Frieren stepped forward onto the battlefield.
Dust settled around her boots.
The remains of Aura's army lay scattered across the ground, unmoving for the moment, waiting for command.
Shamrock turned.
He saw her.
And immediately straightened.
His shoulders pulled back.
His stance sharpened.
The boy who had been breathing hard a second ago now stood tall, sword lowered at his side like a knight before a queen.
Then he stepped in front of her.
"Stand back," Shamrock said.
Frieren blinked.
"I, the Knight King Shamrock, will protect you."
Frieren looked at his back.
Then at Aura.
Then back at his back again.
"…I don't need protection."
Shamrock did not turn around.
"That's exactly what someone in danger would say."
"I'm not in danger."
"Do not worry," he continued, louder now, raising his sword toward Aura, "evil shall not touch you while I still stand."
Frieren stared at him.
'He's not listening at all.'
"I've already fought her before."
"Yes."
"And I can handle it."
"Of course."
"…Then move."
"No."
Frieren's expression remained perfectly flat.
'This is annoying.'
Shamrock planted his feet.
His coat lifted slightly in the wind.
"And I will defeat this demon," he declared, "and liberate all those she has enslaved."
For one brief moment, the battlefield was quiet.
Then—
The air changed.
Frieren's eyes shifted.
Aura's expression tightened.
Mana.
A vast amount of mana.
It burst out of Shamrock all at once.
The pressure rolled across the field in a heavy wave.
The grass bent.
Dust lifted.
Even the dead army paused.
Aura's eyes widened.
"…What?"
Frieren's gaze sharpened.
The mana gathering around Shamrock was absurd.
Dense, bright and overwhelming.
It coiled around his body like invisible armor, so thick that the boy who had seemed empty just moments ago now felt like a completely different being.
[Shamrock's magic was unusual even by the standards of prodigies and monsters.]
[His body naturally suppressed his mana to near zero.]
[It was an unconscious process, one Shamrock himself did not understand.]
[He did not even know he was doing it.]
[His mana simply remained dormant whenever he was at ease.]
[Only when his emotions spiked. Excitement, conviction, battle, delusion did that dormant mana begin to surface.]
Frieren looked at Shamrock again.
Then more carefully.
The boy's coat fluttered behind him.
His stance had changed.
Even the way he held the sword had changed.
Like his body had suddenly caught up to his spirit.
Aura took one step back.
"What are you?"
Shamrock turned his head slightly.
"I just told you."
A smile spread across his face.
"I'm the Knight King."
More mana surged.
This time the ground under his feet cracked.
Aura's fingers tightened around the Scales of Obedience.
Frieren watched in silence.
[Shamrock's magic responded to belief.]
[Or more accurately, delusion.]
[The stronger Shamrock believed in the role he imagined for himself, the more his mana moved to make that role real.]
[If he believed himself a knight, his body became sharper.]
[If he believed himself a protector, his mana hardened to defend.]
[If he believed himself a king, then for a moment, the world around him began to bend to that conviction.]
[It was not logic.]
[It was not discipline.]
[It was self-deception given form through magic.]
[And in battle, that made Shamrock terrifying.]
Shamrock moved.
He vanished.
Aura's eyes widened.
A single undead knight in front of him exploded backward as Shamrock's sword flashed across its chest.
This time he had not struck with the flat.
This time the blade carried light.
A bright silver-gold glow ran along the edge, clean and sharp, like sunlight pulled thin across steel.
The corpse froze.
Then the dark magic in its body shattered.
Its armor clattered empty to the ground.
Aura's smile disappeared.
Shamrock did not stop.
He blurred across the field, faster than before, his boots barely touching the earth. He cut through a spearman, turned, struck down a horseman, then leapt over another corpse and drove his glowing blade straight through the chest of a dead soldier reaching for him.
Each time the sword touched one of Aura's puppets, the same thing happened.
The black control binding them broke.
The bodies dropped.
Still at last.
Freed.
Shamrock's grin widened.
"Yes."
He spun through another rank, sword trailing bright arcs through the air.
