The tides of time chronicled empires’ rise and fall, the relentless ebb and flow of eras.

In ancient days, the Divine Race—once sovereigns of the Alren Continent—strode boldly into a world of chaos, only to fade beneath history’s unforgiving tide.

The old always withers to make way for the new. As the once-proud Divine Race retreated from the stage, humanity rose.

Ruling races shifted like living metabolism. Only blood and fire, a curse clinging to the bone, tormented every soul across the land.

Continental history? Neither long nor short. Beyond a few fragile pages of peace lay endless suffering.

Every inch of the Alren Continent drowned in flame and blood, shattered by nobles and royals blinded by greed.

Wells choked with rotting corpses; rivers ran thick with crimson filth. Where war’s iron hooves passed, only mournful cries remained.

Rulers drank deep of blood-wine steeped in the people’s anguish, their faces twisted with greed.

The war-ravaged continent staggered like a dying old man—each step trembling, one misstep from collapsing into the snow, never to rise.

Even heaven seemed to avert its gaze. At this precipice, the "Dawnbreaker Knight" emerged.

Clad head-to-toe in sealed heavy armor, he wielded a divine sword, conquering all directions.

He led oppressed slaves and commoners to topple a rotting empire, slay a tyrant who treated lives as grass, and crown a young empress.

He shielded the fading Gold and Moon Elves, repelling invaders to save the Dreamlike and Eternal Forest.

He crushed lawless ministers, aided a Nine Provinces princess to the throne, freed the enslaved Sakura Fox Clan, and purged centuries of cult corruption.

Twenty years of campaigning. At last, peace dawned.

The people hailed him: the "Dawnlight" who brought morning. Titles followed—"Undefeated Justice," "Knight of the Night," "Obsidian Arbiter," "Grand Knight Commander Dawnbreak."

Yet at his zenith, he committed an act that stunned the world.

Duke Yotan—virtuous fiancé of Princess Saint Lune of Sanlan Kingdom—and his entire household lay slaughtered in their mansion. Rivers of blood. No survivors.

Evidence pointed squarely to the Dawnbreak Knight-Captain’s divine sword.

The kingdom erupted. All knew: only he could wield that blade. Witnesses saw him enter the mansion that day.

Amid his silent refusal to speak, the Sanlan court sentenced him to death—commuted to exile: titles stripped, citizenship revoked, banished forever.

Continent-wide fury erupted. Praise turned to venom. "You coveted the princess!" "You butchered the virtuous!" "You betrayed knightly honor!"

The very people he freed now hurled rotten eggs and curses, treating him like a street rat.

*"Beast in human skin—you deceived us all!"*

*"We don’t need you!"*

*"True demon—you’ll pay!"*

Silent beneath the storm, the knight departed under guard. Vanished.

No one knew where he went. No one understood why he shattered his legacy at glory’s peak.

Years later, the Evil Dragon Overlord ravaged the land.

As the continent teetered again, the aging knight mounted his lean warhorse, drew his dust-cloaked sword, and fought one last time—for justice, for the scornful masses.

Victory sealed the dragon away. But his body bore irreversible scars.

---

Moonlight seeped through gauzy clouds into the ancient, frigid temple.

Beneath a blood-rose banner, upon a fanged throne, sat a girl in a black-and-white Lolita dress. Silver hair, tied with a bat-ribbon, flowed like silk to her heels. Skin paler than moonlight—inhuman.

Her delicate palm propped her cheek; strands of hair spilled over her shoulder. Doll-perfect features radiated boredom. Wine-red ruby eyes lazily studied the armored figure before her.

"Stand down. You’re no match for him." She yawned, revealing tiny fangs, waving away subordinates who’d drawn blades yet trembled before the knight.

They exchanged uneasy glances.

"What? Have my words lost weight, or have your ears grown calluses?" She tilted her head.

Their faces paled. They retreated.

"So—you’re the legendary 'Dawnbreaker Knight'?" She crossed slender legs sheathed in sheer black stockings. Moonlight highlighted the stark contrast between porcelain thighs and translucent fabric, merging with the black lotus-hem into an alluring "absolute territory."

Her tone, mature beyond her doll-like innocence, dripped lazy disdain. She regarded knight and sword as nothing.

Silence.

"Yet I recall no major disputes between Bloodkin and humanity." She tilted her head, fairy-tale features flickering with confusion.

As one of the last Divine Race, she rarely hesitated to show trespassers divine terror.

But he’d harmed none—only knocked guards unconscious with his sword’s flat. Fought his way from human lands to Bloodkin realm. Clearly seeking *her*.

Another reason? Absurd. She found him... intriguing. More than sycophantic fools. Even... a strange kinship.

*How odd.* She tapped her temple. *Must be surrounded by insufferable idiots.*

As she finished speaking, the knight bowed slightly, resting his sword against his shoulder blade—a silent salute.

She recognized the respect. An eyebrow arched; a mocking smirk touched her lips.

"Speak freely, Sir Knight." She already knew his script: *Alliance against human hypocrisy. Share the lands.*

Humans—frail, pitiful. She felt only boredom.

"Wait—let me guess." She toyed with her black heeled boot, playful. "You came thousands of miles for selfish desire?"

"Correct."

"Dull." She slumped into the throne, yawning. "Run before my boredom turns lethal. Don’t look back."

Most would panic or flee.

