Lance’s taunt stoked Charlotte’s battle fire, a spark catching in dry pine.

“A mere human, so brazen!” she spat, like a stray dog barking at thunder.

She snapped a command. The Bloodseeker Hound surged forward, a black wave rolling at steel.

The Daemon Knight’s warning cut the hall like a trumpet. “Don’t fall for it. He’s the Blazing Fire Knight. Be careful!”

“Got it!” Charlotte shot back, a thorn in her voice, then fixed her gaze like a hawk.

As the foe closed, Lance set the Eternal War Armor into a fighting stance, iron roots sinking. “Come then.”

“Hah!” A flint‑sharp breath sparked between them.

After a heartbeat’s standoff, the Bloodseeker Hound launched, a storm‑lunge breaking the still air.

The three‑headed beast crashed for the mech, a tumbling avalanche.

Pounce. Bite. Two drumbeats of a killer.

The primal craft of beasts—simple, yet brutal as a falling hammer.

If Lance’s frame went down, those triple fangs would rip the helm open like hooks through wet clay.

Then Lance would be hauled out and ground like grain beneath millstone.

But Lance would not gift them triumph. He read the hound’s motion like wind through grass.

Before those foreclaws kissed the armor, he made a bold sidestep, shadow swift.

Battle Aura flared from the armor’s soles, jetting like twin comets.

The suit slid back, then knifed right in a blink, a swallow’s turn.

The sudden sweep made the pounce bite air, teeth closing on emptiness.

It slammed into the hall wall, a bell of stone ringing dust.

Boom. One head sank into masonry, a nailed mask of fury.

“Damn! Damn!” Charlotte stomped atop its spine, a wasp enraged.

With one head wedged, its flank lay bare, defenses peeled like bark after rain.

It was Lance’s perfect opening, a window in the storm.

He didn’t hesitate. He poured Battle Aura into both hands, forging a blade of flame, kiln‑bright.

The Eternal War Armor raised the greatsword and cut for the hound’s side, lightning drawn.

“Judgment by Flame!” he cried, voice a war drum inside steel.

“Don’t you dare!” Charlotte snarled, teeth set like pearls, spell‑threads weaving.

A bright shield bloomed, orange as a sunrise lantern over fog.

It slid into the sword’s path, a glass wall against fire.

Snap—ice breaking on river skin.

The armor shattered the shield, as expected, shards like petals.

But as it broke, the flame‑blade guttered and vanished, a candle pinched.

Weapon gone, the armor vaulted back, steps heavy as drums through smoke.

The hound tore free of the wall, dust smearing like ash‑cloud.

Lance’s anger rang in iron. “What did you do?”

Charlotte laughed, a cold bell. “You’re good with fire. I just put it out.”

A Level‑6 elemental art: Fire Element Barrier. Lance had seen it at the academy, a wet blanket killing flames.

It blocks and quenches any fire‑bound power, a dam on a burning river.

Which meant his Battle Aura, shaped as fire, met a wall and died like embers in rain.

“You’re despicable,” Lance hissed, frost threading his words.

“Don’t forget—I’m a Dark Blood mage! Knights don’t beat mages,” she crowed, chessboard storms in her eyes.

In a sense, she wasn’t wrong. A mage’s tactics outweigh a knight’s, mist spreading over a field at dawn.

Charlotte’s hound pressed on, a black tide returning to shore.

It traded blind lunges for clawwork, left‑and‑right slashes like twin scythes.

Lance dodged hard, sidestep then backstep, reeds bending in wind.

Twice he failed to clear fully. Claws carved glaring scars on the hull, silver tears.

Clearly, those talons outmatched the armor’s shell. Given a chance, they’d tear it like paper from bark.

Charlotte didn’t just watch. She studied the armor’s footwork, intent as a falcon measuring flight.

The suit could skim low on its sole jets, yet every hard move began with a stomp for leverage, rhythm under steel.

Push, then thrust—the cadence of motion, drum then trumpet.

She timed that stomp and cast a sly spell that turned stone to soft mud, earth melting to dusk.

At the stomp, the right foot sank halfway, locking him like a snared crane in marsh.

