Leave a comment

–––Diaria’s viewpoint

I spoke to the empty air ahead, and the reply was only audible by me. That was my partner Sol, also known as Behemoth the Earth Spirit, and was one of the Four Great Spirits. If I used some of his power, I would easily be able to thrash around the incoming knights.

“Until you’re about to run out of time. I want them to feel true fear.”
“…Understood.”

Thanks to my training, I became able to materialize Sol for a bit of time. But even that short time depleted most of my mana. If I ran out of mana, I would be unable to fight or even walk, which would be an issue, but aiming for that sweet spot when I used it for long enough while having just enough mana to continue moving was tricky.

I could see a group of riders heading towards the belltower I was on. Clouds of dust rose behind them as they sped through the city’s streets, making quite an impactful scene. But something appeared in front of them, before they reached their destination. It had a reddish and muscular body, terrifying fangs, and a magnificent mane on its back. Just seeing it made one doubt if escaping alive was an option, and the knights quickly fell into disarray.

“Wh-where did this monster come from?!”
“My horse won’t listen to me!”
“This is bad! We have to-”

The only mercy I had for them was to let them die without needing to suffer much. While chaos spread through the knights, Sol dashed towards them and did not slow down even after getting close, brandishing his claws and fangs to tear through the bodies of the knights. The huge claws tore through the knights and the horses, creating wide sprays of blood. Sol’s jaws also bit off the upper halves of some knights. Those who received blunt impacts were sent flying like leaves in the wind. The majority of the knights had been reduced to nondescript piles of flesh in less than a second.

“Grrr…”
“Hiee-?!”

Sol stopped and turned around after reaching the end of the knight formation. A knight that was still mounted was too scared to even run away seeing Sol’s terrifying blood-stained body, clumsily falling down from his horse and helplessly wetting his pants.

“Ugh…! I’m reaching my limit already…”

Sol continued his rampage. The majority of the knights had died in the first strike, some of the survivors had managed to pull themselves together and run into other streets. Sol killed everyone he could while we had time, but there were so many of them that it was impossible for him to follow everyone. But there were plenty of badly injured knights on the street, and other bleeding pulps that used to be knights scattered around. Even if they were not completely annihilated, a good number of them had been killed.

(Sol, go back.)
(Got it.)

After his rampage, Sol vanished without a trace, and the handful of survivors believed they were safe and scrambled to run the way they came. It was funny watching them run while leaving a trail of tears, drool, and maybe even urine. It was clear they had been shook to their core by what they saw.

“…Huh?”

I felt relief washing over me as I thought things had finally ended. I had not realized how exhausting taking care of all this was. But I had to get on the move soon. They had found out my location here, so if I remained up here they would eventually attack me. Getting up here had been really easy before, but now I struggled to move properly and it took me some time to finally descend to the ground.

“Hahh… I’m beat. I should check back on those two and get some sleep-”

I muttered to myself, but then I heard a swishing sound behind me and instinctively rolled forwards and flipped around to look back. There was a knight with his sword unsheathed there.

“A black knight…! I thought you all ran away!”
“You really thought we were all cowards? I don’t know who you are or where you came from, but you really did a number on us. I need to pay you back or I won’t be able to live with myself.”

The black knight stared at me with concentrated enmity. Fighting him in this state was going to be tricky, but after looking at him more closely I realized he was not in perfect shape either. Blood trickled from his mouth, he was limping and dragging one mangled foot, and his hand with the sword trembled, sweat beading up on his cheek.

“Hmph! I’m not worried about my wounds. An elf is no threat from this close up, there’s nothing you can do! I’ll take revenge for all my friends you killed!”

Even though he was part of such an evil group, he tried to act righteously. If that sense of justice spread further than his close network of friends, I’m sure we’d all be living in peace now, so I unsheathed my sword with some annoyance. The black knight stepped forward and swung his sword, but it carried little weight. If I was in perfect shape I’d easily be able to dodge and counterattack, but the best I could do was block it now.

“Give up! There’s nothing you can do anymore!”
“I don’t want to! I’m too stubborn!”

Every blow I blocked shaved off some of my remaining energy. I failed to fully block other attacks as well, which created small cuts on my body. I could no longer borrow Sol’s power either. I was cornered! My only option left was to gamble my choices away and attempt to stab his heart while being ready to receive a powerful blow as well. Getting badly hurt was better than dying. I took a deep breath to steel my resolve and readied to charge at him, when I heard a loud shout from behind him.

“Ahhhhh!”
“Wha-”
“Who’s-?!”

Simon came running with his sword pointed forward. He did not look at me, focusing solely on stabbing the black knight with the full weight of his body. The black knight was taken by surprise and tried to attack back, but Simon was running way too fast for that. By the time the black knight’s sword grazed Simon’s shoulder, Simon’s sword had already impaled his body.

“Ghagh! You…little..!”
“Die alreadyyy!”

Simon continued running even after his sword had vanished inside the black knight’s body, pushing him onto the wall of the belltower. The black knight spewed blood, and seemed to attempt saying something, but all he could do was cough more blood.

Soon his body became limp as his life came to an end. Simon’s breath was ragged, his hand trembling with adrenaline as he pulled his sword out and the black knight’s body fell lifelessly on the ground.

“A-Are you okay?”
“…Yes, thanks to you Simon.”

I could not help but smile seeing my unexpected helper. So far I did not feel like Simon was a very combative person, but seeing he had the resolve to act here, now I felt sure that he would one day become a splendid knight.

“Here, hold onto my shoulder.”
“Thanks. But seriously, I’m exhausted.”
“Was it you who summoned that lion spirit? That was incredible. But I guess that’s why you’re with the hero.”
“I’ll explain everything when we get back, so Verna can hear it too. I also have to tell her how brave you were.”

Simon blushed, embarrassed to talk about his own work. But he also looked proud, knowing he had the courage to stand up and fight for once.

But our victory celebration was short-lived. Because of my aching body it took us a long time to reach Simon’s house, and when we got there we were greeted with the news that Verna had been abducted.