Lucretius stood before Leroy like a figure carved from shadow.

  His expression was empty, stripped of recognition or hostility, as if emotion itself had been sealed beneath the black armor that encased him. Only his left eye burned with a cold blue light, a silent flame trapped within stillness. The Dark Adamsword rested at his side, unmoving yet oppressive, its presence bending the quiet around them.

  The Green Wraith felt a disquiet he could not name.

  “Lucretius… why are you silent?” Leroy asked softly, confusion threading through his voice as he studied the Fallen Knight’s unmoving gaze.

  No answer came.

  Cygnus, standing nearby, finally spoke. “You know, Leroy… I never wished for this.”

  Leroy ignored him.

  He stepped forward, slow and cautious, as if approaching a memory that might shatter upon contact. Lucretius remained motionless, a statue given breath but not will.

  “Lucretius,” Leroy said again, closer now, “are you good, friend?”

  The question felt hollow the moment it left his lips. The aftermath of his argument with Cygnus lingered in his thoughts, twisting perception into uncertainty. What stood before him felt familiar and foreign at once.

  Cygnus offered only a small shake of his head.

  Silence stretched.

  Three council members stood within the wind-swept steppe, bound not by conversation but by unresolved history. Lucretius’s sudden return after months of absence unsettled Leroy more than any accusation. He had believed Cygnus might have guided the Fallen Knight back to clarity, yet the armor, the shield, the blade… all suggested preparation, not recovery.

  Lucretius had worn such armor in council assemblies before, but never with the shield.

  The detail lingered like an unanswered question.

  “Cygnus,” Leroy said, unable to accept the stillness, “why does he not respond?”

  “You seek answers for everything,” Cygnus replied calmly. “Yet you cling to a single solution and declare it truth.”

  “Cloning has proven safe,” Leroy countered. “Cogworks agreed to reinforce vulnerable elements with steel and machinery.”

  Cygnus’s composure fractured into visible irritation.

  “They are not broken, yet they are no longer alive. They become replacements constructed from metal.”

  “Starmist and I have established strict guidelines,” Leroy insisted, striving for calm. “There is no need for concern.”

  His attention returned to Lucretius.

  “Let us set aside our past conflicts,” Leroy said gently. “All of us ask you to return to the council. Abyss needs your presence.”

  For the first time, Lucretius’s gaze shifted.

  The blue glow of his eye turned toward Leroy, acknowledging his presence without offering response.

  “Enough,” Cygnus said, raising his hand and pointing toward the Green Wraith. “Lucretius and I reject cloning. You must halt this program.”

  Leroy ignored him again, eyes fixed on the Fallen Knight.

  “Lucretius,” he said, voice quieter now, “I want to hear it from you. Do you truly oppose this?”

  Lucretius did not answer.

  Cygnus already understood what would follow. There was no reason left to conceal it.

  The Sorcerer Supreme inhaled slowly, the wind tugging at his robes as he spoke with quiet precision.

  “I, Lucretius, left the council because of emotion.”

  Leroy frowned, unable to grasp the meaning behind the statement.

  Then Lucretius opened his mouth.

  His voice emerged flat, stripped of inflection, as though spoken from a place untouched by memory.

  “I, Lucretius, left the council because of emotion.”

  Shock struck Leroy with physical force. He stepped back instinctively, breath faltering, eyes widening as understanding refused to form.

  “What is this?” he whispered. “Why would you say that, Lucretius?”

  His gaze snapped toward Cygnus.

  “Cygnus, why is he repeating you? You know that reason drove him away from the council.”

  Cygnus did not respond.

  Instead, he spoke again.

  “I thought Starmist might come to love me.”

  Lucretius echoed the words immediately, expression unchanged.

  “I thought Starmist might come to love me.”

  Color drained from Leroy’s face. Cold sweat gathered across his brow as the moment twisted into something closer to horror than revelation. His lips trembled, caught between disbelief and comprehension.

  Cygnus stepped forward, closing the distance with calm inevitability.

  “If you force the cloning program forward with your current conviction,” he said, turning the ring upon his finger, “would you be capable of doing what I have just done to Lucretius if something out of hand?”

  This time, the Fallen Knight remained silent.

  Leroy swallowed. “What… have you done to him?”

  Cygnus turned away and walked toward a solitary stone embedded in the grass, lowering himself onto it as if settling into a conversation long anticipated. Leroy’s gaze never left him.

