That said, Lance still never foresaw how fast things would avalanche.

That very night, the Shadowspirit Legion struck Midway Harbor like lightning across a black sea.

Malte’s Golden Eagle Legion had braced for it, yet their line was a sandbank against a storm tide.

The city’s mage detachment was assassinated to the last, and the Eagles’ defense crumbled like loosened brick.

Fire ran from the harbor into the streets, a brushfire licking dry grass.

The ordered, quiet city became hell on earth, wails drifting like winter geese over a blasted field.

Faced with the sudden lurch of events, Lance could only secure the Celestial Spirit first, a hand shielding the candle of fate.

"Over here! Over here!" Lance shouted, his voice a flare in smoke.

He and several legion knights herded the Celestial Spirit and others toward the underground passage like sheep before a storm.

Even far from the city’s burning heart, they heard the clash and howls, wolves worrying each other in the dark.

They moved uneasy and hurried, leaves whipped down a tunnel of wind.

Suddenly, the lead knight raised a gauntleted fist to halt; impatience pricked Lance like a thorn. "What is it?!"

The knight said nothing, only lifted a whale‑oil torch, its light spilling like molten amber.

The beam slid across the ground ahead—yet one patch kept its shadow, a stain that light couldn’t wash.

Shapes oozed from that stain. "Heh heh—look what we found? A bunch of White Spirits."

"Shadowspirit Legion!" the lead man barked, steel rising as the knights fell into a fighting stance like locked shields.

"Mere, petty humans," one figure rasped, and let loose a wave of pitch‑black force like a breaking night tide.

"A killing curse..." The foremost knight took it and dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.

The other Golden Eagle knights recoiled, courage flickering like candlefire in a draft.

Sensing the turn, Lance drew the Sirius Sword and stepped forward, a single spark against a gale.

The foe didn’t even look at him, as if he were dust. "A little knight thinks to block us?"

Lance said nothing; flame crawled up his blade like a hungry serpent.

Secret Blade: Blazing Flame.

The shadow was taken by the blaze, devoured until not even ash dared remain.

Staring at the embers, a legion knight cursed, bitter as iron. "Damn it, they’ve even got teleport arrays down here."

The mage detachment had been posted to stop such raids; with them gone, the Eagles were helpless, a hawk with cut pinions.

Uneasy as a needle under skin, Lance glanced toward the battle’s heart, then urged the people on. "Move."

They pushed ahead, footsteps a drumline in the dark.

No more ambushes came, and the evacuees reached the entrance to Valtan’s underground passage like survivors sighting a cave.

They went through to a bunker; its doors yawned, and grief pressed like damp wool.

Inside were many citizens—mostly elders, women, and children—sobbing threads stitching the air.

Lance parted from the others. "I’ll be right back." His promise was a flint spark.

He sprinted out of the passage and back onto Valtan’s streets, feet drumming like rain.

He wanted to be faster—faster—to reach the center and seize the war’s throat.

Hunger came first, then motion: he longed to play the hero again.

Lantern scenes wheeled through his head like a zoetrope of old roles.

"I am the Blazing Fire Knight, Lance Morrison!"

"I’m the Blazing Fire Knight, and I’ll burn your sins to ash!"

"I’m the Blazing Fire Knight, and I’ll bring you victory like dawn breaking!"

"I’m the Blazing Fire Knight—no wall can dam my fire!"

Only this time, no one needed Lance to play a hero—no stage, no spotlight.

Because the fight at the street’s heart had already ended, a drum gone silent.

"Heh. Mere humans." A Daemon Knight sneered and drove his sword through Malte’s chest like a spit.

Lance stared, mind blank as snow under moonlight.

"What am I even fighting for..." His knees gave, and he fell.

Laughing done, the Daemon Knight tossed Malte’s body aside and turned to confer with two others, jackals over kill.

"For a human legion, they held out long."

"The mages were nothing, but that human knight was capable, sharp as a whetted blade."

"An Earth Tier knight, yet he held the three of us at once like a worn shield in hail."

"No matter how he strained, he couldn’t stop this city from falling like a dam before a flood."

"Heh heh—without this city, their supply line snaps."

"Betting on one legion to last until White Spirit aid? Pure folly."

They laughed, cruel and cold, like ice cracking on a river.

Until a young knight walked up to them, a lone reed in the current.

"After beating the Golden Eagle Legion, what do you plan to do?" Lance asked, calm as a clerk at market.

The three Daemon Knights were surprised to see him show himself, a fox stepping into torchlight.

Truth was, they had sensed him already, and had played unsuspecting to bait a strike from the dark.

Lance didn’t take the bait. He stepped out and spoke, and that surprised them.

"Golden Eagle Legion? That the human name—another tag on a grave?"

"Who cares. They’re gone like smoke."

Their tone said it all; they didn’t care what they did, only that their blade shone clean, like blood wiped from steel.

One grinned, smirk curling like a hook. "Human brat, you’re asking what we’ll do next, right?"

Lance held his tongue and watched the three Daemon Knights, and the thousand Fallen soldiers gathering behind them like a stormbank.

Another spread his arms like a great eagle, showing off his host. "We’ll kill everyone left in this city."

"Why? To your operation, they’re irrelevant and innocent, aren’t they?" Lance asked, voice flat as calm water.

The Daemon Knight barked a laugh. "Innocent? Stand with the White Spirits and call that innocent? They’re all guilty. So are you. No one stops our judgment."

"I see," Lance said, disappointment settling like frost.

"This knight is your father, isn’t he?" A Daemon Knight nudged Malte’s body like a log and smiled.

Lance closed his eyes, then opened them like shutters. "So what?"

"He fought to protect you. You came to die. Don’t you regret it, taste of ashes on your tongue?"

"No." Lance’s voice was empty as a dry well.

The Daemon Knight tilted his head like a hawk. "Why?"

After a long quiet, Lance opened his hands. "Because the ones who’ll die aren’t me. They’re you."

Black mist peeled away, and the young knight’s figure vanished like smoke from a snuffed wick.

A small, blurred silhouette floated in the moonlit air, her eyes burning crimson like twin coals.

"Who?!" The Daemon Knights recoiled in startlement, hackles up.

"The one who judges your sins and grants you a peaceful death." Fulin declared, and the night wind whooshed, relentless.