At the Golden Grape Restaurant’s front doors, Lance stepped out of the night like daylight cutting fog.

He lifted a hand, lazy as a summer breeze. “Yo—good evening, everyone.”

The gate knights snapped taut like bowstrings, steel catching lamplight. “Identify yourself!”

“Lance Morrison. Remember the name.” His blade flowed like a comet’s tail. Secret Sword Blazing Fire—Modified. A cloud of flame rolled over them like a storm front.

Screams whistled up like kettles. Many dropped and writhed, skin seared like scorched bark. Yet others held, Battle Aura humming like a shell of wind.

One even snorted, contempt sharp as a knife. “Arrogant brat.”

“Wrong.” The Spy Mage arrived like a shadow stepping out of a candle. His Incendiary flared. Dull fire leapt like dry pine, turning into pure spellfire.

The Charge Knights still standing howled and rolled, their armor popping like hot stones in a stream.

Lance cut a gesture, quick as a hawk’s wing. Opportunity glinted like frost.

Patrol knights caught the heat in the air and shouted “Enemy attack!” Their boots drummed like rain as they ran for the gate.

A four-horse wagon came barreling in, Jeremy whooping like a herdsman chasing a storm. “Whoa! Danger, danger! Speeding!”

Mid-run, the horses slipped their tack on purpose, four stallions bursting like scattered fireworks into the charging line.

Jeremy’s crew jumped, bodies arcing like swallows. The driverless wagon slammed the wall with a thundercrack, bricks coughing dust like old lungs.

With a path torn open like a rip in canvas, Lance shouted, “Move!”

“Oh—oh—oh!”

They surged into the first floor. Knights still chewing swung up, stew splattering like mud in a flood, steel scraping like flint. They were outpaced.

“Catch this!” Lance cut another Secret Sword Blazing Fire. Men toppled like wheat in a hot wind.

Knight Stephen and others pounded down the stairs. One glance at the chaos froze him like winter. “How dare you be so mad!”

“The mad ones are you!” Lance sprang like a tiger through brush. The machete flashed. Secret Sword Swallow Return.

“So…strong…” Stephen’s sword snapped like ice, and he went down like a felled trunk.

Fear thinned the enemy ranks like fog at dawn. Jeremy barked, bright as a campfire. “Boys, with me!”

“Hey-ha!” The retainers pushed like a tide with oars, carving a red road that ran straight as a spear. They hit the stairwell hard.

On the second floor, they came up and chose not to climb. Calm fell like a held breath.

Lance pointed at the landing, eyes like flint. The Spy Mage nodded. “Seal it, right?”

He turned to the stair mouth that led to the third. The staff tapped once like a woodpecker. A firm earth wall rose like a cliff and plugged the doorway tight.

“Heh, now they can’t come down.” Jeremy flashed a goofy V-sign, bright as a kid with candy.

“It won’t last long.” A retainer’s doubt crackled like ice underfoot. Sure enough, the wall boomed with blows, cracks spidering inward like frost.

“Every second we buy is a second of life.” The Spy Mage wiped sweat that tasted like metal. He glanced at Lance. “Still, Lance—you surprised me with this gambit.”

“Don’t make it a myth.” Lance’s gaze lifted to the ceiling like a hunter scenting blood. Tension wired his shoulders. “Can you pinpoint Reina’s room?”

“No problem.”

“Then let’s begin.” Lance’s voice cooled like quenched steel.

…

In a third-floor private room, a knight burst in, dropped to one knee like falling timber. “Report! The Blazing Fire Knight and his crew have broken in!”

The Vanilla Duke sipped aged wine from a golden goblet, the liquid winking like sunset on a lake. His voice stayed still as stone. “How many? Give me details.”

“One Charge Knight. A handful of elite retainers. One leopard familiar. One battle mage.”

“Which Charge Knight? Which mage?”

Cold sweat beaded like dew. “The Charge Knight is the Blazing Fire Knight. The mage’s look suggests the ‘Spy Mage.’”

“Just them?” The goblet trembled in his hand like a leaf in wind.

“Just them!” The messenger’s face nearly kissed the floor like a penitent.

“Useless rabble!” Calm shattered. The goblet flew like a thrown coin and cracked open the man’s scalp with a dull thud.

Silence pooled like oil. The white-robed elder at his side broke it with a whisper like dry parchment. “Duke, what would you have me do?”

Shanfeng bowed on the other side, wind-quiet. “And me?”

The Duke’s gaze slid to the corner shadow, thought gathering like storm cloud. Cool returned to his tone. “You two, stay by my side.” He turned to the prone runner. “Carry my order. Mass at the floor entrance. Put mages trained in animal-sight on the windows. Don’t let them in.”

“By your leave!” Boots scraped like flints as the knight fled.

When the door shut, the Duke shifted his chair and faced Reina. Rope bit her wrists like cold snakes around a branch. He smiled, teeth showing like a knife. “Well then, Rose Knight. After all I’ve said, have you come around?”

“My answer’s clear.” The girl’s voice rang like a bell on frost. “I will not betray the Doran Kingdom.”

“That’s not betrayal…” The Vanilla Duke chuckled, lifting another golden cup to candlelight, gold gleaming like dawn in fog. “Our Doran Kingdom is a reservoir, a basin the Heavenly Spirit Empire dips into at will.”

“Perhaps it’s full today,” his voice thinned like smoke, “but one day…”

“Reina Grandi, you carry royal blood. You should shoulder the load. Now’s the hour for independence. Why not join?”