  “Cygnus,” Leroy demanded, voice rising with restrained fury, “what did you do?”

  “Our power,” Cygnus said quietly, “will one day collapse without strict guardianship.”

  He lifted a hand and gestured toward Lucretius, who still stood motionless beneath the fading sky.

  “Man like Lucretius and others like him, pose profound danger to balance if left without proper control.”

  “You conditioned him,” Leroy said, the accusation landing like a verdict before a cosmic tribunal. “Did this begin after the council fractured… or long before? You have stood beside him since the war.”

  Cygnus’s expression remained unreadable.

  “I want to be fair, not much I know about him,” he replied. “From the moment I found him, he appeared hollow.”

  Leroy’s gaze moved between them, searching for contradiction that did not exist.

  “As you all once said,” Cygnus continued, “Lucretius is an anomaly.”

  “Then all those years in the council,” Leroy pressed, voice quieter but heavier, “his passivity…ignorance… was that truly him or something you imposed?”

  “I told you,” Cygnus answered, “I do not know. He is immensely powerful and even to me he remains difficult to comprehend.”

  Silence returned, thicker than before.

  Leroy stared at Lucretius, whose presence now felt less like a companion remembered and more like a mystery never understood.

  His eyes widened, empty with dawning uncertainty.

  “Then who,” Leroy asked at last, voice barely audible beneath the wind, “is the Lucretius we have known all this time?”

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Cygnus fell silent.

  Leroy did the same.

  His mind began to fracture into fragments of memory, scattered moments resurfacing with cruel clarity. He gathered them instinctively, assembling a pattern he refused to name, a conclusion his heart rejected even as reason pressed forward.

  Now the pieces aligned.

  There had always been a reason Cygnus opened portals for Lucretius to attend council sessions. Not merely because the Abyss lay distant, but like an artist summoning his own creation. There had been a reason Cygnus traveled repeatedly into the Abyss, not out of fear of its dangers, but to ensure something remained within his grasp.

  At the time, it had seemed ordinary. Natural. Too visible to question.

  Yet Lucretius stood before him now.

  And that certainty shattered.

  Thought collapsed into noise. Leroy’s mind could no longer hold a coherent shape of truth.

  “Cygnus,” Leroy said at last, voice trembling with restrained fury, “I do not know what kind of crime this is… but the Abyss and All Realm will not accept it.”

  “The All Realm must never know,” Cygnus replied as he rose from the stone.

  “You reveal this filth to me and expect silence?” Leroy’s hands tightened into fists. “Tomorrow Elysius and Cognisource will broadcast everything. And this time, none of your Cryptic will tamper with the truth.”

  Cygnus’s gaze sharpened.

  “You will not remain silent?” he said quietly. “Now that you know this secret, you will not be going anywhere.”

  The wind thickened between them.

  For a brief moment, neither moved. Their eyes locked, unyielding, until Leroy’s decision surfaced not as thought but instinct.

  Green light erupted across his body.

  He ascended instantly, cutting through the air with desperate velocity.

  Cygnus reacted without hesitation.

  “Sigillum Custodis - Khaen Vitrael.”

  Arcane energy burst from his hand in long spectral cords that lashed upward with impossible speed. They wrapped around Leroy mid-flight, binding him in luminous restraints that pulsed with suppressive force. Despite Leroy’s speed, Cygnus’s spell moved faster.

  With a sharp motion, Cygnus pulled.

  Leroy crashed into the ground, the impact carving a wide crater into the steppe as soil and grass erupted outward in a violent ring.

  Lucretius moved.

  He drew the shield from his back and charged toward the crater while Cygnus maintained the spell’s grip. Dust settled slowly, revealing Leroy already standing within the pit, largely unharmed. His defensive aura had absorbed the fall.

  But the reprieve lasted only a breath.

  Lucretius leapt down, Adamsword descending in a swift arc.

  “Lucretius, stop. This is not you,” Leroy shouted, raising a green barrier in his palm.

  No answer.

  The Fallen Knight struck with his shield instead, smashing upward into Leroy’s jaw and sending him tumbling out of the crater.

  “These spell bindings,” Leroy muttered, feeling the arcane cords constrict his movement. “I cannot fly freely.”

