The three Daemon Knights brushed off Fulin’s declaration like dust blown off a gauntlet by a cold wind.

“A princess of the Blood Clan? You?” one of them chuckled, the sound bright as clinking steel.

Fulin ignored their sneers the way the moon ignores barking dogs.

She closed her eyes and took two seconds.

First second, she drew a long breath; the gale whooshed past her ear like heaven’s own lament.

Second, she opened her eyes and lifted a hand.

A slender arm rose, pale as porcelain; her skin caught the moonlight like a smooth mirror of frost.

She shaped her hand into a gun, her forefinger the muzzle, and aimed.

Not at the Daemon Knights—at the thousand Fallen warriors massed behind them, a shadow sea under a wan moon.

Then she fired.

“Quick-cast spell. Consecutive Magic Bolts.”

The wind went mad, a storm kicking leaves and ash.

A crosshair-like magic circle bloomed before her, clean as etched ice, then spat volleys of bolts in a silver rain.

Each bolt was small, a firefly-sized glimmer, yet each hit with the lowest-tier force from Legend of Dawn.

For the Fallen, each glimmer was a reaper’s kiss.

The bolts poured like a monsoon.

Explosions boomed like rolling thunder, and the Fallen’s cries braided through it like torn banners in a gale.

In the blink of an eye, the Fallen were gone, swept away like sand in a flood.

The three Daemon Knights froze, statues under a cold star.

Shock cracked first; after their minds reset, their teeth ground like grit under a boot.

“A Blood Clan archmage, then!” one hissed, his words sharp as sleet.

Archmages of the Dark Blood Clan could unleash ruin on this scale, seventh-tier elemental arts that leveled streets like lightning.

But high-tier arts chew mana like fire eats dry grass, and the caster wilts for minutes like a spent candle.

So their surprise cooled fast, like iron in snow.

They were veteran Daemon Knights, tempered in a hundred battles; they smelled an opening like wolves scent blood.

One Daemon Knight turned into black lightning, a stroke across the night, and rushed Fulin as she drifted down like a falling petal.

At five meters, he drew steel; black Battle Aura clung to the blade like ink on glass.

“You’re finished!” he roared, grinning wide, his sword falling like a guillotine, victory ringing in his chest like a bell.

No. The night didn’t turn that way.

Before he reached her, Fulin took another sliver of time.

She closed her eyes again, and breathed again, soft as a tide.

This time she felt not the wind, but the ground—its tremor like a muffled drum, the earth’s low sob.

She opened her eyes, and the world slowed like thick honey; the Daemon Knight’s thrust inched toward her heart like a crawling shadow.

In that quiet heartbeat, she whispered, “Dark Warrior skill: Bladebreaker.”

A forest of shadow-lances erupted, spears born from firelit darkness, a hell of thorns that swallowed him whole.

Each spike struck with the mid-tier force of a martial art from Legend of Dawn, neat as a hammer to glass.

“Impossible…” he rasped, skewered through his vitals, and toppled like a felled tree.

Fulin’s glacial gaze slid off the corpse like moonlight off ice and fixed on the last Daemon Knight ahead.

He’d seen it all, the kill clear as frost.

Rage flared in him like a torch, but fear held his feet like frozen mud.

“You dare kill him!” he bellowed from a safe distance, his fury spilling into empty air like smoke. “Who in the hells are you?”

“I told you,” Fulin said, voice steady as a still lake, “the one who judges your sins and grants you a peaceful death.”

“Not that!” he snarled, frustration spitting like oil on flame. “You’re Blood Clan—why hinder us?”

“Are you rebelling against the Imperial Council?” he blurted, grasping at straws like a drowning man claws reeds.

Then he noticed the blade in her hand, the Thunderblade Zulfiqar flashing like caged lightning, and his eyes flared wide.

“No… no way! You defected to the White Spirit! You betrayed the Empire for them—hounded us here like their lapdog, their hunting hound waiting in ambush!”

Fulin smiled, and moonlight seemed to sharpen.

Beauty bloomed like a white flower, and cold seeped out like winter from a well.

Under the moon, her shadow stretched long, a deep tide of night that draped the world like a shroud.

“I’m a Blood Clanswoman who longs for a quiet life,” she said, her words soft as falling ash.

“What?”

She waved her sword toward where Malte had fallen, her tone light as passing rain. “That man is useful to me. Alive, he opens doors. But—”

Her voice broke, a white page touched by dark ink, and her calm flipped to hate with a hot hiss.

“But you killed him. Do you know how much that ruins things? How badly that tangles my plans?”

