"The duke of the purge, the executioner of knights."That era's people called him that.
...
[Under your joint rule with Artoria, the Camelot Kingdom continued to expand at a furious pace.]
[The Knight-King at the front absorbed, year after year, lands across the three isles of Britain that had never before been unified. Wherever her iron hoof stamped, you used every means—diplomacy, divide-and-conquer, supply lines—to ensure those territories were firmly incorporated and the logistics of the front remained stable.]
[In this age, when gods had long since faded, no one could single-handedly wage and win a national war. Remnants of the Age of Gods and lingering mysteries meant the land still teemed with magical beasts, fairies, and ancient fantastical life—dragons in numbers even. There were zones so perilous that even the former Vortigern dared not tread.]
[War was never the work of one man.]
[Even a king needed manpower and logistics to reduce consumption for the final decisive battles.]
[But the marches had paused; the giant kingdom had grown somewhat bloated. To achieve rapid consolidation, you had accepted too many unfit elements into the realm—men whose usefulness had worn out. Keeping them now would become a liability at the rear.]
[In the name of the 'Grand Duke of Knights',]
[and as the 'Guardian of the Knightly Code',]
[you had the right to purge them.]
"This is the last one."
Moonlight poured through the shutters. The tall blue-haired youth's long sword dripped with sticky blood. Bodies of guards lay along the corridor, each throat precisely slit. The armor of the lake knight steamed white mist from its seams; in his hand, the lake-light called Unbroken—a magic blade gifted by the lake nymph—gleamed an eerie blue in the dark.
"Those who violate the Knightly Code—" Lancelot's voice came from far off.
At the same instant, Lucan stepped across wood shavings and entered, his right hand resting on the ceremonial rapier at his waist. Today he wore the armor of the Grand Duke of Knights.
"Your actions are efficient, Lancelot." Lucan's boot crushed a pool of blood. Looking at the man before him, he couldn't help but quip, "You do tend to make a scene, though—"
"I am a knight."
Lancelot replied with measured gravity.
"Not an assassin."
"You say that as if I don't know what being a knight is!" Lucan shot back. "And assassination or not, if you kill all the witnesses, it's the same results."
Lancelot was momentarily speechless. He thought: no one understands knighthood more than this man standing before him—the originator of the Knightly Code, the Grand Duke of Knights, and the one who crossed the sea and came as an emperor upon a horse. Though surnames vary and evidence is scarce, Lancelot suspected this man to be the missing Hunnic emperor. No other explanation fit.
Lucan, watching Lancelot's composed stance, felt a momentary admiration. No wonder he was called the Lake Knight—Lancelot was truly among the era's top fighters, possessing an Infinite Martial Training of the highest order. During the purge, Lucan could not personally deal with every case—there were simply too many—and so he delegated much of the work to his knightly host. Among those who carried out the most deeds was this foreign knight, Lancelot. His skill in the Round Table ranked near the top, second only to Lucan. He matched Lucan in degrees of infinite martial technique.
Now, Lancelot looked toward Lucan and suddenly spoke:"I wish to challenge you.""I want to see the martial art that once defeated my father!"
"I did not beat your father with martial arts." Lucan cocked an eyebrow, unsurprised. Still, he drew the ceremonial rapier from his waist. Since this was a friendly bout, he had no intention of drawing the War-God Sword—only the formal rapier would be used. The moment that rapier left its sheath, flowing true-aether covered the blade; decorative filigree lit with magical glow. Continuous enhancement spells instantly wrapped Lucan.
At his word, Lucan's blade rose and then fell in a stroke. The arc cleaved the air; Lancelot felt something was off. This was not the polish of noble fencing but a barbaric, giant-like downward slash reminiscent of the Nordic berserker. Lancelot crossed his sword to block—the Unbroken bent slightly under the immense force—and the shockwaves shredded the surrounding wall; the white stone webbed with fractures.
Although Lucan's martial reputation preceded him, Lancelot, who came from abroad and had not seen Lucan in action recently, was unprepared for such overwhelming foreign skill. The second blow arrived: Lucan used a dragon-tribe technique from the martial repository—an explosive surge of power. Lancelot had only just steadied himself when the strike's speed exceeded all his expectations. Lucan's blade retracted in mid-arc and carved an odd trajectory; Lancelot hurriedly slipped aside as the rapier scraped along his breastplate and left a shallow groove.
At that instant, something soft and slight wound around Lancelot's right arm—a barely perceptible constriction, but it was present. He had no time to puzzle over it before Lucan's third strike came: the fairy folk's footwork—light and deadly. Lucan's form blurred into afterimages; sword flashes attacked from three different angles at once. The visual illusion was created by speed, yet each flash carried lethal intent.
