"What, you think we'll die here?" The Golden Flower Marquis clutched his belly, laughter rustling like dry leaves. "Little knight, brag later—look around first."
His warband already crowded the field, like spears sprouting from soil.
Ten Charge Knights and seven Battle Mages stood like iron stakes.
A cohort of more than twenty guards cast a net around Lance’s group, like ropes tightening on a struggling fish.
They snickered at Lance, contempt flashing like cold steel.
Yet because Lance’s side had survived by luck, that contempt thinned like mist at dawn.
Smiles faded; eyes fixed on them like bowstrings drawn tight; hands hovered ready to strike.
In this wind, the Golden Flower Marquis held a towering advantage, like a cliff over a beach.
He leaned on his ranks and kept sneering, voice a drizzle on stone. "Little knight, dare repeat that?"
"Of course." "Lance" stepped forward, calm as a drifting leaf. "Make way, or—"
"Die here."
"You brat…" The Marquis’ frown creased like a stormfront. It should have been bluff, yet something felt off, like grit in the gears.
He paused, thoughts circling like crows. The Rose Knight seized the moment. "Lance! Answer me—why break into my home?"
Her voice carried both pity and blame, like rain and sun crossing paths.
Fulin looked at Reina, memories rising like morning fog after rain.
The days of laughter and bickering replayed against today’s crossed blades, and confusion surged like tangled vines.
But Fulin did not need doubt; she needed a choice, clear as a path through bamboo.
A girl’s heart is layered like petals, yet the goal can be a single stone.
If they yielded, today would be a sour misunderstanding; if not—
"Lance" lifted the Sirius Sword, starlight cold on the blade. "Reina, drop your sword before I stop calling your name."
"No—!" The Rose Knight cried out, tears ready like overflowing wells. "Lance, why do something so stupid?"
"Stupid?" "Lance" laughed, a brittle sound like ice cracking. She pointed at Mr. Fenglang, battered on the big cat’s back. "If I don’t do ‘stupid,’ who ensures you return him alive, not a corpse?"
"No! My father and I never meant that!" The Rose Knight’s reply flared like a candle in wind.
"Then what was that blast? Planning to kill me?"
"No, it wasn’t!" Aggrieved, her voice shrank like a wilting flower.
"Enough!" "Lance" raised the Sirius Sword, her tone chilling like winter water. "Drop it, or die now."
The Rose Knight bit her lip; her head bowed; silent tears fell like pearls.
No father stomachs his daughter being pressed, even if the truth runs another river.
"Bold, aren’t you, little knight?" The Golden Flower Marquis’ eyes tilted like knives, sensing recklessness under a painted sky.
Even with a prickle of doubt, he waved it off like smoke. "If you’re eager to die, my knights will play."
"Go cut him down." He jerked his chin at the Earth Knight, a gesture sharp as a whip.
"At your command, Marquis." The Earth Knight, Dragon Sword, stepped forward, boots thudding like drums.
Before his blade cleared, Shan Feng called out, voice lazy as a cat in sun. "Yo, Senior Brother Dragon Sword—congrats on going first."
That drawl scraped old wounds; Dragon Sword snorted, like a bull pawing dirt. "Hmph. Lowest of cowards."
"I don’t know why you chose that mad kid, but I don’t mind carving his headstone," he said, words cold as chisel on stone.
"For me? Don’t say that." Shan Feng stayed languid, then his eyes sharpened like frost. "Careful—you might really die."
His words fell, and the air stirred like grass under a sudden breeze.
It was only a natural wind, yet as it blew from ahead, Dragon Sword’s skin crawled like ants.
He knew fear, though he couldn’t name it, like a shadow without a source.
Was it a charge-tier prodigy, bright and rash like summer thunder?
Or that fellow disciple, shameless with a killing sword, like a wolf without a leash?
Either way, before he returned to the Republic, Dragon Sword swore to butcher Shan Feng, oath heavy as an iron chain.
His resolve was massive, like a mountain set in his chest.
Before such resolve, "Lance" wasn’t even an appetizer.
Back in the Republic, he had killed too many brash kids like this, graves lined like rows of reeds.
"Got any last words?" He drew his blade slow, a silver arc like moonlight, and sneered.
"Even if I did, why tell the already doomed?" "Lance" sneered back, light as a flicked feather.
"Then die!" Battle Aura ignited; flames clothed his sword like a dragon’s skin.
A phantom wyrm lashed its tail at "Lance," heat shivering the air like a mirage.
Because of his aura, his reach ran long; a sword one meter, a strike five meters, like a spear of fire.
But as that tail was about to strike, cause flipped like a mirror, and the world blinked.
"I’ll return that line." Darkness poured like a curtain over the scene for one heartbeat.
Light vanished, then snapped back like a shaken lantern.
When the veil lifted, "Lance" already stood behind Dragon Sword, movement quiet as falling snow.
She drove the Sirius Sword from back to heart, a straight path like a starlit needle.
Szz!
"Urgh—!" Dragon Sword’s eyes bulged; red slid from his lips like thin wine.
He looked down at the blade jutting from his chest, slick with his own blood, a river caught on steel.
"So… that’s how it is…" His words drifted like ash; he staggered a few steps forward.
He lifted his face to a sky of scattered stars; his gaze dimmed like coals cooling.
Then—thud. The Earth Knight collapsed, body heavy as a felled tree.
For the crowd, his fall was a shock, like thunder under a clear sky.
Silence locked the field, a dead hush like frost over a pond.
That chill spread over the Marquis’ ranks, a northern wind dragging long shadows.
Under the cold, smiles froze; mouths stiffened like masks of clay.
Heat fled their bodies fast, and they trembled like reeds in winter.
"Impossible…" The Golden Flower Marquis stared, jaw open like a broken gate.
An Earth Knight, cut down by a mere wild youth, like a hawk felled by a pebble?
He stood stunned, mind blank like a wiped slate.
"Lance… you!" Surprise and fear gripped the Rose Knight, a claw of ice on her spine.
She felt this moment was the root of eight years of guilt, a thorn grown under skin.
In her memory, Lance was strong yet kind, a stubborn silhouette like a cedar beside her childhood path.
Even after their unhappy parting eight years ago, she believed she could call him back, like a bird to the hand.
The Lance who soothed and forgave, who smiled at her always, warm as spring.
Yet that sunlit smile shattered today, shards flashing as he cut down her mentor on the spot.
"What have you lived through these eight years?!" she cried, voice breaking like pottery.
The way he killed Dragon Sword was too practiced, as if her teacher were only grass under a boot.
"And you—what have you been doing these six months?" "Lance" replied, cold as iron.
When the Rose Knight lowered her head and sobbed, "Lance" turned to the Marquis, eyes like rainless clouds.
"Golden Flower Marquis, didn’t you say you’d play with me?"
"Why does it look like you’ve already lost, before the game even starts?" Her feelings knotted like twine, yet her voice danced, light and arrogant like a sparrow.
