[Boss.]

Hans spoke.

It was the spirit beast’s way of communication, conveying one’s will directly without moving the lips.

Hans himself wasn’t even aware that he was using that method naturally now.

That was how hard it was to take his eyes off Ruthers.

Ruthers Wardot.

He had heard often enough that the man was not just the Empire’s best knight, but the Continent’s best.

Because of that, he remembered his profile very clearly.

But the difference between what was written in reports and the man’s actual combat power was staggering.

Even in his spirit beast form, Hans had rammed him at full force.

Normally, Hans avoided fighting altogether—such an act was beyond him.

But seeing Alex and Phantos bleeding on the ground had pushed all such concerns aside.

Even Hans himself didn’t know where that courage had come from.

Before he knew it, without Ludger even giving the order, his entire body was brimming with mana and his antlers were aimed full-force at Ruthers.

Dragging him out of the city and slamming him deep into a distant forest—only then had Hans thought, for the briefest moment, that maybe he had gone too far.

But that thought lasted only an instant.

Ruthers had emerged from that explosion completely unscathed.

His clothes bore traces of the blast’s aftermath, but his flesh hadn’t suffered so much as a scratch.

It was unbelievable.

Even if he fell short compared to a true spirit beast, the power he’d unleashed was still at the very edge of that realm—tremendous output.

Numerically, it was stronger than a massive tank charging headlong.

And yet this was the result.

Ludger, however, had no easy answer to give.

His gaze was fixed on Ruthers—specifically, on Ruthers holding a wooden club in one hand.

He knew instinctively that if he so much as looked away for an instant, an attack would come.

He didn’t ignore that instinct.

And that strange technique he used earlier to redirect Hans’s power.

Ruthers had reached out with both hands to meet Hans’s attack, then used a technique to divert most of its force outward.

It had all happened in less than a breath, but Ludger had seen it—

That momentary display of Ruthers’s mastery over force.

It’s just a hypothesis, but I think I understand the gist of it.

Ruthers caught the flicker of insight in Ludger’s eyes and silently marveled.

Hoh... as expected of the man who commands those subordinates.

From what Ruthers could tell, Ludger wasn’t a knight or warrior.

The black shadows rippling around his body told the story—he was a mage.

And not just any mage, but one of a different breed entirely.

He could feel it.

The kind of aura only a mage who had survived countless battlefields and life-or-death struggles could exude.

For someone like this to have no rumors about him makes no sense.

Even if Princess Aileen was backing him, the lack of talk meant Ludger himself had hidden his identity very well.

Ruthers leveled the club at Ludger, gathering his aura.

Ludger drew his swordstick and poured mana into it.

Neither man spoke.

Hans took a step back, putting distance between himself and the two.

He instinctively knew that interfering now would only hinder Ludger.

An eerie stillness settled over the forest, so deep that even the insects were silent.

They moved at the same time.

Their bodies brushed past each other in midair.

A sharp flash teased the eyes.

When their figures became clear again, each was standing in the other’s original position.

A collision without sound.

Hans didn’t understand what had just happened—

But then his eyes went wide at the sight before him.

Shrrrak!

A massive crater was carved into the forest floor, and as if an invisible giant’s sword had descended, a gash split the ground.

It stretched far beyond the crater, all the way toward the forest’s edge.

The cut surface was smooth, as though sliced by something impossibly sharp.

Its depth was impossible to guess—it was like the yawning mouth of the abyss itself.

Ruthers, the man who had wrought this impossible scene, slowly turned his head.

“What was that just now?”

Ludger, head tilted slightly, withdrew the mana from his swordstick.

The wavering black shadow coating the blade faded away, revealing the pure white steel beneath.

“Magic.”

“So unlike my imitation of the technique, yours is the real thing, is it?”

Ruthers muttered, glancing down at the club in his hand.

Everything but the part gripped in his palm had been sheared away.

Some might say a mere wooden stick could never stand against a mana-charged swordstick—

But if the one wielding it was Ruthers Wardot, the story changed.

The enormous slash that had scarred the forest was something he had created with that broken stick.

“Interesting.”

Ruthers tossed aside the now-useless piece of wood.

The tension drained from the air.

“I haven’t heard the answer to what your goal is, but... you don’t seem like you’ll be an enemy of the Empire for now. And it looks like our precious princess values you highly.”

Ludger didn’t bother replying.

Ruthers hadn’t expected an answer anyway; he simply shrugged and continued.

“But the moment you become an enemy of the Empire, it won’t end like today. Etch that deep into your heart.”

Ludger slid the swordstick back into its cane.

“You can count on it.”

“...Hah.”

