Meanwhile, Knox stood several meters behind the crater, having already stepped out of the impact's path long before the man reached the ground.
"...Chief Inquisitor."
The moment Moses muttered those words, the man's remaining eye slowly shifted away from the battlefield and landed on the young man standing several meters away.
For a brief moment, neither of them spoke.
Then a grin slowly spread across Leight's face. What began as a barely noticeable curl at the corner of his lips gradually widened, growing broader and broader until it bordered on madness.
"Hehehe..."
"Hehahahaha..."
"HAHAHAHAHA!!"
The laughter echoed throughout the plaza, causing even the remaining Holy Knights to instinctively stiffen.
"I finally found you!"
Leight tightened his grip around the massive cross in his hand, his single eye locking onto Knox as though staring at the greatest treasure he had ever laid eyes on.
"Knox Aznable!"
His smile twisted even further.
"The filthy necromancer who slaughtered countless brothers and sisters of Holy Federation.."
"I've been looking for you."
The next instant...
BOOM!!
The ground beneath Leight's feet exploded.
His figure shot forward like a cannonball, shattering the stone beneath every step as he swung the massive cross straight toward Knox's head without the slightest hesitation.
"DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!"
Knox quietly watched the giant cross rushing toward him.
Then...
He simply took half a step to the side.
BOOOOOOM!!
The massive cross slammed into the ground, instantly leaving behind a crater several meters wide as countless fragments of stone were blasted into the air.
The violent shockwave swept across the plaza, forcing Lethe to raise one arm in front of her face.
"...He's insane."
Even she couldn't help muttering those words.
"That's our Chief Inquisitor."
Moses answered quietly, never taking his eyes off the battlefield.
"He has always been like that."
For a brief moment, no one spoke.
Leight stood silently at the center of the crater, his remaining eye fixed on Knox without so much as a single blink. The overwhelming divine power surrounding him continued to spread across the plaza, causing even the surviving Holy Knights to instinctively straighten their backs the moment they saw him.
The Holy Federation's strongest inquisitor.
A man who had hunted countless necromancers throughout his life.
A hardliner who believed that every last member of the Dark Alliance deserved nothing less than complete extermination.
And above all else...
A madman whose obsession with killing necromancers had become infamous even within the Holy Federation itself.
Knox quietly looked at the man standing inside the crater before a faint smile appeared on his lips.
"Oh?" His tone sounded almost amused.
"Isn't this the so-called War Hardliner?" He slowly tilted his head. "The one who's supposedly harder to kill than a cockroach..."
"What a unique way of greeting." A faint chuckle escaped him.
"I'm actually a little curious." His violet eyes met Leight's.
"What brings the Holy Federation's infamous War Hardliner all the way out here?"
As for why Leight was here...
He had only just finished another mission when Dana contacted him through divine communication. Rather than ordering him back to the Holy Federation, the Saint of Judgment instructed him to remain near the Neutral Zone for the time being.
The reason was simple.
Lethe was there.
Among the younger generation, Lethe was widely regarded as the Holy Federation's most promising candidate to become the next Saintess. More importantly, she belonged to a different faction.
If relations between the two sides ever collapsed, Lethe would undoubtedly become one of the Holy Federation's greatest obstacles. Having Leight remain nearby would allow Dana to gauge Lethe's growth and assess where she truly stood.
As for Hamiel?
Who?
Somewhere...Raiden Shogun quietly gave a thumbs-up.
In fact, Leight had little interest in Dana's reasoning.
Politics, factions, and future Saintesses meant nothing to him. Dana was still his superior, so he simply followed the order and remained nearby after completing his mission.
Then...
He felt it.
An overwhelming wave of mana suddenly swept across the Neutral Zone.
The moment that familiar aura entered his senses, every other thought disappeared from his mind.
"Necromancer!"
Without the slightest hesitation, he abandoned everything else and rushed straight toward its source.
And that...was how he ended up here.
Back in the present, Leight's grin slowly widened.
The words had barely left Knox's mouth before Leight's face twisted with fury.
