“Lina,” Vionette spoke, her voice a silken thread cutting through the distant din of clashing steel. “What do you think those prideful Aurelyths do when our front line starts to falter?”
Lina looked toward the carnage, her youthful features tightened in concentration that seemed far beyond her years. “They will push forward, right?”
“Yes.” Vionette’s nod was slow, almost rhythmic, as her lips curved into a smile that never reached her eyes. “They will push forward with their arrogance, even as our wings start to surround them. They do so knowing full well that our numbers can’t win against theirs.”
Lina looked back at the battlefield, her gaze sharpening as she traced the sweeping movements. Crimvane’s wings—the flanking maneuvers Vionette had orchestrated—were indeed wrapping around the Aurelyth army, exactly as she had described. Yet, the mass of the Aurelyth center was so vast, so immovable, that it simply shoved the flanks away, expanding outward like a bloated beast refusing to be caged.
“Yeah, no matter what we do, we still lack the strength to crush them from the outside,” Lina muttered, speaking almost to herself. “So, it doesn’t matter if they are surrounded or not; their pride tells them they are the ones doing the surrounding.”
Vionette continued to observe, her amusement only deepening as she watched her own soldiers being pushed to the brink.
Livora, having listened to their conversation, felt a sudden chill that had nothing to do with the wind. She turned toward Vionette, a profound confusion etched across her features.
“But if you can't crush them, why let them push so far? Why the smiles, Princess?”
Vionette’s eyes filled with a mythic, terrifying light.
“Well… did you think about what will happen when their numbers are reduced to match our own... while they are already deep inside that trapped formation?” Lina asked, answering in place of Vionette.
The Queen of Eryndor went silent, her tactical mind grinding against the sheer impossibility of the statement. Yes, if the enemy's numbers were halved in an instant, the encirclement that was currently failing would snap shut like the jaws of a dragon. But the problem remained:
“But… how are they going to be reduced?” Roswell asked after a long silence, his voice hushed.
Vionette turned in his direction, but her eyes didn’t meet his or Livora’s at all—her crimson gaze was locked onto the dragon sitting beside Roswell.
“Watch,” Vionette said, extending a hand forward as if she were a conductor preparing to lead a grand symphony of destruction. “This is how you make use of those bastards’ pride. You give them exactly what they want, until they drown in it.”
As Livora’s gaze shifted from Vionette, it was instantly drawn to Elina, whose hands had begun to weave through the air.
The girl with the amber eyes looked down at the valley, her pupils thinning into predatory, vertical slits. She placed her forearms firmly on the rests of her seat and raised her hands, palms pointing downward toward the sea of enemies as if she were claiming the earth itself.
[Draconic Core Circulation]
[Dragonheart Convergence]
[Ember Tyranny]
The moment the skills flared to life, the Aether across the battlefield screamed.
“What the—?!” an Aurelyth mage flinched, gasping as his spell suddenly flickered.
All along the backlines, the Aurelyth mages cried out in shock as their conjured flames sputtered and died like guttering candles in a storm.
One mage stared blankly at his extinguished spell; as he watched, the magic they had painstakingly chanted unraveled, reverting into raw Aether. It surged forward, rushing toward the chaotic line dividing Aurelyth’s vanguard from their support units.
My spell… is gone? What even is this…? he thought, instinctively taking a step back. The Aether… it’s—!
“H-hey! Look at the Aether!” the woman next to him shouted, her voice barely audible amidst the rising tide of confusion.
This was the authority of [Ember Tyranny], Elina’s Unique skill. It allowed her to seize the very concept of fire within her vicinity, forcibly bending the reality of the Aether to her will. Any flame—whether it was a woven fireball, a natural campfire, or the lingering warmth hanging in the air—was hers to absorb, redirect, or reshape.
“Gruzthar thalys, zelvas qyros. Nyru xenir, bhaakor dravol.”
Livora, Rose, and Roswell watched with widened eyes as Elina closed her lids, her lips moving in a low chant that vibrated deep within the marrow of their bones. Two magic circles, etched with glowing draconic script, manifested beneath her palms.
She opened her eyes, a dangerous flame dancing within her amber irises as she looked down at the battlefield with a mocking smirk.
“You guys call those flames? How pathetic.”
“Tier-4 magic: Ignis Corolla.”
At her command, the three observers snapped their gazes back to the center of the battlefield.
Slowly, occupying the space between the vanguard and the support units, a massive magic circle began to manifest. Its outer rings rotated clockwise, while the inner runes spun in counter-clockwise defiance.
An Aurelyth knight, charging forward with the intent of slaughtering his helpless enemies, slowed his pace as the glow of the circle illuminated his face.
“Is this… an enchantment spell our mages cast or something?” he asked aloud, though the question lingered unanswered in the tense air.
Following his lead, one by one, the surrounding soldiers skidded to a halt, staring down at the sprawling arcane design beneath their boots.
“What… is this?” Alena, who was commanding the mages, also peered down. “H-hey, did you guys activate a spell?”
