Korneas and his knights surged forward from the left wing, their movement a relentless tide of steel designed to swallow the Aurelyth flank. Every strike was a rhythmic echo of a plan they had once doubted, but as the sky bled crimson from Elina's magic and the horizon was severed by a violet arc of erasure, that doubt dissolved like salt in a storm.
That has to be the dragon's power, Korneas thought, his eyes scanning the carnage. But... what in the gods' names is he? His gaze locked onto Noa, who was moving through the enemy ranks not as a soldier, but as a harvestman in a field of ripe wheat.
Korneas had spent his life believing that dragons were the pinnacle destruction, and that any human who controlled one must be using a leash of complex enchantments or psychological manipulation. But watching Noa—a man who looked more comfortable in a bathhouse than a battlefield—slice through the crowd with a terrifying, casual efficiency, the truth struck him with the weight of a falling mountain.
The dragon hadn't been tamed by trickery; it had been beaten into submission by a monster that wore a human face.
"Sir! Look at the rear!" a knight shouted, his voice cracking with the strain of disbelief.
Korneas pulled his reins, his horse rearing as he looked toward the back of the Crimvane line. His heart hammered against his ribs like a caged bird.
For some inexplicable reason, the full, crushing might of the Caldris army—thousands of blades that had no business being on this field—had congregated at the rear like a dark cloud preparing to burst.
But it was the silhouette at the center of that iron storm that truly froze his blood. There, standing firm amidst the chaos, was Duke Carvan—the man the world believed Vionette had personally executed for treason.
Carvan... is alive? Wait, Korneas's eyes narrowed as they shifted to the figure beside the Duke. That's Lucien isn't it?
The landscape of the battlefield shifted in an instant. If the Envoy, the very voice of the throne, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the 'dead' Duke, then Carvan was no enemy. Korneas's eyes swept over the vast, unauthorized ocean of Caldris armor, and the final piece of the puzzle fell into place with a sickening thud.
Noa's command had been a razor-thin decree: a mere hundred knights and thirty mages from each house to ensure a unified front. The sheer scale of the Caldris presence—a whole dukedom's worth of steel—was a massive, iron-clad confession of a coup that had been intercepted before it could strike. They hadn't come to win a war; they had come to steal a kingdom.
[Blink]
"What the hell are you doing standing around, old man? The war isn't going to finish itself."
"!!?"
Korneas's horse nearly threw him as Noa appeared out of thin air directly in front of him.
The young man wasn't even looking at him; he was focused on Acheron, wiped a thick smear of gore from the purple-thorned edge with a piece of cloth that had once been an Aurelyth banner. His newly tailored uniform, which Vionette had likely spent a fortune on, was painted in the dark, drying colors of a thousand deaths. He was breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling with an exhaustion that felt human, even if his actions did not.
"Uhh... was Carvan really alive all along?" Korneas managed to ask, trying to regain his composure as his world shifted on its axis.
At this point, I'll just believe the moon is made of cheese if he says it is, Korneas thought, deciding that logic was a luxury he could no longer afford.
"Yea? Why?" Noa tilted his head, his dark hair damp with sweat and blood, clinging to his forehead in a way that would have been ruggedly handsome if he weren't currently standing in a graveyard he had built.
"Is he on our side?"
"Yea."
"Is Gemsh the traitor?"
"Yea."
"…"
Noa scratched the back of his head, looking genuinely confused by the interrogation. He had already forgotten that the full scope of the plan had been a secret kept from almost everyone. He took a long, rattling breather, the kind of sigh a man gives after a double shift at a factory, and tucked Acheron back into its sheath.
"Just don't stand there with your mouth open," Noa said, his tone shifting into a lazy, teasing drawl. "Guide your knights correctly now that the wind is finally blowing our way. I've got a king to talk to. So long then."
[Blink]
He vanished before Korneas could even blink. The Duke looked toward the pavilion on the hill with a cocktail of emotions—fear, awe, and a strange, budding hope.
