The night had changed.
Arno couldn't explain the specifics, and that only made the conclusion forming in the forefront of his mind feel more convincing.
The sky remained the same endless expanse of black, scattered with stars that should have brought comfort, yet those brilliant radiances above somehow felt... further.
Like they had abandoned them—blotting them from the graces of higher powers.
An ironic sentiment, considering what had transpired only moments ago.
The wind no longer merely swept across the flooded plains where the Vargess Mountains had once stood.
It screamed.
Violent gusts tore over the open sea, driving walls of water into one another until they burst apart into clouds of spray. Whether any of it was natural never even crossed his mind. A weary frown settled onto his face as sweat trailed down his face.
Arno had stood at the receiving end of powers devastating enough to erase cities from maps. He himself—as humiliating as it was to think it of himself—was a person capable of the same.
He had crossed battlefields where thousands died before a full minute elapsed. Either by his sword or by some other stranger that bared their fangs in the unending meaningless dance of life and death.
None of that compared to this.
"...Julius," Wesley muttered, his tone subdued.
"I can't tell..." Arno answered automatically.
He heard the man swallow whatever lump had formed in his throat—understandably so.
His grip tightened around Pestilence.
His instincts—the same ones that had kept him alive through ages of mercenary work—were shouting the same thing they had over the years of dangerous engagements.
A hollow laugh escaped him as his free hand slid over his face.
'I spent decades avoiding these kinds of people in every large-scale conflict I found myself in...'
The uncaring face of Duke Alonbright flashed through his mind, then that of a platinum-blond man with an arrogant smile.
'That was my first encounter with these freaks...' He watched as the cloaked man, with slow, almost irritated movements, reached into his robes and produced a black breathing mask. 'Then I became a glorified slave, and now I'm about to die to one of them...'
There were all kinds of fools in the world.
Most troublesome were those that lacked the capacity for satisfaction.
Some chased wealth.
Others, power.
Others pursued truths no sane person should want to uncover.
Arno had never cared for any of that.
But there was one type of fool he had built his life around avoiding...
It was the kind that actively and deliberately chose to step beyond the realm of Master.
Ascendants.
The cloaked figure regarded them in silence.
Then, in another flicker of movement, he was already standing behind the remaining battle priests.
As though nothing unusual had happened, he ignored the frantic grief of the clergymen holding Kyle's now lifeless body.
Arno's eyes couldn't naturally follow the man's movements at all.
Even flooding mana into them only allowed him to catch scattered fragments of the transition.
A long, laboured breath filtered through the breathing mask as the man lowered his hood.
Long, untamed white hair spilt over his shoulders.
"...I despise how frail this body is."
There wasn't a trace of anger in his voice. Only a vague tonality that barely carried over as annoyance. It came across as if he was speaking about poorly-fitted clothes.
His softly glowing eyes drifted across the gathered survivors.
"...Tell me."
Something behind him stirred.
A shadow rose beneath the white-clad priests, swelling into a shapeless mass lined with jagged teeth.
Then—
Crunch.
Blood splashed across the dark sea.
The rhythmic crushing of flesh...
The splintering of bone...
The wet squelches that followed...
Each sound carried with horrifying clarity through the chaotic crashes of the water.
"Do any of you possess actual teeth..."
His gaze lingered on Arno.
"...or are you all merely worthless puppies?"
Silence.
Nobody answered.
Or rather, nobody could answer.
"Ah. If they're your concern..." He pointed toward his followers up in the air. "Aside from the initial deployment of these wires..." He wheezed, idly plucking one of the nearly invisible threads. "I instructed them to remain uninvolved on this stage of mine."
Arno's gaze unconsciously drifted to the four before rapidly correcting back onto him.
'Stage, he says...'
The careless way he carried himself, speaking casually in the vicinity of fighters who could kill most people... it communicated the belief that he was untouchable to all that were gathered here.
Given what they had witnessed in what was probably only three minutes, he could end them easily.
The bastard was entertaining himself.
"Clown," Arno sighed, drawing Wesley's tensed attention. "You still have enough mana for that?"
Albrecht blinked and gave a slow nod.
"I don't think... it would land on someone that fast, though."
"It doesn't matter," the Baron retorted. "Just follow my lead."
With a swing of his sword, he cleared the wires between himself and the cloaked man.
"Lyn, handle communications..." His eyes lost focus before sharpening again. "And keep the rest of the guys from getting involved... or they'll die."
Without hesitation, Evelyn began casting, large teal formulas blooming below and around her. She hadn't seen her lord this serious in years. That alone showed just how grim the situation was.
"Oh, right... Tell Lydia that I stepped up for once."
Arno walked forward, his mind screaming a deafening rejection to what he was doing, while his body followed his will regardless, primed by years of what the Duke would call "well-engraved discipline."
"As I thought, Regalia wielder," the man said, his eyes scrunching up with unmistakable excitement. "You're the one that will entertain me."
