Chapter 47 - Requiem

“She... stopped?”

“... Impossible.”

Watching the scene, Noel and Katya cried out in astonishment at the same time. And no wonder—the spirit that had been rampaging so terribly a moment ago had abruptly come to a halt.

And the spirit’s gaze remained fixed on the flag wrapped around Aiden’s body. The flag bearing a lion. The flag of the Empire.

[—]

Ragged breaths came from beneath the visor spilling red light.

Gone was the mindless monster charging at Noel. Gone was the human-shaped tank rampaging through every obstacle in its path.

What lay in those eyes was unmistakably—

‘The final line.’

Even in this state. Even when she had clearly lost her reason, when she was so far from her right mind that she had lost even the ability to speak, there was a line she would never cross.

The Lord Protector. A knight who defended her nation.

It seemed a knight who had lived bearing that title remembered the pride she had built even after death.

The Lord Protector would not harm the symbol of the Empire.

Nor would she harm those who bore it.

‘Just as I thought.’

Start with one simple premise.

A spirit could manifest in the physical realm only if it had an intense wish left unfulfilled in life. And the stronger that wish, the more powerful its manifestation.

No matter what devils or demons—the scenario’s main enemies—had interfered, that was a fundamental rule.

Put another way, however capable they were of reviving spirits through techniques approaching resurrection, they could not twist that fundamental wish itself.

In short, even if they had implanted the suggestion that harming Noel meant protecting the Empire, they clearly had never managed to shake the identity underlying it: protecting the Empire.

“...”

Aiden silently looked into her eyes, glowing like red lanterns.

Not one description of the Lord Protector he could remember mentioned such a phenomenon. It was plainly unlike anything she had displayed in life.

It had to be evidence of some kind of madness taking root. She would be incapable of remaining in her right mind.

Implanting a suggestion to harm someone—especially someone as precious as Noel—in a person this upright could never have been easy.

They must have subjected her to curses and corruption for a long time, to the point where shattering her mind would have been easier.

And yet the Lord Protector—Dame Teresa Adelaite—had never done anything to disgrace her name, even with her mind broken.

“I’m sorry.”

Aiden quietly offered that apology once more.

How could anyone fail to praise her?

To the very, very end. Beyond death, with her mind clouded and even her spirit steeped in filth and corruption, this knight had never lost her pride. She had fought this desperately to defend the Empire.

She had acted without bringing the slightest shame upon her title: Lord Protector, the knight who defended her nation.

And what Aiden was exploiting now was that brilliantly shining pride.

He owed her an apology. To this knight who could not bring herself to strike him, who was holding back her body’s urge to lunge with every ounce of her strength.

But even so...

‘... I can’t let someone like her kill her own family with her own hands.’

That was all the more reason he had to defeat her here.

Aiden raised his sword. Supernatural power circulated through his body.

—...

First came The First Vow, followed by the pure-white energy mixed into it.

—...!!

The two supernatural powers blended and were reborn as the Guardian’s Flame, producing far greater firepower than either original.

That alone gave him nearly twice his original firepower, but now—

Divinity Manipulation: Detonation.

The energy enveloping him instantly grew more than twice as strong. And then—

Spiral - Bore.

He applied Shaping to that refined supernatural power, following the manipulation technique he had copied from the prince.

—...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The powers erupted violently, mixing as they shredded into tiny pieces and began to spin. The Shaping gave anyone watching an instinctive sense that it was growing more dangerous by the moment.

Aiden wound the resulting power around his sword.

There was still one thing left.

‘A sword has two parts.’

The hilt and the blade.

It lacked a revolver’s complex construction, so it could not hold a whole array of powers, but it could hold at least two. He had one final means of enhancement.

‘... Come to think of it.’

Meyer had asked him before. However powerful and polished a technique was, it meant nothing if it failed to connect.

Hadn’t he asked whether Aiden had the skill to land something like that?

Aiden had answered confidently. He was the sort who performed well in real combat, so he was sure he could do it. His senior hadn’t paid him the slightest heed at the time, though.

That made it a shame he couldn’t show him.

Because this was why he had answered that way.

-System Message

▶ ‘Skill: Savior’s Vow’ reacts.

▶ An ‘Enemy of the World’ is detected.

▶ In accordance with ‘Prohibition: Protect the World,’ your supernatural power is enhanced!

Aiden let out a faint laugh at the sight.

‘... As expected.’

