Fredrick fought the A Rank Unfaithful with everything he had left. The creature seemed to adapt to Ayame's movements, to her fighting style, learning with each exchange. He drove the splintered hilt into one of Miguel's heads embedded within the shadow. It screeched, a sound that split the air like breaking glass.
His knee buckled. The impact had shattered something inside him.
Ayame caught him, steadied him. Her hands were firm on his shoulders.
"Stand back," she said, voice flat and sharp.
Her eyes grew red, veins of crimson spreading from the pupils like cracks in glass. Her posture shifted. Her density increased. Muscles swelled beneath her skin. Fabric ripped across her robes, tears forming as her size expanded, as something terrible emerged from within.
She dashed forward.
Her movements were no longer human. She manifested a blood blade twice the length of Fredrick's arm, shaped like an odachi. The blade dripped crimson, each drop hissing as it hit the ground.
She drove it forward. Her movements seemed erratic, heavy, impactful. Each swing carved through the air with enough force to crack stone. Each step left craters in the ground.
But it still was not enough. It was never enough.
The A Rank Unfaithful adapted faster than she could strike. It learned her rhythm. Her patterns. Her tells.
A tendril caught her right arm, twisted it in a horrible way. Bone snapped. She did not scream.
Another pierced her abdomen, straight through, the tip jutting out her back.
Fredrick screamed, reaching for her.
She fell. He caught her from behind, lowering her to the ground. Blood pooled beneath them, warm and spreading.
She looked up at him. Her form was receding. The red fading from her eyes. The swelling in her muscles subsiding.
"Human knight," she said, voice strained but steady. "I know you are hiding something."
"I know you have true strength."
"It's the quiet strength born of broken promises."
Fredrick's breath caught.
"Don't suppress it. You are yourself. You are who you are."
She coughed. Blood bubbled from her lips.
"Stop lying to him. Stop lying to yourself."
Fredrick smiled, looking down at her. Her words, though blunt, stern, and sharp, carried something. Truth. Brutal, unforgiving truth.
He stood up. He gripped the broken hilt in his right hand. His posture was steady now. Centered. Different.
"I'm sorry, Lucid," he said to the empty air, to the ring of darkness where Lucid had disappeared. "I couldn't tell you sooner."
He raised the hilt, pointing it toward the A Rank Unfaithful with a determined grin. One hand. Steady as stone.
"My name is Arthur Alexander."
"A former paladin of the empire Materna."
"I come from a long lineage of the House of Tempest."
Ayame looked up, her face sensing something wrong. Something changing in the air.
Ambient fate essence came rushing in, concentrating in the broken hilt. A bright luminescent blade, a masterpiece of light and energy, formed at the broken hilt. He lifted his left arm in discomfort. Blue particles followed around him, spiraling like fireflies.
He was ascending. Past latent. Into an awakened.
"And in my name's honor, I will strike you down!"
Ayame slowly stood up, her blood blade flickering. The wound in her abdomen was still there but she stood nonetheless.
The A Rank Unfaithful turned its attention fully to Arthur now. All those purple eyes focused on this new threat. Miguel's heads within the shadow spoke in unison.
"Arthur. Arthur. Arthur."
Arthur did not respond. He breathed in. Deep. Controlled. His chest expanded. His shoulders relaxed.
Then he moved.
The step was different. Not rushed not even desperate anymore. They were measured in a way each foot placed with precision, weight distributed perfectly, balance absolute.
He closed the distance in three strides. The luminescent blade sang as it cut through the air.
The A Rank Unfaithful lashed out with a tendril. Arthur parried. The movement was minimal, efficient. A slight rotation of the wrist. The tendril deflected away, harmless.
Another came from the left. He sidestepped. His body moved like water, flowing around the attack without wasted motion.
A third from above. He raised the blade. Blocked. The impact sent shockwaves through the ground, but Arthur did not move. His stance absorbed everything.
His breathing changed. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Rhythmic. Constant. Each breath fueling the next movement.
He swung. The blade carved a perfect arc through a cluster of tendrils. They fell away, severed clean. No ragged edges. No hesitation.
He stepped forward. His footwork was immaculate now. Heel to toe. Weight shifting smoothly. No wasted energy. No unnecessary movements.
The A Rank Unfaithful screeched and lunged with Miguel's body, jaws open wide.
Arthur spun. The blade came around in a horizontal slash that bisected the attack mid-flight. Miguel's body fell apart, then reformed within the shadow.