“Damn it!” Lance hammered the armrest, cockpit tight as a drumskin.

“Be torn by the Earth Mother’s servant!” Charlotte’s joy rang like green bells in spring.

Her hound seized the opening and pounced, a falling boulder from a cliff.

Contact! The impact thudded like a heart.

The fiercest head yawned a blood‑red maw, diving for the armor’s throat, a furnace mouth.

“I won’t let you!” At the cliff of defeat, Lance reversed the tide, anchor set.

He balled the steel hand, gathered force in a blink, and smashed the head, hammer on anvil.

Thunk. The heavy note rolled across the hall like thunder.

That head went limp, lights out, a candle snuffed.

But two heads remained, twin moons of menace.

Both throats brimmed with fire, ready to spit at point‑blank like tight furnaces.

The armor couldn’t take that heat. A direct hit would melt its shell like wax on a brazier.

“Not happening!” Lance drew again on iron resolve, mountain steadiness.

He struck not the beast, but the ground, a miner’s blow.

He shattered the earth that pinned him, stone bursting like dry clay in a drought.

The tilt sent the flame‑jets wide, streams skidding like blown torches. The hound staggered, footing broken.

Lance broke free. He leapt back and hovered above the sky garden, a lone heron over water, as if ready to disengage.

“Don’t run!” Charlotte snapped, sending the hound in pursuit, whip‑crack voice.

With a bound, the hound cleared the battlements and reached the sky‑garden’s platform, wind like knives around pillars.

Above the platform, Lance waited in the Eternal War Armor, a hawk poised over waves.

“You think I’m fleeing?” He smiled, moonlight on steel.

He slid aside a pace and pointed behind, a curtain drawn.

Behind him, eight ships of the Shadowspirit Legion lay on the sea like dark beetles clinging to glass.

Through that gap, Charlotte saw them clearly, hulls pricking the water like thorns.

“Then what are you after?” she asked, puzzlement a ripple.

Lance kept smiling. “I don’t need to beat you. I can cut down your main force first,” a knife for the net.

Charlotte and a few Daemon Knights were the vanguard, a blade sent ahead to test the flesh.

They’d pacify Mubay City, check for threats, nets cast over alleys.

Then the massed main force would land and secure the city like a closing net at dusk.

It was a careful plan. If Mubay hid Heavenly Spirit Empire elites, Charlotte’s group could pull back to sea like a retreating tide.

With total occupation as the aim, it was nearly foolproof, a script written in iron.

But without that swarm of main troops—

No control, no occupation. Mubay would slip their grasp like water through fingers.

“You—you wouldn’t?!” Charlotte flared and moved to chase him seaward, flame tailing wind.

“Don’t take the bait!” The Daemon Knight’s shout rang clear as steel. She wouldn’t listen, storm in ears.

Charlotte drove the Bloodseeker Hound onto the sea, a shadow stepping onto a mirror.

It couldn’t swim. She cast the delicate Light Skiff spell, threads fine as spider silk.

The hulking beast, meant to sink, stood miraculously atop the water, a stone turned feather.

It soon gained on Lance. Pride flashed. “Ocean won’t stop me!” she sang, wave‑bright.

“Is that so?” Waves snarled behind, the beast loomed before. Lance looked cornered, cliff on both sides.

Yet this was his stage, a sea‑lit trap, moon as witness.

He channeled fire to both gauntlets again, forging a majestic flame greatsword, dawn blazing in steel.

The armor leveled the blade at the hound. “Can you cast that shield again?” His words were bait on a hook.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Charlotte snapped, river quick.

She began the cast—then the pain of realization, a stumble in step. She’d been tricked, thread knotted.

In Nordland, a mage can’t maintain two different spells at once, rule carved like stone.

To raise the Fire Element Barrier, she had to cancel the Light Skiff, boat undone to foam.

Cancel the skiff, the hound sinks, iron anchor without rope.

Keep it, and the hound eats a flame‑blade, two choices, one wound.

“You filthy coward!” Charlotte spat, cornered like a fox with hunters at dusk.

“Ha. Right back at you,” Lance laughed, wind in his teeth.

