Knight took a lunging breath. The scent of dry thatch and rooftop dust anchored his focus, turning his panic into a cold, predatory stillness. His enhanced vision locked onto the massive silhouette of the commander sitting atop the warhorse in the center of the street.
With his left hand, he agitated the wound on his shoulder, drawing fresh blood. The faint golden mist began to evaporate again, but this time, Knight didn't let it simply drift back into his status window. He focused every ounce of his will, forcing that shimmering energy to coalesce into the jagged wooden splinter in his grip.
'If blood is the trigger... then let it be the fuel!'
The rotted wood suddenly pulsed with a dull golden radiance, hardening and sharpening until it possessed the lethal edge of a steel dirk. Knight tensed every muscle. Waiting for the moment the guard below turned his back, he twisted his torso and hurled the enchanted splinter with everything he had.
WHIZ!
The wood cut through the air, silent and blurringly fast. It missed the horse's head, his original target but found a mark far more devastating. It plunged directly into the pitch-black warhorse's eye.
NEIGH-HHH-RRRR!
The stallion let out a soul-shredding shriek of agony. It reared back, flailing its forelegs in a blind frenzy. Caught off guard, the commander lost his seating and was thrown from the saddle, hitting the dirt with a bone-jarring THUD that rattled the nearby windows.
"Commander! Ambush!"
Chaos erupted. The scattered knights abandoned their posts, sprinting toward the center of the street to shield their fallen leader. The perimeter was suddenly, beautifully wide open.
Knight didn't waste the opening. He slid down the roof, silent as a shadow, and set his sights on a torch-bearer who was lagging behind the rest. The knight heard a faint scuff and spun around, but all he saw was a flash of silver emerging from the dark.
SQUELCH.
Knight's blade found the narrow gap at the throat of the plate armor. The man died instantly, his muffled gurgle drowned out by the chaos. The torch hit the dirt with a hiss and flickered out.
[Notification: You have gained 1 Fragment (Total: 8/1,000)]
Two more.
Knight wrenched the blade free and shoved the body into a thicket of bushes. He looted a second longsword from the corpse, gripping one in each hand. The weight felt right, balanced, aggressive. Instinct told him this was how he was meant to fight.
But the window of opportunity was closing. The commander had hauled himself up, drawing a massive greatsword. His icy blue eyes burned with a lethal fury as he scanned the ruins.
"He's there! Search the alleys to the left! Rip him out of the shadows!"
Three knights detached from the main group and charged toward Knight's hiding spot. The silent hunt was over. This was a brawl for survival.
He looked at his shoulder, the wound was knitting together slowly, but exhaustion was beginning to fray his edges.
'Fine... come and become part of my strength.'
Knight stepped out from the shadows, his dual blades catching the moonlight in a cold, murderous glint. He stood his ground as the three knights closed in.
The first knight lunged with a lightning-fast thrust. Knight parried with his right blade and counter-stabbed with his left, but the second knight moved in to block the strike. Simultaneously, the third attacker dropped low, swinging his blade in a sweeping arc meant to sever Knight's right arm.
Knight spun, dodging the limb-clearing blow by a hair, but the steel still bit into his forearm. Snarling, he used the momentum of his pirouette to slash at the third man's neck, only to be parried by the first knight's recovery.
'Dammit!' Knight roared internally. A heavy overhead strike came crashing down, aimed at his skull. He jerked his head aside, but the blade buried itself deep into his left shoulder.
A white-hot agony seared through his nerves as the heavy steel bit through chainmail and bone. It was a gruesome sound, the tearing of meat and metal. But instead of buckling, Knight's rage hit a breaking point. His survival instinct, crushed to its limit, detonated into a surge of raw power.
[Notification: 'Adrenaline Surge' Active!][Fragments (8/1,000) are boiling...]
"You..." Knight bellowed, the sound so primal the three knights actually flinched. "You're the ones who are going to die!"
He didn't pull away from the sword still lodged in his shoulder. Instead, he lunged into it, closing the distance so the knight couldn't retract the blade. His right hand, gripping the longsword, flared with a dull golden aura before he delivered a brutal, upward slash from an impossible angle.
SHLICK.
Knight's blade sheared through the gap between the man's pauldron and gorget. The armored head was launched from the shoulders, followed by a geyser of crimson that painted Knight's face in gore.
[Notification: You have gained 1 Fragment (Total: 9/1,000)]
The remaining two knights stood paralyzed for a heartbeat, horrified by the sheer savagery. Knight didn't give them time to breathe. Using the adrenaline to drown out the agony in his shoulder, he spun, hurling his left-hand sword at the man who had tried to maim him earlier.
CLANG!
The knight raised his blade just in time to deflect it, but it was a feint. Knight dropped the vibrating hilt, lunged forward, and grabbed the man's breastplate with his bare hand, wrenching him into a collision. With his right hand, he drove his remaining sword through a crack in the armor's midsection, a weakness created by their earlier clash plunging the steel home with everything he had.
"Gkh...!" The second knight coughed blood into his visor and slumped into Knight's arms.
