“Humans have limits.” Lance repeated, despair heavy as wet cloth.

“What do you mean?” The Vanilla Duke frowned, baffled.

It wasn’t his fault. He just couldn’t see how that tied to failure.

Because it was a secret that belonged to Fulin. A secret that belonged to “Lance.”

“I thought flawless acting and superior tactics would carry the day.” Pinned to the floor, Lance sighed without sound, yet smiled. “Turns out I was naive.”

“Wisdom, strategy, will, courage… the charms that win for humankind. I leaned on them, and still lost.”

“Why?” Lance asked, the question cold as night water.

Silence pooled. It was a hard question.

“Humans do have limits.” Orton hissed, laughter thin as a blade’s edge.

“You’re a daemon, not human,” the white‑robed mage stroked his beard. “What’s your insight?”

“How stupid. This isn’t a thinking problem.”

“If you’re all human, doesn’t the side with more power hold the edge? Higher odds?”

The room stayed quiet, breath held like leaves before a storm.

“Blazing Fire Knight, that’s your afterthought on defeat?”

The Vanilla Duke’s tone soured, like milk turning.

“I thought you’d preach ‘weak resolve’ or ‘thin faith’.” His eyes cut with scorn. “Instead you say humans are limited?”

Lance gave his take. “It’s lived truth. Fact.”

“Sounds like you’re not human at all.”

The knights burst into laughter, noisy as crows.

“Yeah…” Lance didn’t mind their mockery. He glanced at the window, at a starless night like a dry well. “I’m not human. I’ve been playing the ‘knight roleplay’ game with you.”

Their laughter snapped off, like a lute string gone.

“‘Knight roleplay’?” the white‑robed elder asked, voice tight.

“Yes. Play at being human. Learn to live among humans. Fit into their world…”

He spoke like stating a memory. Breath froze across the hall.

“Enough.” The Duke cut him short, voice like a knife drawn.

“I’ve no time for your mania.” He set a blade to Lance’s throat, cold as moonlight. “Die or obey. Answer me. Now.”

“Die,” Lance said, like dropping a stone in a still pond.

“Admirable resolve.” Orton’s mouth curled, annoyed, a shadowed grin.

“Silence!” The white‑robed elder snapped, staff quivering like a reed.

Another stretch of silence, slow as a century.

A minute later, the Vanilla Duke’s face stormed dark. “Fine. Fine. Young knight, you’re the first to truly make me lose.”

“In the Duke’s name, I grant you the privilege of last words before the sentence.”

“First, note this: I will not die.” Lance, blood‑soaked, still stubborn and proud, stood like a lone pine in snow. “Second, everything I said is true.”

The air sharpened, cold as a drawn blade. The chandeliers felt like icicles.

The Duke wiped sweat from his brow and forced a smile. “Lance Morrison, I admit you’re very good at bluffing.”

“This is no bluff.” Lance’s gaze turned winter‑cold. “What are your last words?”

“Laughable!” The crowd broke into jeers, noisy as hail on slate.

“Not speaking’s a choice too. Consider yourselves dying without regret.”

Lance’s skin melted like a cicada shedding its shell. A silver streak leapt free, moon‑bright.

“What?!” The Vanilla Duke jolted, eyes wide as lanterns.

Shock rippled the hall. They hadn’t seen what it was. They were stunned because Lance vanished like mist.

The silver light halted behind them. Moonlight washed her form. “I’m done playing the knight game.”

The words fell like a sentence. Slaughter began, sharp as frost.

Fulin chose to start with the mages in the back row.

For most knights targeting mages, that choice makes sense. The Vanilla Duke’s mage cadre knew it too, so they were primed, hands quick as sparrows.

They practiced a technique called high‑speed casting.

They trusted their casting speed. They didn’t care what was closing in. If they cast first, they owned the fight, like hawks owning the sky.

Too bad the same rule belonged to Fulin, whose speed was lightning under silk.

She rolled, snatched the Mountain Wind Knight’s saber, then, weapon in hand, became a silver blur trailing black light, like a comet with a shadowed tail.

