Chapter 47

Requiem

“Did she… stop?”

“…That’s impossible.”

Noel and Katya both stared in shock at the same time. The spirit that had been rampaging so violently only moments ago had suddenly frozen in place. Its gaze remained fixed on the flag wrapped around Aiden’s body—a lion emblazoned on cloth, the flag of the Empire.

[…]

Ragged breathing came from beneath the visor, where red light still burned. The creature that had charged Noel like a mindless monster and smashed every obstacle before it like a human-shaped tank was nowhere to be seen now. What remained in those eyes was unmistakably one final boundary.

Even in this state, with reason clearly lost and language itself almost stripped away, there was one line she would never cross. The Lord Protector had been a knight who protected her country. Apparently even after death, the knight who had lived beneath that name still remembered the pride she had built throughout her life.

The Lord Protector would not harm a symbol of the Empire. Nor would she harm someone carrying that symbol.

As I thought.

It began with one simple premise: a spirit could manifest in the material world only if it possessed an intense desire left unfulfilled in life. The stronger that desire, the more powerfully the spirit could manifest. Even if demons or other enemies from the Main Scenario had interfered, that basic principle still applied.

Turn the logic around and it meant something else. Even beings capable of forcibly dragging a soul back with techniques close to resurrection could not completely twist the soul’s fundamental desire. In other words, even if they had implanted a suggestion telling Teresa that harming Noel meant protecting the Empire, they had failed to shake the identity at her very core.

I protect the Empire.

That core conviction remained untouched no matter how badly her mind had been damaged.

“…”

Aiden silently looked into the red lantern-like eyes behind the visor. No description he remembered about the Lord Protector ever mentioned a phenomenon like this. It was clearly far removed from how she had been in life. Whatever one called it, this was evidence of a berserk state. She could not possibly be sane.

For someone as upright as Teresa, forcing her to harm another person, especially someone as precious to her as Noel, could never have been easy. The curse and corruption had probably been applied over a long period, enough that breaking her mind entirely had become the simpler option. And yet Sir Teresa Adelite had still refused to do anything that would shame the name she had carried.

“I’m sorry.” Aiden repeated the apology in a calm voice. How could he not praise her?

Until the very end, even beyond death, with her mind clouded and her soul polluted and corrupted by filth, the knight had never abandoned her pride. She had fought this desperately because she still wished to protect the Empire. She had acted without a single stain upon the title she had borne in life—Lord Protector, the knight who defended the nation.

And Aiden was now taking advantage of that very pride precisely because it still shone so brilliantly. Offering an apology was only proper under the circumstances.

Teresa was holding back her entire body with all her strength, unable to bring her sword down on him. Even so, Aiden had reached his decision.

I can’t let someone like this kill her own family with her own hands.

That was exactly why he had to put her down here. Aiden raised his sword as power began circulating through his body.

The first component was First Vow, followed by pure white qi mixed into it. The two powers fused and were reborn as Guardian’s Flame, producing far greater firepower than either ability could manage on its own. That alone brought the output close to twice the original level.

Then Aiden activated the next step: Divine Operation: Detonation. The power wrapping around him instantly surged to more than double its previous level.

Next came Spiral, Aperture, taking the supernatural power he had refined and shaping it according to the operation method he had copied from the prince.

WHIRRRR!

The violently mixed power split into fine strands and began rotating as though exploding outward. The very shape of the technique made every instinct in the observers scream that it was becoming more dangerous by the second. Aiden wrapped the completed power around his sword.

There was still one more step.

A sword has two parts.

A sword consisted of the grip and the blade. Unlike a revolver, a sword did not have a complicated structure capable of holding many different abilities, but it could hold at least two. That meant one final reinforcement remained available.

Come to think of it…

Meyer had asked him a question before. No matter how powerful or complete a technique might be, it meant nothing if the user could not land it on the opponent. Meyer had asked whether Aiden had any skill capable of making something like this hit.

Aiden had answered casually that he was the type who performed well in actual combat and was confident he could manage. His senior had barely listened at the time. It was a shame Meyer could not see this, because this was the reason Aiden had answered so confidently.

System Message ▶ Skill: Savior’s Oath reacts. ▶ An ‘Enemy of the World’ has been discovered. ▶ In accordance with the Restriction, ‘Protect the World,’ the ability is strengthened!

Aiden let out a faint laugh when he saw the message. Just as expected.