  Lucretius emerged from the crater, thrusting his blade downward repeatedly. Leroy dodged each strike with defensive precision, refusing retaliation. A sudden kick swept Lucretius’s leg, forcing him briefly off balance.

  Leroy seized the moment.

  Green energy enveloped him as he surged forward, aiming directly for Cygnus.

  He never reached him.

  Lucretius intercepted with brutal momentum, slamming into Leroy’s side and sending him rolling across the grass. Cygnus watched calmly, as though the outcome had already been written, as though the knight before him were not a companion but an extension of his will.

  “Don't underestimate,” Cygnus said. “You face Lucretius. Even under my control, he remains an extraordinary knight.”

  Lucretius pressed the assault relentlessly.

  Leroy refused to fight back. His movements remained defensive, focused solely on escape from a situation that felt increasingly unreal. The Adamsword crashed repeatedly against his barrier, sparks of energy scattering across the steppe without breaking through.

  Within the clash, Leroy’s thoughts spiraled.

  Was everything a lie?

  I led the council… yet failed to see my own comrade reduced to another’s instrument.

  How did none of us notice?

  Lucretius’s strikes intensified, forcing Leroy backward step by step as steel and magic collided in relentless rhythm.

  Behind them, Cygnus followed at a measured pace, maintaining the spell’s tether so Leroy could not escape its reach.

  “Cygnus, stop,” Leroy shouted between impacts. “Release him. I will remain silent about this.”

  “You are finished,” Cygnus said.

  His voice carried no anger, only decision.

  “The Weapon Master faction has never lacked warriors. We will shape another who will not disappoint.”

  Lucretius’s kick struck with brutal force.

  Leroy crashed to the ground, arms trembling as numbness spread through muscles repeatedly battered by the Adamsword. The strikes had not pierced his defenses, yet their weight eroded strength with relentless persistence.

  “Lucretius… fight it,” Leroy shouted as he forced himself upright.

  The Fallen Knight did not pause.

  Shield rose.

  It slammed into Leroy’s face where his relic light had faded for an instant. Flesh tore. Blood spilled from his nose, and a molar shattered loose, landing in the grass as he spat crimson and enamel into the dirt.

  “I warned you not to underestimate him,” Cygnus said calmly. “Fight as desperately as you defend your program.”

  A faint glow ignited within the skull motif etched into Lucretius’s armor. His left eye flared brighter.

  The transformation was immediate.

  Despite the heavy armor, Lucretius accelerated with unnatural speed, charging toward Leroy who struggled to steady himself after being hurled across the steppe.

  Leroy understood the truth of his situation.

  He was alone.

  “So this is how it ends,” he murmured, forcing himself back to his feet.

  A quiet breath escaped him.

  “Starmist… everyone… I will give everything now.”

  Green light surged across his fists as he raised them into a fighting stance. Lucretius closed the distance and swung the Adamsword toward Leroy’s head in a lethal arc.

  Leroy ducked.

  His right fist drove forward into Lucretius’s abdomen, the impact lifting the armored general off his feet and sending him tumbling across the ground.

  Leroy advanced without hesitation.

  His arms snapped downward in rapid succession, hammering Lucretius while the Fallen Knight lay prone, shield raised in desperate defense. The blows landed with mounting force. The shield buckled, metal bending under pressure. After a dozen strikes, a final punch pierced through the black iron, tearing the defense apart before Leroy ripped it from Lucretius’s grip and hurled it aside.

  Cygnus’s composure flickered.

  Lucretius attempted a counter-kick but Leroy caught his leg and flung him away with raw momentum. In the same motion, Leroy surged forward toward Cygnus, fist drawn back.

  A translucent barrier erupted around the Sorcerer Supreme.

  One punch shattered it.

  A second fractured the next.

  The third obliterated the final shield, sending a jolt through Cygnus’s arm that left it briefly numb.

  Yet the binding spell remained anchored to Leroy’s body, restricting his full freedom.

  Leroy seized Cygnus by the collar.

  Emerald light burned within his eyes, fury no longer restrained by exhaustion or doubt. His fist hovered inches from Cygnus’s face, poised to strike with unfiltered intent.

  “Perhaps Amaterasu and Bjorn were right,” Leroy said quietly. “You have lived too long.”

  The punch never landed.

  Lucretius struck from behind, his fist crashing into Leroy’s skull and forcing him to release Cygnus.

