The Saint of the Church of Liara stood amidst the wreckage, a vision of celestial fury carved from gold and grief. Her aura radiated with the heat of a dying star, a shimmering veil of divinity laced with the jagged edges of a woman betrayed. Tears, faint and glistening like morning dew on a blade, traced paths down her cheeks, but they were consumed by the intensity of her eyes.
She had promised the old man a reunion with his daughter—a sacred vow now lying cold and broken in a pool of crimson, extinguished by the very people she had welcomed with a naive, pushy grace.
Today, the Saint would not offer a blessing; she would bestow a verdict.
"Nill, you take care of her," Jain commanded, her voice a hollow chime that brooked no argument.
She didn't wait for a response, her boots crunching over the pulverized stone as she began her march toward Noa.
"By your will," Nill replied, his gaze hardening as he turned toward his target: Vionette.
As the two forces of the Church approached, Noa stepped forward to meet them, his boots finding purchase on the jagged ribs of the buildings he had just helped dismantle. He looked unshaken, even with the knowledge that his most potent skills were being muffled by the golden dome above.
To his left, Vionette moved with the unhurried poise of a dark silk ribbon caught in a breeze. She walked toward a lone, ornate chair that Rose had placed perfectly amidst the ruin, sitting down and crossing her legs as if she were attending a high-society opera rather than a massacre.
Nill closed in on her, but a shadow fell across his path. A man he had dismissed as a mere footman just days ago now stood between him and the queen. It was Kaelen, the Queen's Blade, his steel already singing as it left its sheath.
"You again?" Nill spat, his lip curling in a snarl of aristocratic disdain. "You truly believe you can stand against the man second only to Lady Jain?"
"Who knows?" Kaelen's voice was as steady as a mountain spring. "I never bothered with your ranks. My system doesn't recognize hierarchies—it's just a blank without any Skills."
'People like us don't have the right to ask for forgiveness or beg for power, Kaelen. We have to earn it, or we have to cheat it. If we don't, we simply cease to exist.'
Vionette's voice echoed in his mind, a cold but comforting memory from weeks ago.
---
Step… step. Step-step-step.
The cadence of the march shifted into a predatory sprint. Noa's Acheron was a dark sliver in his left hand, while Jain's spear was gripped so tightly her knuckles looked like polished ivory.
[Holy Affinity (Rare)]
[Aura Blade]
Jain's spear erupted in a blinding, sanctified light. The [Aura Blade] wrapped the steel in a golden shroud, while [Holy Affinity] infused the weapon with the literal breath of the god Liara. It wasn't just a spear anymore; it was a needle designed to stitch the world back into a righteous order.
[Presence Override]
[Aura Blade]
Even with his core power dampened, Noa didn't flinch. He poured his own aura into Acheron, the blade humming a low, dissonant chord. He used [Presence Override] to amplify his aura, even if it felt like trying to light a fire in a rainstorm.
CLANG!
SWROOOM!
The first collision was a tectonic event. The shockwave roared through the streets, a physical hand that pushed the very air out of the city-state. Buildings that had survived the first fight now crumbled like sandcastles under a rising tide. Yet, under the Aureate Silence, the fleeing citizens didn't scream; they retreated with an eerie, mechanical calm, their fear suppressed by the golden dome above.
"Hahahahah! Jain, what is that skill?" Noa's laughter was a sharp, jagged thing that cut through the thunder of their blades. "Is that a gift from your god, or just a very bright flashlight?"
Jain didn't answer with words. She pivoted, her spear tracing a glittering arc in the air before she brought it down with the weight of her entire being.
Cling!
"Khwak!"
The sheer weight of the blow forced Noa to his knees, blood spraying from his lips as he blocked the descending sun with his dark steel. He was technically weaker here—his stats weren't matching her divine fervor—but to Jain's mounting horror, he was smiling. It was a wicked, hungry expression that looked entirely too at home in the middle of a bloodbath.
Clang-clang-clang!
"Heheheh—hahahah!"
Noa exploded into a flurry of strikes, his movements a chaotic poem of violence. He wasn't just swinging a sword; he was painting a masterpiece of ruin. Some of his blows were parried, but others found their mark, leaving thin, jagged lines of purple corruption on Jain's skin—a lingering rot that prevented her regeneration.
[Blink]
Noa vanished. Jain's internal compass spun for a fraction of a second before she sensed the sudden vacuum of air behind her.
