Fulin had no room to choose; like a leaf in current, she wore Lance’s face and stood with Mage Eugene on the camp wall.

Eugene finished the last rites of preparation; his voice was low, like wind under eaves. “Knight, I know you’ve got some skill, but you follow my call. Clear?”

Lance answered, steady as a stone lantern. “No problem, Mage.”

The plan was simple, like a blade laid flat. Wait for Sergeant Lawrence’s signal, then strike the mercenary chief with Eugene’s aid; the legion would flood in like a tide; inside and out would close like jaws; hostages safe, mercs finished.

They held still like frost on tiles, waiting for the charge to crack the ice. The call would rise from the post-station camp before them.

A voice rang from the gate, bright as a bronze bell rolling across the sky. “Hear me, inside! You arrogant curs! You dare rampage on the Iron Duke’s land? The Lionheart Legion’s Special Operations declares your death!”

Backed by the Echo spell, Sergeant Lawrence’s voice hit like thunder over open water. It steadied our men like a hand on the spine, and tolled doom for the enemy like a funeral bell.

Sound pressed in from all sides like a tightening ring, and the mercenaries’ hearts fluttered like caged sparrows.

“Enemy attack! Where are they—where?!”

Steel hissed out of scabbards like snakes from grass. Men ran between barracks like shadows in torchlight, hunting ghosts they couldn’t find.

Chaos swirled like dust in a wind. At last someone barked the truth. “Idiots! Mage tricks! They can only come from the front!”

Too late. Lawrence stepped through the gate like a mountain moving.

A dozen mercs nearest the gate had been braced like ice over a river. They saw only one tin‑can knight and burst out laughing like drunken crows, tension melting like snow in sunlight.

Lawrence ignored the cawing. He strode a single, hammering step and raised his blade for a cleave like a falling axe.

Cold light flashed like lightning on water. Three mercenaries dropped as if strings were cut.

The rest by the gate stiffened, spines like spears. In small knots they split left and right, charging to smother him like wolves by number.

They never saw the ten soldiers who swept from the corner like a rip current. Spears and shields crossed before Lawrence like iron branches. The mercs smashed in like moths to flame, stopped dead at the shield-line; before thought returned, spearpoints slid through leather gaps like needles through cloth.

Those who balked or never dared step in were picked off by archers on the gate like hawks on field mice. Six bows loosed in one breath, iron shafts hissing like rain. Tricksters were nailed through the brow like pins, or skewered in limb and trunk, then finished clean by the slow-rolling shield wall like a mill’s final turn.

In under five minutes, the fight tilted like a seesaw slammed hard, all to one side.

The Gray Wolf Mercenary Company had numbers like a hayfield, but they were cut like straw in harvest, utterly outmatched.

Fitch boiled over, voice like oil on fire. “Damn it! Useless trash!”

He’d thought Mubay City was a stirred pond he could fish in. He’d seized a small camp and expected murk, not a storm at his door.

In other dukedoms, nobles speak for their pet mercs, or the duke’s men stroll in tomorrow, even later; both sides parley under the gate, a dance of steps before war or retreat.

The Iron Duke’s Lionheart Legion came in under half a day like thunderheads rolling fast.

These beasts the duke fed were cutting through the camp like knives through bamboo. They’d reach the hostage clearing in a breath.

Fitch snapped, words like thrown stones. “Fire on the clearing! Burn those hostages!”

“Yes!” A confidant burst from a barrack like a loosed arrow, snatched a torch, and cocked to throw it onto the woodpile.

He didn’t finish the move. Arrows thudded in like thorns from a hedgehog; blood spilled from seven orifices; he fell like a sack.

He wasn’t the only one with fire. Mercs falling back saw the delay plain as smoke—light the woodpile, force the rescue to fight the blaze. Time would stretch like taffy.

Several tore torches from wall-brackets and flung them like shooting stars at the stacked wood.

That was bad. Lionheart archers couldn’t pluck torches from the air like cherries, and even a hit might not turn the throw.

As fire arced toward the hostages like red comets, Mage Eugene finally moved from the wall like a stone waking.

He rose, staff lifted, and pointed at the woodpile like a judge’s finger. A basic spell flowed out.

“Levitation.”

Torches lost their fall like birds caught mid-wing, but kept their glide like skims over water. It lasted only a split-second, a flicker between breaths, but enough to bend every torch’s path like reeds in wind. None found the pile.

