The Knight’s Legacy

The grey mist abruptly contracted, swirling into a bronze sarcophagus nestled in a corner of the crypt.

The lid, encrusted with verdigris, rattled violently before being pushed open from within, revealing pallid finger bones that clamped onto the sarcophagus’s rim.

Slowly, a Black-Armored Divine Guard sat upright, its eyes glowing with a spectral, grey-green luminescence.

This was undoubtedly the wizard’s handiwork, a resurrection spell for the dead.

Judging by the age of the Divine Guard’s armor, if such an ancient entity was reanimated by dark magic, the situation would likely prove extremely troublesome.

Westir cried out, his face alight with excitement.

“I have the holy relic!”

He hoisted the relic casket high, its lid ajar, revealing a translucent, elongated object inside, shimmering with a pale, ethereal glow.

“The First Bishop’s finger bone!”

Upon seeing this, the Black-Armored Divine Guard urgently leaped from its sarcophagus, a rasping, guttural growl rumbling from its throat.

Astonishingly, it reached down, snapped a rib bone from its own body, and hurled it directly at Westir!

The rib bone sliced through the air, piercing Westir’s right shoulder with imperceptible speed.

A ferocious burst of purple flame erupted, and Westir’s cries turned into a succession of tragic wails as he was instantly engulfed, becoming a man ablaze.

Paresha’s shout was laced with a sob.

“Don’t you dare touch my brother!!!”

Her short sword, fueled by fury, cleaved into the Divine Guard’s nape.

Yet, the creature remained utterly unfazed, letting out a mocking, guttural sound at her.

With merely a swing of its arm, Paresha, struck in the jaw, was sent flying backward like a broken puppet, crashing against a stone pillar before falling silent.

Saranya caught Paresha’s limp body, discovering a significant indentation where her collarbone should have been.

Saranya exclaimed, “Old Divine Guard, do you even realize what you’re doing? One’s a bishop’s successor, the other a future priest! If you eliminate both of them, how do you expect to remain in the Church’s good graces?!”

The creature responded with a guttural, “K-gagh—goo-ah—”

‘Hmm… it seems it truly doesn’t understand human speech.’

The Black-Armored Divine Guard crouched low beside the sarcophagus, its rear end jutting out as it rummaged within, retrieving a broken sword.

It then resumed its shambling advance.

‘!’

‘The enemy is here, and I’m the only one left standing on the field.’

A sigh escaped her lips.

‘Am I… am I really going to fight?’

As a knight, her daily, incremental training, combined with her highly competitive sword-fighting experiences in university club fencing matches, seemed to have undergone a marvelous chemical reaction within her.

The principles of swordsmanship materialized in her mind, connecting like constellations.

Swordsmanship, an art of lethal precision, embodied the ancient wisdom of countless predecessors.

It wasn’t merely a flamboyant display of rote techniques, like a chuunibyou (TL Note: A Japanese slang term referring to a “middle school second-year syndrome,” characterized by exaggerated delusions of grandeur or special powers), but rather applied physics etched into one’s very muscles.

If one had to summarize it, it could be distilled into the synthesis of four key elements: Posture, distance, timing, and leverage.

Saranya lowered her center of gravity, adopting a T-stance.

She raised her sword hilt above her head, assuming a high guard, the blade reflecting a dazzling, cold gleam.

The Divine Guard’s broken sword, imbued with a foul stench, cleaved towards Saranya.

Saranya stepped forward to meet it, her blade descending in a diagonal slash from its high position.

The edge precisely struck the middle of the enemy’s sword, sending sparks flying as she pressed down on its broken blade, thereby exposing the seam between the enemy’s breastplate and shoulder guard.

‘To meet a cut with a cut, the higher cut prevails.’

“Tsk—”

Her longsword bypassed the armor plates, plunging into the Divine Guard’s armpit.

While a fatal blow for the living, it was not so for the undead.

Thus, Saranya immediately twisted her wrist to withdraw her sword, simultaneously retreating to create distance.

A buzzing sound resonated by her ear as the Divine Guard’s elbow strike barely grazed her hair.

Several strands were shorn off by the bony elbow, spiraling away into the distance.

“G-roooar!”

The broken sword suddenly erupted with purple flames.

The Divine Guard roared, its right arm twisting and folding at an unnatural angle, propelling its weapon in a cleaving attack towards Saranya!