"I shall liberate you all!"
Aura's eyes narrowed.
"You're purifying them?"
Shamrock did not answer.
He was already somewhere else.
His blade swept through three undead in one motion. The first collapsed. The second fell in pieces. The third dropped to its knees before the magic binding it unraveled completely.
The field changed in seconds.
What had been an army became a thinning mass.
What had been pressure became panic.
Aura stepped back again.
Her voice came out sharp.
"Stop him!"
The remaining dead surged all at once.
Shamrock met them head-on.
His sword flashed left, then right, then down.
Each strike was simple.
No wasted movement.
Only speed and purpose.
He cut a path through them like light moving through shadow.
Frieren watched quietly.
Her expression stayed flat, but her eyes followed every movement.
'He's gotten faster.'
Not just faster.
Stronger too.
One dead warrior swung a mace at his head.
Shamrock caught the shaft with one hand, ripped it free, then smashed the corpse aside with a kick that sent it tumbling through two more.
Another lunged with a spear.
Shamrock slipped past it and cut the puppet cleanly in half.
The golden light on his blade lingered for a moment after every strike.
Aura felt something she had not expected to feel today.
Fear.
The boy was not stronger than her.
She could sense that much.
His mana was enormous, yes.
Absurd, even.
But not greater than her own.
Still—
He was destroying her army.
No.
Worse.
He was undoing it.
Each corpse she had collected, each puppet she had maintained, each obedient soldier she had carried with her for years—
Gone.
Freed and purified.
Aura's breathing sharpened.
"This is ridiculous."
Shamrock carved through another rank.
Armor broke.
Bodies fell.
Dark magic snapped apart in glittering fragments.
He landed lightly on a broken shield, then launched himself into the last dense cluster of undead.
His coat snapped behind him.
His glowing sword rose high.
"Be at peace!"
The blade came down.
A bright crescent tore through the final line.
The remaining dead froze.
Then collapsed together.
The field went silent.
Only the wind.
And Shamrock, standing in the middle of it with his sword shining in the late light.
Aura stared.
Her army was gone.
Every last one.
Her face had gone pale with fury.
And fear.
Shamrock turned toward her.
His breathing was heavier now.
But the mana around him still surged.
He lifted the sword and pointed it straight at her.
"Now then."
His smile returned.
"It is time for the demon queen to face judgment."
Frieren looked at him.
Then at Aura.
She said nothing.
Aura slowly raised the Scales of Obedience.
The metal gleamed darkly in her hand.
Shamrock took a step forward.
Then another.
Aura's eyes locked onto him.
"I see now," she said.
Her voice had gone cold.
"You're just another monster."
Shamrock frowned.
"That is rude."
Aura opened the scales.
Mana poured from her body.
Vast.
Heavy.
The air around the artifact warped as it activated.
Frieren's gaze sharpened immediately.
"Shamrock."
But he was already moving.
Still in that shining delusion.
Still certain of himself.
Still believing.
"I shall cut down your evil—"
The scales tipped.
And suddenly the battlefield changed.
Shamrock froze.
His eyes widened.
The pressure from the artifact hit him all at once, forcing his mana into direct comparison against Aura's.
The Scales of Obedience did not care about spirit.
They did not care about purity.
They did not care about justice, conviction, or delusion.
They cared only about mana.
And though Shamrock's mana was immense—
It was not enough.
The scales tipped toward Aura.
His body locked in place.
The glowing light along his sword flickered.
Then dimmed.
Shamrock's smile vanished.
"…Huh?"
Aura's breathing steadied.
Then a small, cold smile returned to her face.
"I win."
Shamrock tried to move.
He couldn't.
His fingers twitched against the hilt.
That was all.
The mana around him remained, vast and furious, but his body no longer obeyed him.
Frieren's expression darkened.
Aura looked at Shamrock like she was looking at spoil taken from a battlefield.
"A king?"
She smiled.
"No."
Her voice was soft.
"You're mine now."
Shamrock stood motionless beneath the weight of the scales.
---
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