The moment they stepped through the colossal marble gate into the darkness beyond…

It was as if they had walked into a wall of water.

It was not a physical impact.

It was a suppressive, crushing aura.

A vacuum that seemed to suck the very oxygen from the air and weigh down the soul.

As their eyes adjusted to the gloom, they found themselves in a vast hall.

Its ceiling was lost in shadow.

It resembled less a chamber in a ruin…

And more a cursed cathedral dedicated to a forgotten god.

The floor was polished marble that held a faint glow, like moonlight.

Along the walls, chairs of carved wood were arranged in rows, as if awaiting an unseen congregation.

All faced a dais at the far end of the hall.

Everything possessed a simple, yet terrifying, grandeur.

At the very end of the room, a short flight of stairs led up to a platform.

A single, massive column, hewn from marble, stood there.

And upon that column rested the sole source of light in the room.

A stone that glowed with bluish-black maelstroms.

A never-ending war between darkness and light churning within it.

The stone was like a sundered fragment of a god's will.

The very heart of this place.

Seated nonchalantly on the steps just before the stone was a figure.

He was darkness incarnate.

His armor was as black and smooth as a starless night sky.

Each piece looked as though it had been forged not by a master smith, but by the void itself.

Resting between his hands was a colossal black greatsword, its surface etched with faint, glowing blue runes.

There was no face behind his helm.

Where his eyes should have been were two bottomless whirlpools of darkness.

They seemed to pull at the very soul of the onlooker.

That gaze alone was enough to drive a dagger of fear into the heart of the bravest warrior.

He was assessing the room's new guests slowly, contemptuously.

The way a predator studies its prey.

Even his reflection on the marble floor was not normal.

Instead of a fixed image, it rippled and shifted constantly, like a shadow on water.

Under the weight of that gaze, Rose's fingers clenched her staff so fiercely that her knuckles cracked.

Every muscle in Fredrinn's body was taut.

His hand was sweating on the hilt of his sword as he stood ready for battle.

But the aura radiating from the being before him was so oppressive.

He felt as if tons of weight were pressing down on his shoulders.

Years ago, he had conquered an aura much like this one.

In that ruin, he had achieved victory, even at the cost of his own life.

Yet that moment, that fatal struggle, now felt like a child's game.

Not compared to the pure, concentrated malevolence he faced now.

Cassian's eyes, however, were locked directly on the Black Knight.

'His appearance… it's exactly as described in the game,' he thought, his heart rate accelerating.

'Only… he feels much, much stronger than I expected.'

'His aura alone makes it hard to breathe.'

'Ahh, I don't think this is going to be an easy fight.'

He weighed the possibilities in his mind.

Against such an overwhelming opponent, his only true trump card was also his riskiest ability.

'Sovereign of Light… that's the one.'

'The Black Knight's very existence is composed of pure dark mana.'

'Using this ability would severely weaken him, shatter his defenses.'

'But I wouldn't be able to use it to strengthen my friends at the same time.'

'Because Fredrinn carries a part of Nerath within him, using it on him would cause more harm than good, and also…'

He hesitated.

'If I use it at the start of the fight, I will instantly become the single greatest threat in this room.'

'He will turn all his attention on me, and in my current state, I won't survive becoming his sole focus.'

'I have to wait for the right moment—for his most vulnerable instant.'

As Cassian was lost in thought, a sound broke the cathedral's deadly silence.

A dry, metallic scrape.

The sound came from the Black Knight.

With it, all three of them were instantly on high alert.

In the next moment, time seemed to slow.

The Black Knight launched himself from his seated position with impossible speed.

His eyes were locked on Cassian, whom he perceived as having the weakest aura in the group.

The distance between them closed in an instant.

The runed black greatsword swung down on Cassian, screaming as it tore through the air.

But in that exact instant, like a wall of steel, Fredrinn threw himself between them.

His sword met the Black Knight's colossal weapon.

A deafening, deep clang echoed through the hall, like the tolling of a great bell.

The sheer force of the blow sent Fredrinn's feet skidding backward on the marble floor.

He staggered slightly but held his ground.

Immediately after, Rose thrust her staff forward.

She conjured a razor-tipped spear of flame and launched it at the Black Knight.

In the same split second, Cassian drew the katana from its sheath.

"Storm Heart!" he whispered.

He felt the mana in his body surge through his veins like a river, consumed and replenished in an instant.

The world around him slowed.

His own speed and reflexes were heightened to a superhuman level.