He didn't know the full story of the man named Noa, nor did he fully understand the woman who commanded him, but as he turned back to his knights, he felt a weight lift from his soul.
I guess they really will make Crimvane rise again, he thought, putting his faith in the two abnormalities that had turned a massacre into a masterpiece.
---
Valric Blackmoor watched the rear with a shock that felt like ice water in his veins. The sight of his son, Lucien, standing with the supposedly deceased Carvan was a riddle he couldn't solve. He lacked Korneas's strategic intuition, but the visual evidence was undeniable: his son was not a traitor, and Carvan was not a corpse.
[Blink]
"Hey~"
"?!!"
Noa appeared with a casual wave of his hand, a blood-spattered smile on his face. Valric, who had seen enough of Noa's 'training' to know that death followed in his wake, felt a cold sweat break across his brow. He didn't even question the teleportation anymore; he simply feared the man who used it.
"Lord Noa," Valric bowed deeply from his saddle, his voice trembling slightly. "What have you come here for?"
"Forget the formalities, man," Noa said, waving off the bow. The gesture was meant to be friendly, but seeing the crimson stains on his sleeves made Valric flinch. "I just came to see if there was a problem. Everything okay over here?"
"No, all is fine. We're pushing the Aurelyth bastards back thanks to your... intervention," Valric replied, straightening his back.
He remembered the day Noa had pressed him for information, and he had reluctantly provided the coordinates for the dragon's lair, all while pleading with the young man to reconsider the suicidal hunt. Yet here Noa stood, having not only survived the impossible but having turned the apex predator into a companion.
Valric looked at the sword, and a phantom frost raced across his skin.
That's not a normal weapon. Anyone who even touches it can go insane. But,
He looked at its wielder, who was swinging it in a playful, almost flirtatious manner, somehow he got it under control. Valric sharpened his eyes and came to the only conclusion a veteran could reach:
He might be even more wicked than the weapon.
"Is that... made of dragon parts?" Valric whispered.
Noa raised the tip of Acheron to his eye level, admiring the way the light caught the jagged, crystalline edge.
"This? Yes. Its name is Acheron, the Sword of Malice." He said it with a grin.
A self-proclaimed title he had clearly spent a few minutes coming up with just to sound cooler. To anyone else, it would have been a boast; to the men dying on the field, it was a prophecy.
"Thanks for the info from before, Valric. It helped a lot."
"...Yes."
Valric was lost for words. Noa had somehow defeated a dragon, took its parts, and with that, he made a cursed weapon of Mythical Grade. He had even given it the same name as one of the Primordial Weapons, a fact that left Valric staring at the blade in a stunned silence.
"By the way, I forgot to tell you before," Noa said, tapping a finger to his cheek as he offered a genuine, warm smile. "Sorry for punching you that day. My bad."
"It's okay," Valric said, shaking his head quickly. "We all make mistakes."
Though only you make mistakes that involve rearranging a Duke's face, Valric thought, knowing better than to remind the beast of its teeth.
"Okay then," Noa turned away, his silhouette blurring. "I'll be going. See ya."
[Blink]
***
Inside the main Aurelyth command tent, the atmosphere had transformed from a hub of arrogance into a pressure cooker of pure panic.
"What is happening? How did this happen?!" King Kahen screamed at the messenger, his face a mask of purple rage.
The report was a death knell: more than half of their invincible army had been erased in a matter of minutes.
Beside him, Duke Gemsh sat in a plush chair, his hands trembling as he wiped sweat from his brow. His mind, once a fortress of logic and schemes, was crumbling.
"Something is wrong... I have never seen a mage of that magnitude. And... him."
Gemsh remembered the black-haired man from the meeting—the 'partner' of Vionette Crimvane. He had assumed Vionette was a puppet, a girl who had fallen for the charms of a commoner or a simple mercenary. Only now did he realize that Noa was not her trap; he was her weapon.