[Hallow Step (Rare)]
Swooosh…
Noa's purple eyes widened. His blade passed through Jain as if she were made of nothing but morning mist and golden light. She had become a ghost in the shell of a warrior, his strike carving nothing but the scorched earth below.
[Blink]
He teleported back to safety just as a golden spear-tip whistled through the space his throat had occupied a moment prior. He gathered every ounce of his aura, focusing it into a razor-thin line on Acheron's edge, and swung. The air itself seemed to split, a wave of distorted reality rushing toward the saint.
Jain countered with a thrust, her spear birthing a lance of pure energy that met Noa's slash head-on.
[Blink]
Dhooom!
Noa didn't wait for the energies to resolve. He activated his trap, blinking into the heart of the explosion. He caught Jain mid-turn, his blade biting into her shoulder, but Jain was a creature of absolute resolve. She twisted her body, sacrificing the flesh of her arm to pull Noa into her range. Her spear found his chest, the tip sinking deep into the muscle.
Splsss!
Splshhh…
Blood painted the air. They jumped back, two wounded predators breathing in the dust of a dying city, before charging once again.
Something is wrong.
...Something's wrong.
The thought was a twin echo in their minds. They leaped from rooftop to crumbling terrace, each landing shattering the foundations of the city-state. Jain only allowed this level of destruction because she knew the streets were now empty, the civilians moved like chess pieces by her knights.
Dhooom!
Gold met purple once more, burying another residential block under a mountain of stone.
What is this?
Jain thought, her boots hammering against a vertical wall, the sheer velocity of her movement pinning her to the stone as she defied the world's pull.
Is this adaptation… no, it's something else. It's something with that swordsmanship and his body. The possibility flickered through her mind like a dying spark in a gale. Is he adapting to not my attacks… but his own power?
She didn't want to believe it. It was as if Noa's body was a rusted engine finally being oiled by the friction of a real battle. Furthermore, Noa's 'self-thought' swordsmanship, the Formless Sword, was a monster of a different breed entirely.
As the knight Valvakile had once whispered, it was a style that could only be birthed if a man spent thousands, perhaps millions, of years in a hellish cycle of death-to-death combat, using nothing but his imagination to fight until every experience became a gut feeling. Now, with every swing in this real, bloody battlefield, that ancient refinement was sharpening itself anew, as if a long-dormant predator was finally remembering the exact weight of its own claws.
Something's up with her, Noa thought, his teeth gritted as he parried a thrust that nearly took his eye. It's like she's…
Clang!
Noa's vertical slash was met by a lightning-fast stab. Jain's spear carved a deep, ragged line across Noa's stomach. He didn't recoil; he leaned into the pain, his blood-soaked hands gripping Acheron with a lover's intensity.
DHIIIIIING!
Acheron's tip descended with the weight of an anchor. Jain blocked it, but her spear groaned. Against a weapon forged from the remnants of a dragon, her holy steel was starting to feel like a toy. She rolled the dice, rotating her body to avoid a killing blow to the heart, but Noa's blade still found the meat of her leg.
[Judgment of Sanctity (Unique)]
The air around Jain crystallized. Golden spheres of light began to orbit her, moving with the slow, terrifying rhythm of planetary bodies. She extended her hand, and three of the lights elongated into spears of pure, solid radiance. They launched toward Noa like falling stars.
"I have to end this quickly," she whispered, her breath coming in long, ragged plumes.
Clang-clang-clang!
Noa was now a dervish of steel, parrying four different directions at once—the three energy spears and Jain's physical weapon. But the lights kept orbiting her, a silent promise of more to come.
"Seems you can only control three at a time," Noa panted, his chest heaving as he parried a golden lunge.
"Yes," Jain said, a sad, beautiful smile touching her lips as she pointed two fingers at him. "But there's not only controlling."
"!!!"
A golden sphere flew towards Noa. It didn't strike; it condensed. They condensed into a single, infinitesimal point of light near Noa's chest before the universe decided to expand.
BHOOOM!
Half the city was erased in a flash of blinding white, leaving a perfectly smooth crater where buildings had stood moments before. Smoke crawled through the air like a grey shroud.
"Did that do it?" Jain landed softly on the edge of the pit, her eyes searching the haze.
"Heheheheh~ Hahahahah!"
As the echo of his laughter died into a jagged silence, Jain watched as Acheron soared into the sky like a splinter of night, its tip gathering a concentrated purple aura that burned through the lingering smoke like a hot needle through silk.
