Valerius felt the impact even before he heard the sound of metal.
When his golden sword collided with the scarlet blade, the force did not dissipate; it flowed down his arms like a tide, making his joints scream.
His feet sank into the gray sand, dragging for nearly a meter as he was forced to step back to keep his balance.
Valerius stabilized his stance, his chest rising and falling in a controlled rhythm.
'He is strong!'
The thought came quickly, devoid of emotion. Valerius tightened his grip on the sword's hilt, feeling the numbness in his fingers.
He spent decades mapping the threats of this desert. He knew the attack patterns of the dune beasts and the crude magic of the nomadic shamans, but that... that was an anomaly.
The Sanguine Knight possessed neither the erratic movement of a monster nor the hesitation of a human.
Valerius remembered the knight's words.
He had mentioned a "Sovereign".
A small smile appeared on the General's face, a feverish gleam beginning to dance in his pupils. Valerius looked at the figure before him, admiring the dark symmetry of that armor that seemed to drink the sunlight.
"Magnificent..." he murmured to himself.
The aura leaking from the monster's body was a physical pressure. It was dense, saturated with a malignant aura so deep that it made the air around it ripple like heat over asphalt.
For a man like Valerius, whose life was dedicated to purification, that presence was the apex of his existence.
The darker the shadow, the more glorious the light required to erase it.
His fanaticism, normally hidden beneath a restrained layer, began to surface.
The Sanguine Knight did not respond. He simply took a step forward, the tip of the red sword tracing a shallow line in the sand.
Valerius advanced first.
His first strike was a horizontal arc, fast and precise, aimed at the creature's neck.
CLANG!
The knight blocked with a short motion, the impact generating a shockwave that scattered dust around them.
"A creature like you should not exist under this sun!" Valerius said, his voice gaining a tone of solemn preaching as he twisted the blade into a second attack.
CLANG!
"Your very presence is a stain upon creation. Can you feel it? The need to be redeemed by sacred fire?"
He did not wait for a response. Valerius channeled mana into his sword, making the blade shine in a blinding white.
"[Sacred Ignition Strike]!"
As he delivered the cut, the golden blade exploded into high-temperature white flames.
The strike was not meant only to cut, but to incinerate the target upon contact.
The Sanguine Knight tilted his body to the side, letting the blade pass centimeters from his visor, and counterattacked with a direct thrust.
Valerius barely dodged the attack, feeling the pressure nearly break his defense. He spun on his own axis, delivering a new sequence of three rapid cuts.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Each of the blows was reinforced with [Astro King's Vigor], increasing the physical weight of his sword with each impact.
Valerius was trying to measure the depth of his opponent's strength.
He struck with the technique of a master, alternating between physical attacks and short bursts of light to blind the enemy, but the Sanguine Knight was an unshakable wall.
The knight moved with an economy of motion equal to the General's own, blocking and deflecting with mechanical precision.
Valerius stepped back two paces, raising his sword into a high guard stance, the golden glow of his aura becoming more intense.
He was still testing the ground, comparing his strength with that monster, but his patience was beginning to transform into a burning need for battle.
He needed to purify that monster!
But the Sanguine Knight remained unmoved.
It was a sight that defied Valerius's logic of combat.
The monster did not seek openings and did not try to counterattack.
He merely deflected.
Each strike of the golden sword was redirected by a minimal movement of the scarlet blade, a play of angles so precise that it made Valerius's effort seem like a waste of energy.
'Is he testing me?"
The perception that he was being... tested struck Valerius like a silent insult.
In response, the General shone even more feverishly.
His solar aura expanded, turning the heat around them into a furnace.
He advanced again, a human silhouette compared to the three meters of metal and shadow that the Sanguine Knight projected over the sand.
Valerius moved like lightning, striking from one side, retreating in a blur of speed to avoid a counterattack that never came, and flanking again.
He was a master of war, but there, moving frantically from one side to the other while the giant barely rotated his torso to follow him, Valerius began to show a controlled desperation.
The smile on his face was fierce, almost insane.
"Why don't you fight, monster?!" Valerius roared, his voice filled with a fanaticism that made him ignore the sweat beneath the armor. "Your existence is a blasphemy!"
He stepped back to a safe distance, planting his feet in the sand and channeling an absurd amount of mana into the center of his blade.
CRACKLE—SNAP!
The air snapped with pressure.
"[Astro King's Sentence]!"
As he delivered the strike, a pillar of solid light shot from the tip of the sword, hitting the exact center of the chest of the Sanguine Knight's armor.
CLANG-DOOOOM!
The impact should have been the end of any opponent; it was an ability designed to disintegrate matter at a molecular level through concentrated solar radiation.
But what happened next left Valerius stunned.
The instant the light touched the scarlet metal, the gaps of the enemy armor expelled a dense red mist.
There was no explosion, nor recoil.
The mist enveloped the light as if it were a starving creature and, in the blink of an eye, the [Astro King's Sentence] simply disappeared.