"Heh! Is that your last words, you disgusting devil?! Just so you know, my men are already on their way here!" He slammed the massive cross onto his shoulder, the surrounding divine power erupting violently as his grin became even more unhinged. "But it doesn't matter..."
"I'll kill you before they even get here!!"
The ground beneath his feet exploded.
With a thunderous boom, Leight shot forward like a cannonball, dragging the enormous cross behind him before swinging it straight toward Knox with enough force to shatter the air itself.
Knox's only response was a quiet chuckle.
"Heh."
The massive cross was already close enough to crush his skull, yet Knox remained perfectly calm. His right hand slowly tightened around the hilt of his sheathed tachi as he lowered his stance just enough to shift the weight onto his front foot.
There was no panic, no unnecessary movement. It was a simple posture, but one that felt as though every muscle in his body had already calculated what would happen next.
The instant the giant cross descended...
Shiiing!!
Knox's tachi left its sheath in a single fluid motion.
A brilliant crescent of silver light swept across the battlefield as Knox stepped forward, his body slipping past Leight's attack by the narrowest of margins.
The draw slash never stopped. Following the momentum, his body naturally rotated, the blade tracing a smooth arc before the motion carried him completely past the Chief Inquisitor in one continuous movement.
By the time Knox completed the turn, he had already come to a stop several steps behind Leight.
The tachi remained quietly in his hand.
Without even looking back, Knox casually flicked the blade once.
Fwoosh.
A thin trail of crimson blood scattered through the air before the tachi came to rest at his side.
[Knox Aznable Original - Crescent Flash]
For a brief moment, Leight remained standing exactly where he was, the massive cross still buried deep in the shattered ground.
Then...
Thin crimson lines quietly spread across his body.
One after another, dozens of cuts emerged almost simultaneously before blood burst into the air. Both arms separated cleanly at the shoulders, followed by both legs, which slid away from his body before crashing heavily onto the broken stone beneath him.
Only then did the rest of his body finally collapse.
"...!!"
Lethe's eyes widened as Leight's severed limbs crashed onto the ground. Her gaze immediately snapped toward Knox, who stood several steps behind the Chief Inquisitor with his tachi still drawn.
"How did he...?"
Moses was equally stunned, but the surprise only lasted for a moment. His expression quickly returned to normal as he watched Leight's torso collapse onto the ground.
"...It's still not enough to defeat him."
Knox heard him.
His violet eyes shifted toward the limbless man lying on the ground, while the tachi remained loosely held in his right hand. Rather than putting it back into its sheath, he simply rested the blade at his side.
"Rise up, old man," Knox said casually. "Stop acting like a slime."
"..."
For a second, Leight didn't move.
Then, a tremendous amount of Divinity suddenly burst from his body.
The severed arms and legs scattered across the ground remained exactly where they were. Instead, white light gathered around the four bloody stumps, and flesh began to form beneath the blinding Divinity. Bones, muscles, and skin rapidly rebuilt themselves as a completely new pair of arms and legs took shape.
Within seconds, Leight's body was whole again.
His fingers twitched. Then his newly formed hands pressed against the ground as he slowly pushed himself back to his feet.
Blood still covered his white armor, while the limbs Knox had severed remained scattered around him. Yet Leight paid them no attention. His lone eye was already fixed on Knox again, and the grin on his scarred face slowly returned.
Leight rolled his newly formed shoulders before opening and closing his hands several times. Once he was satisfied, his lone eye returned to Knox, and the twisted grin on his scarred face grew wider.
"Do you understand now, necromancer?!" he shouted, spreading his arms as if proudly showing off his restored body. "Cut off my limbs! Tear apart my body! Crush my head if you want! It doesn't matter how many times you kill me. As long as my faith and obsession remain, I will rise again and again until I've dragged you to your death!"
The sheer confidence in his voice made it clear that this was no empty boast. The severed limbs still scattered around him were proof enough, yet Leight looked completely unconcerned as his Divine Power continued to pour from his body.
Knox stared at him for a moment before his shoulders visibly relaxed.
"That's a relief."
"...Relief?"
Leight's grin faltered slightly.
"Yes, relief." Knox nodded as though he had just received some genuinely good news. "I mean, infinite regeneration? Isn't that just an infinite sandbag?"