“Slash!”

The mage cadre burst blood and fell, red fanning across stone.

Fulin kept killing. Next came the formal knight regiment.

Normally, formal knights don’t lack Battle Aura. Their flaw is they aren’t soldiers, so teamwork falters, voices crossing like tangled vines. The Vanilla Duke’s regiment had solved that.

They drilled a coordinated Knight Sword Array, blades moving like a single current.

Against an enemy this strong, it meant nothing. A dam before a flood.

Besides, Fulin never planned to crash into the array. She cast a quick assault spell—Hellfire.

“Boom.”

The regiment went up in fire, armor blooming into black roses.

The white‑robed elder couldn’t watch this anymore. “Such a vicious Blood Clan fiend.”

He went for his signature spell. Eighth‑level Light—Radiance of Erasure.

He truly was an archmage. One second of meditation, and the spell was born. No focus, no staff. He thrust out a bare‑handed beam built to destroy, bright as noon.

Boom.

Half the grand dining hall vanished. The earth’s cry rolled across Golden Bay City like thunder under stone.

“Did we get her?” The Duke clawed from the rubble, spitting mud, face ash‑gray.

The white‑robed elder hovered mute, then drifted down, robe torn like clouds.

“No…” He said it, and collapsed, staff clattering.

Dust thinned. Fulin stood untouched, a silver orchid in ruin.

Only three figures remained standing on the ruins—Fulin, the Duke, and the Daemon Knight Orton.

“Why not confess who you are?!” Orton shouted, voice ragged, like wind through broken shutters.

“Why confess? Would it grant me a quiet life?”

Orton choked, words lost like smoke.

Fulin gave the order. “Fight well. Die with dignity.”

“Understood.” Orton raised a black longsword, blade dull as midnight.

He ignited Battle Aura, pitch‑dark. He flashed in like a black wind. “Pardon me.”

“Good. That’s a knight.” Fulin spoke as her blade was already in his chest, a silver thorn.

“Hmph. Even so, it can’t match—” Orton’s strength failed. He fell to his knees, breath scattering like sand.

Before he hit the ground, relief softened him. “It can’t match the ‘Lance’ you played.”

…

Lance, soaked in blood, walked out of the highborn district, steps heavy as rain.

In the commercial streets, Shadowspirit Legion had invaded. Vampire Knights were exposed. Boulevards burned like rivers of fire, sparks flying like angry bees.

The fighting raged hot. Yet the warriors seemed not to notice Lance. He limped past, a ghost slipping through torchlight, quiet as dusk.

He sat at a roadside café, like a shadow claiming a chair, breath fogging the glass.

“His” hands lifted a cup of coffee. Under the starless sky, he watched sparks of war scatter like fireflies and die.

Fulin felt a flood in her chest, too many currents for one sentence. One thing was certain—she had won.

It felt like losing, bitter as cold tea.

She wondered: if the Lance she played had been stronger, sharper, more patient, if he’d schemed just a little deeper—could she have avoided showing her true face?

Fulin had no answer.

At least, the starless night passed, thinning like ink at dawn.

…

Days later, Golden Bay City’s events rocked all Nordland. Talk buzzed like bees. Three tales drew the most delight.

First, the Vanilla Duke found hanging from a streetlamp.

They discovered him intact, dangling from a pole in the highborn quarter, shoes neat, shadow long.

The scene echoed those innocents killed by Vampire Knights. After his crimes came out, people agreed he got what he deserved, justice cold as frost.

Second, the Blazing Fire Knight carried by the coffin dance.

Outside the Golden Apple Inn, healing mages pulled him back from the brink. They found wounds of every kind across the hero, body mapped like a battlefield.

Cuts from blades, rents from Battle Aura, burns from spells. Slashes, scorch, frostbite. Almost every injury a knight can suffer marked the Blazing Fire Knight.

The injuries were dire. Many were lethal. He was so near death that no one believed the young hero would survive, hope thin as smoke.

