"W-Why... Since when?!"
"From the very beginning. I blended into the chaos. It wasn't actually that hard. With two thousand soldiers on the field, no one can track every face. However..."
Leo drew his blade.
"I couldn't just stand by and watch my people be slaughtered. I'm glad Senior Deskis was able to bridge the plan at half the expected time."
Leo and his group had been hidden in plain sight from the start.
As soon as the melee broke out, they had swapped into Odixian armor they'd stripped from the prisoners at the Eldoro Plains. Usually, moving against the flow of an army would give a mole away instantly, but following the momentum of the Odixian force made it easy. They didn't need to force their way through; they simply slowed their pace bit by bit until the main army surged past, leaving them behind.
"Flare, sorry. I'm going to cut loose, so look after the others for me."
"Go for it. Give them everything you've got."
Leo tightened his grip on his hilt.
There were twenty enemies surrounding them, and about twenty on Leo's side. Numbers-wise, there was no advantage. Yet, when Leo took a single step forward, the enemy knights instinctively retreated.
His Sword Aura was that intense. It radiated a pressure equal to the greatest warriors Leo had ever encountered.
The veteran knights felt their fighting spirit withered at the roots. They stared at the twelve-year-old boy, gripped by a crushing certainty that they could not win.
Leo lunged.
For a split second, Kaizel and his men were confused. Was he throwing something? At this range?
The answer came with a sickening sound.
A sharp crack rang out, and the knight standing in front was pierced through. He was dead before he hit the ground.
"W-What was that?! Everyone, draw your swords!"
While their eyes were glued to the corpse, Leo had already closed the gap. He was suddenly right in front of them. One knight tried to intercept him, but Leo was faster—his blade took the man's arm before their steel could even touch.
"Gaaaaargh!"
Blood sprayed. Screams tore through the gorge.
"Raaaaah!"
The Odixians swung their swords in a panicked frenzy, but they lost sight of their target. Leo, with his small frame, slipped through their ranks like a ghost. To him, these nineteen men weren't even a hurdle.
"Do we... even need to be here?" Flare wondered aloud.
Then, Leo was standing before Kaizel.
Kaizel drew his sword and lashed out with a desperate strike.
"I am a Two-Star knight! Do not mock me!"
"I have to be able to surpass a Two-Star with ease," Leo replied.
Ten flashes of steel collided between them in a single second.
"Impossible... How can you... be this fast..."
That was the limit of Kaizel's speed. To a normal person, he was a superhuman warrior. But Leo’s peak performance existed on a plane far beyond that. Kaizel couldn't keep up. He couldn't even see the killing blow.
"My deepest... apologies... Lord Abeljan..."
Leo’s final, lightning-fast strike severed Kaizel's head before the man even realized he’d been cut.
The head fell with a dull thud.
In that instant, the Emblems of the surrounding knights flickered out. The same phenomenon occurred among the soldiers pursuing Deskis’s group.
Kaizel was a Two-Star knight who commanded a thousand men. Though another thousand soldiers remained under a different commander, the momentum had shifted.
"My soul friend... Truly magnificent. I suppose I must finish my part as well."
The man stood up.
Wiping the stage blood from his back, he stood tall atop his Emblem Horse.
The "traitor" who had slashed Deskis from behind had been Leo in disguise. He had delivered a superficial strike while simultaneously bursting a bladder of fake blood. The Odixians had been completely taken in by Deskis’s melodramatic death performance.
"I am the Phoenix! Your commander, Kaizel, is dead!"
Deskis stood tall as if silhouetted by a divine halo, a natural-born leader commanding every eye on the field. The pursuing Odixian knights skidded to a halt, frozen in disbelief. But the proof was undeniable: half of the remaining force had lost their Emblem power.
Then came the final blow to their morale.
A spine-chilling Sword Aura radiated from behind them. It was Leo, mounted on an Emblem Horse, fresh from Kaizel’s execution.
"You’ve truly leveled up, my friend," Deskis noted.
Leo had his anger under perfect control. He took the remnants of his fury and funneled it into his Sword Aura, using it as a weapon of pure intimidation—just as Alteus had once done to him, and just as Gaia had during the Knight Commander Exam.
However, these were battlefield-hardened knights. Pressure alone wouldn't break them all.
So, Leo threw the head.
He hated doing it. He believed the dead deserved a proper burial. But he did it anyway for one reason: he wanted them to surrender.
"Kaizel is dead. Surrender now and I will spare your lives—and your Master’s Emblems. Or stay and die by my hand."
Flare watched him from the side, understanding his intent. When Leo used such cold, harsh words, it was because he knew they were the most effective tool for survival.
The combination of his aura, his words, the grisly proof of Kaizel’s death, and the promise of mercy worked. One by one, the Odixian knights returned their swords to their Emblems.
Every single one of them raised their hands. It was a total surrender.
The knights carrying Master’s Emblems stepped forward and allowed themselves to be bound with specialized steel handcuffs—items Leo had borrowed from Osiris the day before.
"You... truly aren't going to kill us?" one asked.
"I'm not. If you surrender, you live. That is the way of the Leo Knight Order."
The captured commanders looked toward Deskis.
"It's exactly as he says. The Iron Rule of the Leo Knight Order."
"I see..."
"But," Leo added, "if you resist, I won't hesitate. I can't break your Emblems right now, so you stay restrained. If your subordinates move, I'll kill them instantly. I'm not that soft."
"No... you're plenty soft, kid."
Leo waited until every commander was secured. The battle was won.
"Alright, now we just need to head to the center—!"
In that heartbeat, it hit him.
Death.
Every instinct in Leo’s body screamed. A Sword Aura as sharp as a razor pressed against his jugular. It was precise, yet savage—a violent, overwhelming pressure that heralded imminent destruction.
He gripped his sword and spun toward the source.
It came from the direction of the center.
"Zeno insisted I come see for myself, but I didn't think Kaizel would actually be taken down. Even among my disciples, he was one of the more talented ones."
"Who are you?" Leo asked, staring at the man radiating the suffocating pressure.
The newcomer was a massive, dark-skinned man with a rugged build. His hair was cropped short, and a vertical scar ran through one eye, keeping it permanently shut. His mere presence was a declaration of strength.
The man took a step forward. Leo realized he had instinctively taken a step back. His soul was screaming at him to flee.
Deskis spoke, his voice unusually grim.
"Leo, fall back. We can't win this as we are. This is the kind of opponent you face at the end of a long journey, after a dozen more death matches and a lifetime of experience."
"Senior Deskis... you know this muscle-bound knight?"
"A bit of an understatement, but yes. He is one of the Odixia Four Heavenly Kings—Abeljan Rogren. He's in the same league as Lord Osiris and Lord Gaia."
Leo nodded. This was an Irregular. An anomaly he hadn't planned for.
Just as he decided they had to retreat, the man spoke again.
"I hear you're the one who took the castle on the Eldoro Plains, too."
Leo’s heart sank. Behind Abeljan, a sea of Odixian knights appeared. They were being hemmed in from both sides.
"You didn't attack the castle...?"
"Sharp as well, I see," Abeljan replied. "With Deskis here too, I suppose this was worth the price of abandoning the castle."