He had killed children.
He had killed the elderly.
He had killed those who surrendered, and he had killed the innocent as well.
If the Emperor gave the order, he never hesitated, no matter who the target was.
And now, an innocent child?
At this point?
Feeling guilty would be the real sin.
He had pierced the core of the enemy’s fighting force.
He had neutralized their terrifying endurance. But that wasn’t the only achievement.
“Did you not know who it was you were facing?”
Breaking the enemy’s spirit.
In war, few things are as important as crushing the enemy’s morale.
Lanius was a specialist in that regard, which was why he could be more ruthless than anyone else.
He had lived in that kind of world. He was a man destined for hell.
But not yet.
He would finish things here and return to Abraham, the man to whom he had entrusted his life.
To him, the battle before his eyes was nothing more than a task.
Emotions were merely a variable.
In a situation like this, enemies usually reacted in one of two ways.
They either fell into despair and dropped to their knees…
“You bastard!!”
…or they charged in blinded by rage.
Either outcome was fine. If he had succeeded in disturbing their composure, they had only become easier to defeat.
Lanius spun his spear once and prepared to meet them.
“……”
There was no need for words. Silence would unsettle them even more.
Better this than continuing with pointless taunts.
Boom!
From Dietrich’s strike, Lanius felt a heavy force behind the blow.
Even stronger than before?
No…he was simply mismanaging his strength.
At this rate, he would destroy himself.
“Hmm.”
With that thought, Lanius calmly received the boy’s reckless attacks as though carrying out a tedious task.
Still, he was impressed.
The potential the young man before him displayed exceeded even his expectations.
He had known Dietrich was strong. He had known he was exceptionally talented. But even taking all of that into account, he was strong.
“Hmph!”
His opponent was charging forward without any regard for conserving his strength. If this continued, he would exhaust himself soon enough.
That was what Lanius thought, but he was soon forced to revise his assessment.
His opponent was growing stronger and stronger.
If this continued, it would become impossible to gauge the limits of that potential.
He had intended to do no more than fend him off with the minimum amount of effort, but if he misjudged the situation, he might be the one who paid the price.
Creaaaaaaaaak!
For that reason, Lanius changed his approach and decided to fight seriously.
The moment overwhelming power and exquisite technique came together, Dietrich’s sword became entangled with Lanius’s spear.
Spear and sword crossed at a strange angle.
Lanius twisted the spear he had thrust forward, intending to snap Dietrich’s blade in half. Of course, that would not be easy.
Even if it doesn’t break, that’s fine.
Dietrich’s sword, imbued with a complete sword aura and power beyond that, was incredibly sturdy.
Ordinary attacks would likely be incapable of destroying it. But even if the blade itself could not be broken, it could not completely resist the force applied to it.
Creaaaaaaaaak!!
The sword slid along the shaft of the spear.
And with it, the boy’s body was thrown off balance.
His stance collapsed.
And before anyone realized it, a dagger was already in the old knight’s hand.
Kiiiik!
As though screaming in protest, Lanius’s arm emitted a strange sound as he tried to withstand that tremendous force with a single hand.
Faced with a torrent of power that even his sturdy armor could not mitigate, Lanius was effectively prepared to sacrifice his right arm.
It could be twisted.
It could be broken.
That was fine.
Because in exchange, he would take Dietrich’s life.
“…….!”
However, for a brief moment, Lanius felt a sense of resistance, as though something had seized him.
The force itself was not particularly strong, but it was enough to be irritating.
And that irritating little force bought Dietrich the time he needed to escape.
“Haa… haa…”
Faced with death so vividly before him, Dietrich regained at least a measure of his composure.
Lanius swung his aching right arm a few times before turning his gaze elsewhere.
There stood the girl he was certain he had pierced through.
“Why do you look so surprised?”
Wearing bloodstained clothes, the girl grinned.
“Did you really think a Prophet would die from getting her heart stabbed?”
At Helena’s words, Lanius let out a sigh and replied,
“I never thought that.”
Who did she think had destroyed Elysium in the past?
Lanius knew.
Something like this was not enough to kill a Prophet.
To kill a saint of that caliber required long and careful preparation.
Yet the reason he was surprised was something else entirely.
“I merely thought your recovery would take longer than this.”
Helena had returned far faster than he had expected.
Another unforeseen variable.
But even in the face of such variables, Lanius remained composed.
He could afford to.
He had lived for hundreds of years, walking countless battlefields throughout that long span of time.
“That is all.”
Variables?
The man standing here was someone who had overcome every variable thrown at him.
The Black Knight who had crushed traps and strategies alike, carving his name into history as a butcher, stood here now.
“Nothing will change.”
The Black Knight, Lanius, still stood above them all, overwhelming everyone before him.
***
Samuel Damus and the mercenaries were quickly driven onto the defensive.
Their opponents were simply too strong.
“Khk!”
A sword he failed to block pierced through his shoulder. Even through the pain, Samuel Damus managed to shove his opponent away, but wounds like that were no longer just one or two.
And what about the enemy?
I knew there would be a gap in skill, but not this much…
Not a single one of them had been injured.
Only Samuel Damus and the mercenaries had suffered casualties and wounds.
That was how much room the enemy still had to spare.
What made them even more terrifying was that, despite holding such an advantage, they were still fighting as though prepared to die.
Enemies who still had strength to spare yet charged forward fully expecting death.
There was no way to win.
Is this the end?
Samuel Damus felt death approaching.
That vivid sensation was lukewarm like the blood he had spilled.
“I won’t die alone!”
Samuel Damus shouted, trying to drown out his own fear.
