“Y-you... you!” the Golden Flower Marquis snapped.

His voice carried only a small flare of anger, the most he could muster.

Because terror wrapped him like a nightmare fog—

‘Lance’ stood like a ghostly statue, a boy-knight to the eye.

Beside him, the air warped like heat over desert stone.

Uncanny light and flame swayed together like reeds in wind.

“Ahhh!!” Several knights dropped their swords like falling leaves, shrieked, and rushed down the garden paths to flee.

Mages were different; their calm held like ice on a winter pond.

The Marquis’s battle mages didn’t know how the Dragon Sword Knight died.

They knew the warping around Lance was caused by a baneful shroud.

This shroud blurred sight like smoke and tangled casting like vines.

Inside it, weapon-seizing and mind-wards—telekinetic and protective schools—went dead like embers in rain.

“Marquis, please fall back!”

So they chose attack magic, like hail against a fire.

Well-trained battle mages stepped forward like a phalanx.

At safe range, they fired at ‘Lance’ with attack spells.

Flame, frost, and lightning bloomed like fireworks, colors flashing without end.

They poured every offensive art they had at ‘Lance’ like a river.

As they primed the next volley, the strange turned stranger.

“Ahhh—!” Some burned like self-immolating wretches, swallowed by fire.

Fulin’s counterspell had struck them like a backhanded wave.

“Don’t panic, use defensive spells!”

In the warding arts, fire’s heat has answers, like shade under noon.

With mutual support, they could stop the counter from biting deeper.

But Fulin refused to allow it, like a blade cutting the wind.

“Secret Sword Blazing Fire!” ‘Lance’ shouted, a feint bright as a glare.

Inside the illusion mist, Fulin readied Returner to Dust: Flameburst.

“Defend, now!” The false call worked like bait on a fish.

The mages layered defensive spells and Battle Aura like stacked shields.

They raised barriers like glass domes, braced to take a Battle Aura strike.

And they prepared to counter, like thunder rolling after lightning.

But it wasn’t Lance; it was a blazing sphere, soccer-ball sized.

It streaked like a comet.

Boom—! The missile-like orb slammed into the barrier and burst like a split sun.

When the mushrooming pillar of fire thinned like dying cloud, nothing remained but scorched earth.

Clearly, the Marquis’s mage corps was annihilated, like a field razed to stubble.

“Ahhh!” Realizing the truth, the Golden Flower Marquis dropped his noble veneer like a mask in rain.

Fifteen minutes ago he had calmly plotted Lance’s torment, like chess on silk.

Now—

He became a stray dog, tail tucked, turning in panic and bolting like a hunted deer.

“Where do you think you’re going?” The Mountain Wind Knight obeyed the order.

After a gust like a storm, he stood like a wall across the path.

“Eee-yaaah!” The Marquis lifted his head in horror, eyes wild like a cornered boar.

He twisted by instinct, but there was no escape.

The Mountain Wind Knight pinned him to the ground like a stake.

Yet the Marquis hadn’t yielded.

He struggled and screamed at the Rose Knight.

“Reina, what are you doing, come save me!”

“Father!” The Rose Knight cried, her heart tearing like cloth.

She wanted to save him, but she saw—

The more she moved, the more powerless she felt before Lance, like a reed in a storm.

Ruin, explosion, fire, bodies—like a battlefield ripped open.

Before that torn tableau, she finally understood.

This ‘Lance’ was no longer the Lance she knew, like a river changed after eight winters.

Eight years apart had altered too much, like stars shifted across the night.

For family prosperity, she had sacrificed many things, like petals cut before bloom.

But... was it worth it?

“Reina. One last time. Will you clear the way?” ‘Lance’s voice grew colder, like ice spreading over stone.

“Lance! Stop it, please!” Reina cried, tears thick as rain on glass.

“Stop? Under the Kingdom Constitution, a knight may give his life for his master.”

‘Lance’s dissatisfaction stretched on like a long shadow.

“You kidnapped my employer.”

“Should I watch you torture him, like a tree watching fire eat its bark?”

“But—”

The Rose Knight tried to argue, but a javelin ripped the air like a hawk.

It missed her and struck the wall behind.

After the crash, she turned, stunned.

The masonry lay shattered, the spear’s scar stark as a lightning cleft.

Clearly, if he wished, he could kill her at any moment, like snuffing a candle.

Facing her childhood friend and his rimmed killing intent, the Rose Knight grew lost, mind fogged like dawn mist.

She watched Lance walk past, watched him stamp a boot on her father’s back like an iron seal.

“Mountain Wind Knight, administer the rod to our esteemed Golden Flower Marquis.”

“Understood, Blazing Fire Knight!”

Even if they handed him to the constables, it meant nothing.

Maple City’s order had been bought like grain.

If they turned him in, he’d be released quickly, and the constables would bite Lance back like dogs.

So private justice became the straightest road, like an axe to the root.

Fulin would show those who blocked her quiet path how foolish they were, like mirrors held to faces.

Crack!

“Ugh—aaah!” The Mountain Wind Knight brought the rod down; the Marquis’s pelvis nearly shattered.

He writhed like a slaughter-bound pig, pinned yet thrashing.

Scream followed scream, each heart-rending, making the caning feel endless, like a night without dawn.

When the pain finally erased his consciousness, Fulin let Mountain Wind stop, like a hand closing a book.

“Goodbye, Reina. I enjoyed the days with you.”

As they left, ‘Lance’ said it to the Rose Knight, old laughter reflected in his eyes like distant stars.

That night, Maple City’s Tulip Manor lay under a veil of firelight, like a sea of lanterns.

In the Flame of Chaos, countless buds failed to reach bloom, like spring denied.

“After all, blazing fire is also a kind of blooming.” Facing the sky-high flames, the Mountain Wind Knight sighed like wind over pines.

“Yes... may sin be erased in the blaze.” Fulin spoke coolly, yet her mood tangled tighter, like threads in rain.

“What next?”

“It’s a major case; do we stay here?”

“Of course.” Fulin’s gaze filled with resolve, the tower of fire and her decision mirrored together like twin suns.

“I will win.”