She glanced back at the mages and archers behind her, only to find them staring at the glowing earth with the exact same confusion. As the terrifying realization finally began to dawn on them, the more perceptive soldiers turned and desperately tried to flee the circle's boundary.
---
The Crimvane knights were drowning so deep in the abyss of hopelessness as they stared at the approaching forces of Caldris, they didn't even notice the glowing patterns of death forming beneath their enemies' feet.
They had already accepted their end, fighting on merely as ghosts.
<Warriors of Crimvane.>
Suddenly, a voice rang through the mind of every Crimvane soldier. It resonated like the divine oracle of a god, echoing crystal clear in their minds.
<Do you still remember what I said before we started this war?>
The knights fighting for their final breaths, the mages desperately shielding the wounded, and the healers whose hands were slick with crimson all flicked their heads up, blinking in stunned unison.
<Y-yes…? We remember.>
<The zero death promise...?>
They looked at each other amidst the chaos, their expressions flickering between confusion and a desperate anger. In the heart of this slaughterhouse, their ruler was demanding they recall a promise that felt like nothing more than a beautiful lie.
<Good.> Vionette’s mental voice brimmed with dark amusement. <Now, turn your eyes toward your enemy and take a good look if you can win or not.>
“?!!”
As if pulled by invisible strings, the exhausted knights tore their gazes forward toward the enemy lines; the mages, whether mid-incantation or refilling their Aether, glanced up and widened their eyes; the healers, having just stitched together torn flesh, stepped out of their tents and froze with parted lips.
As a brilliant crimson light washed over their battered faces, they witnessed it—flames slowly pooling inside the massive circle below, before suddenly erupting upward with the deafening roar of a thousand dying stars.
The pillar of fire rotated as it ascended, rapidly sculpting itself into a breathtaking form as it brushed the storm clouds above—a titanic lotus bud forged of pure flame, bridging the earth and the heavens.
As the observers' jaws trembled and their eyes dilated in awe, the fiery lotus bloomed into life, mirroring the seeds of faith within the hearts of the Crimvane soldiers. Drops of liquid fire wept from the edges of its radiant petals, cascading downward like ethereal rain.
In the eyes of the Crimvane soldiers, the sight was simply…
“...Magnificent,” Duke Korneas muttered, spellbound.
But for the Aurelyth army trapped within the blooming heart of the lotus—
“AAHHH!!! IT BURNS! THE IRON IS MELTING!”
“HELP! KYAAH!!!”
The agonizing shrieks of the dying were silenced almost as quickly as they began, their vocal cords instantly vaporized by the heat. Steel armor didn't merely heat up; it liquefied, running in molten streams over bodies that were already flaking into ash. Every single person trapped within the lotus was incinerated, eradicated without leaving so much as dust in the wake of the flower that scorched the heavens.
“What… the… hell?” one Aurelyth mage muttered, his mind fracturing as he stared blankly at the evaporating lives of his comrades. “W-what the hell just happened?!”
“Where is the support?!”
The remnants of the Aurelyth army who had been fortunate enough to stand outside the circle watched in paralyzed horror as thirty percent of their brothers-in-arms were melted away by the blazing lotus.
Across the field, the Crimvane soldiers stood equally frozen, the immense heat of the blast instantly drying the sweat on their brows and the wet blood clinging to their steel.
Then, piercing through the fog of their exhaustion, the fragments of their queen's earlier speech erupted in their minds. It hadn't been a naive lie—it was a blood covenant.
Their eyes, once dull with the hollow acceptance of death, suddenly flared with the burning light of reborn hope.
But the moment of surreal peace was fleeting.
“ATTACK! DON'T LET THEM BREATHE! KILL THEM!” Cassion’s voice roared from the distance, frantic to salvage their crumbling momentum.
The command snapped the Crimvane knights back to brutal reality. Losing thirty percent of their forces in a single blow was a massacre, but the vast majority of the Aurelyth army—the vanguard that had already pushed deep into the center—remained alive and snarling for vengeance.
The defenders tightened their grips on their hilts, staring down the approaching wall of enemy steel, though now, a faint, resilient fire flickered in their weary eyes.
“Don’t worry about that magic! It was a one-time trick!”
“Crush them! We still outnumber them!”
“FOR AURELYTH!”
The two armies prepared to lock horns once more, the air thick with the sickening scent of scorched earth and ozone. With war cries tearing from their throats, they surged toward each other, fully prepared to fight to the death.
[Blink]
Then, in an instant, the empty space between the colliding fronts shimmered. Every head on the battlefield whipped toward a solitary new figure that had materialized in the bloodstained dead zone between the lines.
The figure did not wear the metallic plate of a knight, the pristine uniform of a healer, or the flowing robes of a mage. Instead, he stood draped in a dark military uniform that seemed to devour the surrounding light.
Noa stood alone between the sprawling armies, his back facing the Crimvane forces. He held his sheathed sword, Acheron, angled diagonally at his waist. His left hand gripped the scabbard securely near its mouth, while the fingers of his right hand hovered just above the hilt, twitching in a rhythmic dance of anticipation.
