About a week later, hunters living along the Karno Empire’s frontier found his body while returning to their village.
They confirmed his identity through the divine sword in his hand and the armor on his body.
A month later, news of the Dawnbreak Knight-Captain’s death had spread across the entire continent, reaching every nation.
At first, opinions were divided over the death of such a prominent figure.
Some believed that despite his unforgivable mistakes, he was still the knight-captain who had brought peace and stability to the continent.
He deserved the honors due to him in death.
Others claimed his heart had been corrupted. Someone so utterly evil had already forfeited the title of knight.
The raging debate finally ended when the kingdom issued an official declaration clearing his name.
After a thorough investigation and repeated verification, the Sanlan Kingdom confirmed that the princess’s fiancé, whom Fate had executed, was deeply suspicious.
He might even have been the ultimate mastermind behind the cultists’ campaign of chaos.
Once investigators uncovered the letter detailing the grand duke’s collusion with the cultists, the truth became clear.
The knight had been framed.
And that made things... rather awkward.
The plan detailed in the letter made every royal who read it shudder.
Had the plan unfolded step by step as written, the kingdom would truly have been in grave danger.
Fortunately, the knight had acted in time and stopped everything.
He knew executing a great noble without evidence was a capital offense. He knew his name would be cursed for generations.
Yet he still drew his sword without hesitation.
Because he knew that by the time the kingdom found conclusive evidence, the situation would already be beyond saving.
The price would be tens of thousands of innocent lives.
Even knowing he would be condemned by all afterward, he pressed forward without looking back.
With his last remaining light, the knight shielded all living beings.
Throughout his life, he had never once disgraced the name of knight.
After learning the truth, the Sanlan royal family was overcome with shame.
That very night, they issued an edict exonerating him and publicly admitted the royal family’s grave mistake.
All previous sanctions against Fate were revoked, and his noble title was restored.
For slaying the cultist leader, he was also granted the title of Protector Duke and elevated to the rank of First Grand Duke.
However...
It was already too late.
The knight had closed his eyes forever before they could clear his name.
At thirty-five, he reached the end of his life without regret.
The kingdom’s edict sent shock waves across the continent.
In an instant, every nation’s attitude toward the Sanlan Kingdom became subtly strained.
The strongest reaction to the kingdom’s misjudgment and mistakes didn’t come from any nation.
It came from the common people everywhere.
They denounced the King of Sanlan as a murderer who had driven the knight-captain to his death.
Even Sanlan’s citizens suffered the scorn and resentment of foreigners.
Peace had returned to the continent, yet the knight was gone forever.
While he lived, evil cowered like a turtle in its shell.
Even after his death, he left behind a somewhat cleaner world.
Almost immediately after the hunters discovered the knight’s body, the empress dispatched the Imperial Guard and royal honor guard to the frontier.
They went to bring the empire’s knight-captain “home.”
The empire wasn’t alone.
The kingdom, Elvenwood, and Jiuzhou all sent envoys and honor guards, each hoping to bring the knight “home.”
But the empire got there first and drove away the processions from every other nation and faction.
Soon afterward, the knight’s grand funeral procession set out through the Imperial Capital.
Empress Beatrice personally offered him the empire’s national flower and conducted his final farewell ceremony.
A torrential downpour fell that day.
Yet those who came to see the knight off braved the storm, packing the vast Imperial Capital until not another person could squeeze in.
As the funeral dirge began, it seemed even the gods were weeping for this honorable and upright knight.
The empire’s empress.
The twin princesses of the elves.
Jiuzhou’s empress.
Alren’s hero.
Sanlan’s princess.
And the supreme foxgirl priestess.
All of them gathered in the Imperial Capital.
They stood in silence as the rain blurred their silhouettes, drawing the distance between them and the knight farther and farther apart.
The knight was buried within the imperial palace.
The ceremony ended, but the people’s longing for him never did.
Many private merchant guilds pooled their funds and built sanctuaries for the knight in their own regions.
They carved his statue from pure marble and enshrined it within.
In each sanctuary, the knight stood solemnly with both hands resting upon his longsword.