His shoulders rose and fell with another measured breath.
Arno scowled. "I don't know about entertainment... but someone once told me that I'm like a relentless bug."
Black smog poured from Pestilence, this time the violet embers burning far brighter, coming together with his mana until the emission assumed an indigo tint.
It wrapped around him like living armour—a cloak that emanated with unnatural presence.
His blue hair lengthened to his knees, and an ancient symbol emblazoned itself onto his forehead.
For just a moment, his thoughts wandered home.
A wife.
Three children.
While he didn't much like the concept of dying, he could admit it had been a conventionally full life.
'It seems this is where I'll be stopping off...'
"It has been..." the masked man murmured, a dark air overtaking him. "...quite some time since I was last outside."
He seemed to recall a negative memory as his eyes went cold.
"I'll overwrite that humiliation..." He spread his arms slightly. "...with the joy of this massacre."
---
A stern expression settled over Kern's weathered face as the first wave of displaced air rolled across him from the exchange several kilometres away.
His fist slowly tightened.
Blood seeped through the joints of his plated gauntlet.
"Sir Kern..."
He glanced over his shoulder at the young man standing half a step behind him.
"You over the fear now, Yuno?" he asked plainly. "Good. I was starting to think I'd have to charge in by myself."
Yuno tightened his hold around the haft of his battle axe—an absurdly oversized weapon that dwarfed its wielder.
"...Afraid or not," he muttered weakly, his gaze determined. "I can't just stand here while you and the lord fight... that."
A quiet resolve spread through the entire Julius Barony expedition. Without exchanging so much as a word, soldiers and mages alike came forward.
Mana gathered beneath their feet.
One after another, the sharp splashes of water-skating echoed across the sea as they naturally fell into formation behind the towering swordsman.
The faint twitch of a smile tugged at Kern's beard.
"...We've always been a collective bunch of crazy bastards." He reached over his shoulder and drew the enormous buster sword strapped across his back, its sheer weight sending a deep metallic groan through the air. His gaze lifted toward the dark heavens. "Doesn't look like we're changing today."
"But you are."
The voice reached every member of the expedition simultaneously.
Symbols hovered and spun slowly beside each person's ear.
"All of you, stay put..." Evelyn gritted out. "Lord's orders"
A wave of dissatisfied murmurs rippled through the formation.
Kern cast a measured glance toward Evelyn in the distance before slowly turning away again.
"I'm afraid we'll be ignoring that command."
"Yeah!" they all answered in unison.
For the briefest moment, the mage said nothing to interrupt their uproar, then she inhaled.
"...Do you all think I've lost my mind?"
The soldiers faltered.
"You think I want to sit here while he's out there alone?" she snapped. "Do you think this is easy for me?"
The mood sank noticeably.
"If it were up to me, I'd already be out there dying just to give him a single opening..." Her voice lowered, though none of its edge diminished. "He's acting backwards... Kern, of all people, you should know what that means for us."
The large man's teeth ground together, loud enough to be heard even through the spell.
His mind drifted back years.
To a much younger, scruffier version of the man he had chosen to follow in the twilight of his own prime.
"What would I do if things ever get dire?" a seventeen-year-old Arno repeated, wearing an incredulous expression.
He paused, seemingly contemplating the question genuinely.
The memory slowly became more blurry as if viewed through moisture gathering in one's eyes.
A lazy smirk spread across the blue-haired youth's face as he kicked his feet up.
"I'd run and leave you all behind to fight."
Kern's chest tightened.
That damned coward who always complained about unnecessary work...
Had stormed headfirst into certain death while ordering the rest of them to stand down.
He was biding time to create an opening...
Not for a victory...
But for them to run.
"But...!" Kern shouted, his voice cracking. "How am I supposed to just—?!"
"Serve your lord, Sir Kern!" Evelyn cut him off, breathing heavily once the words left her. "Serve your lord..."
Another shockwave rolled across the sea.
One by one, the last traces of resistance faded from the expedition's faces, replaced by heavy, solemn resignation.
---
Arno swung his sword, only for his opponent to slip past the blade with an amused glance.
The strike alone carried enough force to cleave a long fissure through the sea, the water parting violently before crashing back together.
"Decent power," the man remarked, idly stepping outside the next slash. He vanished before the ensuing thrust could reach him, reappearing shoulder-to-shoulder with Arno.
"A fine technique as well..." he continued. "...but you're lacking overwhelming intensity."
Arno scoffed. "Is that what you want?"
He spun sharply, driving Pestilence's pommel toward the man's nape.
Unsurprisingly, the stranger slipped away.
This time, however, Arno stayed on him.
Cloudy indigo mana and the man's cloak's unnatural black flickered across the battlefield as one relentlessly pursued while the other evaded with effortless precision. Arno flowed from slash to slash without hesitation, rising into the air before suddenly reversing his grip and descending, blade primed.
It missed.
Pestilence plunged into the water with a deafening crash.
