Chapter 37
In Finium, Initium
Loe watched his entire family die when he was six years old.
Though all other memories of that age were fogged and hidden behind the doors to which he’d long since lost the key, that particular night remained. It was vivid--no, even worse than that. If he’d close his eyes and focus, he could perfectly recall every single detail of that night.
It was cold, with knee-deep snow having fallen just a day prior. He cuddled up to the fireplace as close as he could, with his mother chiding him repeatedly that he'd get burned, all while tailoring him a new pair of pants as he'd begun to outgrow the ones he had. His father was busy in his study, the honor of his employ--as a Royal Scholar--forcing him to work all day and night long. His younger brother and sister--a pair of two-year-old twins--were fast asleep in a crib in the corner.
He watched the flames intensely, following the brief life of the sparks that flew out. They’d crackle occasionally, like twigs snapping, and startle him--but he always came back, drawn to the beauty, yearning for its warmth.
The night was silent and appeared uneventful--it would be just like any other, long and dull, as all other winter nights were. Many times after, he faulted himself for it, though it made no sense--if he didn’t find the night boring, perhaps, through some wily, primordial magic, the cruel world wouldn’t deign to make it a night he would never forget.
Just as his mother had taken a break, the world quaked for a moment--and then once again. And once again. It wasn’t a natural earthquake, but the aftereffect of a ten-foot-tall ogre stomping across the village. Quickly, all hell broke loose.
Loe peeked through the window and watched in abject horror as people were flattened like paste into the white snow--now red with blood--occasionally exploding into crimson mists. It wasn’t just an ogre--there were hundreds of goblins, several q’wani, and even the vile Beastwoman leading the horde. The village didn’t stand a chance.
After all, it was an ordinary village beset by a horde--even though it was guarded by a Knight, that Knight was too weak. He was felled within just a minute, overwhelmed by the horde.
That was the belief Loe held dear all these years later, even after becoming a Knight himself. He knew well enough how strong he was, and knew he could contend against many otherworldly beasts. But he also knew his limitations and, indeed, the limitations of most men and women. It took someone exceptional, or something exceptional to arouse the fire within him that had dulled ages ago.
The man in front of him, Asher, wasn’t someone exceptional, Loe was certain of that much. The man’s physique was underwhelming, with barely a muscle to be seen. There were no visible traces of magic within or without him, the so-called Marks of the Supreme, that exhibit the world’s love for the person.
By all accounts, the man was an ordinary Journeyman, the last hope they beset themselves upon. They knew, however, it would have been for naught; anyone remotely strong enough to help them would never choose to, as the rewards they offered were insignificant in comparison, and the only ones willing to accept the ordeal would be the desperate ones... or, as it went, the stupid ones.
So, as the man himself appeared not exceptional, it was something, then. The weapon. The sharp-seeming, affluent blade chopped through the air without making a sound. But swords were just weapons, in the end--no matter how endowed with magic they were, they were limited tools. In fact, it was one of the first lessons that all initiates of the Knight's Order were taught--they were given a Legendary Weapon that the Emperor himself wielded in their youth, Touch of Light, and tasked with defeating a mutation using it.
Out of a hundred, perhaps two initiates might be able to do it.
Loe, too, failed--spectacularly at that. It was on that day that he learned that just because a weapon was exceptional, it didn’t mean much.
And yet...
The man dashed forward, fearless, into the red rain. The monsters continued onward, despite what they’d just witnessed. Even Loe couldn’t move--he was frozen in place, eyes widened, jaw agape. He beheld the world’s death, if ever for a moment. He watched the seams come apart, spiraling, and gleamed a touch of the void, something only those reverent Magi did. But to the man, it seemed, it mattered not.
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Flashes of the blade continued to resound in milky white, splitting apart the rapping rain. Even encumbered with thick layers of mud, the man moved swiftly, closing and creating gaps in the blink of an eye.
He cut left, splitting apart a spear-wielding kobold, ducking immediately afterward and spinning in place while the sword remained extended, dodging an overhead swing and killing a goblin to his right in the same motion. Right after, his body misted and vanished, becoming one with the world. A spattering of blade lights followed, cutting through the sea of monsters around. Dozens fell, cut into pieces, their dismembered corpses rolling about briefly in the mud.
