Death was a familiar concept to Leona, she had lost so much up to this point that she didn’t know if she could even shed any more tears. But what differed her from Athena, was that she was loved through and through by everyone who had died by other’s hands. It was inevitable for a noble to be targeted, that much she knew, but with each life taken away from her, a certain sensation of hatred had begun to grow within her. A feeling only the people who experienced the same could understand.

Upon hearing the inventor’s tale she noticed just how much more pain and suffering still existed in the world even after the war. As the sole heir of the Crossford family, she didn’t have any siblings, nor knew about the dynamics of having one since most of the people she knew didn’t have a close sibling whom she could observe. Nevertheless, it made her feel sick, the mere thought of such sin was too much for her to stay collected.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Leona said melancholically, whilst holding the longsword scabbard firmly against her lap. “I can’t begin to imagine how painful it must have been for you.”

Athena stared at her own left palm, opening and closing before settling the same hand on the rifle’s handle beside her.

“I just wish it didn’t have come down to this. My family is just another branch of the main family but still, if my mother really wished to save my brother, she could’ve found a way. Even if that meant begging on the streets.”

Leona glanced back at the swaying crackling fire. She thought back to the time when her mother was still alive, teaching her the principles of magic and helping her to overcome her initial fear of flames.

It wasn’t easy for her because as much as she was talented, one couldn’t easily overcome an instinctual fear without a lot of effort and patience. Ravness was a prime example for Leona with each passing day she would encourage her daughter without pushing against her will, it was through kindness and love that the young tactician started to wield the elemental destructive power of the flames.

It brought a smile to her face, which was hidden behind her folded arms on top of her knees. It was at times like these that those memories mattered the most. Serving to strengthen her will to forge on through the arduous path she had chosen to follow, a path her parents once walked to the ends of the old world.

But now it was her turn to make a difference and every step she took was solely towards that one goal. To unite humans and demons so they could finally live in a world without strife. She took a deep breath before standing up, she glanced towards the inventor still tending to the fire.

“I’m glad I’ve found someone like you two to travel with us. Even though our goals differ, we just might be able to make a difference in the lives of the people we care about.” She grabbed the weapon from the scabbard near the guard. “You should rest now, I’ll go for a walk to shake off the drowsiness while I keep watch.”

“Same here and huh…” Athena scratched the back of her head before giving an earnest, but bashful look to her. “Thanks again Leo.”

The tactician’s eyes widened somewhat in surprise upon being called like that. It took a few seconds before a faint smile curled up her face as she replied.

“You’re welcome.”

Leona turned around and headed towards the entrance of the spacious room, she climbed up the slope and glanced over her shoulder seeing Athena laying down, seemingly resting. Upon turning around again she took a few more steps before she collapsed to her knees in tears.

It may have been a simple gesture from the inventor’s part, but it meant more to Leona than she would’ve known. Such interaction was awfully similar to when she first met Luke back in the Grand Academy.

It felt like her heart was about to burst out. She grasped the top of her chest but it wasn’t a painful feeling, strangely it felt like joy as if she was looking at the light in the end of a seemingly endless dark tunnel.

“Your allies are not without fault, but I suppose it is better than threading this place alone.”

An unfamiliar male voice came from somewhere in front of her. Instinctively, she slammed the tip of the scabbard on the ground to serve as a support point and while she stood up, her right hand grasped the handle, unsheathing the longsword with a familiar sound of singing steel.

“And who are you supposed to be?”

She asked as her teary eyes adjusted to the sight in front of her. It was a man clad in full dark plate armor with an ominous looking black greatsword being held in front of him with the tip of the blade slightly touching the ground.

“I’m but a warrior seeking to atone for my past mistakes.” He lifted his greatsword which prompted Leona to take a step back while still pointing the tip of her blade at him. However he simply laid the flat part of the blade against his shoulder plate armor and turned around. “Come, follow me.”

Common sense dictated that she’d run. But something within her was telling her to go, despite how insane that idea sounded.

“Why?”

She asked, but the knight didn’t seem inclined to answer or stop. As if feeling that she would lose something important, she dashed after him, his steps were twice hers which meant she had to literally sprint to get to him. Once she made it out of the cave, the snow storm pelted her body unrelentingly, the dark knight however was much ahead of her, heading down towards where they came first with the motorized snow sledge.

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“Hey! Wait!”

She shouted, but to no avail, he kept walking down towards what seemed to be a flat part of the hill they were on, only stopping then and turning around to face her. Once she finally caught up with him, she was already somewhat winded from running through the shin-high snow.

“Leona Crossford, sole heir of the Crossford family. Princess Tactician of the proud Arcadian nation. I, Miyamoto Kojiro, challenge you to a duel to the death.”

He brandished his greatsword horizontally, creating a gust of wind so powerful that Leona was forced to sink the longsword in the ground to not be sent flying along the snow. After the white settled down, the knight was no longer there, instead, an old man of similar height to Leona was clad in translucent straps of light blue color, his irises were brown while the hair was black as the night, sharp eyes that looked at Leona with an intense killing gaze.