He was every bit as imposing and righteous as the people imagined.
It wasn’t only the empire’s citizens.
The people of the kingdom, Elvenwood, and Jiuzhou also built Dawnbreak Sanctuaries in their own lands.
Each honored the unbending knight through their own culture and customs.
The Dawnbreak Sanctuaries soon threatened to surpass even the local churches in both scale and number.
The nations of the continent tacitly allowed it.
None tried to stop their people from commemorating the knight.
And so, the knight named Fate Saint Lune reached the end of his life.
————————
...
“Wake up, Sir Knight. Wake up...”
...
Who’s calling me?
...
An age of peace has no need for knights.
Ah... I’m so sleepy...
The calls gradually faded, replaced by the wavering sobs of a young and grief-stricken voice.
“Mother... Mother...”
A little foxgirl with snow-white hair knelt inside a cold, dark cage.
Her pale, lotus-root-like limbs were bound in chains woven from curses.
Her eyes brimmed with tears.
She reached a tiny hand toward the heartless fox-eared girl walking away without once looking back.
She cried and begged, pleading for the girl to turn around and look at her just one more time.
Yet the white-haired foxgirl, who resembled her almost perfectly, was as heartless as she was breathtakingly radiant and beautiful.
She showed no regard for their bond of blood.
After locking the little foxgirl in this lightless dungeon, she gave her a cold glance and left without looking back.
The chime of the bell around her ankle grew more distant.
Gradually, it vanished altogether.
“Mother... what did I do wrong? Why are you doing this to me...?”
The little foxgirl stared blankly after her.
Before long, her world returned to absolute, suffocating darkness.
Despair spread across her young face, where the first traces of captivating beauty had only begun to bloom.
She looked so pitiful.
Desperate and helpless.
Mother, no...
Please don’t abandon me...
“?!”
Fate suddenly jolted awake from the nightmare, a heavy pressure welling within her chest.
Her world was still pitch-black.
Only faint specks of light seeped through the cracks.
Without thinking, she punched through the stone slab covering her.
“Haah... Haah...”
Light poured into the stone coffin like water.
Fate gulped down air, her entire body drenched in sweat.
The sound of her own breathing made her instinctively feel that something was wrong.
Then she looked down at her hands.
Soft.
Tiny.
White...
And behind her, she could feel several additional “limbs.”
These were clearly not the hands of her human form.
And...
Tails??
Could it be that her current state was...?
“As We suspected.”
“Hm??”
Hearing that teasing yet strangely familiar voice, Feitao instinctively looked up.
Above her floated a silver-haired girl in a gothic dress, riding atop a massive scythe.
She gazed meaningfully down at Feitao.
“You really aren’t entirely human.”
“...Christine??”
“My, my. Before this, it was always ‘Your Majesty,’ spoken with such respect.”
Christine leaped down from the giant scythe and smiled brightly at Feitao.
“Now you’re calling Us directly by name?”
“You truly had even Us fooled.”
“So you’re descended from the Nine Tailed Fox clan.”
“...”
The fox-eared little girl said nothing.
Her hair was as white as freshly fallen snow.
Behind her, three huge, fluffy white tails swayed like feather dusters with every shift in her emotions.
“So... I didn’t manage to die?”
“Of course you didn’t. You carry the Nine Tailed Fox bloodline.”
“Even if someone chopped you into fox paste, you still wouldn’t die.”
“What an astonishing secret. To think you also have fox-demon blood.”
Christine clicked her tongue.
“What is that ancient, wretched vixen Yurou Jiushuang to you?”
Tch. She really does look just like that damned vixen.
Aside from her eye color, they might as well have come from the same mold.
“...You want to know?”
Feitao’s petite nose twitched, and her cherry-blossom lips formed a tiny pout.
“Well, indulge Our curiosity.”
Christine smiled.
“Don’t forget, you still owe Us a favor~”
“It’s nothing special.”
At the mention of the subject, a hint of heaviness entered Feitao’s young, adorable voice.
“Oh? Then she’s something like a distant relative—”
“She’s my mother.”
“...”
Christine’s voice abruptly died.
“What did you say?”