Noa's gaze followed the blade's trajectory with clinical precision; since his [Blink] required a solid coordinate—a surface for his eyes to claim—he had simply launched his own anchor into the sky.
[Blink]
In a flicker of violet light, he vanished, reappearing instantly atop the humming tip of the sword. The weapon, responding to the weight of its master with a sentient instinct, froze mid-flight the exact microsecond Noa's boots made contact. With a swift, practiced tap of his boot, Noa redirected Acheron mid-air, spinning the blade until its jagged point was aimed like a needle at the saint below.
On her silent command, Jain's golden spears rose to meet him, a forest of righteous light seeking to impale the falling shadow.
Thud!
As the golden lances closed in, Noa rotated his body in a tight, violent circle and slammed his foot into Acheron's pommel, replicating the same terrifying, high-velocity maneuver from the tournament days prior.
Formless Sword: Trace (Lingering Afterimage) —
[Blink]
He didn't wait to see the blade fall. He teleported again, appearing directly within Jain's personal space before the golden spears could even register his movement.
Caught in the awkward, vulnerable 'dead-zone' that plagued every spear-user when an enemy bypassed their reach, Jain made a split-second decision of pure survival; she let go of her holy weapon, her hands coming up to meet Noa's in a blur of desperate, high-speed violence.
Dhoom—thuk—thump!
The air between them popped with the sound of heavy strikes as they traded a flurry of punches and blocks in a heartbeat. Noa took a glancing blow to the ribs just to find his opening, his hand snaking past her guard to seize her shoulder with a grip like iron. With a sudden, forceful pivot, he slipped behind her, locking his arms around her waist and wrenching her body around in a lethal embrace.
Grab!
He forced her to face the sky, anchoring her in place as Acheron came screaming down from the clouds with the weight of a falling star, its descent a vertical line of violet judgment.
"Gotcha, bitch," Noa whispered into her ear, his breath hot against her skin despite the chill of the morning air.
"Uhh…"
WHROOOM!
As Jain looked up, her pupils shrinking in terror, Acheron arrived with an intense, earth-shaking velocity. The dark blade just tore through her golden spears as if they were made of fragile glass, scattering the holy energy into a million useless shards of light.
"If you do this, you'll be pierced too!" Jain shouted, her voice breaking. "Let go!"
"Well, even though your weapon doesn't listen to you," Noa whispered into her ear, his smile visible in the reflection of the descending blade, "mine always does."
The pieces finally clicked in Jain's mind—the strange vibration of the sword that day, the way it moved independently, the intensity it held even when Noa wasn't touching it.
"…A willed sword?"
Splshhh!
Acheron buried itself in Jain's chest, but the moment the tip cleared her back, the blade stopped. It didn't pierce Noa; it obeyed the silent command of its master's proximity.
Thud!
Noa let go, and Jain's body slumped to the shattered ground. He stepped back, his chest heaving, his face a mask of exhaustion and grim satisfaction. He wiped the blood from his eyes, looking down at the broken Saint.
"Whoo~ that was actually hard work," he muttered, his voice cracking with fatigue.
---
'I will get your daughter back.'
'Don't worry, as long as I'm here, nothing bad will happen.'
Jain was drowning. She was sinking into a bottomless, dark sea where the weight of her failed promises felt like lead weights tied to her ankles. The pain of the sword wound was gone, replaced by a terrifying, seductive relief. It would be so easy to just stop. To let the darkness take her and forget the blood on the walls of Feil's house.
What are you doing, Jain? Get the hell up! She gritted her teeth in the silence of her soul. You became a saint because of that stupid, beautiful dream of protecting everyone. If you die here, who protects the next old man?
She fought the water. She rejected the peace. Slowly, the downward pull reversed, and she began to rise through the lightless depths until she broke the surface, floating on the cold, still water of her subconscious.
You think leaving someone like that alive will make the world happier? It's quite the opposite.
From the very bottom of that dark sea, a spark appeared. It wasn't a small light; it was an expansion. A golden circle erupted from beneath her, rejecting the darkness, pushing back the shadows until the entire sea turned to liquid sun.
I will save everyone… somehow.
Back in the physical world, Jain's golden hair began to glow with a light that rivaled the sun itself. Her eyes snapped open, and a spear made not of steel, but of pure, crystalline energy, manifested in her hand.
The light shall make the darkness perish. And today, the Saint would be the bearer of that light.