“Wait!”

Leona shouted but it was to no avail, he began to sprint towards her before unleashing a thin curved blade made of mana from his cloak made of the same material.

In response, she entered a long point stance in order to keep him at bay, but it was for naught. He was much nimbler than what his appearance would lead to believe, he slashed horizontally and Leona answered in kind by parrying the incoming blade with her own while backing away with quick steps backwards.

“What do you gain from this?! What is your objective?!”

She shouted, but the man didn’t seem to care, instead he dashed in and released a flurry of slashes coming from multiple angles, Leona managed to fend off each and every strike albeit with considerably less success than the first one.

‘If this keeps on going, I'll be cornered!’

With an upward swing, she managed to force him to create some distance. Only after his barrage of attacks stopped did she notice cuts around her forearm that were just deep enough for her to feel the stinging sensation of the wound pouring blood out of it. She clenched her teeth as she raised her left hand towards the sky, between each tired gasp for air, she began to chant.

“Flames of destruction heed my call, bring upon my foes the fires of justice-”

A fiery tornado formed from her wrist melting the snow around her, a second later the tornado took the shape of a large sword, she let go of the longsword and grasped the elemental blade with her right hand, further empowering the spell.

The old man sheathed his mana sword within the cloak behind him as he curved his body forward, waiting for Leona to attack. Such an unorthodox stance was never seen in any book she had read before, but from the blows they exchanged she was certain he couldn’t be a magic user even though his sword was made of pure mana.

‘Essentially a wizard must channel their mana in order to cast a spell, he on the other hand is merely releasing mana in the shape of a blade.’

She evaluated, with such distance between them, there was no way he could harm her with a mere sword.

“-Great Flame Sword!”

Upon releasing the spell with a downwards slash, the old man unleashed the magic blade from its sheath and the moment he swung the blade, a light blue flash of light engulfed her attack. A seemingly impossible feat happened right in front of her eyes.

“No way…”

She stood dumbstruck upon seeing his slash absorb the spell she had cast, the mana from the fire spell flowed to his blade, making it shine even brighter. He dashed quickly in front of her, readying his sword for a diagonal slash.

Leona snapped out of her trance and hastily picked up the longsword stuck in the snow, raising it horizontally above her head and holding the flat part of the blade with the left hand to block the incoming attack.

“Now face your fate!”

He shouted, while swinging down the blade. Leona thought she would be able to stop his sword but the second their weapons collided, she saw the steel blade being cut in half like butter.

She tried to move out of the way but the blade sunk deep through her chest. The burning sensation spread throughout her body like fire; it was as if scalding water was thrown at her chest.

“Argh!”

She stumbled backwards panting while grasping her chest with her left hand, her palm was soaked in blood. If she was to continue fighting she needed to stop the bleeding as fast as possible but with her foe right in front of her, it was impossible to do anything in such a short time, aside from one option.

She clenched her left hand and upon opening it, she cast a small blue fire in the middle of her palm while purposefully leaving her chest unprotected from the flames.

“AAAAAAAAARGH!”

With the spell, she seared her own wound shut. Though the pain was so great she almost fainted, in order to not die she endured through it with sheer willpower. Her eyes had a glint of dark red under both irises.

Seemingly noticing this, the old warrior raised his blade perpendicular to his frail body as he announced.

“I applaud your tenacity, but it is time we settled this!”

Leona tossed the broken longsword and extended both hands out, summoning a stake of fire in the right hand, while the other had a powerful vortex gathering around it.

“Violent gale and roaring flames, surge as one!”

As if the very shadows empowered both spells, the bright blue fire had a tint of dark red swirling around it which was the same for the wind vortex in her left hand. As if holding a sword with two hands, she joined them in an imaginary handle. When both spell collided, they fused to one another creating what was a storm of blue dark red flames, the heat was so intense that it quickly melted the snow from the flat part of the hill, causing a small pond to form around them, which it also didn’t take long to start to evaporate.

“Such ferocity!” The heat did indeed begin to have an effect on the old man as he tried to shield his body with the mantle of mana, but without success as his body started to scorch from the outside with the sheer amount of heat Leona was generating through the spell. “Let this sacrifice not be in vain-”

With an unrelenting might, betraying all signs of age, he dashed right towards her incoming attack. Once Leona swung down the spell, a torrent of fire washed away in a conal explosion, scorching the earth in a blazing inferno, the very shadows each flame created seemed to fuel the fires even further, strengthening its power as it washed away in a long and continuous wave of fiery destruction.

After the initial attack, Leona quickly glanced around to ascertain his whereabouts, but without seeing no body her instincts started to scream of danger. A second later the moonlight coming at her face was covered, making her look up.

“-for you shall be the greatest of heroes!”

He shouted as he drove his sword right through her chest.