She closed her eyes for a breath, then opened them. “Forget it.”

Hatred lifted like smoke in a draft.

Her eyes settled into a faint crimson, two rubies catching the moon, reflecting calm like a quiet pond.

The wind eased; the earth stilled; even the night listened like a held breath.

“You’ll die anyway,” Fulin said, voice even as river stone. “And you weren’t here only to cross me. I’ll let you die with some dignity.”

The Daemon Knight’s eyes widened, words stuck like ice in his throat.

Fulin hurled Zulfiqar.

The throw carried the speed and strength of a level-100 Dark Warrior, a thunderbolt spun by a human hand.

His guard shattered; his sword snapped in two like dry twigs.

The blade punched through his chest and swept him away like a storm gust, slamming him into an empty building.

Stone cracked; beams groaned; the structure folded with a crunch, and he became rubble under rubble.

“It’s over,” Lance murmured, Zulfiqar heavy in his hand, his eyes lost in the night like a ship in fog.

The enemy lay beaten, yet no glow rose in his chest; his heart felt hollow as an abandoned shrine.

Why? the doubt whispered, a moth around a candle.

He didn’t chase the thought; he just hauled Malte’s body from the heap of dead, the weight like wet clay.

He looked at that face that couldn’t find peace, and stood alone in silence, as if the street held its breath with him.

He stripped off his filthy gauntlet, then sank to one knee, a knight before a friend’s last dusk.

His bare hand slid over Malte’s eyes, closing them, smoothing pain away like a tide smoothing sand.

He rose and turned his back on the street that had been a storm and was now a frozen lake.

He turned his back on Malte, already at rest like a stone under snow.

He stood a heartbeat longer, then—

“Rest in peace.”

He left the words behind like a candle in a window and walked on without looking back.

He hadn’t gone far when soldiers spilled from the street’s mouth like a net closing, an ambush held on a tight leash.

“Hold it—wait, you?!” barked the officer who’d led Lance into the city, his voice sharp as a snapped bowstring.

“Where are those damn Dark Spirits? Where’s the captain?!” he snarled, his anger a whip crack in the cold.

Reports came in from the men who’d entered the street; the officer took in Lance’s battered armor, the scars like soot on steel.

“I see…” he breathed, stepping back, disbelief flickering like a candle in a draft.

He swallowed the truth, then squared his shoulders with a regretful, relieved nod, and turned to his men with a shout bright as dawn.

“He’s the hero who guarded our city in the captain’s stead—the Blazing Fire Knight from the rumors! Salute the hero!”

Lance met their reverent eyes, his own gaze troubled like a sky before rain; his head dipped, and he almost turned to leave.

He didn’t. I still have to play the Blazing Fire Knight, he told himself, a whisper only he could hear.

Then he lifted his head and raised his voice, a clear bell over the square.

“Their leader’s fallen, but the Shadowspirit Legion still lurks in this city like rats in the walls! If you’re still soldiers of the Golden Eagle Legion—if you still shoulder your duty as part of the United Legion—then—”

“Follow me. Obey me. Stand together, grip hope like a torch, and fight to guard this city to the last heartbeat!”

“Yeah!” The cheer crashed upward like a wave, and the battle rolled on.

Leaderless and stripped of their elites, the Shadowspirit Legion in Valtan were shrimps in a tidepool; under Lance’s wildfire assault, they broke like dry reeds.

Soon, the night thinned.

Under Lance and the others’ labor, the midway port of Valtan finally met the morning sun, a blade of gold over gray water.

The streets, after fierce fighting, looked bleak, a body of scars; yet the living wore smiles like lamps lit against the cold.

For the soldiers and citizens who survived, nothing tastes sweeter than breath in one’s lungs.

Lance took in the scene with a small, satisfied nod, then drew the blinds like closing a book and fell face-first onto a goose-down bed.

“Let me enjoy a little quiet,” he sighed, his words soft as a pillow.

Not ten minutes passed before the Golden Eagle Legion officer knocked, urgency tapping like hail.

“Sir… my lord Knight, we’ve got a situation—”

Lance frowned and tossed his words at the door like stones. “Enough. I told you—handle the rest yourselves.”

“But! But—” the officer stammered, breath tripping like a man on stairs.

“Spit it out already,” Lance snapped, irritation sparking like flint.

“Just now, the Empire’s relief force arrived,” the officer blurted, words rushing like a brook. “Their airship’s already on the square. By regulation, as a legion under the Empire, our United Legion must greet them in person…”