Drops of water began to fall from the thick clouds overhead.
The wind blew hard, chilling to the bone.
Not long after, the rain grew stronger with roaring thunder. The sound of water falling onto the surface was the only noise that could be heard that night.
The rustling sound of leaves and grass adorned the wet night.
In the castle hallway, a butler walked down the dark corridor without carrying a candle.
The butler opened the door carefully, making almost no sound at all. The candlelight inside the room illuminated his face.
"Oh, Bart… my beloved Bart. You have come."
"Yes, Lady. I also brought the tool." The butler pulled a dagger from inside his coat. The candlelight illuminated its sharp silver blade.
The dagger's appearance made the smile on the Baroness's face grow even brighter, as if it could surpass the candle light in the room.
"Good job, Bart. You truly can be relied upon~" The Baroness set the dagger aside onto the table, wrapped her arms around the butler's neck, and kissed his lips passionately.
"Tonight will be the climax, My Lady."
"Come… let's not wait any longer!" The Baroness's whisper hid their voices from the sleeping Baron, but the sense of anticipation could not be hidden from her secret lover.
The butler reached for the dagger and gripped it tightly. His steps were firm toward the Baron's bed. The Baroness reached for the butler's hand from behind and held the dagger with him.
"We will do it together, my dear Bart."
"Yes, My Lady." A wide smirk crept from the corner of his lips.
In front of the Baron who was fast asleep in his bed, the Baroness and the Butler raised the dagger. The missing blade could no longer reflect the candlelight.
"Huh?"
"What?! Where is the blade?!"
They looked at the dagger once again and there really was no blade at all. Only the hilt and the handguard remained.
"It doesn't matter! Use this one."
The Baroness moved quickly toward a cabinet drawer and opened it. However, there was nothing inside.
"Are you looking for this?" Kaiser's voice from behind made them flinch and turn around in a hurry.
Under the dim candlelight, Kaiser stood with the broken silver blade and dagger in his hand.
"You—that Wandering Knight!" The Baroness denounced, her eyes wide in disbelief.
"Lady—!" the Butler pulled the Baroness behind him.
Thunder roared behind them, creating a blinding light that illuminated the Baron's room for a moment.
Fear engulfed them.
"Soldiers! Soldiers! Sir Cines!" The Baroness shouted with all her might, calling the castle soldiers patrolling nearby.
"Baroness, is there something wrong!?" Someone asked from behind the door in a hurry.
"Come in quickly! The Wandering Knight is trying to kill the Baron!"
The Baroness's loud shout also woke the Baron.
"Uhm, why are you shouting late at night?!" The Baron, who was still half-conscious, asked in annoyance at the loud noise disturbing him. "Edina, where are you?"
"My Lord." The Baroness approached the Baron in a hurry. "The Wandering Knight is trying to kill you! Bart, who was passing by, came to help, but there is no way he can defeat a Knight!"
"What?!" The sleepiness experienced by the Baron instantly vanished upon hearing his wife's words. He turned toward Kaiser, who had been in his peripheral vision all this time. "You—! I gave you a place to stay for the night and you repay me with this?! Who is your master?! Who sent you?!"
The Baron's face flushed red, and not because of the orange light from the candle. At the Baron's side, the Baroness smirked faintly. "Yes, My Lord. They deserve to be executed in front of the public!"
"Soldiers!" The Baron called out. "Where are the soldiers!? Come in quickly and capture this shameless Knight!!"
The door was pulled open from the outside, revealing a group of soldiers who had been waiting, fully equipped with light weaponry, carrying torches in their hands, illuminating their surroundings more clearly.
Sir Cines stood in the middle leading them, his hand gripping the hilt of a sword still in its scabbard.
His eyes stared sharply at Kaiser, who turned toward him without looking even a little worried.
"I never thought that someone I considered honorable could fall this low, Sir Kaiser," Cines said. His hand drew his sword, and its silver blade reflected the light from the torches in the soldiers' hands.
"I thought the same, Sir," Kaiser smiled, almost laughing.
Cines raised his sword and pointed it at his opponent. Kaiser's golden eyes made his heart beat fast in anxiety, but his hand gripped tightly so that even death could not release the sword from his hand.
His mentor died because he was too arrogant; he was killed by a disguised Grand Knight.
Ever since then, Cines had always been wary of unfamiliar Knights.
He was afraid that if he did the same thing as his mentor, his life would also be lost.
Cines was afraid of dying as a fool.
However, this time, Cines would bring justice to his master even if he had to lose his life.
"Knight Cines of Tomavel will deliver judgment to the criminal Kaiser!"
