Xiuze.

That name, Long hadn’t let it pass his lips in a very long time.

Since he became an [Apocalypse Knight], Xiuze had become his most sacred, most exalted [Pope], like a sun he could only worship from the shadow.

A knight doesn’t call his liege by his true name, the way a wave doesn’t name the moon that drags it.

Yet only a breath ago, they were comrades who could tease each other, like campfire sparks trading jokes in the night wind.

Strange, how once a label sticks, long years of friendship dissolve like mist, and those so‑called brothers‑in‑arms turn to a shattered dream.

And when one dream ends, the next nightmare opens like a black flower under lightning.

Gloves on or off, Long could see his hands were all blood, a red patina left by near a thousand years of killing, dried and crusted like old rust across his skin.

He’d already betrayed the oath he swore when he took the knight’s sword from his master, that blade cold as dawn frost.

He’d long forgotten kneeling under the Holy Cross, one hand over his heart, whispering the knight’s code to the [Deity], like a brook vowing to the mountain.

The joke was, the more he broke his word, the stronger he grew, like a storm fattened by wreckage.

Strong enough that even [It] began to notice him—if breaking principle earns the [Deity]’s gaze, isn’t that absurd as snow in summer?

But—

“No matter what.” The man, burly like a beast, spoke in a voice rough as gravel and low as thunder. “It’s all to stay alive.”

...

“So you’re going to kill Uncle John?!”

Aerin stared at the black knight stepping out of the dark, like a cliff walking on legs.

His build, a wall wrapped in black adamant, couldn’t hide the stench of slaughter, thick as iron rain; a humanoid beast, standing silent, pressing like storm‑swollen clouds over a city.

Aerin’s pupils shrank; a blood‑scent speared her—Uncle John holding her, the [Black‑Iron Knight]’s fist slamming his back, the spray on her face like hot rain.

In a blink, she knew the newcomer was the very black knight who killed Uncle John, a scar returning like winter wind.

Her eyes went red. She lunged—then cold snapped through her; [Fear] bloomed like a poisonous flower, racing down her nerves, nailing her to the earth like a stake—[Fear] hissed: don’t go, go and you die.

But momentum had already broken loose; stopping was like halting a rolling boulder on ice—she pitched hard, hit dirt, and tumbled in messy spins like a leaf in a gust.

Pathetic, and ugly as a trampled sparrow.

Leaves and soil clung to the golden‑haired girl; [Fear] kept crushing her muscles until her jaw shook, teeth clenched, yet her body stayed locked—the beast’s instinct to play dead when a greater predator pads near.

Aerin burned with rage, wanted to howl to the sky, and found even that stolen; [Fear] turned her throat to stone.

Fury and grief packed her chest like a storm in a drum, and she couldn’t move; it felt like she’d burst.

The [Black‑Iron Knight] didn’t spare her a glance.

He looked at Lustrous, the black‑haired girl, and spoke the words he’d just swallowed.

“I want to live.”

“Ha.” The black‑haired girl stayed lazy as a cat in a sunbeam. She swayed to her feet, hair like wet seaweed, gently lapping. She cocked her head. “What’s that to me?”

“So I’ll kill you.”

“Oh.” Lustrous nodded, an onlooker to her own life, her slouch unchanged even under a death sentence.

“After I kill you—” Long still didn’t strike. This would be his last judgment as an [Apocalypse Knight], and last times fill with looking back, like a river glancing at its source; patience came to him like cold iron. “I’ll take your place.”

“You want to be a [Witch]?”

“I’ll become a [Companion].”

“Tsk.” Lustrous pointed at the golden‑haired girl shaking on the ground before Long. “I’m guessing the [Hero King] won’t like you.”

The [Black‑Iron Knight] didn’t look at Aerin. His voice was flat as a locked gate. “It’s never up to the [Hero King].”

He paused. “Nor up to [me].”

It’s up to—[It].

“You talk too much.” Weariness and impatience drifted across Lustrous’s face like thin clouds over a waning moon.

