The Eclipsed Order

Chapter 1: Chapter 1: I Thought Becoming Strong Enough Would Be the Answer Until I Finally Met Someone Stronger

The battlefield had long since ceased to resemble a battlefield.

What remained was little more than a vast stretch of ruined earth, buried beneath layers of dust, blood, shattered weapons, and the remains of everything that had once stood upon it. The ground had been torn apart so thoroughly that it was difficult to tell where the road had originally been, and the smoke hanging over the battlefield had grown so thick that even the sky had disappeared behind it.

I could barely hear anything anymore.

Not because the battlefield had become quiet, but because my ears had already begun to fail me.

Explosions continued somewhere in the distance, followed by the occasional roar of artillery and the unmistakable sound of something collapsing beneath its own weight. Every now and then, another gunshot would echo through the smoke, although I could no longer tell whether it was coming from an enemy position or from one of the few people still fighting on our side.

Normally, I would have been able to distinguish the direction of every sound without even thinking about it.

Now, I could barely distinguish the sound of my own breathing.

I looked down at myself and found the answer rather quickly.

There was blood everywhere.

Most of it was mine.

My left arm had gone completely numb several minutes ago, and judging by the way it was hanging, I suspected that whatever was holding it together had become more of a suggestion than an actual piece of anatomy. There was also a deep wound across my abdomen that had soaked through what remained of my clothes, while several smaller injuries had accumulated across my body during the course of the battle.

I had stopped counting them somewhere around twenty.

It seemed unnecessary at this point.

After all, there was only one question that mattered now.

How much longer could I keep fighting?

I tightened my grip around the knife in my right hand and slowly raised my head.

The man standing several dozen meters in front of me was the reason this entire battlefield had become a graveyard.

He was not particularly impressive to look at.

That was probably the most irritating part.

He looked like an ordinary man wearing a black military coat, with nothing about his appearance suggesting that he was responsible for the destruction surrounding us. There was no monstrous transformation, no glowing eyes, and no ridiculous aura spreading across the battlefield.

He simply stood there, watching me.

I had already killed everyone else who had come after me.

Soldiers, assassins, mercenaries, enhanced humans, and even several people who had once been considered among the strongest combatants in the world had all fallen before reaching me.

Yet this man was still standing.

And judging from the expression on his face, he had not even begun to take me seriously.

I couldn’t help but smile.

So this was how it ended.

After everything I had done, after all the years I had spent training my body and refining my skills, after surviving situations that should have killed me countless times over, I was finally going to die because I had encountered someone stronger than me.

There was something strangely satisfying about that conclusion.

At least it was not boring.

"You’re still standing?"

His voice reached me through the smoke.

I wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth and gave him a tired smile.

"I could ask you the same thing."

He laughed.

It was not the laughter of someone who was mocking me.

If anything, he sounded genuinely entertained.

"You’ve lost a tremendous amount of blood. Your left arm is practically useless, and your breathing is becoming irregular. Your legs are shaking."

He paused for a moment.

"Yet you’re still thinking about fighting."

I glanced at my legs.

He was right.

They were shaking.

Not because I was afraid, but because my body had finally begun to understand something that my mind had refused to accept.

Tired was too gentle a word.

Every muscle was screaming at me to stop moving. My lungs felt as though someone had poured fire directly into them, and every breath seemed to scrape against the inside of my chest.

Even my vision had begun to blur around the edges.

I was approaching my limit.

Perhaps I had already crossed it.

Still, I raised my knife.

There was no reason to surrender now.

I had never been particularly good at surrendering.

People had called me many things throughout my life.

Assassin.

Monster.

Madman.

Genius.

But the name that had followed me longer than any other was one that I had never particularly disliked.

Phantom.

Nobody remembered exactly who had given me that name.

Some claimed it came from my habit of appearing behind enemies without making a sound. Others believed it was because I had survived battles that should have been impossible to survive, disappearing whenever everyone thought I had finally been killed.

Personally, I thought the name sounded cool.

That was enough of a reason for me.

The man across from me took a step forward.

I adjusted my stance.

My right foot moved half a step backward while I lowered my center of gravity, allowing the remaining strength in my legs to settle beneath me.

My knife was not particularly large.

A weapon was only as useful as the person holding it, and I had spent most of my life learning how to make even the smallest opening fatal.

The man disappeared.

My instincts screamed.

I moved before I could think.

Something struck the place where my head had been a moment earlier.

The force of the attack tore through the ground behind me, sending fragments of stone and dirt into the air.

I rotated my body and thrust the knife toward his throat.

He blocked it.

Our weapons collided.

The impact sent a sharp vibration through my wrist, and for a brief moment, I felt as though my remaining arm might simply give up.

I ignored it.

I stepped forward.

He stepped back.

I followed.

One strike.

Then another.

Then another.

I had learned long ago that fighting beautifully was meaningless if fighting efficiently could accomplish the same thing with less effort.

My opponent seemed to understand that as well.

Our movements became faster.

The battlefield disappeared from my awareness.

For several seconds, there was only the distance between us, the movement of his shoulders, the position of his feet, and the subtle changes in his breathing.

His right shoulder moved.

A feint.

I ignored it.

His left foot shifted.

Another feint.

I waited.

Then I saw it.

An opening.

It was microscopic.

For most people, it would not have been an opening at all.

For me, it was enough.

I moved.

The knife slipped between his defenses.

For the first time, his expression changed.

But before the blade could reach him, something struck my chest.

I did not even see the attack.

The world suddenly turned upside down.

My body flew backward and crashed into the ground with enough force to make every remaining breath leave my lungs.

For several seconds, I could not move.

I stared at the sky.

Or at least what I assumed was the sky.

The smoke had swallowed everything.

I tried to breathe.

My lungs refused to cooperate.

I opened my mouth again, desperately trying to draw air into my chest, and finally managed to take a shallow breath.

Everything hurt.

"That was a good attack."

His voice sounded distant now.

I slowly turned my head.

"But unfortunately, this is how it ends."

He was walking toward me.

I wanted to stand.

But my body refused.

That was when I finally understood.

This was it.

There would be no miraculous recovery.

No hidden reserve of strength.

No sudden awakening that would allow me to defeat an opponent who had already surpassed me.

I had reached the end.

Oddly enough, I wasn’t afraid.

I had spent my entire life preparing for death.

Perhaps that was why the reality of it felt so strangely peaceful.

I stared upward and wondered whether I had accomplished anything meaningful.

The answer was difficult.

I had survived.

I had become strong.

I had defeated people who were supposed to be untouchable.

I had lived the kind of life that most people would probably consider extraordinary.

Yet, lying there with my body unable to move, I found myself thinking about something far more trivial.

I had never achieved my ideal strength.

That irritated me.

Of all the things I could have regretted at the end of my life, that was the one that bothered me the most.

I wanted to become stronger.

Not because I wanted fame.

Not because I wanted to rule anyone.

I simply wanted to reach the highest point that a human being could possibly reach.

And if there was something beyond that point, I wanted to reach that too.

That obsession had followed me for as long as I could remember.

Perhaps it was foolish.

Perhaps it was completely meaningless.

I closed my eyes.

The sound of footsteps slowly approached.

Then—

Everything went dark.

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