"You know him, Gemsh?" Kahen demanded, his voice a low growl.
"Yes," Gemsh said, leaning back and closing his eyes as if trying to block out the screams from outside. "He is Vionette's partner. The one who broke your son's pride before this war even began."
Kahen's eyes widened as the memory of Cassian's humiliation returned. He realized then why Vionette had walked into a den of wolves with only one man at her side when she went to meet Roswell. They weren't arrogant; they were simply sufficient.
The flap of the tent was thrown open violently, and a knight stumbled in, falling to her knees without a word of permission.
"Sire! There is a problem!" she cried out.
"What is it now?!" Kahen roared, his patience snapping like a dry twig.
"Prince Cassian... he has been killed by the black-haired man. And Duke Gemsh's hidden units... they've been blocked. Duke Carvan's soldiers have surrounded them!"
"Carvan? What a—"
Clap-Clap-Clap
The tent fell into a sudden, suffocating silence. From behind the kneeling knight, the sound of rhythmic, slow clapping echoed through the space. Gemsh went rigid in his chair. Kahen froze, his hand moving instinctively to the hilt of his sword.
A silhouette blocked the afternoon sun, casting a long, elegant shadow across the maps on the central table. A woman stepped into the light, her presence radiating a cold, mythic authority that made the air feel heavy. It was Vionette, her white hair shimmering like fallen snow and her crimson eyes burning with a light that made the lanterns dim in comparison.
"I must say, it was a good plan," Vionette said, her voice a silk-wrapped blade. She continued to walk forward, her clapping a mocking percussion for their failure. "You did great, Gemsh. Truly."
"Who are you?!" The knight on the floor scrambled to her feet, drawing her sword with a frantic energy.
She didn't know the young woman, but the protective instinct for her king overrode her fear.
Vionette did not stop. She continued walking forward with a measured, predatory grace, her crimson eyes locked onto Gemsh with such intensity that it felt as if the rest of the world had ceased to exist. She was smiling—a calm, chilling expression that carried the weight of a final judgment.
The knight stood frozen, her sword also frozen by the sheer absurdity of the situation. Confused by Vionette's total lack of fear and her eerily quiet aura, the soldier could do nothing but stare into those blood-red eyes, her mind paralyzed by a rising, instinctual dread.
Gulp!
As Vionette closed the distance, she didn't even glance at the steel. Instead, she lazily extended a single finger, tapping the flat of the knight's blade. As she kept walking past, her finger trailed a slow, rhythmic path down the cold metal, sliding all the way to the guard before finally making soft, direct contact with the knight's trembling hand.
[Sovereign]
Vionette's unique skill—the power to claim the will of those she touched—flared into life. Normally, it required a weak mind and sustained contact, but for a knight whose spirit had been shattered by the sight of Noa's slaughter and the impossible appearance of the princess, it was an effortless conquest.
Take her over.
[Understood.]
The knight's eyes glazed over for a fraction of a second before snapping back into a sharp, hollow focus. She didn't strike Vionette. Instead, she pivoted, her sword now pointed directly at Kahen's throat, her body becoming Vionette's most loyal shield.
"V-Vionette?" Gemsh stammered, his teeth gritting so hard they threatened to crack.
What is going on? Why is she here? How did she get through the lines?!
As if answering the unspoken question, Vionette smoothed out the front of her skirt. She had been dropped here by Noa's [Blink] just moments ago, a delivery made upon her specific request to end the drama personally.
"What are you doing here?" Kahen demanded, his voice cracking with the first notes of true terror.
"Ara, Gemsh, have you already given up?" Vionette asked, completely ignoring the King as she focused on the Duke. "Didn't you think you were a genius? Someone special who could rewrite the stars?"
Gemsh's eyes widened. Those were his private thoughts—his secret arrogance that he had never spoken aloud. Yet she had read them like a child's picture book.
"Let me explain then."