[Notification: You have gained 1 Fragment (Total: 10/1,000)]
[Conditions Met: Unlocking 'Starting Talent' for the Child of Prophecy...]
In that instant, the world turned into a blinding, monochromatic gold. The sounds of the battlefield fell into a vacuum, replaced by the heavy, rhythmic thrum of Knight's own heart. An immense pressure erupted from his core, so potent that the final knight recoiled in sheer, instinctual terror.
[Congratulations! You have obtained the Starting Talent: "Eyes of Judgment".]
[Ability: Grants vision of enemy weak points and attack trajectories 0.5 seconds into the future.]
Knight's eyes flared into a brilliant gold, etched with concentric black rings. He saw a faint red thread snaking out from the last knight's heart, visible through the seams of his plate armor as the man raised his sword for a final, desperate charge.
"Too slow," Knight whispered.
He slipped past the descending blade as if he were dancing through rain. With a single, economical step, he drove his sword through the man's heart, following the red thread to its end.
[Notification: You have gained 1 Fragment (Total: 11/1,000)]
The corpse hit the dirt at his feet. Knight stood gasping amidst the carnage, the wound in his shoulder knitting together with a speed visible to the naked eye. Golden vapor swirled around him, washing away the fatigue.
But the silence was short-lived. The heavy, rhythmic clanking of the remaining army and the maddened roar of the commander echoed from the main street.
"You monster! I will butcher you into ten thousand pieces!"
The commander, clad in midnight plate, erupted from the shadows. His massive greatsword was wreathed in a chilling, ethereal blue flame, a power so overwhelming the very air around him began to fracture.
The earth shattered beneath the commander's feet with every stride. The sheer spirit pressure was so thick Knight felt the oxygen being squeezed from his lungs. The blue-flamed blade carved a lethal arc through the air, shearing through the corner of a wooden house like a hot knife through butter.
"DIE!!!"
[Eyes of Judgment: Active!]
In Knight's vision, the world slowed to a crawl. A dozen red threads sprouted from the commander's form, but unlike the grunts, these threads were vibrating, shifting their trajectories constantly, a sign of a master combatant.
Knight tilted his head, the blue flame singeing the tip of his nose by a fraction of a millimeter. He didn't retreat. He ducked under the steel giant's reach, thrusting his sword toward the commander's armpit, the weak point the golden eyes had pinpointed.
CLANG!
The commander twisted mid-air, using his steel elbow to parry Knight's blade away before delivering a devastating kick to Knight's chest.
"Gkh!" Knight was launched backward, smashing through the wall of a ruined hut. Wood splintered and collapsed over him. Blood sprayed from his mouth, and the agony of cracked ribs made his golden vision flicker and haze.
"You think a pair of strange eyes can save you from a man who has walked a hundred battlefields?" the commander roared, stalking toward the wreckage with his flaming blade. "I'll pluck those eyes out and mount them on my banner!"
Knight hauled himself out of the debris. The golden vapor of the [Fragments] began to boil. It wasn't just healing him anymore; it was fusing with his muscle and bone. Heat surged through his veins until faint golden runes began to etch themselves onto his skin.
'0.5 seconds isn't enough... I need to be faster... stronger!'
He wrenched his last sword from the dirt. He didn't hold it in a standard guard; instead, he plunged the blade into the earth, funneled every fragment of energy he possessed into the steel until the blade shrieked with vibration.
[Notification: 'Skill Evolution' detected.][Fusing 11 Fragments with Pure Malice...]
The four remaining knights closed in for the kill. Knight flashed a smile that looked more demonic than any monster. His golden eyes emitted twin beams of light.
"COME ON!!!"
Knight detonated. He blurred forward like a cannonball, his speed leaving afterimages in the dust. His blade, wreathed in golden light, carved a cross through the air, shattering the plate armor of the first two knights into a cloud of shrapnel and gore.
[Notification: You have gained 2 Fragments (Total: 13/1,000)]
Sensing the shift, the commander gathered every ounce of blue flame into his greatsword and brought it down in a finishing move: "Eternal Frost Sentence!" A wave of absolute zero surged toward Knight, seeking to freeze his very soul.
But the frenzied Knight didn't dodge. He raised his bare left hand, glowing with golden light, and caught the flaming blade directly.
BOO-OOO-OM!!!
The collision leveled the surrounding huts. The massive greatsword was halted mid-air by the bare hand of a boy with no armor. Knight's left hand was scorched to the bone, but his Eyes of Judgment saw it clearly now the thick, pulsing red thread connected directly to the commander's heart.
"It's over..."
Knight slid his blade through the crack in the commander's visor, driving the steel through the eye and deep into the skull.
[Notification: You have slain the 'Red Cross Commander' (Sub-Boss)!][Notification: You have obtained 50 Fragments (Total: 63/1,000)]
The armored titan collapsed, the earth shivering one last time. In the hollow silence that followed, Knight stood among the dead. His breath was a heavy, broken rasp. His left arm hung uselessly at his side, devoid of feeling.