He had known this sort of prohibition would work perfectly during the main scenario.

The very journey he was on was one of saving the world.

In this sort of “real combat,” he had the ability to magnify the technique Meyer had crafted for him to dozens of times its original strength.

He saw Katya and Noel’s mouths fall open in unison as dozens of cores burst from all over his body and began orbiting him.

“... What in the—!”

Dozens of cores were a feat barely within reach even for the eminent monks spoken of as legends on the Great Plains. Anyone who saw him produce them on the spot would react that way.

Then that dharmic power flowed into the sword’s hilt.

-System Message

▶ ‘Supernatural Imbuement’ successful. The weapon’s power increases!

With that message appearing as well, Aiden raised his sword.

[—!]

Once the Shaping was complete, the Lord Protector finally tore her attention from the flag and tried to raise her sword to block.

But it was already too late.

The only requirement for this technique was its long activation time. Its flaw was that no opponent would wait for him to finish.

And in the first place, “defending” against this was entirely the wrong response.

He took a deep breath and raised his sword, murmuring the activation words Meyer had taught him.

“Rend them apart.

“Blade of Dawn.”

Then came a single flash.

The tip of his sword blazed.

▣

There were people known as saints.

It was a title given to those who had reached the pinnacle of their respective fields. An epithet bestowed in awe upon those who had traversed the continent.

The Sword Saint, who had subdued the continent with a single rusty blade. The Divine Spear, who had slain a primordial giant with a human body. The Crown Marksman, who had driven off otherworldly calamities raining down from the atmosphere—

The man called the Knight of Dawn also numbered among those saints, and tales of his exploits followed him everywhere, as befitted that standing.

There was one thing all who had witnessed his battles agreed upon.

Watching him fight at night, somewhere without a single light, was like watching someone “divide night from day.”

Wasn’t his very epithet, the Knight of Dawn, said to come from the brilliant light bursting from his weapons whenever he used his techniques?

It was, one might say, his defining hallmark.

Honestly, Noel had thought it was just some bizarre claim left in the records.

Until she saw it herself.

“—!”

Noel gritted her teeth and raised an arm to shield her eyes. Otherwise, the supernatural power blazing from the sword Aiden held was so bright that even she could scarcely keep them open.

There was no other word for it.

‘Dawn...!’

Its intensity was so absurd that she wondered whether the records had actually understated it.

Light so bright that even she, standing at the very pinnacle of superhumans, could barely keep her eyes open.

‘Where in the world did he learn this now...!’

As Noel felt an almost inexplicable sense of injustice toward Aiden, who seemed to churn out things like this whenever she so much as blinked, he swung his sword.

The Guardian’s Flame already possessed tremendous destructive power, being divinity deployed at the density of energy. As it left the tip of his sword, it split into several pieces.

Every one was a furiously spinning spiral, imbued with penetrating power to pierce defensive measures.

The slashes were visibly devastating. Even a superhuman of Noel’s caliber would struggle to recover from a direct hit.

“—!”

But the Lord Protector’s response was no less formidable.

Though it was already too late to react, she somehow manipulated her energy to form matching blades.

Even a barrier would struggle to stop those spirals, so she intended to intercept them instead.

Their trajectories were precise, too. Most of the incoming slashes would be canceled out.

It was an impeccable response: even if she could not block the attack completely, she would certainly avoid a fatal wound.

But Noel’s mouth fell open at the sight unfolding before her.

Those tiny spirals were still splitting, their division accelerating without pause.

From several to dozens.

From dozens to hundreds.

From hundreds to thousands—

“What?!”

It was so ridiculous that Noel said it aloud.

The slashes divided without end. Tiny spirals covered everything in every direction, so numerous that even she could not track all their trajectories.

It was as though the world were being consumed by the flashes lighting their surroundings.

And those divided slashes slipped through the gaps between the slashes the Lord Protector had created in response.

—!!

—!!!!!!

Watching the attack mercilessly pierce that armor, Noel was left utterly speechless.

She now understood exactly how powerful Aiden’s attack was.

‘This is...’

An attack made of divinity amplified to the density of energy spread over an area impossible to evade, targeted openings at vital points, and pierced even defensive measures.

There would be ways to deal with it in actual combat. Leave the area altogether before the user attacked, or interrupt it before it was unleashed—

One could devise ways to handle it without confronting the attack itself.

But if he could unleash it, and if he could land it—and if his opponent happened to be a spirit...