He had suspected that a restriction like this would apply directly during the Main Scenario. The path he was walking right now was itself an act of saving the world. When it came to this kind of real battle, he possessed an ability that could swell the technique Meyer had forged for him to dozens of times its original specifications.

Dozens of cores burst from Aiden’s body and began orbiting him. Katya and Noel both stared with their mouths open.

“…What in the world is that?!”

Controlling dozens of cores was an achievement normally reserved for legendary high monks of the Great Plains. Anyone would react the same way after watching Aiden produce them on the spot. The accumulated law force flowed into the hilt of his sword.

System Message ▶ Ability Imbuement successful. Weapon power has increased!

With even that message appearing before him, Aiden raised the sword.

[!]

Only once the shaping process was complete did the Lord Protector, whose attention had been captured by the flag, finally lift her sword to defend herself. But by then, she was already too late.

The only real condition required for this technique was a long activation time. Its weakness was that no opponent would normally stand still and wait for the preparation to finish. And against this attack, choosing defense was completely wrong.

Aiden took a deep breath and raised the sword. He murmured the activation words Meyer had taught him.

“Tear them apart.”

“Blade of Dawn.”

A single flash followed, and the tip of the sword blazed.

❦

There were people known as Saints.

It was a title granted to those who reached the summit of their respective fields, a name spoken with reverence for people whose legends stretched across the continent. There was the Sword Saint who had pacified the continent with a single rusted sword, the Divine Spear who had slain a primordial giant with a human body, and the Crowned Marksman who drove back an otherworldly calamity falling from the upper atmosphere.

The person known as the Knight of Dawn also stood among those Saints, and his life had naturally been followed by countless martial legends. There was one detail repeatedly recorded by people who had witnessed his battles: when they watched him fight at night in a place without a single lamp, it looked as though he were splitting night from day.

Even the title Knight of Dawn was said to have come from the brilliant light that burst from his weapon whenever he used his techniques. It was almost a symbolic phenomenon associated with him. Noel had always assumed the descriptions were nothing more than strange exaggerations preserved in old records.

That changed the moment she saw it herself.

“!”

Noel gritted her teeth and raised an arm to shield her eyes. Without doing so, even she could barely keep them open against the supernatural power bursting from Aiden’s sword.

There was no other word for it. Dawn…!

If anything, the old records had understated the phenomenon. Even Noel, who stood at the highest reaches among superhumans, struggled to look directly at the light.

Where did he even get something like this?!

Noel was beginning to feel an almost irrational sense of injustice toward Aiden, who seemed to produce absurd new abilities whenever she blinked.

Then Aiden swung his sword, releasing Flame, which already possessed terrifying destructive power because it was divine power amplified by the density of qi. The instant it left the tip of the sword, it divided into several separate attacks. Every one of them became a violently spinning spiral designed to pierce directly through protective measures.

The slashes carried such ridiculous power that their danger was obvious at a glance. Even a superhuman on Noel’s level would suffer injuries difficult to recover from if she took those attacks head-on.

The Lord Protector’s response was equally impressive. Even though it was already too late for a normal defense, she forced her qi into blade-shaped forms and launched them toward the incoming strikes. Since a barrier would have difficulty blocking those spirals, she had chosen to intercept them instead.

The trajectories she created were precise. Most of the approaching attacks would be canceled out along those paths. Even if she could not defend completely, it was a clean response that should have allowed her to avoid any fatal injuries.

Then Noel’s mouth fell open as the tiny spirals kept dividing without stopping. Several became dozens, dozens became hundreds, and hundreds became thousands.

“What?!” The sight was so absurd that Noel shouted aloud.

The slashes continued multiplying without end. Tiny spirals filled the world around them until even Noel could no longer track every trajectory. It looked as though the entire area were being swallowed by flashes of light.

The divided attacks slipped through the gaps between the counterattacks Teresa had created.

PIERCE!

RIP!

Noel fell silent as she watched them mercilessly punch through the armor. She now understood exactly how powerful Aiden’s attack was. It used divine power amplified through the density of qi, spread over an area too broad to evade, sought the gaps around vital points, and pierced through defensive measures on contact.

There were ways to deal with it in a real battle. An opponent could leave the area before the caster attacked or interrupt Aiden before the technique was released. If one searched hard enough, there were methods that avoided responding to the attack itself.

But if he managed to activate it fully, and if he managed to make it land, and if the opponent was a spirit on top of that, there was only one proper description.

Certain kill. Nothing else fit the attack she was witnessing.