"WE WILL FOLLOW YOU, SIR—!!!"
Cines's shout made his troops even more fired up, drowning out the thunder and the roar of the rain that night.
[This is the true nature of Nous, Warrior.] Sol-yure hissed. [They are selfish creatures who will do anything for their own gain… just like that Baroness woman did.]
"I know," Kaiser replied.
All of this happened because of the dark ambition of the Baroness and her lover. Killing Baron Stakes meant he would be replaced by his heir. Since Baron Stakes's heir was his own son, the Baroness had more power than when Baron Stakes was alive. Her freedom was also guaranteed, and she would have more time to spend with her lover.
Or so he thought.
"I don't care whether the matter of the Baroness and Butler's affair gets resolved or not, because not everything in this world ends with a happy ending."
—That was how the world worked.
"But I don't like it when someone blames me for something I didn't even know."
"You can prove everything after you surrender yourself, criminal." Cines stomped his foot and dashed toward Kaiser using a half-sword technique. The narrow location made him feel more confident because he could use half-sword technique freely, unlike Kaiser, who was not wearing gauntlets.
"In an ordinary situation, I'm sure you could win, Sir Cines, but my reason for being here isn't because of you."
Just as Cines intended to strike and his focus shifted to the swinging sword, Kaiser instantly disappeared from sight.
"What—?! Where is he?!"
Cines tense in a high alert, looking around.
"Sir! He is next to the Lord!"
A soldier shouted, and Cines saw Kaiser already standing leaning against the wall next to the Baron's bed.
Cold sweat poured over Cines because he did not expect the difference in their levels to be that far apart.
"Baron. Hypothetically, if your wife were cheating on you with your servant, who would you punish first?"
"Wh–what are you talking about?!" The Baron got off his bed in a hurry, moving to the side of the Baroness and the Butler.
"Don't listen to his words, My Lord! He is a criminal who tried to kill you and take over your territory!" The Baroness shouted.
"Lord, Lady! Please come to my side, he is dangerous!" Cines cut their chat as he walked towards them.
The three of them ran to Cines's side without any difficulty and were secured by the soldiers watching from behind.
"Finish him off before sunrise, Cines! Don't let him roam in my land!" The Baron called out one last time before leaving the room together with his wife and butler.
"I will strive to do so, even with my life, My Lord!" Cines replied firmly.
Cines did not move from his position, still alert to any movement from Kaiser.
"Who is your master, Sir Kaiser?"
Cines decided to buy time while the Baron and Baroness were being secured.
With power as great as Kaiser's, Cines felt it was impossible for Kaiser to come from nowhere and be a Wandering Knight with no purpose.
"I already told you, Sir Cines. I have no master. My mentor passed away, and that is my reason for starting this journey," Kaiser replied calmly.
A soldier reported from the crowd, "Sir, we didn't find the Knight's female companion!"
"Tighten security around the Baron and Baroness! The Eastern Continent is famous for their Noble Killer warriors; let me handle this Knight!"
"Aren't you underestimating me a bit too much, Sir Cines? Facing me alone?"
"In fact, it's precisely because I'm not underestimating you that I'm doing all this." Just by seeing Kaiser's speed, Cines was immediately reminded of the moment of conflict between his mentor and the certain Grand Knight.
A speed that Cines could not see, even after he became an official Knight with power that could wipe out a thousand soldiers on the battlefield.
"There is no one in this territory who can match a Grand Knight. If you had decided to kill the Lord and Lady, they would have been dead long ago," Cines continued.
"You're right, at least that's as far as I consider the limit of my ability."
"If you truly had no intention of killing the Lord, what is your reason for being in this room, Sir?"
Kaiser threw his sword toward Cines. The blade struck the floor right in front of Cines, allowing the knight of Tomavel to see the sword clearly.
"After having dinner with the Baron, I found that my sword was stained with blood. I don't know whose blood it was, but from there, I realized that something suspicious was happening."
Cines lowered half his guard and examined Kaiser's sword more closely. "It is true, there are bloodstains…. and that suspicious situation is…?" Cines looked back toward Kaiser to make sure.
Kaiser flinched, not because of Cines's question; he turned to his right side in a hurry.
"Fall back!" Kaiser shouted and rushed backward.
Cines wondered, but the answer came immediately when the wall in the direction Kaiser was looking was smashed to pieces by something. Unfortunately, he was too late to dodge, and that something slammed into Cines, sending him flying backward with immense force.
The roof and wall were destroyed as if struck by a ballista.
The soldiers fell into chaos, and the atmosphere of the night became even more hectic due to the unexpected situation.
Under the pouring rain, dust obstructed sight, but Kaiser could still see what lay behind the dust and rain fog.