Saranya’s pupils constricted, and she let out a sharp cry.

She vertically raised her longsword with force, its crossguard sweeping past her forehead, catching the enemy’s attack in a crown guard.

Purple flames surged over her head, making her flinch from the searing heat.

The Divine Guard’s broken sword was trapped within her crossguard, unable to disengage for a moment.

Saranya twisted her sword hilt, slapping the enemy across the face with the flat of her blade.

Seizing the opponent’s moment of disarray, she swiftly circled to the side and swung the hilt, smashing it against the back of its head.

Following a crisp crack of bone, the Divine Guard’s helmet clattered to the ground.

Saranya exerted force from both high and low, stomping a foot onto the Divine Guard’s knee pit, and another sound of shattering bone echoed.

The Black-Armored Divine Guard crashed to the ground.

Beneath its cracked eye sockets, the grey-green luminescence flickered, on the verge of extinguishing.

Just then, the Divine Guard’s lower jaw trembled, and it astonishingly uttered words:

“K-er—fen—”

“Eh?!”

Saranya’s face registered surprise, for the name the Divine Guard mumbled was precisely her surname.

“Your… eyes…”

Saranya blinked her eyes, her pupils a rare and beautiful ice-blue, much like the sacred moonlight reflected in the frozen surface of a mirror lake on a full moon night in the Empire’s northern lands.

“Finally… Saranya… Kerfen…”

“How fares… the Northern Front…?”

Saranya’s heart skipped a beat.

The Northern Front, Kerfen—those were matters from her father’s era.

How could a Divine Guard from some obscure little chapel know about them?

And how could it coincidentally encounter her here?

Such a coincidence was utterly impossible.

In truth, her ascent to the position of Imperial Legion Commander was partly due to her individual talent and diligence, but also, her lineage was an indispensable prerequisite.

Duke Tylo Kerfen, her father, once governed the Northern United Duchy, a territory situated on the Empire’s frontier.

It was their homeland, vast and sparsely populated, lacking in resources, and frequently subjected to raids by northern barbarians and snow beasts.

Her father, a sagacious and diligent man, ensured that under his leadership, the Imperial Third Legion, ‘Winter’s Horn,’ the local militia, and various mercenary groups who rallied to their call, united to consistently defeat powerful foes, avert crises, and contain threats beyond the national borders.

She still remembered how, as a child, she adored attending banquets.

In the flickering candlelight of the grand hall, northerners would gather around long tables, feasting and reveling.

Her father would always give her and her brother, Mejga, a glass of strong liquor each, urging them to drink it all in one gulp.

“Saranya, look how spirited your brother is! He’ll surely be a strong warrior someday!”

“Father! I’m a girl!”

“What’s wrong with being a girl? Here, girls hunt and fight just like boys. Think about it: when the villains invade, will they care if you’re a boy or a girl?”

“Hmph! Well… if brother’s a warrior, then I’ll be a Legion Commander!”

Her father’s hearty laughter seemed to still echo in her ears.

Those happy days stretched on for a very, very long time… so long that she had believed they would last forever.

The Age of Calamity arrived.

Barbarians invaded en masse, dark creatures launched night raids, and hordes of snow monsters migrated, wantonly slaughtering people and livestock.

Castles teetered on the brink of collapse, yet the Imperial capital refused to send reinforcements…

****

The grey-green light in the Black-Armored Divine Guard’s eyes gradually dimmed.

Just as the light was about to extinguish, its entire skull burst open with a resounding boom.

A large swath of purple flames, mixed with a wisp of grey mist, vividly conjured an illusion before Saranya.

Within the illusion, a middle-aged Black-Armored Knight knelt on one knee, silver strands interwoven in his dark hair.

He reached out to receive a sleeping girl.

Opposite him stood two figures: her father and her brother.

“Duke, Young Master Mejga, I swear to you that no one will harm young Saranya on this journey, as long as a single breath remains in my body…”

The illusion dissipated, and the figures of the knight and the Divine Guard gradually merged.

What Saranya found most unbearable was realizing she had absolutely no memory of the person before her.

‘How could it be… not a single memory?’

Tears streamed down, dampening the knight’s black armor.

The armor was dull and scuffed, marred with dents and scratches, yet it still retained its solemn dignity.

“What… what is your name…?”

She knew the knight could no longer speak to answer her.