‘A sure kill.’

... There was no other way to describe it.

Even the spirit of a being far greater than the Lord Protector surely could not withstand this!

—!!!!

The Blade of Dawn slipped through the gaps in her armor and engulfed the Lord Protector’s entire body in flame.

With its inherent advantage against spirits, divinity burned far more fiercely than usual the instant it met her spirit form.

The Lord Protector’s movements, so ferocious a moment before, slowed. Her armor gradually crumbled.

“...”

Watching quietly, Aiden lowered his sword.

The wound was already fatal.

Even a Lord Protector strengthened enough to overwhelm Noel could not continue fighting after taking that head-on.

Indeed, the sight of her burning, her entire body in tatters, was agonizing to behold. It was a wonder she had not died instantly.

But...

[...—!]

Even so, the knight would not retreat.

With a battle cry rattling through bloody phlegm, she tried to rise, her will to fight still blazing.

“...”

Aiden watched in silence.

Well. One could call it obstinacy. One could call it a foolish attachment to something already over.

But considering why this woman had manifested here, her resolve deserved better than such dismissal.

Aiden did not know how the Lord Protector’s mind had been disturbed. He did not know what insidious methods the demons had used to unsettle her.

What he did know was that, watching her now, he had the sense that she was clinging on this desperately because she believed continuing the fight meant protecting the Empire.

“Dame Teresa Adelaite.”

And so...

“My home is here, too. My dad and my little sister both live in the Empire.”

Because that was the sort of person she was, there was a promise he, too, needed to make.

“My family, my friends, everyone I know—they’re all here.”

The wish she had left behind was one Aiden could not help but understand deeply.

Noel had said the Lord Protector was like the sun. A knight who treasured nothing more than spending a peaceful day with everyone, regardless of status, age, or gender.

If he had to guess why such a person believed so fervently in the Empire, it would be because of the people within it.

Families and loved ones. People doing their jobs and living honest lives.

Ordinary, everyday people. Powerless but kind.

And the desire to protect those people overlapped so closely with his own reasons for plunging into the madness of saving the world not long ago.

[—]

Beneath the visor, those red eyes stared straight at Aiden.

Could it really be called a glare?

She stood still, listening. No more battle cries escaped her.

She simply stood there, listening to what he had to say.

Meeting her gaze directly, Aiden continued.

“So I promise.”

He summoned Savior’s Vow once more.

Something his father had drummed into him since childhood, something he had learned firsthand as an adult, was that he should always avoid people whose promises were nothing but words.

And Aiden did not want to become an adult people wanted to avoid.

He added one more meaning to the prohibition dwelling within the core of gathered dharmic power.

Following the first prohibition, saving the world, he etched in a second before the Lord Protector’s eyes.

“I’ll protect the Empire for you.”

The Lord Protector’s ideals. The things she had wished to protect.

He would inherit her yearning for those simple, pastoral scenes that he himself dreamed of so dearly.

So he prayed...

“I’ll make sure its people—the powerless but kind people—won’t suffer injustice, either.”

And thus he prayed...

“So...”

Please, now, at last...

“It’s all right to stop fighting.”

Rest in peace.

[—...]

Silence lingered beneath the visor for a long time.

With her sword still pointed at him, the Lord Protector gazed at Aiden for a long while.

At last—

THUD.

Her sword fell from her hand.

The red lantern-glow beneath her visor remained, but the hostility pouring from it had vanished like melting snow.

She was not in her right mind. She had lost the ability to speak. In truth, there was no way to know whether his words had even reached her.

And yet...

[“I’ll trust you.”]

It was as though he had heard those words.

At that same moment, her body crumbled and scattered.

As though the wish she had held so dearly before her death had been fulfilled. As though she had no lingering attachments left.

“...”

“...”

As everyone stood speechless, the Lord Protector’s crumbling spirit revealed the “power source” that had rested within her chest.

Aiden walked into the drifting particles and carefully cradled it in both hands.

Noel blankly murmured its name.

“A... pinwheel...”

The token of a promise she had always made for Noel.

[“I’ll protect the Empire!”]

With this alone—with nothing but her determination to uphold the vow she had sworn—the Lord Protector had endured beyond death.

“...”

The pinwheel cradled in Aiden’s hands, too, soon dissolved into drifting particles.

The token of a promise, bearing a knight’s vow, scattered in every direction. It faded into the far distance. Quietly departed.

Beyond anyone’s interference.