It was not blocked or reflected; Valerius's mana was drained, sucked away by that dark mist until nothing remained but silence.
"What...?"
Was he also immune?
Two monsters immune to magic?
Valerius staggered for a second, his arms suddenly light from the lack of mana in the blade.
The shock in his eyes was visible.
The confusion, however, was quickly crushed by denial.
"Impossible!"
In a surge of adrenaline and fury, he did not allow the enemy to breathe. Valerius leapt forward, attempting a rapid chain attack, delivering a series of desperate thrusts at the joints of the armor, searching for any point that cursed mist could not reach.
Clang!
He was a blur trying to pierce a mountain of metal, his breathing now loud and heavy, while the Sanguine Knight continued to merely...
Observe.
"REE-EEEEEEEEEE—!!"
Valerius was about to begin a new cycle of attacks when another scream of panic shattered the bubble of his duel.
The sound was not of martial determination, but of absolute terror.
The General glanced away briefly, and what he saw made his composure falter.
That mass of humanoid flesh, The Sutured, was not still.
While Valerius was busy with the Sanguine Knight, the soldiers were still fighting, he had simply been too focused to notice.
The creature was now running through the imperial lines, leaving a trail of destruction difficult to ignore.
"He's immune! The spells don't work!"
The Sutured stopped in front of one of the elite mages. Before the man could conjure a barrier, the massive stitched hand of the creature closed around his skull.
The mage was lifted from the ground like a rag doll, his legs swinging frantically in the air, until the monster hurled him.
"Waagghh—!"
The mage's body flew in a low trajectory, hitting a group of soldiers with a dull and violent impact.
CRASH-CLANG!!
The sound of metal armor colliding and the groans of pain that followed echoed through the valley, breaking the vanguard's structure.
"Keep calm! Close the formation!" Lucio roared, his voice failing as he tried to contain the rout.
The vice-commander drew his blade, trying to advance against The Sutured, but the army's discipline had become its own trap.
The soldiers gathered in defensive circles, each protecting the other's back, but their eyes were not on the monster ahead of them, but turned to the sky with primitive fear.
Above them, the Dragonfly Hunter was an invisible executioner because of its speed.
BZZZZZZZZZZ!
The sound of its wings beating at high frequency had become unbearable, a sonic vibration that made the noses and ears of dozens of soldiers bleed beneath their helmets.
Suddenly, a silhouette fell from the clouds of dust.
"NOOOO-AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH—!"
CRUNCH.
It was a soldier, released from the claws of the winged monster. He fell screaming, a sound that tore through the air until the sudden impact against the ground, where silence replaced his despair forever.
"Shoot that damned thing down! Aerial attack now!" Lucio shouted, his eyes red with rage and frustration.
He fired energy slashes upward, trying to hit the dragonfly's trail, while ordering the twelve mages to regroup.
But the count was already wrong; they were no longer twelve.
"Protect the mages! Reorganize!"
Lucio's orders, however, were lost in the chaos.
The soldiers were too busy trying to flee from the path of The Sutured.
The abomination walked among them with a terrifying calm, swinging its long heavy arms like flesh flails.
With each movement, three or four men were thrown in opposite directions, flying for meters before hitting the sand.
CRUNCH-CHREEE!
The constant sound of armor being crushed and bones breaking formed the melody of that one-sided massacre.
Valerius turned his face back to the Sanguine Knight, his breathing now heavy.
He realized that while he was losing himself in his fanaticism and technique, his army was being dismantled.
"What the hell are you?!" Valerius roared. The question tore out from between clenched teeth, almost disappearing beneath the crash of another suit of armor being crushed by The Sutured in the background.
But the Sanguine Knight did not respond.
"Bastard!"
The General advanced again, but now technical elegance had given way to blind ferocity.
The light emanating from his body was no longer a constant glow; it came in a series of violent and unstable pulses, like a star about to collapse.
CLAANG!
He struck the scarlet blade with a force that could have split a wall in half, only to feel the dry and absolute recoil.
The Sanguine Knight still did not move.
That three-meter monster merely made minimal, almost casual gestures with his sword.
A slight twist of the wrist here, an imperceptible sidestep there.
It was a silent insult that was eroding Valerius's sanity.
"ATTACK! WHY WON'T YOU ATTACK, DAMN YOU?!"
The General's scream echoed through the valley, mixing with the cacophony of horror behind him.
Valerius began to conjure everything his repertoire allowed.
"[Grand Plasma Explosion]! [Judgment Cut]!"
The battlefield was flooded by a pyrotechnic display of power.
White flames and golden shockwaves exploded against the Sanguine Knight's armor, illuminating the desert as if noon itself had descended upon the earth.
But beneath the glare of his own abilities, the sound of reality was impossible to ignore.
In the background, he could hear the chorus of the condemned.
Groans of deep pain, interrupted screams and, worst of all: the voices coming from the sky.
He heard a sharp cry, distant high above, that grew louder as gravity did its work, becoming an ear-splitting scream of pure terror before the dull impact against the sand.
"AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH—!!"
THUD.
The scream stopped instantly. The silence that followed was filled by the rhythmic and hateful sound of the Dragonfly Hunter's wings.
Valerius struck again, his golden blade cracking as it collided with the red steel.
"DIE! JUST BURN!"
He was losing control.
His attacks, although destructive, were becoming sloppy from exhaustion and fury.
With every explosion of light he created, he saw, from the corner of his eye, the spells of his mages striking The Sutured.
Fire, lances of light, and explosions of pure mana engulfed the abomination of flesh, but the soldiers' screams remained the same.
"It's not working! He doesn't feel anything! He won't stop—!"
Valerius heard the metallic sound of armor being crushed as if it were tin cans, followed by cries for help that died in the men's throats.
The General delivered one last descending strike, putting the full weight of his body and the remainder of his mana into the blade.
The Sanguine Knight simply raised his sword with one hand, stopping the attack in midair.
The shockwave of the collision pushed the sand away, but the monster did not even sway.
Valerius looked up, the sweat burning his eyes, his sanity hanging by a thread.
He realized, with growing horror, that he was fighting with everything he had, while the Sanguine Knight had not even begun to truly fight.
"What... what are you?" he repeated, his voice failing now, while in the background another dull thud indicated that another of his soldiers had hit the ground.
The Sanguine Knight, who until then had remained like a statue of ice before Valerius's fury, slightly tilted his helmet.
A low sound escaped from behind the visor, a dry murmur that cut through the noise of the explosions of light.
"Merely servants."
Before Valerius could process the weight of those words, the crimson knight inhaled deeply.
The air around him seemed to be sucked into that armor and then a powerful and supernatural voice exploded, making the very dune tremble.
"FINISH THIS ALREADY!"
The shout was directed at The Sutured and the Dragonfly Hunter, but the impact paralyzed Valerius.
The General, caught off guard by the sudden breaking of the silence, felt his heart skip a beat.
He took the opening to look back again, expecting to see his troops reorganizing.
What he saw was the end of his sanity.
Almost all of his two hundred men were scattered across the gray sand.
Piles of bodies. Elite soldiers lay in unnatural positions, the armor of Solis crushed.
Some groaning as they tried, unsuccessfully, to stand up with broken limbs.
Lucio, a few meters away, had bloodshot eyes, red with pure fear and fury.
He looked at Valerius for a second that felt like an eternity — a look carrying the accusation of someone abandoned to his own fate. Without saying a word, the vice-commander turned his back and began to run.
'Fuck this shit!'
Lucio's thoughts were a storm of pure survival instinct.
The General couldn't even make that monster in red armor retaliate!
He gave it everything he had and the creature didn't even move!
Lucio ran, feeling the weight of the armor slowing his steps in the sand.
He had seen the abomination of flesh, The Sutured, walk through sacred flames as if they were flower petals. He had seen the spears of his best men bounce off the gray skin without leaving a single scratch.
And there was that demon in the sky!
That thing that harvested men from the ground like grains, only to hear the sound of their bodies seconds later hitting the ground.
The sound was unbearable.
In an act of desperation and pure horror, Lucio brought his hands to his ears beneath the helmet and closed his eyes as he ran, desperately trying to erase the world around him.
He didn't want to see the sky anymore.
He didn't want to hear the sound of metal anymore.
He only wanted to be anywhere those monsters could not reach him.
Back in the center of the valley, Valerius felt his knee weaken.
The army of the Solis Empire was now nothing more than a trail of wreckage across the sand.
The Sanguine Knight turned his attention back to him, the red sword still immaculate, without a single sign that it had been under the General's frantic assault all that time.
"Your mistake." the metallic voice of the Sanguine Knight echoed, now with deadly calm, "was believing you could face the Sovereign."
'Sovereign?'
That name again!
Valerius tasted blood in his mouth and let out a hoarse laugh, a weak sound that barely carried the authority it once had.
He leaned on the cracked sword to keep from collapsing, looking at the Sanguine Knight with a challenge that bordered on delirium.
"Monsters..." he murmured, his strength exhausted. "Do you think this ends here? I am just a soldier. This... this is only a small force of the Empire. There are generals more talented, purifiers more powerful than me... men who will make this desert shine until every one of your shadows is incinerated. The routes will be cleansed. The Sun cannot be—"
Valerius stopped his speech.
His words died in his throat when the ground beneath his boots began to vibrate rhythmically.
A massive, misshapen, heavy shadow fell over him, swallowing the golden light of his armor.
The General slowly turned his body, his neck cracking from the tension. Valerius had to tilt his head completely back to face that visage.
The creature stood only a few centimeters away, exhaling the putrid odor of old flesh.
Up close, the stitches were even more grotesque, black threads that seemed to pulse beneath the gray, dead skin.
Valerius swallowed hard.
The panic he had been suppressing with fanaticism finally overflowed.
'Oh God.'