Watching the man who had defeated her proud sister slowly approach, Alexia could no longer utter the words she had spoken earlier.
The sister she admired had been defeated today.
And defeated so thoroughly.
For the first time, she felt the radiant halo surrounding her sister had been extinguished. The one she revered as a deity, the object of her lifelong admiration, had been stripped bare at this moment.
The Kingdom's strongest Dark Knight, the shield protecting the nation—all those so-called points of pride were shattered with a single blow.
"Yuki-kun, thank you for your hard work!"
Akane gave a sweet smile as she greeted Yuki.
This outcome, in her view, was no surprise.
After all, from any angle, Yuki was so strong that he and Iris were not even on the same plane or in the same dimension.
So the idea of her defeating Yuki was truly a fantasy.
Yuki smiled, glanced at Akane, then shifted his gaze to Alexia.
Meeting Yuki's gaze, Alexia immediately felt somewhat guilty and flustered.
After all, she had been the most vocal earlier.
And now, with her sister's defeat, it was a complete slap in the face.
Undoubtedly an awkward situation.
Just as she thought Yuki might mock her, Yuki instead showed a gentle smile.
He lightly raised his hand, placed it on Alexia's beautiful silver-white hair, and gave it a smooth, gentle rub.
"Sometimes, there's no need to chase after someone else's so-called 'Perfect' sword technique."
"Your own sword is fine as it is."
After leaving these words, Yuki departed with Akane.
Hearing Yuki's words, Alexia was left somewhat stunned.
She was surprised Yuki hadn't ridiculed her. Instead, he had treated her gently as before.
As for the cryptic latter part, it left her a bit puzzled.
But she firmly committed these words to memory.
She might not understand them now, but perhaps one day in the future, she would?
Watching the retreating figures of Yuki and Akane, Alexia secretly thought:
That man... seems pretty handsome!
After briefly admiring Yuki's appearance, she turned her attention to her sister.
At this moment, Iris wore a look of dejection, her eyes somewhat vacant as she stared at her own hands, her body trembling slightly.
Faced with this sudden defeat, she found it hard to accept for a while.
She even began to doubt herself.
"What did he mean by that?"
"My pride... shattered, gone! Everything's gone."
Iris knelt on the ground, looking up at the sky with a tearful face.
At this moment, it felt like a dream, but her lingering rationality told her it was all real.
"Sister Iris... are you alright?"
Alexia came to Iris's side and helped her up.
Hearing her sister's voice, Iris's thoughts were pulled back.
She forced a faint smile and said softly to her sister:
"It's nothing. I'm just a bit tired today."
"I'll be fine after some rest."
After saying this, Iris gently pushed her sister's hand away and walked alone back towards the palace.
Alexia watched her sister's retreating figure, which now seemed exceptionally lonely.
She felt a pang of sorrow.
But there was no helping it. A loss was a loss, and no excuse could change that fact.
On Yuki's side, Akane asked him curiously:
"Yuki-kun, what you said to Iris earlier... were you giving her guidance?"
"Though I didn't fully understand, from what I saw, it seemed like guidance."
The observant Akane voiced her speculation.
"Oh? You noticed even that!"
"Not bad, Akane."
Yuki smiled slightly, his eyes filled with approval as he glanced at Akane.
Receiving Yuki's praise, a proud smile spread across Akane's face.
"I was just giving her a nudge from the side."
"Her inner fixation is too strong; that fixation has become shackles for her."
"If she doesn't break free from these shackles in time, they'll explode at a certain point, affecting her for the rest of her life."
Yuki spoke calmly and lightly about Iris's flaw.
In fact, what Yuki mentioned was something Iris truly experienced in the original work.
She always took pride in her strength, seeing herself as the nation's shield.
Thus, she was deeply fixated on protecting this country.
The people placed high hopes on her.
And precisely because of this, although Iris usually appeared as a valiant Valkyrie, the strongest Dark Knight, in reality, these pressures had long since crushed her spirit, pushing her to the brink of obsession.
This obsession, later in the original plot, was pushed over the edge by the protagonist Shadow's overwhelming strength.
During the Bushin Festival, she and the War Goddess Beatrix challenged Shadow together, only to be effortlessly defeated by him two-on-one, dealing a heavy blow.
After that, she fell into an obsessed state.
Whenever she saw Shadow, she would become hysterical, crazily wanting to fight him to prove herself and regain her dignity.
She couldn't calmly accept her defeat.
What Yuki said was meant to help her see herself clearly and accept her failure.
That's why he decided to spar with her—to let her face defeat earlier and avoid the girl turning into a madwoman later on.
Moreover, Yuki's act of sparring wasn't only beneficial for Iris.
It was also beneficial for her younger sister, Alexia.
Alexia had idolized her sister since childhood, always striving in sword practice to catch up to her.
Unfortunately, in the original work, while her sister earned the title of "The Art of Thorns" (Perfect Sword), Alexia's own title of "Fencing of the Commoner" (Ordinary Sword) was something she found hard to accept.
It even led her to resent her own sword at one point.
The words Yuki left her with before departing were actually meant to remind Alexia not to blindly chase another's shadow.
Not to deliberately imitate others, not to deny herself because of others' judgments.
Yuki's well-intentioned efforts were only in the hope that both sisters could understand.
So they wouldn't later reenact the obsessions from the original plot.
After the sparring match, Yuki tasked the King of the Midgar Kingdom with notifying other nations to submit.
He, meanwhile, took Akane to another region of this world.
This region belonged to no kingdom; it was an ungoverned area known as the Lawless City.
Within this Lawless City, though no one governed it, there existed a regional overlord.
This overlord consisted of a group of vampires.
They revered the Blood Queen as their master, occupying a tall tower here as their stronghold.
The vampires entrenched themselves here, often treating the local humans as food.
They consumed their blood and flesh to satisfy their thirst.
And those humans who were fed upon would be transformed into mindless Ghouls that attacked people.
This also made this Lawless City extremely chaotic, with Ghoul attacks happening frequently.
Yet despite this, a great many adventurers and Dark Knights came here.
Because they all wanted to defeat the Vampire Ancestor in the stronghold to gain fame...