Her anger flared like a struck match. “Your ‘independence’ is just swapping masters and calling it sweet!”

“What’s wrong with another suzerain?!” The Duke roared, voice like a lion in a small cage.

“I’m a duke. I’m the Duke of Golden Bay City! Yet to them, what’s a duke? Endless reports like sands of a river. Constant currying like ants on sugar. Obedience without why, like a puppet’s nod! Why is a duke’s life this low?”

“Because…” Reina faltered; words scattered like birds. “Whatever you say, we can’t betray humanity.”

“Enough!” The cup slammed the table like thunder. “You honorless knight—become a puppet, then!”

He snapped the order like a whip. “You. Do it. Turn her into a Vampire Knight.”

“As you wish.” A low male voice rolled from the shadowed corner like a cave wind. A blot of darkness peeled itself free, rising like ink in water.

He walked forward. Candlelight stripped the black away like bark from a log, and the truth drew a hiss like arrows. A Daemon Knight.

“It’s a Daemon Knight!” someone trembled, voice thin as reed-flute.

“Correct… but kindly call me Odon,” he said, smooth as oiled leather.

He set a handcase on the long table, latches snapping like beetles. He drew out an empty syringe and three ampules, their liquids red, blue, and black, colors pooling like bleeding sky.

The white-robed elder blinked, eyes like old ice. “What’s the blue?”

“Oh, honored Archmage, a serum from a magical beast.” Odon spoke while the needle drank, each ampule emptying in turn like hourglasses.

“A serum? What did you refine?”

“Not at liberty to say.” He twirled the syringe, the mixture dark as stormwater.

Odon approached, and Reina fought like a hooked fish. “Let me go! You won’t make me a monster!”

“It feels exquisite. Why resist?” Odon’s delight curled like smoke. Her struggle stayed fierce, flint on steel. “Archmage, can you calm this fiery lady?”

The white robe said nothing. His Enervation rolled out like a cold tide. Reina sagged like a punctured bladder, breath fluttering like a moth.

Her lips barely moved, stubborn as a lone pine in wind. “You… won’t…”

She slipped into darkness like a stone sinking.

“Perfect. Now we can—” Odon’s words snagged like cloth on a nail. His gaze cut to Yuna, seated quiet as snow. “You. You look very calm. Why? I order you to answer.”

Yuna’s eyes were winter water, life and death both small ripples. “Only my master can command me. I refuse.”

“Heh. Your master’s about to lose his life.”

The floor shuddered, a drumbeat from the earth. Nearly everyone staggered like reeds in a gust.

“An earthquake?!” The Duke grabbed the table, fingers white as bone.

The planks gave way with a roar, the floor collapsing like rotten ice. The two bound to chairs dropped clean through.

“What?!” Odon’s eyes widened like cracked glass.

Below, Lance and his crew caught them like fishermen with nets. “Plan worked!” His grin flashed like firelight.

“Their chairs are still on,” the Spy Mage added, dry as tinder. He flung up a Stonewall at the gap, granite sealing the hole like a tomb.

“Two ticks and done!” Jeremy worked the knots, fingers flying like weaver’s shuttles.

Ropes fell like dead snakes. They hefted both and tossed them onto the big cat’s back like sacks onto a cart.

The blast had carved not just a hole in the ceiling, but also a gaping maw in the wall, its mouth opening straight onto the street like a river to sea. That was the route out. Victory felt close enough to warm the skin.

“You go first,” Lance said, voice steady as a drawn bow.

“Boss, what about you?!” The words hit like cold water down the spine.

“That’s an order.” Lance didn’t blink. The command stood like a spear planted in earth.

“We can’t leave you! You fed us rich and kept us safe—now—”

“We go,” the Spy Mage said, laying a hand on Jeremy’s shoulder like a brother in dusk. He turned his head away, unable to meet Lance’s eyes, and his voice dimmed like embers. “If no one holds the line, none of us get out.”

Jeremy swallowed silence like bitter tea.

“Don’t worry. I’ll come back breathing,” Lance said, and the promise sat like a warm stone in the chest.

…

A minute later, the ceiling plug and the stair seal shattered almost together, walls coughing dust like old bellows.

With retainers clustered like a hedge, the Vanilla Duke came down to the second floor. The Daemon Knight Odon dropped through the hole like a hunting cat.

From the third-floor windows, they had already watched the fugitives race down the street like sparks on wind.

So when their boots hit the second floor, their minds leapt to the first, intent on the chase like hounds on scent.

But the staircase had caved like a rotten ribcage. Rubble corked the exit tight as clay. The big hole in the wall yawned as the only way out, a cold mouth breathing night.

They moved for it on instinct, but a figure stood before the opening like a lone pine on a cliff. Summer night wind hissed through, cool as river water. Heat breathed from him like a brazier in winter.

The Vanilla Duke’s eyes sharpened, appreciation glinting like a gem. “You’re the Blazing Fire Knight. Hmm. Courage, indeed… What do you want?”

“I request single combat,” Lance said, voice ringing like metal. “Send me your strongest, Duke.”

“Interesting. Very interesting.” The Duke nodded, amusement unfurling like a fan.

“Boring,” Odon muttered, the word flat as slate. He turned, ready to split a new path through stone.

Lance tossed a black longsword onto the floor. It landed with a thud like a dropped verdict. “That was the Daemon Knight Willick’s blade. Who’s next?”