“Damn mage!”

If throwing failed, two mercs chose the flame’s kiss. They sprinted with torches to touch fire to wood, risking their own burning like moths daring the candle.

Had they tried earlier, they could have kindled the pile, delayed the legion’s push, maybe slipped out under smoke like foxes. But now, the hourglass was empty.

“Don’t even think about it!”

Lawrence roared like a war drum and unleashed a battle art, the Charge Knight’s signature brand: Heart of Iron.

Heart of Iron was a strengthening art, a furnace for the body. Battle Aura surged like a river in flood, spiking strength, speed, and endurance like sparks. Side effects bite, so Lawrence uses it only three times a day.

This was the first.

“Animals, face me!”

Clad in full plate like a walking tower, Lawrence charged and leapt like a thunderbolt. He ate twenty meters in one bound and crashed onto the woodpile like a meteor.

Branches cracked like dry bones; sticks flew like startled birds. The pile shattered; even if lit, it wouldn’t bloom into a blaze, let alone consume the hostages.

Even so, the tin‑can knight had burst out from the shield wall like a bright fish from shoal. The Lionheart officer stood away from his guard. In mercenary eyes, that gap looked like a crack to pry open.

Thirty‑odd men rushed in like a breaker, a number even a Charge Knight might not weather unscathed. Steel on him meant flesh within; he wasn’t thunder made man, and hope flickered like a wick.

On the scale named victory, though, Lawrence laid heavier weights like stones.

Heart of Iron, a second time.

“Bastards, look at me!”

Battle Aura whirled wild, then clenched tight, all driven into the steel sword like wind into a sail.

He stepped and cut, stepped and cut, each swing a guillotine. One sword, one kill, each time. The onrushing mercs were ants under a millstone, shredded by a steel‑bodied cutter without mercy.

In a blink the clearing was empty of enemies, like a field after harvest. It happened too fast; they never got to drag hostages as shields.

The bound people in the clearing’s center were freed like birds loosed from nets.

They were dazzled, awe filling their eyes like dawn light. “Soldiers of the Lionheart Legion, you’re heroes!”

Relief warmed them like soup, and they forgot the storm wasn’t over. Some stood blinking, not knowing where to turn.

A soldier in the shield wall snapped, voice like a whip. “Get out, or we won’t vouch for your lives!”

These dozen were traveling merchants, thin as reeds from hunger. They obeyed, running out of the camp like deer, bellies empty but steps quick. They knew they were saved in passing. The true rescue lay behind the clearing—noble ladies in the rear barracks. Most of all, the fairest rose in that garden—the Iron Duke’s youngest daughter, Alice Murphy.

Even for heroes, saving beauty isn’t simple. The rose bristles with thorns.

“Insolent scum! Don’t touch me! Let go—mmph!” At the barrack, Alice was pinned by two of Fitch’s confidants. One crushed her soft, slender body like a hawk pinning a dove; the other laid a cold blade on her swan neck like frost on porcelain.

Seeing their keystone taken, every man in the Lionheart Legion, Lawrence included, froze like statues.

Fitch strolled out of the barrack like a fox to a henhouse, and stepped up one high stair like a perch, looking down from on high.

He checked his men could end Alice in a breath, then put on sorrow like a mask. “I’m sorry, soldiers. You’re brave, righteous, honorable as banners. We’re simple mercenaries, wanting quiet lives like smoke from a hearth. We had no quarrel, but you drove me to the cliff, so—”

Fulin had waited for this opening like a hunter in grass. She had no time for a villain’s slow drip of words. Wearing Lance’s skin, she struck now.

Borrowing Mage Eugene’s Catstep, Lance ran at full tilt, feet silent as a cat on snow.

He cut in from the side toward Alice’s holder like a shadow sidling along a wall. At the moment of touch, he unleashed Secret Sword Blazing Fire.

“Slash!”

With the explosive flame of Battle Aura like a furnace erupting, Lance blasted the knife‑man three meters back like a kicked door.

The blade might have kissed that swan neck, might have opened a red smile along the carotid, but Eugene threw a shield spell in time, Deflect Blade, and the edge skittered off like rain off lacquer. Alice was unharmed.

Fitch and his other confidant saw their comrade fly like a rag doll. Shock ran over their faces like cloud shadows.

The last man clutching Alice staggered back a few steps like a crab. He saw the red‑haired youth’s sword burning like a torch and lost his nerve; his face went chalk white. In a blink he judged the truth: the Gray Wolf had no road to win.