Then, he drew the blade out for the first time since being sheathed. The dark steel glowed with a sickening, hungry pulse, its semi-sentient will vibrating against Noa’s palm with a desire to taste the blood of ten thousand.
—Formless Sword: Horizon (Distant Edge)—
The Aurelyth vanguard surged forward, intending to trample the lone figure into the dirt. But suddenly, their veins bulged painfully against their skin, their grips on their weapons faltered, and a terror beyond the fear of death—the fear of erasure—seized their halting hearts.
A horizontal arc of pure purple energy, seemingly wider than the horizon itself, swept outward from Noa's blade.
Aurelyth armor, forged from the kingdom’s finest steel, tore apart like wet paper. Layered defensive skills were shredded into useless wisps like fragile cobwebs, and broadswords raised in blocks were cleanly sheared in two.
The moment the violet wave washed over their flesh, deafening screams of wrath, agony, and sorrow flooded their minds. The invasive emotions made them suffocate, causing blood to weep from their eyes before they were split into two. These were the accumulated sufferings of Crimvane forcefully tethered to Acheron.
In a silent, yet sorrowful stroke, another forty percent of the enemy forces were cleanly harvested from the earth.
With Acheron in hand, Noa was able to wield his Arts again. With Acheron in hand, Noa’s [Formless Sword] flowed again, fiercer than ever, its movements merging with the blade’s own bloodlust.
“Who... is that?” a surviving Aurelyth knight whispered, his trembling legs giving way.
A Crimvane soldier stared at the lone man standing at the forefront, his exhausted eyes scanning the black and crimson uniform. As he recognized the aesthetic that mirrored their queen, he muttered,
“It’s him… It’s Lord Noa.”
The surrounding Crimvane soldiers stared at Noa’s back with a reverence reserved for the divine. The chaos of the battlefield seemed to freeze as Noa turned his head, just enough for his chin to brush his shoulder. His purple irises met the awe-struck gazes of his own men.
“Hey, idiots, it’s not time to chat.” He turned his attention back to the remnants of the Aurelyth forces, his mouth curling into a wide, toothy grin that looked far more predator than human. “We still gotta get back to killing these fuckers.”
The knights looked at the enemy ranks, then back down at their own bloodied swords. Just as Vionette had promised, the odds were now even—or perhaps, for the first time, Crimvane held the advantage.
Now, the fragmented memories of their queen's speech stitched themselves together in their minds, forcing them to remember the truth of her words without a shadow of doubt.
“I will not allow any of you to die today.”
The lie they had despised had transformed into a divine promise they embraced.
The knight who had been weeping over the thought of never holding his newborn baby felt his hands tremble—but this time, the tremor was born of something different from fear.
He seized his hilt with both hands in a crushing grip. With wide, burning eyes, he inverted his blade, driving its point down into the earth as he sank to one knee, the clatter of his armor echoing loudly in the eerie quiet.
Following his lead, one by one, every single knight of Crimvane—injured, bloodied, or exhausted—knelt toward the back of the man in the military uniform, firmly planting their swords into the soil. Their muscles tightened, their eyes sharpened like whetted steel, and their blades erupted with a renewed aura, the light harmonizing with the crimson glow of the lotus ahead.
The clouds above began to churn and darken, and the midday sunlight seemed to flee the battlefield, replaced by a choking canopy of grey smoke.
This time, the swords of the Crimvane soldiers were not raised toward the heavens in a plea for mercy. They were pointed down—at hell. They were no longer the Blessed Kingdom of old; they had become the Cursed Kingdom of a new era.
“By the will of the throne,” the knights chanted in unison, pledging their reborn lives to the man standing before them.
Noa offered them one final, silent glance before exploding forward, his boots barely grazing the corpses littering the ground as he closed the distance. In that moment, the true slaughter—wrought by a blade that starved for blood and the man who happily wielded it—began.
The paralyzed remnants of the Aurelyth army watched him advance with terrified eyes. Their once-overwhelming numbers were nothing more than a pathetic joke now. The fear radiating from their bodies only served as fuel for Noa’s [Echo Reclamation], increasing his speed and strength with every blurring step.
Cassion stumbled forward, falling from his warhorse to confront the approaching nightmare. He leveled his sword at Noa, his face twisted into a mask of bravado.
“I will kill you today! I don’t know what trick you used that day, but you will die—”
“We meet again, huh?” The chilling whisper echoed beside Cassion's ear.
“?!!”
Cassion blinked, darting his eyes to the side, and in that skipped heartbeat, the entire world shifted. Noa was no longer twenty paces away; he was standing beside the prince, the wicked, thorned edge of Acheron resting against Cassion’s jugular.
Noa stared into Cassion’s eyes, offering a smile devoid of any human warmth. It was a smile of an eclipse.
“You remember what I told you before, right?” he murmured softly, as Acheron’s jagged edge began to bite through flesh. “That I would kill you next time we meet.”
As the Aurelyth knights watched, clinging to the hope that their lord might perform some miracle, Cassion’s severed head tumbled into the blood-soaked dirt.
Whatever hope they had vanished. In its place was a man they now recognized as the embodiment of 'death' itself, come to finally collect their souls.
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