The greatsword fell. The beast split in two, then burst in a sea‑bright explosion, flowers of fire on black water.

The blast flung Charlotte away. She streaked across the night like a falling star among fireworks.

Her farewell trailed behind, a ribbon in wind. “Remember this—I’ll be back!”

On the sky garden, the Daemon Knight watched it all and cursed, bitterness hard as iron. “Fool!”

Meanwhile, the ships offshore erupted one by one, chain fire across the sea. The Shadowspirit Legion’s main force sank into silence.

Seconds later, the maker of those chain blasts stood before the Daemon Knights, a storm in iron.

“All right. You’re all that’s left,” Lance said coldly from within the Eternal War Armor, winter iron.

As the Divine Warrior drew near, faces paled, lilies under frost.

Fear or not, they advanced to fight, candles pushing against wind.

Daemon Knights are strong, but flesh can’t match a Divine Warrior, bone against mountain.

The clash ended quickly. Fallen warriors were crushed or burned, ash on stone.

The Daemon Knight kept his knightly stance to the last breath, banner falling with honor.

In short, Lance won the grim fight, the hall empty of menace.

The Iron Duke and company watched from safety, astonished as stargazers, then welcomed Lance back with warm hands.

The Blazing Sun Knight drew a long breath, chest like bellows. “Kid, you’ve gotten strong. Truly strong.”

The Iron Duke’s eyes shone with joy as he spoke, brass rich. “I’m glad you won—and glad I wasn’t wrong.”

“Chaos’s flame can become a spark of hope. You stopped a calamity. Congratulations, Blazing Fire Knight,” his words fell like gold leaves.

Alice, all joy and relief, rushed into his arms, a swallow to its eave. “Lance, you finally came back!”

“Yeah. I’m back.” He held her, but his gaze slipped past to the city burning behind, a sea of embers.

The Dawn Knight cut the mood like cold rain. He stared at the firelit sea and spoke, worried and chill. “Our hero stopped the Dark Spirits today. What about after?”

“Hey, Sir Rakede!” The Blazing Sun Knight bristled, sparks off steel.

The Dawn Knight raised a brow. “Mr. Layne, am I wrong? They must’ve built that cursed altar at sea,” stones in his voice.

Altars are Shadowspirit Legion hubs. They teleport between them across distances, doors on night water. He feared an endless stream of enemies from the ocean.

“That’s for later, warriors,” the Duke mediated, palm settling waves. “For now we end this disaster and hold a grand feast for our hero’s return.”

“Agreed,” voices chimed like small bells.

“No objections,” murmurs rippled like silk.

“Wait,” Lance cut in, a blade across the drumbeat.

“What is it, kid?” the question hung like mist.

Lance remembered the mass of Fallen warriors in the Demon Realm Forest and told them, shadows marching like ants.

The Duke’s brow tightened. “Trouble. The Lionheart Legion and the civilians’ camp are nearby,” tents like leaves in a grove.

“I’ll handle them,” Lance said, light as a feather, stone beneath.

He said it lightly. Silence fell, heavy as snow on pines.

“Very well. May Doran’s spirits walk with you,” the blessing floated like incense.

“Lance, be careful.”

So Lance set out again, piloting the Eternal War Armor, and rose above the Demon Realm Forest.

Night lay deep as ink, and a malefic haze hung heavy; no one saw a giant shadow drift over the trees.

From that height, Lance saw a line of refugees coming from the city and angling this way.

They weren’t heading for the forest, but for a nearby bunker.

From above, he also caught the Fallen Warriors lurking deep within the woods.

Maybe they were in the middle of another operation, but Lance’s arrival spelled its ruin.

Only, he wouldn’t be the one to carry it out.

In the air, it wasn’t the young knight who slipped from the Eternal War Armor, but a Dark Blood named Shelika.

She eased out through the chestplate and hovered with a dancer’s poise.

Then she spun her blood into hundreds of vanguard drones, a scarlet swarm that dove like bats toward the Fallen Warriors’ position.

Shelika covered her mouth and laughed, all elegance. “Let this lady see what you’re really made of.”