From that lowered stance, Arno kicked his right foot outward in a sweeping arc, catching the man off guard.
"Hoh?"
The cloaked man tipped sideways, almost leisurely, as his footing vanished beneath him.
Arno ripped Pestilence through the water and brought it screaming toward the exposed neck with enough force to split the waves like every attack before it.
The man waited until the blade was almost upon him.
Then—
Glop
Standing behind Arno once more, he smiled beneath his mask.
The swordsman pivoted faster than before, maximising the distance between them.
'What was that...?'
The white-haired stranger clapped slowly.
"That one wasn't too bad."
He strolled around Arno, arms folded behind his back. It was a simple gesture, almost casual, yet to the Baron, it felt like being circled by a vicious predator deciding where to bite.
"That can't be all, however..."
He burst directly in the noble's face, driving a palm into his abdomen before Arno could react. Globules of saliva and blood left his mouth as the impact folded him forward.
Then a foot crashed into his temple.
The force twisted his body violently through the air, sending him skidding across the water's surface.
"If you don't try harder—"
A dark chuckle escaped the man's throat.
"I'll kill you accidentally."
Almost as if reality itself had lagged behind the exchange, the air only now responded.
It twisted violently before erupting into two thunderous cracks, delayed echoes of the blows he had delivered—each one carrying greater force than heavy artillery.
Arno's awareness returned in fragments.
First came the sound.
A high-pitched ringing drowned out everything else, leaving only a distant, muffled echo of the world around him. Then came the sensation of his body—heavy, unresponsive, and painfully aware of every place it had been struck.
His eyes opened.
The world refused to settle.
Everything was blurred, distorted into streaks and flashes of colour. The moon above was little more than a pale smear, while the waves beneath him were an indistinct shifting mass.
'...Still alive.'
The thought barely finished forming when a shadow entered his vision.
Arno's instincts screamed.
A moment too late, as a knee drove into his face.
The impact snapped his head backwards, sending his body hurtling away once again, but as if not being allowed even that—
A hand clamped around his ankle.
The sudden stop sent a violent jolt through his entire body.
The man stood with one arm extended, holding the Baron upward as if he weighed nothing.
The glow of his eyes intensified.
Then he swung.
Arno's body crashed into the ocean with enough force to carve a temporary crater-like formation through the surface. Water exploded outward in every direction, waves rising like walls before collapsing back down.
He left him submerged for a minute, then tossed him upward.
Arno shot into the sky, rasping desperately for air as he spun uncontrollably.
For the first time in a while, the man's expression shifted.
Irritation.
"Tsk."
He lowered his stance.
The muscles beneath his clothing tightened, his body compressing like a spring ready to release.
The pressure around him changed.
Even the ocean seemed to react, the waves pulling away from the space around him despite no obvious sign of him releasing any power.
A tempest kicked up around his fist as he thrust it forward, not even waiting for Arno to descend.
The man's punch tore through empty air.
Then—
BOOOOM.
The atmosphere erupted.
A colossal tunnel of compressed wind exploded forward, ripping across the ocean with enough force to split the waves apart. The sea itself parted beneath the invisible strike, towering walls of water shaking violently as the pressure carved a path through the battlefield.
The attack never touched the Baron.
But its effects were still felt.
The peripheral force sent him crashing onto the liquid surface, where he barely managed to gather enough mana beneath his feet and hands in time to prevent himself from sinking.
If that had hit, it would've been the end of him.
Arno stared, confused as to why the cloaked figure had released the death blow early.
"...Why are you distracted?"
The annoyance in the man's voice was biting.
A hand grasped his chin beneath the breathing mask.
His gaze swept across the others scattered throughout the area before a look of understanding slowly dawned.
"That lot is dressed kind of similar to you," he started, making Arno tense. "I see..."
He vanished.
The next instant, he was already careening toward Julius's soldiers.
"This will motivate you, won't it?" he called over his shoulder.
"No!"
Arno pushed forward after him, mana surging through his legs.
Despite giving everything he had, he couldn't close the distance.
His teeth clenched as he drew deeper power from Pestilence, black bleeding from the edges of his irises as his sclera darkened.
'Catch him...! Catch him...! Please... catch him!!'
Just as it seemed his speed was finally beginning to approach the man's—
Thread.
He narrowly twisted under it, barely avoiding losing the top half of his head.
"What?"
He slowed down, coming to a halt as he realised he was surrounded.
Turning frantically, Arno watched him move through as if there was nothing in his path—almost like he was phasing through the wires.
Arno unleashed a wild barrage of slashes, severing the threads in his immediate vicinity.
'I still won't make it on time...!'
His throat strained as he forgot to even enhance his voice.
"Guys, run!"
But it was already too late.
Evelyn turned.
Everything seemed to move in slow motion.
The only thing she saw was a pair of boots flying through her vision, barely making out the rest of the cloaked man's body soaring horizontally by her head.
A hand clasped around her face.
"This should do."