The air trembled across the battlefield. The ground reeked of iron and dust, churned up by thousands of footsteps. Amid corpses and shattered helms, Arnos rose like a mountain that refused to fall. The Colossus of Earth breathed with animal fury, his golden armor cracked and stained, his sword still gleaming like a sacred relic in the midst of so much blood.
At his feet, a young soldier—Douglas—struggled to crawl away. Arnos seized him by the throat and lifted him effortlessly, pressing the edge of his blade against the boy's neck.
"Look at him, Lusian!" he roared, with the rage of a broken prayer. "If you don't surrender, they will all die. All of them!"
The wind stopped. No one on the field breathed.
Lusian simply walked toward him. He did not draw. He did not shout. He only looked at him with a serenity that was unbearable.
"Is this your justice?" he asked. "Threatening an unarmed soldier?"
Arnos clenched his jaw. It wasn't fear—it was wounded pride.
"I am their sword! The gods spoke through me! You have no right to judge me!"
"That's what all killers say."
Then Lusian drew his blade.
The sound of steel rang out like restrained thunder. Arnos roared and released the young man, charging with a descending strike meant to split Lusian in two. The force was brutal, pure, as if he meant to shatter the earth itself.
But the blade struck nothing but air.
Lusian stepped aside—precise, calculated, almost preordained. Arnos barely had time to turn when Lusian's dark blade sparked against his armor. It wasn't a strike of strength—it was technique. Reading. Knowledge.
"You think your strength is enough?" Arnos growled, frustrated, unleashing a sweeping blow.
Lusian anticipated it. Again. Another step. Another perfect deflection.
"Why do you follow the gods?" Lusian asked calmly. "You're only being used."
Arnos refused to listen. Fatigue began to seep into his muscles; his breathing turned harsh, each inhale burning. He struck again—a hammer-blow capable of tearing down walls. But Lusian advanced instead of retreating, breaking the rhythm of the attack, shattering Arnos's guard, tearing a plate from his sacred armor.
The colossus gasped, a contained roar carrying his pride and fury.
Arnos raised his blade for another brutal downward strike—one that could cleave a wall in half. Lusian moved to evade…
But this time, Arnos did not make the same mistake.
The colossus twisted his wrist with a dexterity that didn't seem his own—a movement learned in flesh and pain, not granted by gods—and the blade changed angle mid-descent.
A second.A heartbeat.A minimal error.
The edge grazed Lusian's cheek, cutting the air so close it left a thin line of blood across his skin.
The battlefield froze.
Arnos smiled—not with arrogance, but with the fury of a man who could still kill.
"You will not defeat me," he growled.
Lusian stepped back for the first time—not out of fear… but because he understood.
Arnos had abandoned divine technique.
He was fighting as something worse:
a desperate man.
"Good," Lusian replied, a thread of blood running along his jaw. "Then show me who you are without your gods."
Arnos roared and lunged again—this time less predictable: improvised feints, broken rhythms, strikes that looked like mistakes… and almost were traps. Lusian had to recalibrate, adapt in real time; his reading was no longer perfect.
For a moment, they were equals.
Two men.Two passions.Two furies colliding.
And only then—when Arnos emptied the last spark of his human life—
Lusian found the opening.
"You think… you can kill… one of the chosen?" Arnos rasped, clinging to his faith, his title, like an invisible shield.
"No." Lusian's gaze was cold, almost merciful. "I'm going to kill a man who hid behind that title."
Arnos screamed then. Not war. Not pride. A plea.
A plea to gods who no longer answered.
For the first time since receiving divine blessing, Arnos remembered the true weight of his sword.
He charged with everything he had. One final strike. All that he was.
Lusian did not dodge.Did not retreat.He only advanced.
Steel pierced first through the broken guard, then through the throat.
Arnos stood still, eyes wide, as if searching for an answer in the sky. But there was no voice. No altar. No god listening.
When his head fell and rolled across the blood-soaked grass, his final expression was one of surprise—as if, in the end, he had understood that the gods had never been there.
The silence that followed was not victory.
It was revelation:
heroes could die.
While the clash of blades echoed across the battlefield, Elizabeth saw neither the army nor Arnos.
She saw only her.
Delora staggered away through smoke and ruin—wounded, but alive. Months of humiliation, fear, and sleepless nights burned in Elizabeth's chest.
"You're not getting away," she murmured.
She reached her in seconds.
Delora barely managed to turn. Her gaze darkened—not with fear… but resignation.
"You came alone?" she whispered, voice broken. "I thought you'd hide behind your kingdom… like before."
Elizabeth advanced, every step heavy with resentment.
"I don't hide. You handed me over to them."
Delora raised her hand. A spear of light formed—fast as a heartbeat. Elizabeth dodged; the beam scorched the trunk behind her.
"I obeyed divine orders…" Delora gasped. "It wasn't personal."
"It was to me!" Elizabeth roared.
She lunged.
The first strike came in a lateral slash. Delora barely blocked it in time, but the impact shattered her defense and forced her back, slipping in ash and mud.
Delora tried to conjure another light—but Elizabeth severed her forearm, forcing her to release the spell mid-cast. The glow died in the air.
Delora screamed.
Elizabeth didn't stop. She slammed her against a tree with brutal force, her blade grazing Delora's collarbone. Delora tried to defend herself, but her movements were slower now, clumsier.
"I…" Delora coughed, blood trailing from her lips. "If I hadn't given you up… the ritual would have killed you."
"I would have preferred death," Elizabeth whispered.
And then—
one decisive strike.
The blade drove through her abdomen, piercing flesh, bone, and mana alike.
Delora collapsed, gasping.
A ring slipped from her hand, rolling among the roots. A dark artifact, pulsing with corrupted divine light.
Elizabeth picked it up, though the energy burned her palm.
Delora lifted her gaze one last time, as if seeking forgiveness.
"I forgive you," Elizabeth said, with a bitter smile. "But I do not absolve you."
And she beheaded her.
Arnos's head struck stone and rolled to a stop face down, his glassy eyes staring into nothing.
Lusian breathed fast—not from exhaustion, but from restrained fury. The smell of burned flesh and corrupted magic scraped at his lungs.
Then he heard footsteps.
He thought it was another enemy.
But his heart nearly stopped when he saw her emerge from the smoke.
"Elizabeth?"
His voice was no longer that of a strategist.
It was that of a man.
She walked slowly, her dress torn, her skin scratched, a dry shadow of blood streaking across her face. Not all of it was hers.
But Lusian didn't know that.
He couldn't.
Before he could speak, the knife slipped from her fingers and fell to the ground.
Lusian closed the distance without thinking. He grabbed her shoulders—almost too tightly—trying to inspect her wounds.
"What did they do to you?" His voice wasn't a question—it was contained rage. "Where are you hurt? Are you breathing properly? Look at me!"
His hands trembled.
Lusian—the man who could order executions without blinking—was trembling.
Elizabeth looked at him, surprised by that genuine fear.
He searched for wounds along her abdomen, her neck, her ribs—
"It's not mine," she whispered at last.
Only then, slowly, Lusian exhaled.
He didn't let go. He only loosened his grip.
Elizabeth opened her bloodstained hand. Between her fingers rested a dark ring, like living metal.
"Delora. She won't betray anyone again."
Lusian looked at her as if he didn't understand at first, still trapped in the terror of finding her like this. Then, with a steady—though still rigid—hand, he took the ring.
"You could have died," he said, his voice hard, unmasked. It wasn't reproach.
It was fear.
Elizabeth lowered her gaze—not out of guilt.
But out of something deeper:
if he knew what she is now…
that fear would only grow.
And she didn't know if she could bear it.