Cassian darted forward like a shadow.

He attempted to circle behind the Black Knight and strike his undefended back.

At the same moment, Rose's spear of flame was about to find its mark.

But the Black Knight was as if in three places at once.

First, with a surge of immense power, he drove his sword forward, forcing Fredrinn back several steps.

The next instant, he swatted his free hand through the air as if shooing a bothersome fly.

He dissipated Rose's flame spear before it even touched his armor.

The spell hadn't even tickled him.

And while doing all this, he swung the greatsword in his other hand backward, right where Cassian was closing in.

When Cassian's katana met the black greatsword, there was a sound like shattering glass.

The shockwave of the impact shot up his arm. He felt his bones groan in protest.

His body was thrown like a rag doll toward the far wall of the hall.

Yet he remained conscious.

Just before impact, with a final effort, he used a wind spell to slow his descent.

He saved himself from a brutal crash at the last second.

The Black Knight gave them not even a second to recover.

He lunged at Fredrinn again.

But Fredrinn was a veteran warrior and had already raised his guard.

Swords clashed again and again.

A rain of blows, each more violent than the last.

The hall filled with the furious symphony of steel on steel.

Rose, realizing she couldn't inflict direct damage, changed her strategy.

She focused on support spells.

She struck the butt of her staff on the ground.

Thick vines shot from the cracks in the marble, coiling like serpents around the Black Knight's free arm.

This was the opening Fredrinn had been waiting for.

He swung his sword with renewed speed.

But the Black Knight simply flexed the muscles in his arm, shattering the vines with no effort at all.

He parried the blow instantly.

Just then, Cassian attacked again.

Catching his falling katana at the last moment, he slashed at the Black Knight's leg.

But before his strike could land, the Knight's steel-shod boot swung into Cassian's stomach.

All the air rushed from his lungs.

He dropped his katana with a pained grunt.

Yet even as he was thrown back by the impact, his mind was clear.

He slammed his free hand on the floor and incanted an icy whisper.

The ground began to freeze instantly.

Jagged shards of ice raced toward the Black Knight to trap him.

But the ice had barely reached the Knight's feet when he gave a light stomp.

He shattered the spell with contemptuous ease.

At that moment, Rose unleashed her vines again.

This time, she had no intention of stopping.

The instant one vine was torn apart, a new one erupted from the marble floor.

She didn't care how much mana she was burning.

Her only goal was to create a momentary opening for Fredrinn and Cassian.

To slow that iron behemoth down, if only for a second.

Cassian supported her with his ice, trying to restrict the Knight's movements.

Simultaneously, he was forming a destructive sphere of lightning that began to crackle ominously in the air.

Mana gathered within the sphere, growing dangerously unstable.

Fredrinn seized the opportunity created by his friends' chaos and charged.

He swung his sword at the Black Knight, whose defense was slightly impaired.

The Black Knight barely managed to block the blow.

But just then, Cassian's lightning sphere was complete.

It had been launched at the Knight's back.

Though most of the spell was absorbed by the armor, the raw electrical power was enough to make the Black Knight stagger for a brief moment.

Fredrinn did not stop.

He could not miss this golden opportunity.

Pushing forward with all his might, he knocked the Black Knight's sword aside, leaving him defenseless for an instant.

He swung his sword again, this time with all his strength, at the Knight's torso.

This time, his attack found its mark!

The tip of his sword left a deep scratch on the armor with a high-pitched screech.

Taking damage for the first time, the dark voids behind the Black Knight's helm seemed to glow.

They glowed with an even deeper shade of pure hatred.

Snapping out of his stupor instantly, he moved with incredible speed and seized Fredrinn's sword wrist.

His fingers began to squeeze like an iron vise.

Fredrinn could feel his bones about to break.

But he did not yield.

He called upon the power of the blue stone in his chest.

The veins in his arm filled with a brilliant blue light, like a river bursting forth from beneath his skin.

The strength in his arm multiplied tenfold.

The Black Knight was surprised by this sudden surge of power in his grasp but recovered quickly.

He delivered a merciless kick to Fredrinn's stomach.

However, a translucent shield of mana, conjured by Rose at the last second, appeared before Fredrinn.

It lessened the impact of the blow.

Fredrinn used the chance to leap backward, freeing himself from the Knight's vise-like grip.

A few meters of distance now separated them once more.

The battle had paused, but only for a moment.

It was the calm before the storm.

And all three of them knew that the next clash would be far more violent.

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