*Another dull day. Dull person. Dull affair.*

Then—

"I did not come to return alive."

"Hmm?" She blinked, chuckling at the expressionless iron can. "Tired of living?"

"Cherish your century-span, human. I’ve no interest in your life. No need to feign depth risking death."

He stood unmoving. His gaze pierced through helmet slits.

"Sir Knight... what *do* you seek?" Millennia of wisdom faltered.

"I mean no disrespect to the Queen of Eternal Night. My request is mine alone—no nation, no race." Hand over chest, voice calm.

He straightened. Voice rang clear:

"I humbly request, Your Majesty, Queen of the Bloodkin—grant me an honorable end."

"...What?" The white-haired girl froze for three full seconds.

"You... truly came to die?" Her eyes shifted.

In millennia, she’d seen every human face—greed, deceit, desperation. Never this.

"Why seek death?" For the first time, genuine curiosity stirred.

"No one needs me anymore." His flat tone carried a hero’s twilight sorrow.

"No one needs you? *That’s* your reason?" She was stunned.

"I’ve done all I should. My conscience is clear... In peace, there is no place for me." Each word deliberate.

She opened her mouth. Memory surfaced.

She’d skimmed his dossier in idle moments.

Grand Knight Commander. Humanity’s pillar. Crowned the empress. Stabilized the realm.

Also—the rebel who toppled her tyrant father. So she stripped his power upon adulthood.

He saved the Gold and Moon Elves from invaders, sparing them the shame of offering princesses for peace.

Yet neither clan honored their vow. After victory, they ostracized him—pushing him out.

He returned to Jiuzhou once more. He won the throne for an imperial princess of Jiuzhou, one being manipulated by powerful ministers. Yet after she ascended the throne without issue, she cast him aside like a spent tool.

He helped the foxkin descendants of Sakura Dye cast off their status as slaves. In the end, they only treated him as a stepping stone to use and discard again and again.

His deeds were praised by countless people. Yet not a single one truly understood him, not even the disciple he had raised with his own hands.

He spent half his life on horseback and saved the entire continent. In the end, he didn't even have one friend he could truly talk to.

As for the kingdom...

If the girl remembered correctly, the cultists hadn't been completely wiped out back then. More than that, their headquarters still remained, and its backers weren't people ordinary folk could touch.

Even she knew that much, yet the royal family of the kingdom knew nothing at all. They really were stupid beyond belief.

After so many generations of intermarriage with humans, the inheritor of the Divine Race's Divine Phoenix bloodline had now become a complete mortal.

The girl thought mockingly.

After that, the knight left Jiuzhou and joined the punitive expedition. He sealed the Demon King Evil Dragon that threatened the borderlands. It was said that although he defeated the demonic dragon, he himself suffered irreversible injuries.

After so many betrayals, after personally learning how vile this world could be, the girl had thought this knight had fallen so far that he came to seek cooperation with her, the "devil herself."

But unexpectedly, all he wanted was a glorious death in battle.

"You... don't feel unwilling?"

"Unwilling about what?" The knight looked up, confusion in his eyes.

"Hah? Do I really need to spell it out for you? Your efforts and your rewards are completely disproportionate."

"No. I've already received what I deserved." The knight shook his head.

"This counts as what you deserved? Sir Knight, I'm not trying to mock you, but after fighting for over twenty years, you're not living much better than a stray puppy."

"All the things you humans chase after, status, position, glory, wealth. You've got none of them. Saying you lived these twenty years for nothing wouldn't be an exaggeration."

"For nothing?" The knight denied it. "No. More than twenty years ago, this continent was littered with corpses, like a dying old man on his last breath."

"And now, the earth has revived. The tide has turned."

"My journey here was not in vain."

"Whether it was in vain or not, shouldn't that be judged by your own gains?" the girl said. "For more than twenty years, you fought until your body and soul were nearly shattered. What did you get out of it? A lifetime of infamy and scorn?"

"If I were you, I would never do something so pointless. The people who benefited from your kindness won't thank you. They'll only kick you while you're down when you're wrongly accused."

"You've fought bitterly until now, and you don't even have a friend, not even someone you can talk to. In the end, only an outsider like me can listen to you ramble a little. Don't you think that's pitiful to the point of being laughable?"

"And now, even if you give up on yourself and smash the pot because it's already cracked, it still won't change anything."

"So what exactly did you do all this for? If not for profit, then at least for reputation, right? But now, did you even get that?"

"Because I am a knight."

The knight answered without hesitation, his voice firm and decisive. It was as if he had never once been lost on this question.

"That's all?"

"Isn't that enough?"

His reply left the girl strangely speechless.

"Can you give me a reason that's a little more grounded in reality?"

"Because I am Saint Lune."

The knight placed a hand over his chest, righteous and solemn.

"Were you serious about all that??"

The knight said nothing. His unwavering gaze answered for him.

As a human, he was no longer young.

Yet his eyes were still the same as they had been back then, when he made his vow before the holy hall.

He had never betrayed it. He had never forgotten the young self he once was.

The knightly youth was no longer young, yet he was still young.

"..."

The girl couldn't help rolling her eyes.

"I originally thought your reason would definitely be something boring."

"But now..."

"I guessed wrong. Your reason isn't just boring. It's unbelievably boring."

"How is there a human as inexplicable as you in this world??"