"Mydei, if you keep this up, sooner or later your body is going to give out. You heal incredibly fast, but you're not actually immortal! If you keep fighting alone like this, one day you really might die out there."
Phainon stared intently at Mydei. His childhood friend had been acting more and more recklessly lately, constantly taking on high-difficulty missions and insisting on completing them alone. How could Phainon possibly not worry about him?
"I know you're worried about me, Phainon, but people should make use of the abilities they have. Mine is perfectly suited for this kind of work. Besides, every time I'm injured and recover, I can feel my strength and physique improving. As long as I don't die, I can keep getting stronger this way. Maybe one day, I'll become strong enough to end the Black Tide entirely on my own."
Mydei did not know exactly why this happened, and even the scholars of Amphoreus had been unable to determine the cause. Perhaps it was simply a talent unique to him.
Whenever his body recovered from a serious injury, Mydei could feel his physical abilities improving little by little. After dozens of missions of varying difficulty and more near-death experiences than he could count, he was certain that if his present self fought the inexperienced version of himself who had just left school, the battle would probably end within seconds.
"Then let me stay by your side! We can fight together!"
Phainon did not possess Mydei's ability to continuously grow stronger through healing, but his own talent was equally extraordinary. As long as he continued training, he seemed capable of improving without ever reaching a bottleneck.
In order to keep up with Mydei, Phainon had spent nearly all his time training and had not even gone home for quite a while.
"Phainon, listen. We aren't ordinary students anymore. We can't just make whatever reckless decisions we feel like making. We're soldiers fighting on the front lines to save the people of Amphoreus, or heroes, as some of them like to call us.
"Everything I'm doing has been approved by Lady Aglaea. Why do you think I'm allowed to operate alone and take on so many missions in the first place? As soldiers, following the orders of our commander is something we have to do. If you really want to come with me, then convince Lady Aglaea first."
Phainon shouted after his friend, but Mydei did not look back. He simply continued toward the site of his next mission.
Mydei stood upon a barren stretch of land. This place had once been an orchard whose fruit was shipped to Okhema. Mydei had eaten it before. Every piece had been sweet, ripe, and bursting with juice.
Now there was nothing here except misshapen monsters covering the hills and fields.
Mydei pulled a broken blade from his chest. Ignoring the black mist gnawing at the flesh around the wound, he clenched his fists once more and charged toward the monsters formed from the Black Tide.
Again and again he was wounded, and again and again he fought. His body should have been reduced to a ruin of scars and broken flesh, yet every injury healed once more, as though he truly possessed an immortal body.
By the time he came back to his senses, the barren ground was covered with the corpses of monsters. But Mydei knew it meant little.
These creatures could be knocked down, torn apart, and destroyed, but they would not truly die. Even if their bodies were reduced to tiny fragments, given enough time, those pieces would eventually give birth to new monsters.
Even burning the remains to ash with intense flames only cleared a small area for a while. More monsters would simply crawl out of the dark tide afterward.
At present, if the people truly wanted to save the world, they had to find the missing Titans and accomplish the great feat of world recreation described in the ancient myths.
"Young man, what do you fight for?"
A voice suddenly sounded behind him.
Mydei turned and saw someone who should not have been there. The man's clothing did not belong to the modern era at all. It resembled the ancient attire seen only in historical films and dramas.
He even wore a metal helmet. Mydei recognized the style from history books. It belonged to the people of Castrum Kremnos from more than a thousand years ago, when Amphoreus had still been consumed by war.
The main reason he remembered it so clearly was because his teacher had once told him that his own ancestors had ruled Castrum Kremnos.
"Who are you?"
Mydei did not tell the man to leave just because he looked like an ordinary civilian. Mydei himself had ventured deep into territory consumed by the Black Tide in search of traces of the Titans. There was no possibility that an ordinary person could have survived here until now.
The man before him was clearly not as ordinary as he appeared.
"My name is Gnaeus. I am a warrior."
"My name is Mydei. I'm a warrior too."
"Then what do you fight for?"
"So that those who are still alive won't have to shed any more tears because of this disaster. So that the land we live on won't continue to be ravaged and consumed. So that there won't be any more farewells."
"You fight to protect, then?"
"Not only to protect. More importantly, I want revenge for my comrades. They died to the Black Tide. I can't bring the dead back to life, so the only thing I can do is honor them with the blood of their enemies."
"So you fight for vengeance as well."
"Then what do you fight for, Gnaeus?"
"Because I am Strife."
Mydei fell silent for a long moment. His arms slowly lowered as he looked at the man whose face remained hidden beneath the helmet.
"You're Nikador, the Titan of Strife from the myths."
"Yes."
"Looks like my luck isn't bad. After searching for so long, I actually managed to find one of you, beings everyone thought had faded into legend."
"We were always here. We merely fell into a long slumber in order to seal the Black Tide. And now, as you can see, we no longer have the strength to continue holding it back."
"...Is the myth true? If we gather the Coreflames of every Titan, can we really recreate the world and bring true peace to Amphoreus?"
"I do not know what will happen after the world is recreated. But one thing is certain. If you obtain my Coreflame, you will become stronger. You will be able to protect more people, save more lives, and take greater vengeance upon the monsters that killed your comrades."
"What do I have to do?"
"It's simple. We are both warriors, so naturally we will settle this as warriors do."
As Gnaeus spoke, a golden spear appeared in his hand.
"First, let me see whether you are worthy to face [Strife]."
The moment he finished speaking, Gnaeus lunged forward and drove the spear toward Mydei's heart without the slightest hesitation.
Mydei did not dodge.
Instead, he thrust out one arm and used the bone itself to forcibly deflect the spear's trajectory, then swung his other fist straight toward Gnaeus's helmet.
He showed no fear whatsoever of the excruciating pain caused by the weapon scraping against bone.
Perhaps pain like this had already become ordinary to him.
Gnaeus did not retreat either. Instead, he stepped forward, crashing directly into Mydei's guard as he drove an elbow toward his chest.
And so, upon that desolate land littered with the remains of Black Tide monsters, the two began an extraordinarily brutal close-quarters battle, with blood and flesh flying as they fought.
(To be continued.)
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◇ You can read the ahead chapter on Pat if you're interested: p-atreon.c-om/Blownleaves (Just remove the hyphen to access normally.)