Lancelot countered with all his agility, strength, and his own top-tier infinite techniques, but he found himself utterly pressured. Lucan's martial shifts came from disparate systems, so effective counters could not coalesce. Unbroken smashed against Lucan's rapier; sparks flew. With each clash, Lancelot felt more invisible threads winding about him—at the shoulder, the waist, the knee. Small restraints accumulated.
"This is—" Lancelot finally realized.
Lucan did not answer. He shifted yet again, now into the human-tribe sword essence: plain, unadorned, brutally precise. The point stabbed for Lancelot's throat at an angle as sly as a viper. Lancelot retreated a step, and found his motion half a beat slow. Those invisible bindings had already begun to hamper him; tiny lags in a high-intensity duel are lethal.
"Every one of your strikes is—" Lancelot clenched his teeth.
Lucan responded with a calm fourth cut: a synthesis of all races' martial traits—giant force, fairy lightness, dragon eruption, human precision—all merged. It was an integrated strike, embodying multiplied force; even Vortigern would struggle to withstand its power. The only difference left was the weapon. The War-God Sword was still a tier above ceremonial steel. Lancelot's body was not Vortigern's.
He fought with everything he had, but the flawless fusion created a momentary opening. Lucan converted his blade into a thrust—its elasticity drawn taut into a straight beam of light. Lancelot dodged, but his chestplate took a rip; red bloomed. In a spar between knights, to hold back was an insult—Lancelot answered furiously, slashing back at Lucan's neck. The magic-entwined blade cut the air in a roar and was met by a pommel with gemmed cap—Lucan blocked. Sparks illuminated Lucan's eyes. From the contact, more invisible chains unfurled from Lucan's sword and coiled around Lancelot's weapon and arm. The Lake Knight felt weight growing in every limb.
Lucan then closed, clanging the magic sword and slamming a knee into the seam of Lancelot's breastplate. "You are formidable, Lancelot," he said. "You surpass your father. But you're still a bit short of me."
Infinite Martial Training is not truly infinite. Lancelot was no less skilled, but less versatile than Lucan; he lacked the all-roundness. Combat is never merely about the tool—your body itself is a weapon. The Lake Knight grunted and, during a backward step to adjust his breath, realized his movements had grown sluggish. Threads—thin invisible chains—had come from all around, from Lucan himself, and wrapped him tight. Those subtle bindings had accumulated through every strike, every ounce of magic contact. Now they congealed into real fetters.
"This is the Knightly Code—binding that only works on those who still possess the spirit of knighthood."
—A punitive device aimed at errant knights.
Without that binding, even if Lucan had been less clearly superior, he might have merely kept Lancelot on the defensive. But in combat, even a tiny change can prove fatal.
"Don't blame me for using the Code in a spar," Lucan said with righteous calm. "It's part of my ability."
If a proper ability exists and you don't use it, is that not foolish?
Ultimately, the Knightly Code could not bind Lucan himself—he was not a knight in nature. Lancelot paled but smiled sincerely. He wouldn't hold it against Lucan; without the Code he would still have been beaten in time. He said only:
"You truly are—undeniably—what my father called the strongest in the world."
Lancelot had crossed seas to witness the Knight-King's splendor, but he'd been driven as much by his father's teachings as by curiosity. He had come because the man who defeated his father now stood on Britain's soil.
[Oops—this one came at me.]
[You realized that suddenly.]
...
[After that spar, Lancelot became something like your fanboy.]
[He often praised your nobility and might, spreading the tale of his sole defeat.]
[No matter what, with that victory as the foundation, Lancelot would never rebel—any tiny chance of rebellion you trimmed away.]
[During your purge you removed 1,272 knights; over two thousand noble households were implicated.]
[You offended countless people, yet earned the esteem of many more knights.]
[High and brutal.]
[That's how people described you—because of the storm of blood you stirred across Camelot.]
[Though unspoken, the keen-eyed saw the chill that grew between you and the King after that day—positions unchanged but many matters bypassed you and went directly to Artoria.]
[You did not mind.]
[Changing history always costs something.]
[Just a small, negligible price.]
[Moreover, your goal was nearly achieved.][You were thirty-three this year.]
[A year later, as you foresaw, Camelot's grain remained ample though harvests lagged. King Arthur determined idleness could not be maintained.]
[That year, Artoria Pendragon—under your quiet direction and with the influence of knights you'd placed—decided on an expedition to Rome.]
[Before the campaign, she came to you and asked why.]
[She was not displeased with your actions; she simply did not want you to shoulder needless slaughter and malice—those were things a King should take on.]
[Your answer was simple:]
[You only—][Wanted to see her regret for a lifetime.]
...
That disagreement indeed made the King bitter for life.—On the Death of King Arthur