He spoke, and his voice was different now. Formal. Clipped. Each word precise.
"You are an abomination."
He parried two strikes simultaneously with a single motion, blade moving in a figure-eight pattern.
"You desecrate the dead."
He blocked overhead, then swept low, cutting through tendrils that tried to wrap around his legs.
"You corrupt what should rest."
His movements were poetry. Each swing a verse. Each step a stanza. The blade an extension of his will, his body, his breath.
Anya, the pink-haired professor, watched from the edge of the clearing. Her red eyes were wide. Her staff trembled in her hands.
"How is he moving like that?" she whispered.
Arthur turned his head toward her. His eyes were blue now, glowing faintly with fate essence.
"You feed corruption to this creature."
He blocked three strikes in rapid succession. Parry, deflect, riposte. Each movement flowing into the next without pause.
"You will answer for that."
Anya raised her staff. Fire erupted around her. Ice formed at her feet. Earth rumbled.
She launched everything at once. A barrage of elemental fury.
Arthur breathed in.
He stepped to the right. Fireball missed.
He pivoted left. Ice spears shattered against stone behind him.
He ducked. Earth spikes flew overhead.
Not a single attack touched him. He moved through the onslaught like smoke through a sieve.
Then he was in front of her.
The luminescent blade cut through her diagonally, as blood sprayed from the wound. She froze and fell to the ground.
"It's not life threatening...Yield," he said simply.
The staff dropped. It clattered to the ground, as she clutched her wound.
Arthur turned back to the A Rank Unfaithful. The creature had grown larger, absorbing more corruption, more power. But it did not matter.
He raised the blade above his head. Both hands now. His stance wide and grounded.
"In the name of House Tempest."
Blue lightning began to crackle along the blade's edge. The air itself hummed with power.
"In the name of the fallen."
The ground beneath his feet cracked from the pressure radiating outward.
"In the name of oaths sworn and broken."
He breathed out. Slow. Complete.
"I cast judgment."
He brought the blade down.
"Tempest's Reckoning."
Lightning exploded from the blade in a column of pure energy. It engulfed the A Rank Unfaithful completely. The shadow screeched, writhing, trying to escape.
But there was nowhere to go.
The lightning burned through corruption, through shadow, through Miguel's twisted body. It cleansed. Purified. Destroyed.
The A Rank Unfaithful's form began to collapse. Miguel's heads screamed in unison, a sound of pure agony. Then they fell silent.
The shadow dissipated. The corruption evaporated. The purple eyes blinked out one by one.
And then there was nothing.
Just scorched earth and silence.
Arthur lowered his blade. The luminescent light faded slowly, but the blade remained. Solid. No longer just fate essence. He had manifested a true conjured weapon.
He turned to Ayame. She was standing now, her hand clutching the wound over her abdomen. She looked at him with those sharp eyes.
"Arthur Alexander," she said, testing the name. "Former paladin."
"Yes."
"You lied to Lucid."
"Yes."
"You will tell him the truth when he returns."
It was not a question.
"I will."
She nodded once. Respect, perhaps. Or simply acknowledgment.
Anya, still injured and frozen spoke quietly.
"What are you?"
Arthur looked at her. His eyes were kind now. Tired.
He ignored her.
He looked toward the tree where the princess hung, corruption still climbing her body.
"I have work to do."
He began walking toward her, each step measured and purposeful. The blade glowed brighter with each footfall.
Anya watched him approach the princess, or what was left of her. Then she looked at Ayame.
She managed a crooked laugh.
"You should run," she said bluntly.
She clutched her staff and made a desprete gamble throwing a bright spell. Towards where the dissipating shadow lied on the ground.
"Shit."
Arthur lunged toward her, his arm sweeping in a wide arc. A blue cleave erupted from the motion, catching the shadow and sending it tumbling across the ground.
The thing collapsed into a writhing puddle, a shapeless, churning mass of darkness.
It fixed its gaze on Arthur as he raised his weapon for a downward stab. It lunged.
He cut through it.
One half splattered to the ground. The other kept moving.
Past him.
No.
Ayame stood in its path, battered and barely standing, but she planted herself there anyway. The shadow didn't slow. It shot past her in an instant, a dark spike piercing through her shoulder as it passed.
"Wait!" Arthur's voice tore through the air.
But the shadow wasn't heading for her. It wasn't heading for him.
It was heading toward something else entirely.
The princess. Still hanging there. Bound and helpless.
"SHIT!!!" Arthur roared.