Leight's remaining eye twitched.
"What... did you just call me?"
Knox didn't answer.
He simply lowered his stance and brought the edge of his tachi down against the ground.
Scrrrrch!
The blade scraped across the earth with a sharp hiss as Knox drew a wide half-circle in front of him. Violet energy immediately spilled from the line like liquid smoke, spreading across the ground while faint violet light began to flicker within it.
Leight's expression changed.
Knox gripped the hilt with both hands.
Then he swung upward.
The motion was smooth and simple, but the instant his tachi rose from the ground, the jet-black energy erupted with it. Violet and black twisted together into a massive crescent slash that tore forward across the plaza, swallowing the ground between Knox and Leight at terrifying speed.
"...!!"
Leight's pupils shrank. He immediately raised his cross as Divine Power exploded around him.
BOOOOOOM!!
White light collided with the black-violet crescent.
For a brief instant, both forces pushed against one another before cracks suddenly spread across the divine light.
Crack!
Leight's lone eye widened as cracks rapidly spread across the holy barrier before it shattered.
The black-violet crescent tore straight through it without slowing down, swallowing the remaining Divine Power before crashing into Leight's body.
"GUAAAAAAARGH!!"
His scream disappeared beneath the roaring jet-black energy.
The crescent continued forward.
And when it finally faded...
There was barely anything left of Leight Edenhart.
However, the overwhelming Divinity surrounding the remains of Leight's body had already begun to gather again. White light wrapped around what was left of him, and flesh slowly started forming beneath it as his body prepared to regenerate once more.
Ignoring martial ethics, which was to wait for the enemy when transforming, Knox calmly planted his tachi into the ground before him.
He raised his right hand and extended two fingers together, forming a sword-like gesture. At the same time, the violet mana around him surged upward, and one sword after another began to appear in the air.
Dozens. Then hundreds.
In just a few seconds, countless swords filled the sky above Knox, every blade aimed at the still-regenerating Leight.
Knox lowered two fingers, sending the first sword hurtling toward the ground. A heartbeat later, the rest followed in an overwhelming rain.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
A rain of swords poured down without mercy, crashing into Leight before he could even finish rebuilding his body. The ground shook again and again under the endless impacts as dust and broken stone flew everywhere, while the newly formed flesh was torn apart almost as quickly as it appeared.
Every time Divinity restored a part of his body, another wave of swords immediately shredded it.
An arm had barely begun to reform before another sword slammed into it.
BOOM!
It vanished once more.
His torso started rebuilding itself, only for another barrage of swords to crash down.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
It was torn apart again.
Even his head had barely returned before several swords came down at once and buried themselves directly into it.
"..." Lethe stared at the scene in complete silence.
Beside her, Moses' lips slowly parted, but no words came out.
For some reason, watching the Chief Inquisitor's supposedly terrifying ability being used like this...
They were beginning to understand what Knox meant by an infinite sandbag.
Without the slightest hint of mercy, Knox continued his assault under the blank stares of Lethe and Moses. The rain of violet swords had barely stopped when he calmly raised one hand, his fingers once again forming a precise sword gesture in front of him.
The movement was familiar, and the surrounding violet mana immediately began trembling.
"Conceal the mind."
The sky above them darkened as a vast shadow spread across the clouds. Lethe and Moses instinctively looked up, only to see the clouds slowly splitting apart under the pressure of something enormous descending from above.
"Sharpen the blade."
Knox lowered his hand.
The clouds ruptured, revealing a colossal sword high in the sky. Its massive blade was aimed directly at the remains of Leight, who had been buried beneath the previous rain of swords.
Then it fell.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!!
The colossal sword crashed down with overwhelming force, swallowing Leight and the surrounding ground beneath a massive explosion. The entire area shook violently as stone and dust were blasted high into the air, while the impact left Lethe and Moses staring at the scene in complete silence.
Leight hadn't even risen yet.
No, forget rising.
He hadn't even started regenerating.
"..."
Lethe slowly turned her head toward Knox. For several seconds, she simply stared at him before finally muttering in disbelief.
"...How ruthless... What are you, a devil?"