He didn’t wait for Fitch’s order. His fingers dug into Alice’s neck like iron hooks. He meant to snap a noble neck on the spot like a twig.

No one saw that coming. Eugene’s bag of tricks was empty like a dry well; Lawrence shouted “No!” like a struck bell; even Fitch yelled “Are you mad?!” like a whip crack. Only Fulin, playing Lance, kept still water in her heart.

She, as Lance, took the Stance of the Thrust, a spearpoint of intent.

The sword coiled to strike like a snake, yet some unseen resistance held it like ice over a river. It wouldn’t go.

For a breath, time hung still like snow in the air.

Memories raced through Fulin’s mind like lanterns in a night parade. Frame by frame, she recalled the Dark Warrior technique, Stance of the Thrust, each minute motion like beads on a string. She recalled that handsome, dashing, and downright adorable Blood Clan fighter—herself—how she’d made the weapon pierce exactly where it must.

She strained, but the key detail stayed missing, like the one blank in a jigsaw—white, stubborn, infuriating. Had she truly forgotten the trick?

No. She recalled the Dark Warrior master from Legend of Dawn, words like a lighthouse in fog: The world’s a mess. Why not be the countercurrent in churning waves and drive straight on?

Yes. A countercurrent in rough waves.

That was what she needed. The Lance she wore would be that current against the flow.

“Stab.”

In that instant, Lance slid the sword back into its sheath like a quiet tide. No one understood why the boy put his weapon away with death in reach.

To the mercenary twisting Alice’s neck, it was a gift like a door left open. He pressed harder on the swan neck like a vise. But… why?

He didn’t know why a question rose. The strength drained from him like water from a cracked jar. His thoughts slowed like syrup. Could it be—?

No. There was no “could.”

He’d died the instant Lance sheathed the blade, like a candle snuffed in a draft.

When Stance of the Thrust succeeds, it flowers into a derived move, a thrust done in a blink, faster than sight, like lightning under silk.

If you ask where Lance struck, the answer is simple as a cut line: the man’s neck. Which is why the mercenary on the ground has none.

Under moonlight cold as water, the lost strip of neck stuck to Fitch’s shoulder.

His eyes dropped, and he went mad, screaming like a trapped wolf: “Aaah—!!”

When the howl burned out, the former mercenary captain crumpled like a puppet with cut strings.

He giggled, limbs jerking, foam bubbling at his mouth; the moon looked on, birthing another madman.

“Oh! By the God of Victory, that move cut like lightning.”

“Was that Master Layne’s signature? The kid’s got some bite.”

To battle-hardened legionaries, that scene hit like rain on iron—no dent.

They traded looks, then wore boredom like masks and drifted back to their posts.

Under dust settling like ash, they swept the field where battle had just burned out.

Aside from Alice, the other noble ladies hidden in the barracks were pulled from the shadows.

Every key figure came under protection, like candles cupped against wind.

With the mission done, everyone let out a breath, like bows easing after the shot.

Fulin, wearing Lance’s face, felt relief ripple through her chest like a stone sinking in calm water.

She turned to go, and silent Alice suddenly flew at her like a startled bird.

The golden-haired lady clamped onto Lance from behind, a small storm of grievance swirling around her.

“Why are you only here now? Why, why—why? They almost… ugh, ugh…”

The hug hit Fulin’s composure like fire to dry grass; panic flared first.

Her Chaos Vampire hunt instinct reared like a starving beast, ready to swallow her reason whole.

But the iron discipline from her past life’s 9-9-6 grind didn’t yield so easily.

She had walked tunnels without light, days that ground flesh and mind; that forge let her hold herself like an anchor in storm.

Soon, the feral glaze in Fulin’s eyes faded like embers cooling.

In Lance’s voice, soft as rain, she offered comfort:

“Lady Alice, I’m only a passing knight. I’ve no right to touch your sovereign beauty and jade-still grace. Please forgive me.”

With that, Lance tried to ease Alice off him, gentle as wind moving leaves.

Nope—gentle didn’t work; she was plastered on like warm honey.

Fulin, still Lance, used a touch more force and peeled Alice off like ivy from stone.

She was left standing there, adrift and pitiful, like a fawn in rain.

Sergeant Lawrence watched, shook his head with a wind-worn sigh.

“Eh—why’s the boy so dense?”