"Kal—Stone?!" Jaime tested the waters with a cautious question.
Realizing the only way out was now blocked, the Kingslayer narrowed his eyes and subtly shifted his stance, placing himself between Cersei and the newcomer.
"It's me, Kingslayer—Ser Jaime Lannister." Kal smiled as he looked at him.
But unfortunately, Jaime couldn't see the smile on his face.
After the brief greeting, Kal took half a step forward, driving his sword vertically into the stone floor with its tip down. He stood tall, blade in front of him, completely sealing off the tower's only stairwell.
The light streaming in from the window illuminated one side of Kal's face.
And his gaze, too, settled on the infamous pair of siblings before him.
"A splendid tale—"
"A touching romance—"
"It's just a pity… that such a ridiculous affair should cost innocent people their lives."
Kal's tone was admiring, even contemplative, yet his face remained composed. His brow showed not the slightest ripple of emotion.
As if the words hadn't come from him at all.
Jaime Lannister, hearing Kal Stone's judgment, merely pressed his lips together without responding.
Things had gone far past the point of argument. Words were meaningless now.
He knew what he had to do.
So he raised the dazzling gilded sword in his hand. With its sharp tip aimed squarely at Kal's chest, he spoke: "You're right, Ser Kal Stone—"
Jaime paused, almost involuntarily. His gaze flickered slightly.
But then, drawing in a long breath and exhaling the haze from his chest, the Kingslayer's emerald eyes grew resolute once more.
"But I can only apologize to you in advance."
Hearing those cold, murderous words, Kal remained standing exactly where he was, unmoved, his expression unchanged.
At that moment, a gust of cold wind suddenly blew in from the broken tower window, chilling the already frigid room even further.
The wind swept past Kal, making the hem of his cloak flutter.
Kal Stone showed no reaction to Jaime's words—no emotion whatsoever. It was as if Jaime had merely asked him whether he'd eaten yet.
On his face remained that same faint, indifferent smile.
Then, his gaze fell upon the gilded sword Jaime had leveled at him. His lips moved slightly—but the words that came out were like a dagger thrust straight into Jaime's heart.
"Tell me, Kingslayer—was it with this sword that you slit the throat of the king you were sworn to protect?"
Kal's eyes remained calm as he looked at the gilded sword in Jaime's hand. His tone was flat and composed, entirely devoid of the mocking sneer Jaime Lannister had grown so used to hearing.
And hearing those words, Jaime was briefly stunned. Almost involuntarily, his eyes dropped to the weapon in his grip.
But unlike Kal's composure, Jaime's expression showed the faintest shift.
Silence filled the room, thick as the icy wind.
Half a minute passed before Jaime Lannister finally spoke again.
"Yes. This very one."
"But in a moment, it will cut down a bastard too!"
For some reason, when the Kingslayer said this, there was no venom in his voice. Instead, it carried a kind of repressed fury.
Like the stench of rot long buried, now seeping up through cracked soil—a suffocating madness slowly began to leak from the golden-haired, green-eyed man.
The cold wind rushed through the ruined tower room. Cersei, clutching her disheveled gown to her chest in panic, trembled violently from the chill.
But the cold snapped her back to awareness.
Coming to her senses, the queen no longer cared for sorrow. She glanced at the two men locked in standoff, then quietly seized the moment to slip toward an unremarkable corner of the room.
There, she hastily and clumsily began dressing herself.
Kal did not stop her. He didn't even look her way.
His eyes remained fixed on the Kingslayer who now stood to challenge him. Raising the sword that had been planted before him, Kal stepped forward out of the doorway he had been blocking.
He lifted his blade and crossed it with the sword Jaime had pointed at him—then held his position, motionless.
Just as Jaime was about to strike, Kal suddenly spoke of something that seemed completely unrelated.
"Jon told me he couldn't figure out what to name this sword—"
Hearing that, Jaime Lannister paused his attack.
Kal, as if unaware of his hesitation, continued in a calm, steady voice, "And before that, I hadn't thought of anything suitable either."
He stopped for a moment, then looked into the Kingslayer's bloodshot emerald eyes with his own deep blue ones.
"But now, I suddenly thought of a fitting name. One that suits it perfectly."
"What is it?" Jaime Lannister asked, playing along.
But his expression showed no further emotion.
Because suddenly, he felt as if he could somehow understand what the bastard standing before him was trying to say.
And as Kal Stone's voice faded, Jaime's gaze also fell upon the sword that now crossed with his own—a sword that looked ordinary at first glance.
Then, he heard Kal Stone's voice by his ear, low and resonant, magnetic in its depth.
"Pale Justice."
The Kingslayer's pupils contracted at the name.