“That’s all I had. From now on—” Long’s right hand slowly clenched, knuckles hard as stone. “I’m no longer an [Apocalypse Knight]. I’m the [Hero King]’s eternal [Companion].”

“You clawed bloody to leap out of the [Cycle], and now you rush to jump back in.” Lustrous’s brow tipped; her smile hooked with mockery, a knife hidden in a petal. “What a play.”

“No real difference.” Her bare mockery didn’t move him; he spoke plain, like iron on an anvil. “It’s all to live. Aren’t you the same?”

“Even if shackled, even if you bow and scrape?” Lustrous asked back, voice soft as rain, edge cold as hail.

This time Long didn’t answer; he’d said enough for a lifetime. He was speaking less to the girl than to his own heart, like knocking on a sealed door.

He still held tatters of justice, scraps of chivalry, little dream‑seeds rooted in his boyhood, stubborn as burrs; a thousand years of blood and killing had washed him, yet a pinch of dust still slept in his chest.

In that brief exchange, the dust blew away like ash in a gale.

From now on, he was no longer an [Apocalypse Knight], not even a knight, but a [Knight]—the [Hero King]’s [Knight].

And what he sought was no longer the three pillars of the code—[Justice], [Honor], and [Hope].

It was—[To Live].

Only the living can chase those banners like sails.

The dead have no right to speak of justice.

“Come.”

A blink, and when his eyes opened, his resolve was iron and his cold was ice; the [Black‑Iron Knight] drew a fist and struck across the air.

The punch looked plain as a farmer’s swing, no glowing flare, no cheated speed; every motion clear as a hammer falling.

But the strength was ocean‑deep.

Boom—

Thunder cracked over the forest; the air rang and wrinkled with ripples, waves spreading fast like circles in a lake; power piled high enough to nick the skin of space.

From the clouds, it was a giant unseen hand sweeping from the [Black‑Iron Knight]’s stance, combing the forest flat; trunks bowed like wheat, leaves whipped like flags, tree‑bones rattled down like rain, and the pathless [Witchwood Forest] split open like a wound.

And the black‑haired girl at the front? Was Lustrous still whole?

Panic rattled Aerin like pebbles in a jar; [Fear] pinned her to the ground, drinking all her strength; she couldn’t even turn her head, couldn’t see behind; only the wind skated right over her crown, and in that gale she heard a wet pop, crisp as a bursting fruit—the sound of flesh blown to scraps.

Before she could think, heat splashed her skin, like soup sloshed from a cauldron.

Her pupils shrank; the grass before her flushed scarlet, blades beaded with meat and bits of organ, and the familiar iron reek punched her nose like a mailed fist.

Blood—no, no—whose blood?! Lustrous? Lustrous?!

Rage and dread wrestled in her chest, wolves tearing a deer, and she could only stare at the inch before her, watch a black iron boot step forward, get no answer from Lustrous—as if she were already gone.

Move, move, please move! No, no, don’t!

Tears pooled quick, a spring in a hollow; the gold‑haired girl let them fall, couldn’t even blink.

Enough! Aerin had had enough of her own weakness, a cage made of reeds.

When [Fear] used her hands to kill those seventeen [Templar Knights], her heart held terror and confusion like fog in a valley, yet there was also a sly relief, a thin joy—joy that she was no longer that useless, so‑called [Hero King].

But a [Hero King] who could stand alone, face the [Demon King] like a cliff faces surf, and save others, save the [World] like a lantern in storm.

She thought she was strong enough to slip free of her long humiliation, like a snake shedding its skin—yet the [Black‑Iron Knight]’s return punched truth into her ribs.

The gale born of his fist howled over her head; leaves and blood froth drifted down, stippling her legs, back, and hair like red snow.

She was back in that afternoon; she lay limp in the flowerbed, the sunset bled along the rim of the world, petals spun wild, and the dearest person died before her, as a candle guttered in wind.

It all played again.

Like a [Cycle].

She had never truly escaped.