That painful silence…
The kind that warns something terrible is about to happen...
The elite of the SI army… and Raym's group… all stood ready... Even the air felt heavy with tension...
"Now… or never," they moved as one...
They burst from hiding—and so did the SI elite—
But not for each other...
A heavy step echoed...
Then he appeared...
A tall knight in magnificent golden armor bearing a sun-like emblem... a One arm... , a massive sword dragging across the ground...
He stood in the center...
Attacks rained down on him from every direction...
Steel clashed... Sparks flew... Smoke rose...
When it cleared—
He hadn't moved...
With one arm and his blade, he had blocked everything...
He turned toward the SI elite.
One swing—
The air split...
Two fell instantly...
Then another...
Then silence broken by brief screams...
Slowly, he faced Raym's group.
He said nothing...
A low, beast-like sound escaped him—
And he charged...
A blur of motion...
Lorian and Round stepped in—
But the force that struck them felt like a moving wall...
He continued toward Raym.
Raym barely avoided the strike.
Before he could recover—
Another attack...
This time, all of them stood together.
Clashing blades... Retreating steps... Broken breaths.
But in the end—
He overwhelmed them alone...
Then reinforcements from SI arrived.
The knight ignored Raym entirely and cut through the soldiers again.
"Withdraw!!!" Lorian ordered.
They escaped into the chaos...
They struggled to breathe, confusion on every face—
Except Lorian's.
Raym confronted him.
"Why did you act like you knew something??? Why did you recognize them??? Why do you keep making it hard for me to trust you???"
Lorian sat calmly.
"You have the right to doubt. But you see what you want to see. That armor belongs to a great nearby kingdom. This is bigger than us."
Then softly:
"The problem isn't always others… sometimes it's how you look at them."
Raym said nothing.
They moved again—
Then all sound stopped.
Silence.
And suddenly—
He landed before them again...
His sword drenched in blood.
Bodies behind him.
And this time—
There was no one left between him and them...
The knight stood before them without moving.
Then—
He vanished.
All they saw was a golden flash.
A vertical strike split the ground, stone erupting beneath their feet.Raym rolled aside, while Lorian was slammed violently into the wall behind him. Round crashed to the ground, and Saon staggered hard before losing his balance...
He gave them no time to recover...
His massive blade swept in a deadly arc.
Round raised his shield—
Half of it shattered under the impact, forcing him down to one knee.
Lorian shouted,"Don't face him directly!!! Scatter!!!"
They rushed from different directions…
Raym attacked from the side, aiming for a joint in the shoulder armor.
A sharp metallic ring echoed—
But the blade did not pierce it…
The knight responded with a swift kick—A brutal side strike that slammed into Raym's chest.
His breath vanished instantly, and for a moment, it felt as though his ribs had shattered…
The knight raised his sword high for a killing blow.
Raym looked up at him—
And felt as though he were standing before death itself.
Lorian dashed forward and hurled a dagger toward the knight's helmet—
But the knight did not evade...
Instead, he split it clean in half with his glowing blade.
He charged again—
But Lorian and Saon managed to trip him—
For exactly one second.
With a wide horizontal spinning strike, he forced them back, then drove his broad, pointed shoulder into Saon, throwing him violently to the ground.
He turned toward the others...
This time, his goal was not to kill—
But to crush them...
He slammed the ground before them.
Dust and debris exploded upward, sending them flying like puppets with severed strings.
Blood ran down Round's forehead.Their armor cracked.Their arms trembled from the impacts.
Raym looked into the knight's eyes through the slit of his helmet—
He saw no rage...No hatred...
Only a pitch-black void… as if darkness itself lived within him.
Lorian suddenly shouted,"To the left!!! Now!!!"
Part of a crumbling structure collapsed between them.
They seized the moment and dashed into the narrow alleys.
Behind them, they heard the dragging sound of the sword once more—
But he did not pursue…
When Raym finally looked back—
The knight stood in the dust… watching them.
And more SI soldiers were arriving.
This time, in great numbers…
Even for him...