『The Grave』

Night had fallen.

Renn walked down the main street alone. The scraping of his armor and the sound of his footsteps were the only noises on the road.

He pressed his thumb against the badge on his chest. The lingering aura of the Authority of Storms radiated from the small piece of metal, announcing his presence to anything in the dark streets that could perceive it.

Esper hid in a nearby house, her gaze locked onto Renn's back through the window. The Holy Sword rested against her spine, its glow dimmed to the absolute minimum.

One minute. Two minutes.

Nothing happened.

Renn reached the end of the street and turned back.

Then, the wall behind him exploded.

Black tendrils swept toward Renn from all directions, so numerous they nearly filled the entire alleyway.

Renn drew his sword in tandem with his turn.

The runes engraved on the blade flared for an instant.

『Annihilation』

Its meaning: to extinguish, to eliminate.

A rune capable of erasing all energy it touched.

This included magic, Vow Power, kinetic energy, and resistance.

By erasing the drag acting upon the blade, the moment the lightning-fast edge sliced through the first tentacle, all magical fluctuations within it were instantly extinguished.

Its momentum was immediately reduced to nothing, and it was sliced apart cleanly, falling to the ground as a clump of dead flesh.

Yet more tentacles continued to surge forward from behind.

“Hey, hey, hey, isn't that rune a bit of a cheat? I can't believe the people from the Mage Tower actually dared to design something like that. And you, being able to resonate with such a rune, are pretty terrifying too.”

A crisp voice echoed from behind the swarm of tentacles.

A petite girl stood atop a collapsed brick wall.

A pointed mage hat sat askew on her head, revealing a young, freckled face beneath the brim. She looked to be in her early twenties.

“It's my first time seeing a local Roundtable Knight. I thought you guys would carry much, much cooler swords—like the Sword of Promised Victory or something.”

She traced circles in the air with her finger. With every loop, new tentacles whipped out from the surrounding shadows and surged toward Renn.

Renn didn't reply.

His sword swung without pause. Each strike severed several tentacles, but as many as he cut down, just as many rushed to take their place.

He shifted his gaze toward Esper's position, and his eyes instantly narrowed.

Esper was not there.

“You probably think you're quite the catch. Unfortunately, to 『the Grave』, that girl is far more attractive.”

...

Esper's pupils contracted.

The moment Renn turned around, the shadows had suddenly deepened.

They expanded outward, swallowing Renn whole.

In the next instant, his figure vanished from before Esper's eyes.

Before Esper could even react, an extremely faint, metallic scent of rust wafted through the air.

It didn't come from Renn's direction.

It was—

Her blood flow surged a breath before she even realized the danger.

Crimson Scale Surge: Overdrive

The flow rate accelerated to its limit in an instant, and she launched herself out of the window immediately.

A rusted longsword slashed down right where she had been standing. The blade, coated in black grease, sliced through the windowsill and the wooden beams, and the sheer wind pressure of the swing split the entire house in two.

The sword shattered, rusted iron shards clattering across the ground before dissolving into the wind.

Esper twisted her body in midair.

She saw him.

He was a bit shorter than she had imagined. Standing at about 1.6 meters, his figure was wrapped in a tattered old cloak soaked in blood and black grease.

He wore no armor. Through the tears in his cloak, one could see his body, which was bristling with the hilts and shafts of rusted weapons.

Countless weapons protruded from between his ribs, his shoulder blades, and his torso, as if they had been violently shoved directly into his flesh.

The flesh around the wounds writhed constantly, healing only to be torn open once more.

Blood flowed continuously from those unhealable wounds, trickling down the folds of his cloak and pooling into a dark puddle at his feet.

His hair was a wild, dense tangle like seaweed, obscuring most of his face.

Only his stubble-covered chin was clearly visible, completely devoid of expression.

The nameless knight, 『Aberrant Blood』.

Through the tangled strands of hair, his pitch-black, bloodshot eyes stared at the Holy Sword behind her back.

An incredibly intense, almost tangible hatred poured from his eyes, causing Esper to feel a genuine sense of revulsion.

Then, his gaze shifted to her face.

He froze, as if he had seen something he absolutely did not want to see on her face.

Under the influence of Crimson Scale Surge: Overdrive, her brown pupils—originally used to disguise her identity—had reverted to the crimson of a vampire, and her masked magic also revealed its original aura.

“【Beasts...】”

Trembling all over, he pulled a second weapon out from his own body.

It was a rusted broadsword, its chipped edge resembling a row of rotten teeth.

It seemed he was even angrier now.

Before Esper could even steady her feet upon landing, he was already in front of her.

He was fast.

Even faster than her speed after activating Crimson Scale Surge.

The broadsword swept horizontally. Esper leaned back to dodge, the edge of the blade brushing past the tip of her nose.

Following immediately after was a second strike—a short spear pulled from the left side of his body, thrusting straight toward her abdomen.

The Holy Sword flew from behind her back, intercepting the short spear. The sharp screech of clashing metal rang out in the night sky.

But his third strike was already upon her.

Now that they were close, the hand holding the sword shifted its trajectory, slicing diagonally upward from below at a tricky angle.

Having lost her balance while dodging the first two strikes, Esper only had enough time to throw her left arm up in front of her.

The blade bit into the outer side of her forearm.

And just like that, her arm was severed.

—No.

The instant it was cut, her forearm blasted forward like a cannonball, punching him squarely in the face and sending him flying back several meters.

Blood connected Esper's arm to her body like a river. Even though it had been severed by his blade for a split second, they reconnected in the next.

The forearm was pulled back to the stump by the stream of blood, fusing back together.

“...That hurt like hell.”

Esper muttered under her breath.

Canal.

One of the neat little tricks the Demon King had taught her.

By creating blood pathways, she could store blood compressed via Hundredfold Compression beforehand, which could also be used to reattach limbs and extend her reach.

Then, the splashing blood that had been sliced by Aberrant Blood—already compressed to its absolute limit through Hundredfold Compression—burst forth in that very instant.

Crimson Pierce.

Several lines of blood broke the sound barrier, shooting simultaneously toward Aberrant Blood's vital spots: his throat, forehead, and heart.

Aberrant Blood muttered softly, plunging the hand that still held the short spear into his chest and abdomen.

The short spear was thrust back into his body, and his hand gripped something else.

A wild gale whipped up.

Esper bit her lip.

The long blade pulled from Aberrant Blood's body, its runes now flashing, was named Cloud Slicer.

The instant gale it conjured—on a scale far exceeding Ade's—disrupted the trajectory of the Crimson Pierce, causing the lethal snipes to miss him entirely.

Esper gripped the Holy Sword once more and took a few steps back to put some distance between them.

Aberrant Blood did not give chase.

He stood where he was, staring at her with those hollow, hate-filled eyes.

Then, tossing the rusted sword aside, he spoke.

“【...Desecrators... Filthy things... Acts of defilement...】”

He took a step forward. The blood puddle beneath his feet splashed.

“【...Shall... pay...】”

He pulled yet another longsword from his body.

Engraved upon its blade was the sword's name.

『Flame Scorcher』

Cloud Slicer in one hand, Flame Scorcher in the other.

A dead man from the past, an undead driven by hatred.

The nameless knight now declared his title.

“【...In the name... of the Grave...】”