressure of immense magical power. Fortunately, before Nozel manages to cause any damage, Fuegoreon Vermilion interfered and asked his fellow captain to reconsider his action. At that moment, Leopold approaches Asta and declares himself as the latter's rival. When Yuno asks about the Crimson Lion mage's identity, Mimosa reveals that both of them are her cousins.

Fuegoreon then tries to reason with Nozel by emphasizing on the fact that Julius was the one who brought them. However, the Silver Eagle captain responds by giving a condescending remark about the House Vermilion. It quickly triggers the Crimson Lion captain's anger as both of them unleashes hostile magical powers, which cause the hall to tremble as remarked by Klaus.

At that moment, someone enters the hall and informs the Knights that the Royal Capital has been invaded. At the same time, the mage who was sitting at the Kingdom's outskirt, unleashes an army of corpses and causes several destructions within the city.

Marching Dead
The man behind the corpse army, Rades, orders his troops to attack the civilians when several guards arrive to defend them. Unfortunately, their attacks are unable to stop the corpse's advances as Rades laughs at their uselessness. Upon the announcement of the Royal Capital's invasion, at the Magic Knights headquarters, Siren of the Golden Dawn quickly activates one of his spells to observe the city's condition. The spell is of such a high level that both Klaus and Mimosa are amazed by their senior's prowess. Subsequently, the Knights begin to discuss their strategy for counterattacks.

Fuegoreon assumes that the perpetrator managed to bypass the barrier of the city with the use of spatial magic spell, which prompts him to acknowledge their enemy's prowess. As they begin to discuss the best way to apprehend the situation, Asta interrupts them and asks his fellow Knights to take immediate action. The young Knight then storms out of the hall and plans to find the perpetrator at the noisiest place of the city, which stuns Klaus who tried to stop him. Seeing his new rival's reckless action, Leopold quickly follows him without consulting his older brother.

After seeing his younger brother's behavior, Fuegoreon planned to discipline him later before he takes the leadership and divides the Knights to defend the Royal Capital. Fuegoreon goes to the North district to meet with Leopold while he takes Noelle along with him. The Crimson Lion captain then asks the Silver Eagle Knights to the Central district, the Blue Rose Knights to East district and the Golden Dawn Knights to the West and Northwest district. As the Knights leave, Charmy comes out of her hiding place and decides to take part in defending the city. However, she suddenly catches a delicious smell and quickly tries to trace it back to the source.

In the meantime, Rades finds a little girl whom is cornered without anyone to defend her. The rogue mage quickly intimidates her and plans to kill her. However, before he is able to harm the said girl, Asta forcefully made his path to Rades and vowed to protect the Royal Capital. Rades immediately recognizes the boy as a Black Bull member and orders his fallen corpses to attack him. To his surprise, none of the corpses harkens his command, which prompts the rogue mage to assume that Asta is the wielder of the anti magic. Due to this, Rades calls forward a new batch of corpses to attack the Black Bull mage.

Somewhere else within the Royal Capital, the other Knights finally arrive at their designated venues. The moment they learn that their enemies are a group of corpses, the Knights proceed on decimating them without mercy. Subsequently, Mimosa also begins to heal any casualties of the attack. Similarly, Asta is also easily able to apprehend the corpses, which astounds Leopold who watches him from afar. The Black Bull Knight then charges towards Rades for an attack, but the latter summon another corpse, which is able to shoot bullets of magical power. Asta managed to narrowly avoid the attack before Rades introduces him to the corpse, "Jimmy".

Fights

 * Asta vs. Rades
 * Yuno vs. Catherine
 * Fuegoreon Vermilion vs. Rades

Events

 * War Merits Conferment Ceremony
 * Declaration of Ascension
 * The Undead Invasion
 * Assassination of Fuegoreon Vermilion