One minute? Five minutes? Ten minutes?
Artorius had lost track of how long he had been killing. He didn't know how many lives he had taken or how many meters he had advanced. Moore and Ryan, who had initially stayed in front to clear a path and save his strength, had long since fallen behind—how far, he couldn't say.
His world had narrowed down to the ever-approaching end of the enemy ranks. Advance and slay. Advance and slay. Until...
Artorius cut down the final Saxon standing in his path. His body remained coiled in the follow-through of the strike, but his gaze was already locked onto Loren, who stood atop a wooden platform a dozen meters away, watching him.
As more Saxon soldiers moved to swarm him again, Artorius slammed his foot into the ground.
With a sudden burst of mana, the earth beneath his boot shattered like a spiderweb. Using the explosive momentum, Artorius became a silver blur, bowling over the Saxons in his way. He reached the platform in an instant and swung his black sword in a savage upward diagonal arc.
CLANG!
Loren's massive greataxe caught the black blade just inches from his throat.
The axe trembled under the force, pressing back until it nearly touched Loren's own chest, but he held his ground.
"You've slowed down," Loren sneered. The veins in his arms bulged as he poured every ounce of strength into the counter-push. The sheer physical pressure traveled down the black sword, forcing Artorius to retreat several steps before he could find his footing.
Before Artorius could even steady himself, Loren was already upon him, his greataxe whistling downward.
The sound of clashing steel and the shower of sparks were the only lights in the moonless dark. In less than ten seconds, their weapons collided and separated over a dozen times.
Then came the final blow.
Loren spotted a momentary opening after Artorius's sword was parried wide. Grasping the handle with both hands, he raised the greataxe high over his head and brought it down with a bloodthirsty grin.
Exhaustion weighed heavily on Artorius; he couldn't capitalize on the opening. He only had enough time to raise his black sword horizontally to block.
CLANG—!!!
A violent shockwave erupted from the impact, physically blowing the falling rain away from the two combatants.
Artorius's arms went numb from the vibration, and he was forced back several more steps. Loren pressed the advantage immediately, his heavy axe moving with the terrifying speed of a rapier, raining down a flurry of strikes.
"You are strong."
"I truly wished for a fair fight with you. Though I know it would end in my death, it would be a warrior's end. But unfortunately, I must kill you today. So, I had to use their lives to drain your stamina first."
"And now... you are no longer my match."
Loren continued to attack relentlessly, using his words as a psychological weapon to fray Artorius's focus and stir his emotions.
Artorius remained silent, his eyes deadlocked on Loren.
Under normal circumstances, he could likely overwhelm this man. But now, his physical strength was nearly spent, and his power had waned. With Saxon soldiers lurking nearby like vultures, killing Loren through conventional means was nearly impossible.
Therefore...
"Have you ever met a magus?" Artorius spoke suddenly, his voice calm but raspy with exhaustion.
Loren froze for a split second. His axe collided with the black sword once more, and as they broke apart, his mind raced to decipher the meaning behind those words.
Was it just a desperate taunt to distract him? Or was there a deeper meaning?
It has to be a bluff, Loren decided. The boy was at his limit; he couldn't possibly have an ace left. Besides, most magi were useless scholars—what could they possibly contribute to a battlefield?
With that thought, Loren swung his axe down again. No matter what, he wouldn't give the boy a second to breathe.
However, Artorius's nonsensical question had planted a seed of doubt. It caused Loren's judgment to falter for a mere fraction of a second. In that tiny window of time...
Artorius used the recoil of the last clash to spring backward. His right boot dug into the mud, and he gripped his sword with both hands behind his back.
Whoosh!
A faint, ethereal sound of wind echoed through the darkness.
Amidst the roaring storm and the cacophony of the ongoing battle between the knights and the Saxons, the sound was so delicate it was almost inaudible. But Loren sensed it.
"What is that?"
Loren hesitated again, his eyes widening as he noticed a vortex of wind beginning to coil around Artorius's black sword.
It was a swirling gale that sucked in the surrounding raindrops and tore them to mist, centering entirely on the blade.
This was an idea Artorius had conceived the previous year while traveling through Britain with his teacher, his sister, and the "Lady" Merly. He had fought alongside a magus who condensed mana onto a staff to strike enemies. Artorius had wondered: What if I did the same?
Mana Burst. Condensing energy around the sword to create a crushing vortex of wind.
Previously, he had been limited by his own mana capacity. Squeezing every drop of energy from his body wouldn't have been enough to trigger the move; instead, it would have left him in a state of near-death exhaustion.
But ever since that "blessing" he received from Merly... his mana had been growing alongside his physical attributes. Today, he finally had enough to unleash his self-created technique:
"Strike Air!"
The wind-clad longsword swung upward, slamming into Loren's greataxe. But the vortex didn't stop at the impact—it exploded forward.
The wind howled.
Loren's body was launched into the air, soaring several meters high and flying dozens of meters back before slamming into the earth with a sickening crunch.
Boom!
Then, silence.
The slaughter on the battlefield ground to a halt. The clashing of blades, the roars of men, the screams of the dying—everything stopped. There was only the sound of the wind and the rain.
Everyone stared in a daze at Artorius, who stood alone with his black sword. They looked at Loren, who lay motionless on the ground, his armor shredded by the wind to reveal a mangled, bloodied body.
The Saxons, who had been fighting with suicidal bravery, looked at the silver knight and felt despair for the first time. They watched him take a step toward Loren, and for the first time, they began to retreat. Until...
"S... Strike Air, was it?"
A labored, wet cough sounded from within a battered helmet. Loren's limp fingers twitched. With a surge of agonizing effort, he reached up, tore off his helmet, and threw it aside.
He crawled to his feet, spitting mouthfuls of blood. He looked up at the silver-armored knight, a twisted, ghoulish grin spreading across his face.
"I thought I was being cautious enough... I didn't expect to still underestimate you."
With a sudden grunt, Loren tore off his breastplate, which had been rendered useless by Artorius's strike. Then, he drew a small dagger from his waist and plunged it directly into his own heart.
As blood gushed onto his hands, Loren smeared it across his face in a ritualistic mask.
"Great White Dragon Queen! I, Loren Duncan, your most loyal believer, offer you my fealty! My life! My body and my soul! I offer you my everything!"
A sense of profound dread washed over Artorius. He squeezed the last of his strength, charging toward Loren to finish him, but Loren's personal guard threw themselves into his path, dying by the dozen just to buy a few seconds.
Though their skill was negligible, it took the exhausted Artorius precious moments to cut through them. By the time he reached Loren and raised his black sword for the kill...
Loren had already thrown his arms toward the sky, screaming at the heavens.
"Great White Dragon! Queen of the Saxons! I beg you, grant me your power! Let me slay your enemy for you!"
The rain stopped. The wind died.
The thundering black clouds that had choked the sky suddenly parted.
Artorius realized, with a jolt of horror, that he could no longer move.
Loren, still kneeling with his arms raised, stared at the starry sky with an expression of fanatical ecstasy. Tears of blood streamed from his eyes.
Every soul on the battlefield looked up.
High above, in the gap between the clouds, a pair of narrowed, ancient eyes slowly opened. They looked down with the cold, divine indifference of a god—gazing upon the battlefield, upon the Royal City, and upon everyone below.
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