Part of him hoped the cry would intimidate his enemies, but unfortunately, they were all knights who had already accepted death.
Seeing them charge without the slightest hesitation, Samuel tightened his grip on his sword and steeled himself.
Crunch!
But no knight was able to reach Samuel Damus.
Something like a massive log shot out from the carriage behind him and smashed into the charging knight.
Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!
The carriage, made of wood and iron plating, was torn apart by something from within.
“You bastards! Do you have any idea whose blade you’re daring to point your swords at?!”
Chris Damus.
The boy had been afraid.
Despite his enormous frame, he had curled up in fear, shutting his eyes against the terror of death.
But the moment he sensed something in his father’s voice, he finally straightened his hunched body.
And so the soft-hearted boy, so ill-suited to his giant stature, finally—
“Father! I will join the fight as well!”
—became a warrior.
He had been nothing more than a child with an unusually large body.
Even that size had gradually begun to shrink after the Great Warrior’s death.
And a boy was still a boy.
Despite his imposing frame, he possessed a gentle and fragile heart.
But even someone like him had things he could not tolerate.
Things he believed in.
“You will not lay a hand on my family!”
There was a family that had sacrificed so much for him.
There was an older brother who had even abandoned his lifelong dream in order to heal him.
There was a mother who had stayed up through the night, shedding tears as she cared for him.
There was a father who always wore a smile and gave him everything he had.
Crack!
Chris lifted his weapon.
A weapon style he had learned from Dietrich during his time at the Misfits’ hideout.
Back then, Dietrich had told him that heavy weapons suited someone with his strength.
And Dietrich had presented him with two practical choices.
A battle axe or a war hammer.
After much consideration, Chris made his choice.
“I’ll crush every last one of you!”
One in each hand.
He chose both.
The moment the Imperial Knights saw Chris standing there with a gigantic axe in one hand and a massive hammer in the other, even those who had already prepared themselves for death instinctively recoiled.
In Chris, they saw an image from the past superimposed over the present.
A monster who had once fought his way alone into the very heart of the Empire.
“The Great Warrior…”
It was the image of that beast.
***
Yuna was tied down.
Even the fact that Johan would send Yuna to protect his family had fallen within Emperor Abraham’s calculations.
Of course, Yuna was strong.
They did not have the luxury of assigning someone powerful enough to completely overwhelm her.
More accurately, no such luxury existed.
There were people stronger than Yuna, but there was no one who could reliably kill her.
To kill the woman known as the King of Assassins, it would take Lanius, Tronios Ether…
Or the Emperor himself.
But that was fine.
“You’re persistent!!”
As long as they could keep her occupied, their objective would be achieved.
Hold Yuna in place. Deal with the Damus family in the meantime.
The Emperor Abraham’s cruel, almost ruthless retaliation seemed to reflect the life he had lived.
No one would ever dare look down on him. He would make sure they would never even think of opposing him again.
It was a clear and unmistakable malice carrying that message.
A method aimed solely at breaking an opponent’s spirit, regardless of any gain.
Yuna felt a growing sense of urgency.
At this rate, she would be too late. Somehow, she had to shake off the knights trying to hold her back.
It was no easy task.
They’re charging in ready to die…
That was what made them so difficult to deal with.
They were not evil men.
The unwavering gaze visible through their helmets seemed to show that they were knights in the truest sense, throwing away their lives for the sake of their oath.
They stalled for time. They risked their lives for it. They charged forward for that purpose alone.
Yuna could not help but find them difficult to face. She could only marvel at the Emperor’s choice of men.
“Move. Do you even understand what you’re doing right now?”
“We are casting away our lives like blades of grass in obedience to His Majesty’s command.”
They were not evil men.
They might not even know what they were truly involved in.
That was why they were so hard to kill. For Yuna, who had devoted herself to mastering the art of taking lives, opponents like these were far more troublesome.
“Right.”
Yuna was an assassin with a clear code of her own.
She would kill the evil, but never the innocent. She had always drawn that line clearly, so that no one would ever suffer what she had suffered.
“Then I’ll just have to become the villain.”
But now, she intended to break that conviction. She did not care if it left her drowning in self-loathing.
Because she loved Johan that much.
So it was fine.
Even if she became someone no one could ever love. Even if she reached a point where she could no longer love herself.
Even if she had to carry the regret of this moment for the rest of her life.
“I don’t mind being unhappy. If it means the person I love can be happy, then I’ll gladly become the villain.”
She would fulfill Johan’s request.
With that thought, Yuna tightened her grip on her dagger.
“…No, that’s not a very good idea. Consider it advice from someone who’s already lived that way.”
At that moment, blue feathers drifted gently down between the two groups.
The weak voice was hoarse, as though it belonged to someone suffering from a long illness.
“A life spent choosing unhappiness for the sake of someone else only ends up making everyone unhappy.”
The girl….Monia who had once burned with hostility toward Johan descended from the sky with dark blue wings spread wide.
“Who are you—?!”
“Quiet.”
The demon had been consumed by the Demon King, but it had left something behind.
The demon that had once coveted her soul had instead left a piece of its own.
Shax, the forty-fourth among the seventy-two demons.
The voice left behind by that demon, once known as the Marquis of Plunder, instantly threw the senses of everyone present into disarray.
“Urgh?!”
“My legs…!”
The knights lost their sense of balance all at once and their perceptions scrambled as they collapsed to the ground.
The haggard-looking girl who had unleashed the demon’s trick spoke.
“Go.”
“…Thank you.”
It was the appearance of a variable neither Johan nor Abraham could have foreseen.
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