Something that had struck the room moved from within the thick dust. A reddish snout poked upward. That snout split open, not into two, but into four parts—blooming like a flower, revealing a very long tongue like a rope, barbed with thorns like a rose.
"cInEs… CiNEs…!"
A distorted voice was heard from one direction, calling out Knight Cines's name.
Another snout appeared and bloomed, taking the same form as the first.
Kaiser used the air as a foothold to create distance.
The tongue from the second creature's snout swept across the place where Kaiser had been standing earlier in a wild, tempestuous manner.
20 meters—that was his distance from the creature now, and that was the distance Kaiser needed to see most of the creature's size.
Body parts twisted around each other, connected to two red snouts extended from the direction where the Baron and Baroness had been running.
Specifically, the abomination extending from the headless bodies of the Baron and Baroness, fused together as if joined with flesh glue.
The fused small human bodies of the Baron and Baroness had become distorted, formed like a melted wax. The hands and feet of the Baron and Baroness could no longer be distinguished. Whether it was pareidolia or not, Kaiser could see three empty hollows like an upside-down face screaming hysterically on the section of the Baron's belly that could still be distinguished because it still looked potbellied.
"What the fuck is that thing, Sol?!" Kaiser asked the small snake still perched on his shoulder.
His brows furrowed in disgust, watching the construction of abomination dripping a kind of red fluid while also dropping crumbs of red flesh from its body.
From a distance, the creature looked like a crookedly bloomed flower.
[I can feel a hint of divinity from that creature.]
Another "stalk" grew from the heap of the Baron and Baroness, extending with a snout pursuing Kaiser.
"KNIgHT—!"
"CiNEs…! ciNES—!"
Distorted voices sounded from the newly bloomed "flower" snout. A whip-like tongue shot forth.
Kaiser dropped himself from the air, coated his hands with Hi, and caught the whip tongue in his grip. The creature thrashed relentlessly, dragging Kaiser through violent jolts in the air.
Kaiser tightened his grip, and the thorny whip tongue tore and shattered in his hand. The creature did not stop even when part of its tongue was severed. While dodging the remaining tongues that were still as aggressive as before, Kaiser's eyes were drawn to another head high in the air.
The tongue from that snout coiled around and trapped someone very tightly before closing its "flower petals." There was no need to state the fate of that unfortunate person.
"Poor Cines…" Kaiser murmured.
Knight Cines had failed to survive and was successfully devoured by the creature.
[To it, you are a bonfire in the middle of a cold night, Warrior. It targets creatures that emit massive Ether instead of a small spark that vanishes in an instant; it targets figures like Knights instead of humans around.]
"—And Sacred Beasts." Kaiser continued as he ducked to avoid a sweep at his head.
[Yes. It is also sensing my life energy.]
To that creature, Sol-yure was a massive buffet, as he was a entity created purely from Ether crystallized into a physical form.
Two stalks with flowers grew and extended.
The creature had 5 identical "flower" heads now.
The target of all those heads was Kaiser.
Just as Sol-yure said, they were attracted to large energy sources and ignored ordinary humans who possessed nothing. The creature was thirsty for Ether.
"What will happen if I– we leave the creature's radius?" Kaiser asked as he gripped a whip tongue tightly and was pulled by the creature closer to its center.
[Hypothetically, it will devour all living creatures until nothing is left, then absorb the Ether in the surrounding air, transforming this place into a dead zone where not even the wind will blow.]
Although Kaiser was curious about the creature's origin, he had no one to ask. Kaiser could not simply walk away, or this creature could potentially threaten his life in the future. As long as it could be handled, he would finish it off.
If this planet was gone, Kaiser didn't have any way to enjoy his life. Even if he is still alive after this planet turns into a desert, he will kill himself instead.
"Sol, can I borrow your power?"
[What do you plan to do?]
"I need a weapon."
There was no spoken answer, but the shadow shrouding Kaiser's hand was enough to replace it.
When Kaiser was extremely close to the creature's gaping mouth, the darkness shrouding Kaiser's hand transformed, extending past his hand into a sword blade.
Blue Hi enveloped the sword of darkness extending from Kaiser's hand, but a moment later, the cloak of Hi was absorbed by the darkness sword and fused with it, enhancing the intensity of the darkness.
As soon as Kaiser entered the creature's feeding range, the "flower petals" began to close to catch its prey.
With a single step in midair, Kaiser vanished from the radius, and the creature closed its beak without catching anything.
From above the closed beak, Kaiser severed one head in a single sweep.
Four left—Kaiser thought as he dodged attacks from the remaining four heads.