  The Fallen Knight pressed forward again. Leroy redirected his energy into a defensive barrier across his back, absorbing the attack before countering with a brutal kick that collapsed Lucretius’s stance. Leroy followed with a rapid barrage of body shots, fists striking in relentless rhythm against armored ribs.

  The sequence ended with a powerful uppercut.

  Lucretius lifted from the ground and was hurled backward, nearly colliding with Cygnus as he struggled to regain balance.

  Leroy stood amid the churned grass, blood trailing from his lip as he advanced once more.

  “I am still a fighter, Cygnus,” he said. “Do not underestimate me either.”

  Lucretius rose as if pain were irrelevant.

  His armor bore dents and fractures from Leroy’s strikes, metal warped along the ribs where balance faltered, yet the Fallen Knight advanced without hesitation. Left fist and Adamsword moved in ruthless coordination, while Leroy answered with both hands, green light flaring and fading with each defensive surge.

  Blow met blow.

  Where Leroy’s relic energy shielded him, steel faltered. Where it did not, flesh suffered. Blood marked the grass beneath their feet as both warriors fell, rose, and struck again in a rhythm older than reason.

  It had been long since Lucretius faced such a battle. Even with both skull eyes on his armor ignited, granting heightened resilience, Leroy matched him with relentless determination.

  Behind them, Cygnus remained bound by consequence. One arm still numbed from Leroy’s earlier assault, the other forced to sustain the binding spell. To release it, even for a moment, risked Leroy’s escape.

  Then the turning point arrived.

  Leroy’s kick snapped against Lucretius’s face, staggering the Fallen Knight. Yet in the same motion, the Dark Adamsword carved across Leroy’s abdomen. Steel tore flesh open, and blood spilled in sudden abundance.

  Leroy staggered, clutching the wound as his relic energy flickered, concentration fractured by pain. Lucretius seized the moment, his boot striking Leroy’s face with brutal precision.

  The Green Wraith was launched backward, crashing into a distant tree more than a dozen meters away. Bark splintered. Leaves scattered.

  Leroy collapsed at its base, coughing blood as crimson pooled beneath him. Lucretius advanced again, blade in hand, execution already written in motion.

  But Cygnus noticed something else.

  A faint green glow pulsed from within Leroy’s wound.

  Recognition sharpened his gaze.

  “Stop,” Cygnus commanded.

  Lucretius halted instantly.

  Cygnus dissolved the binding cords restraining Leroy and redirected the spell toward the luminous source emerging from his body. Arcane threads seized the green light, pulling it outward with merciless force.

  Leroy screamed.

  The relic was being torn from him.

  “Leroy Livingstone,” Cygnus said quietly, “you have served the council and wars with your entire being. You will be remembered. The All Realm will offer its gratitude. But your journey ends tonight.”

  The Smaragdinus relic stone burst from Leroy’s body, shattering flesh as it emerged before drifting into Cygnus’s waiting hand. The glow settled within the Sorcerer Supreme’s grasp, pulsing like a captured star.

  Leroy slumped, strength draining alongside blood and light.

  Memory surfaced in fragments.

  A quiet night beneath a sky crowded with stars. The sea whispering beyond the cliffs. Starmist beside him.

  “Why must there always be good and evil in this realm?” Leroy had asked, eyes fixed upon the heavens.

  “Is that a question or a riddle?” Starmist replied, puzzled.

  “Answer with your understanding first,” he said, smiling as she considered.

  “Because we cannot recognize good without evil, and the reverse,” she answered with hopeful certainty.

  “Wrong,” Leroy teased. “You should ask Cygnus. He understands balance better than anyone.”

  His laughter had filled the night.

  Now silence replaced it.

  Cygnus held the relic firmly and issued his final command. Lucretius stepped forward without hesitation, blade lifted in silent obedience.

  Leroy raised his gaze.

  The silhouette of the Fallen Knight loomed above him, shadow swallowing what little light remained.

  “Everyone… I failed. I hope you will—”

  The sentence ended unfinished.

  The Dark Adamsword pierced his chest, driving through flesh and bone before embedding deep into the tree behind him. Lucretius held the blade there for a moment, ensuring finality, before releasing it.

  Stillness followed.

  Cygnus stood with the Smaragdinus stone in his hand. Lucretius remained before him, motionless once more, the instrument returned to silence beneath its master’s command.