Even a spirit far more powerful than the Lord Protector would have been unable to endure such an attack. The Blade of Dawn penetrated through the gaps in Teresa’s armor and burned her entire spiritual body. Divine power naturally held an advantage against spirits, and the instant it touched her ethereal form, the flames burned even more violently than usual.

The Lord Protector’s movements, so fierce only moments ago, began to slow. Her armor gradually collapsed beneath the relentless assault.

“…” Aiden quietly lowered his sword as he watched.

The injury was already fatal by any reasonable measure. Even the strengthened Lord Protector, powerful enough to overwhelm Noel, could not continue fighting after taking the technique head-on. Her entire body was torn apart and burning. The sight was so terrible that it seemed strange she had not died instantly.

Yet she still did not retreat.

[…!]

A wet, blood-choked roar emerged from her throat as she tried to rise again with her fighting spirit intact.

“…”

Aiden quietly watched her struggle to stand again. Perhaps it could be called stubbornness. Perhaps someone could say she was foolishly clinging to something that had already ended. But considering why this person had manifested at all, that determination deserved more respect than such words.

Aiden did not know how the Lord Protector’s mind had been disturbed. He did not know what insidious methods the demons had used to twist her thoughts. One thing was certain from the sight in front of him: the Lord Protector believed that continuing the fight meant protecting the Empire, and that belief was why she clung so desperately to battle.

“Sir Theresa Adelite.” Aiden addressed her directly, his voice calm and clear. “My home is here too. My father and my little sister both live in the Empire.”

Someone like Teresa deserved a promise from him. “My family, my friends, and everyone I know are all here.”

The desire she had left behind was one Aiden could understand better than almost anyone. Noel had described the Lord Protector as someone like the sun. Teresa valued peaceful days spent with anyone, regardless of status, age, or gender.

If someone like that had believed so fiercely in the value of the Empire, Aiden could guess why. It was because of the people inside it. Families and friends were among them, along with people who lived honestly and did the work in front of them—ordinary, normal people who possessed little power but remained kind.

Wanting to protect people like that overlapped almost perfectly with the reason Aiden had recently thrown himself into the insane task of saving the world.

[…]

The red light beneath the visor stared straight at Aiden. Perhaps stared was the wrong word. Teresa simply stood there and listened. No battle cry emerged anymore, and she only stood there listening to what he had to say.

Aiden met her gaze directly without looking away. “So I promise you.”

He called forth Savior’s Oath once more. His father had repeated the lesson endlessly when Aiden was young, and adulthood had beaten the truth of it into him again: avoid people who made promises only with words. Aiden did not want to become the kind of adult others should avoid.

He added another meaning to the restriction embedded beneath the core of law force. After the first restriction, Save the World, he placed a second one before the Lord Protector.

“I’ll protect the Empire.”

He would inherit the ideals Teresa had protected and the values she had wanted to preserve. Aiden wanted that same pastoral, modest world more than anything. He continued with the promise he wanted her to hear.

“And I’ll make sure the people inside it, the powerless but decent people, aren’t treated unjustly.”

Therefore, he asked only one thing of her. “So now you can stop fighting.”

He spoke the words as gently as he could. “Please rest.”

[……]

Silence lingered beneath the visor for a long time. The Lord Protector remained with her sword pointed toward him and simply stared.

Then a heavy sound broke the stillness.

CLANG.

The sword slipped from Teresa’s hand and struck the ground. The red lantern-like light beneath the visor remained, but the hostility radiating from it had vanished like snow melting beneath sunlight. She was clearly no longer sane, and she had lost the ability to speak. There was no real way to confirm whether Aiden’s words had even reached her properly.

Even so, he thought he heard something.

[I believe you.]

At the same moment, her body began to crumble into drifting particles. It was as though the desire she had carried for so long before death had finally been fulfilled and nothing remained to hold her here.

“…”

“…”

For a long moment, nobody could bring themselves to speak. Among the fragments of the Lord Protector’s dissolving soul, the power source that had rested inside her chest finally became visible.

Aiden walked through the drifting particles and carefully received it in both hands. Noel stared blankly and whispered its name.

“A pinwheel…”

It was the token of a promise Teresa had always made for her.

I’ll protect the Empire! That one promise had been enough. Sustained by nothing but the will contained in that oath, the Lord Protector had endured even beyond death.

“…”

The pinwheel cupped in Aiden’s hands also began to dissolve into particles. The token carrying the knight’s promise scattered in every direction, drifted far into the distance, and quietly departed.

Nobody made any attempt to interrupt its final journey.