Two seconds passed in silence—then suddenly, he let out a laugh.
"A fine name—" the Kingslayer said, eyeing Kal with admiration. Yet a trace of confusion flickered across his face as he asked, "But if you call it Justice, why make it pale?"
"Because the moment justice takes on any color," Kal replied without hesitation, "it ceases to be justice at all."
"And justice, though pale and humble, is by no means powerless."
Hearing that, the Kingslayer fell silent once more.
Then, he drew his gilded sword back from Kal's blade and, in a voice stripped of all emotion, said, "Let's hope so."
The sharp exchange between the two knights had ended, and in their eyes—locked on each other—there was now a glint of mutual respect.
Kal, sensing the unspoken accord, also withdrew his sword at the same time. Remaining alert, he shifted the battlefield to the center of the ruined room.
Chunks of broken stone lay scattered across the floor, cold wind howling through the gaps—but none of it could shake the tension between gold and black.
Facing Kal Stone—a man who had taken down two Kingsguard by himself without so much as a scratch—Jaime Lannister gave him the respect he was due.
He tightened his grip on the gilded sword that had once slit a king's throat, its edge gleaming with icy menace in his sharp green eyes.
He knew that during the fight at the crossroads inn, Kal had indeed taken advantage of circumstance to win as decisively as he had.
But he also knew exactly how those two fellow brothers of the Kingsguard had died.
One swiftly and cleanly.
The other—utterly foolishly.
Yet unlike what others might think, Jaime did not see it that way.
He understood full well that Kal Stone's victory had not been luck. It came from the kind of battle experience that far exceeded his age.
It reminded him of something Tyrion had once told him—about Kal's years as a sellsword across the Narrow Sea.
And with that in mind, Jaime Lannister was not about to make any foolish mistakes.
"I'm glad Tyrion has a friend like you—"
As he stepped back to the center of the room and steadied his footing, Jaime Lannister raised his sword, elbow tucked to his waist.
The tip of his blade never wavered from Kal.
But then, all of a sudden, he said something that seemed entirely unrelated.
"So am I," Kal replied with a calm smile.
In a clash between warriors, both could feel the weight of pressure in the air with piercing clarity.
And as the final words between them settled into silence, the two men exchanged one more knowing smile.
And in the very next second—
The two longswords clashed once again in midair.
[Clang!!]
Facing Jaime Lannister's attack, Kal raised his right arm high, deflecting the thrust aimed at his chest with an awkward-looking reverse grip.
But the moment Jaime's sword was knocked aside, his expression changed sharply.
Because that exchange didn't just reveal Kal Stone's inhuman strength—
In that instant, the roles of attacker and defender had already reversed.
With a simple twist of his wrist, Kal, still gripping his sword in reverse, redirected his blade in a sudden, fluid motion.
In the blink of an eye, the sword point arced upward—shooting straight for the Kingslayer's face.
Kal reacted with incredible speed to Jaime's strike, his movements razor-sharp and fluid.
Jaime, whose initial thrust had only been a probing feint, could do nothing but quickly retreat to avoid the unexpected counter.
Fortunately, he hadn't committed his full strength to the attack. His backward motion still had enough control.
Using the momentum, he pulled his sword back across his chest just in time to deflect the upward thrust Kal had aimed beneath his chin.
In less than a second, another sharp clash of steel echoed through the ruined room, carried by the howling wind.
But Kal, undeterred by his attack being blocked, refused to let up. He stepped forward again—another half step closer.
So you want to bait me with a feint? Pretend to retreat and strike back? Then let me play right into your little plan—
Kal, who had spent countless hours sparring with temple swordsmen in the game world, and even trained with the vampire countess in the castle whenever he had the time, was no stranger to swordplay.
His swordsmanship was as precise as it was deadly—
And every move he made had been sharpened on the edge between life and death.
So when Jaime drew back, Kal pressed in without mercy, capitalizing on his longer reach and larger frame.
With fearless aggression, he manipulated his blade with total control.
The moment his sword was parried, the blade seemed to slacken—then suddenly snapped upward with a bizarre and serpentine twist.
"Pale Justice" came alive like a snake, its tip lashing toward Jaime's throat like a flicking tongue.
Faced with such a deadly redirected thrust, Jaime had no time to parry.
In a split-second decision, he fell backward with the momentum of his retreat, then immediately rolled sideways across the floor—barely escaping Kal Stone's reach.
After two full rolls, Jaime Lannister sprang back to his feet, raising his sword before him in a defensive stance, prepared for another strike.
Only when Kal Stone made no move to press the attack did Jaime finally gulp down a dry breath and instinctively reach for his neck.
Just a hair more—and that flickering snake tongue would've kissed the Kingslayer's throat.
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