So, once he was found, they packed him like a corpse into a coffin, then carted him with the rest to the cremation mounds outside the city, wind cold as iron.

For speed, they douse the stacked bodies in black oil at the mounds. A few mercs risked everything to yank that coffin back. When they did, they came away drenched…

In short, the Blazing Fire Knight carried by the coffin dance. Many just call Lance that in private now, humor dark as tar.

Third, the Mountain Wind Knight who lived by luck.

On the cruelest battlefield in the highborn ruins—a fight so fierce an archmage fell—the Mountain Wind Knight was found almost unharmed, pale as paper.

He’d simply fainted.

When he woke, he couldn’t recall how he blacked out. He remembered crossing blades with the Blazing Fire Knight, and other details tied to the Duke’s crimes, memories like scattered leaves.

The Mountain Wind Knight confessed everything he could. For deeper investigation, the blade‑bearing knight of curiosity was escorted back to Maple City.

He soon slipped from Golden Bay City’s sight—the knight who swings to mend the world’s errors, a figure fading like mist.

“That’s about it, boss.” In George City Castle, Jeremy finished his report, hands chopping the air.

Lance nodded. “Mm. Thanks for pushing through in Golden Bay these past days.”

“Ah, it was rough!” Jeremy waved his arms, words tumbling like marbles. “Those scribes—”

“Reporters,” Lance corrected, voice mild.

“Right, right, those reporters. I’d barely stepped through the gate and they pinned me like a moth.” Jeremy bragged on, grin quick as a fox. “Lucky I’m crafty, and fast. They couldn’t catch me. Heh.”

Yuna ignored Jeremy hopping like a monkey. She set a cup before Lance. “Master, your black tea is ready.”

“Why don’t I get tea?” Jeremy protested, voice high as a kettle.

Yuna ignored him, as always. Lance smiled. “Want this one?”

“No, no. How could I take your tea—” Jeremy caught himself, then turned back to Yuna, grumbling like thunder far off. “See? It’s because you didn’t brew mine.”

“Enough.”

The big cat lay placid in the corner, sharing this quiet joy with its master, tail flicking like grass.

Lance suggested, “It’s stuffy indoors. Let’s go up to the castle roof.”

“Got it! Moving out!” Jeremy barked, steps quick as drums.

On the spiral stairs, they heard children playing in the mountain city streets, voices bright as bells.

“I’m Lord Lance! I do the best impression!”

“Yours is awful. Watch—‘With blazing fire, I’ll cleanse your sins!’”

“Sigh. Yours is the best. Fine, today we carry you.”

It felt like the coffin dance music kicked on, a tune bouncing like sunlight.

Jeremy bumped Lance’s elbow. “Hey, they’re imitating you.”

“Please don’t corrupt them, Master.” Yuna spoke seriously for once, gaze cool as glass.

“Uh…”

So the retainers and the big cat tailed Lance to the rooftop. Late‑summer breeze stroked every face, soft as silk.

Looking over the endless green, Lance asked, “Any word back from Reina since she left?”

“No. She returned to Maple City before you woke.” Jeremy remembered and cursed lightly, a laugh edged with thorns. “Women, all of them heartless scoundrels.”

“Perhaps her virtue doesn’t qualify her to stay by the Master’s side.” Yuna pressed down the jealousy and discontent in her voice, like smoothing rumpled linen.

“Maybe she has her own troubles.” Lance gazed calmly into the distance, eyes lake‑still.

Half a year drifted by like falling leaves.

One winter afternoon, Yuna slipped inside, rubbing her hands. She warmed them at the hearth, then pulled a letter from her coat. “Master, the Magic Academy in Maple City sent you an admission invite.”

Fulin lay sprawled on the bed, lazy as a cat in a sunbeam. A stretch loosened her rumpled shirt, a hint of spring slipping out. She didn’t want to move. Her voice was languid. “You sure they didn’t get the wrong person?”

“Lance Morrison. The great Blazing Fire Knight—” Yuna lifted her rimless glasses, straightened Fulin’s clothes, and added, “Maybe they mean you.”