Lancelot slowed his flight as he moved toward the northern edge of Lionmere.
The sight below made his breath catch.
Bodies lay scattered across the ground—fallen soldiers, their armor broken, their lives already gone, almost all of thier bodies where no where to be found. He descended in silence, his boots touching the earth as his gaze swept over the scene.
What happened here…?
His instincts sharpened.
Another wyvern?
No.
His eyes hardened.
This wasn't the work of monsters.
It was human.
His gaze darted around the battlefield.
"…Princess Emilia?"
There was no response.
She was nowhere to be seen.
A cold realization struck him like a blade.
They took her.
His heart began to pound violently, each beat echoing in his chest.
Damn it…
His fists tightened.
What kind of knight allows the princess he swore to protect to be captured?
The promises he had made to her—every vow, every confident word—resurfaced in his mind, crushing him beneath their weight.
When it mattered most… I failed.
His chest burned.
By now, she must regret choosing me as her knight.
Inside, his heart raced as if it might burst—but on the surface, his expression remained unchanged. Calm. Still. Cold.
For a few seconds, he endured it.
Then—
The guilt overflowed.
Electricity flared violently around his body as his restraint shattered.
"I'll find them," Lancelot said under his breath, his voice trembling with fury.
"I'll hunt those bastards down and make them pay with their lives."
The wind roared around him.
How far can they run?
He scouted every corner of Lionmere, searching for even the faintest trace.
Nothing.
Slowly, his gaze lifted toward the distance.
With a surge of lightning, he took off to the sky once more.
His destination was Stonecliff the closet village to Lionmere, village near the northern mountains of Britannia.
Spirit cores are the essence and will of living things, while magic core are the bodies that collects and use essence of the earth. Spirit cores are free, but magic cores are slave to man.
Spirit Core takes the form of a spherical orb located at the center of the brain, while magic cores is in the centre of the stomach
Every Spirit Core domain possesses a circular door—a boundary between restraint and release. Whether a person has one domain or several, each core has its own door, independent of the others.
When a Spirit Core domain door is opened, the user can draw its spirit essence into specific parts of the body the hands, mouth, eyes, nose, or ears allowing the power to manifest in different ways depending on where it is channeled.
However, drawing Spirit essence from the domain directly into the environment itself, without first passing it through the body, requires an extremely high level of mastery. This technique bypasses physical conduits entirely and is something only elites can achieve.
There are limits.
If a Spirit Core domain door remains open for too long, the user suffers backlash.
if the Spirit Core is overused, backlash will also occur.
This is why most people are incapable of channeling spirit essence throughout their entire body at once. Even a single bead of spirit essence is incredibly dense, its value equivalent to a C grade Magic core capacity.
Magic Cores, by contrast, are measured by capacity grades, divided into seven levels:
S Grade — 99–100% magic essence; their magic essence never runs dry
A Grade — 91–98%; speed recovery of magic essence
B Grade — 70–79%
C Grade — 50%
D Grade — 40–49%
E Grade — 30–39%
F Grade — 5–25%; the lowest tier
Lancelot Loid was an anomaly.
He possessed multiple domains. Each domain had its own door.
The first domain sparks endlessly with yellow lightning—pure electricity, violent and alive.
The middle domain was empty, clear, colorless, like glass filled with still air. It held no visible attribute.
The final domain contained an hundred mini Lancelot.
Lancelot flew east of Stonecliff.
Then he vanished.
His presence erased itself from the world.
Invisible. Untouchable.
For now, Lancelot Loid had become invincible.
His eyes scanned every corner.
He descended slowly, landing atop a tall stone roof near the village center. From there, he observed.
Merchants closing stalls. Villagers returning home. Guards patrolling lazily.
Nothing unusual.
Lancelot rose into the air once more before descending silently, landing upon the stone ground. He crossed his legs and entered a meditative state.
People passed by him—merchants, villagers, guards—yet none noticed his presence. Their gazes slid past him as if he did not exist. They could neither see nor touch him.
Invisible. Untouchable.
Yet his mind was but calm.
Damn it… I'm not thinking straight.
If i go back home now, rumors would spread, rumors about the knight who failed to protect the princess.
My reputation would collapse.
If i returned to the castle and requested knights who specialized in investigation, the rumors would be even worse. People would say the knight of Britainna is incompetent, that he needed others to clean up his failure.
Nooooo… I only have one choice.
I do this alone.
Lancelot steadied his breathing and began to analyze himself with ruthless clarity.
My first domain specializes in long-range offense, close-range combat, and movement.
Its power was overwhelming in battle, yet it lacked defense, healing, storage, and investigative methods.
My second domain specializes in infiltration.
A rare branch of investigation. It allows me to conceal my presence entirely, erasing his body until it became no different from air itself.
My final domain… cloning.
I can create up to one hundred clones. Each clone possessed same skills and techniques as me, but strength was divided. Two clones would each wield fifty percent of my power. The more clones i created, the weaker each became.
A dangerous ability—both support and offense.
Taken together…
My Spirit Core abilities cover support, offense, movement, and investigation.
Lancelot eyes slowly opened.
If i sent a hundred clones to investigate all of Stonecliff, the kidnappers would be found without fail.
But there was a risk.
If the culprits realized the village was being monitored, they would grow cautious—or flee.
Lancelot exhaled slowly.
I need precision… not chaos.
Then a thought surfaced.
What if…
What if I combine the essence in my infiltration domain with my cloning ability?
If the clones inherit my invisibility, if they moved unseen, unnoticed
Then Stonecliff itself would become my hunting ground.
And the ones who dared touch Princess Emilia would have nowhere left to hide.
Lancelot closed his eyes.
The air around him stilled, as if the world itself were holding its breath.
Deep within his mind, the doors of his Spirit Core second and third domain opened.
The colorless core at the center pulsed first silent, formless, absolute. Its door opened without a sound, and his presence thinned, invincible spirit essence and shadow spirit essence came out of the domain for three seconds then Lancelot closed the door of both domain.
Then he mixed both spirit essence.
After some minutes.
One invincible clone peeled away from his seated form.
Then another.
And another.
They emerged soundlessly, identical to him in every detail, yet each was already dissolving into nothingness the moment it formed. Invisible. Intangible. Untraceable
.
Ten clones stood.
Then twenty.
Fifty.
One hundred.
They did not breathe. They did not cast shadows. Even the wind passed through them without disturbance.
At Lancelot's silent command, the clones dispersed.
Some slipped into narrow alleys, phasing through walls and locked doors.
Others ascended rooftops, their steps leaving no mark upon stone or tile.
A few sank into the earth itself, moving beneath the village like silent ghosts.
Stonecliff continued its daily rhythm. Merchants shouted, children laughed, guards patrolled lazily. None of them knew the village was already sealed.
From above, from below, from every direction, invisible eyes began to watch no movement in Stonecliff went unnoticed.