It was akin to watching one of the Holy Knights--men and women deemed as one-person armies, and the Empire’s main force. A force beyond that of a human, a force of nature in the shape of one.
Alas, it was not enough.
Though he killed hundreds valiantly, there were hundreds more. Inch by inch, he began to give way to the monsters. He retreated, taking a stab of a spear into his thigh; however, he moved as though it didn’t happen. It was also then that Loe woke up, finally yanked back to reality.
For all the spectacle, the man in front of him was a mortal--a being made of flesh and blood, just like him. He was struggling, fighting with all he had to keep the monsters at bay, while Loe just watched in silent reprieve and admiration.
The Knight admonished himself, silently vowing to repent should he live the night. Roaring like mad thunder, he slammed the sword against the shield and pushed forward, a golden sheen of light covering him.
He aptly swung the heavy blade with speed beyond its capacity, ripping through the empty air and colliding with the goblin’s head, splitting it open immediately. Blood, bone shards, and brain matter were spat out violently, but he ignored them, following up with yet another swing.
With him covering the man's right flank, the latter stopped giving way, staying the monster tide in place. Every once in a while, Loe would glance to the side where he'd only grasp the blade after images, the blinding flashes of light that rendered flesh apart swiftly.
However, the man’s body--once pristine--was beginning to grow redder and heavier. Wounds, though minor individually, began stacking up. Though the rain washed the red blood, Loe was a Knight--he was a man who’d fought in wars and duels aplenty, and he could see all the signs. And yet, despite the wounds... the man persisted with gnashed teeth.
“FIRE!!!” a voice burned through the crackling thunder and the roaring monsters, Havar’s. Within a moment, Loe could hear the whooshing sound of the arrows beaming through the air, falling down. He gnashed his teeth in shame, screaming as though bedeviled as he swung the sword sideways, cutting through three kobold monsters.
Had he not been so enshrined in awe while the man was being beaten back, they might have held the line just a bit longer. It was only then, too, that he realized they were only some forty yards from the gates.
They didn’t have unlimited arrows--in fact, all but. Every single arrow was precious and necessary, and yet Havar was forced to issue a command to fire, all because his mind held no sway of reality at the sight of something that he should have ignored for now, and bathed in after he survived.
A spear flashed through from his blind side and stabbed him through his left rib; no, rather than 'stab through', it barely nicked his flesh... but it was enough. He overcompensated with a wide retaliatory swing, expecting a follow-up. However, the beast had retreated, causing his swing to miss and for him to lose his footing. Flaying in desperation, he managed to barely deflect an overhead swing with his shield but could do nothing about the flash of the sword approaching from the other side.
Closing his eyes, he made peace.
Mother’s a Death, and to Thine Loving Arms We Shall Return.
But the expecting pain and death never arrived. He felt him fall and flatten into the mud, but the death still seemed unwilling to take him. Opening his eyes, he witnessed it yet again--the man was swinging his sword in a perfect rhythm, in perfect intervals.
Each swing was accompanied by a crash of death around him, with blood splaying about wildly--temporarily overcoming the rain of the heaven’s weeping--and by the light so blinding Loe believed it holy, for a moment.
And then it came again--as before. The red mist compelled into a visage of a thing beyond things, the arms coated in flames, and the man's eyes seething into plumes of white. The world was still, tempted into becoming a spectator of itself, beholden to the sight of someone who commanded it--the draw of the sword seemed to take forever, and yet was also immediate. All events, those which were, are and would be, seemed to transpire at the exact same moment, held together in perfect unity.
The sword fell in besotted silence.
Every movement, every part, every evocation of things within him--Loe grasped them, or at least tried to. They were fleeting, much like life itself. Brief, tender, a flash in the pan... drifting.
The sword had fallen, and all before it was undone.
Life.
Death.
The world itself.
“Death," there it was again, the voice. The yielding whisper of the abyss so sacred even the Lords and Ladies trembled at the thought of it. "Thy bidding done.”
Within him, Loe felt something awaken--a strand of turbid Mana that he had buried eons ago was shaken up and awoken. He was a failed Magi, those with a trace of Mana upon their birth that was simply never realized... but now, that decayed, rotten, and all but dead strand of Mana... opened its eyes and, akin to the floodgates being flung open, it crashed against his inner self in a desperate dance of yearning, gasping for life. From death, a life sprung. Vivid, wild, and jovial. Cyclical, as all things were.