To speak in such a provocative tone before the Empire’s strongest knight—

And yet, strangely, Ruthers didn’t dislike it.

How many in this Empire could stand so confidently before him?

Thinking of Alex and Phantos, he felt more envy than wariness toward Ludger.

With a trace of regret, Ruthers launched himself away.

Despite his solid build, his body moved as lightly as a feather through the forest’s darkness.

When Ruthers had vanished completely, Hans finally exhaled the breath he’d been holding.

Pahhh! Wh-what was that just now?

He approached Ludger as he spoke.

Just looking at the scar in the ground sent a chill up his spine.

Even in spirit beast form, Hans’s white fur was bristling all over.

If I didn’t imagine it, I think I saw a massive flash for an instant.

In that moment when Ludger and Ruthers crossed paths, Hans—whose sight had been sharpened by his transformation—had glimpsed a sudden burst of light.

Even for a spirit beast’s eyes, it had been barely visible, and far too vast to judge by normal standards.

Was that yours, Boss?

“It wasn’t.”

Th-then that human just now... are you saying that flash I saw was—

“Aura.”

Hans was struck speechless.

Aura? That flash had been aura?

That light, bursting forth in an instant, drawn from a wooden stick?

They say a trained knight can draw aura even barehanded, but how do you produce something of that size and length from a piece of wood...?

Even if it had only manifested in the instant of the swing, the scale of it defied belief.

More importantly, are you alright, Boss?

“I’m fine.”

Ludger, having released the Ater Nocturnus, stood unharmed.

Ruthers’s unbelievable strike hadn’t touched him in the end.

The shadow energy stored in the swordstick had erased every attack within a certain range.

The “technique” Ruthers had spoken of was spatial distortion itself.

Its essence was entirely different from Ruthers’s own, which had been honed to the extreme.

The fact that Ludger himself remained unharmed within the slash’s path was proof.

By the way, could you always imbue your sword with shadow like that?

“No.”

Then when did you—

“After returning from the Kasarr Basin, I had... a few realizations.”

After fighting Rimle and witnessing Velkat’s magic, Ludger had drawn multiple inspirations from the techniques they used.

What he had now was something he had devised by imitating and adapting what he had seen.

“The mana consumption is so high that I can’t use it for long, but for a one-hit kill, it’s more than adequate.”

The downside was its short reach.

Since it was more like imbuing a property directly into the swordstick, extending the range or firing it far away was virtually impossible.

This was a technique meant for when he created a sure opening and closed the distance.

Still, gaining a new usable technique was a good thing, and Ludger decided to be satisfied with that for now.

Naturally climbing onto Hans’s back, he spoke.

“Let’s go back. We need to check on Alex and Phantos.”

[Understood.]

Hans’s body began to lift off the ground.

By now, rising into the air felt completely natural to him.

Soon, Hans was running through the sky as if stepping on invisible footholds, heading back toward Rederbelk.

The forest they left behind—

On the cratered ground marked by massive slashes, a change began.

Sssrrrk—

The deep gouges in the earth began to close up as if healing, and the long, cleaved scars sealed over like stitched wounds.

As if the land itself possessed a will.

* * *

Alex and Phantos went straight into treatment.

Thanks to Bellaruna’s emergency care after hearing the news, they were left with no lasting aftereffects.

Their bones were broken, and their bodies were covered in cuts and bruises, but their recovery abilities were so strong that they would soon be back on their feet.

“That’s a relief.”

“Still, just in case, you should rest for now.”

Bellaruna gave her professional opinion as a doctor.

Obsessed with pharmacology though she might be, she still possessed excellent medical knowledge.

When it came to these matters, she was all seriousness.

Ludger replied that he understood, thinking this to himself.

He entered the makeshift infirmary where Alex and Phantos were resting.

Contrary to his expectations that they might be dejected after losing despite their all-out joint attack, their expressions were very serious.

“Did you learn something from the fight?”

“A lot. It’s an unpleasant feeling, but also... strangely satisfying.”

Alex replied with a faint grin.

In his eyes shone a light Ludger hadn’t seen before—

The kind that appeared when a knight gained enlightenment, with the aura within his body resonating in response.

“I’ve never heard of aura being used like that. Actually, even if such a rumor spread, only that monster of a man could probably use it.”

“You noticed?”

“What do you take me for? I figured it out during the fight—the ridiculous force redirection that knight commander showed us. I’ve even got an idea of its origin and principle.”

Alex recalled how Ruthers had deflected both his and Phantos’s attacks.

He had thought it was sheer skill, but it wasn’t that.

It was closer to an immense force in itself.

“I’m still only guessing, but I’m getting a good feel for it. Give me a bit more time and I’ll have the answer.”

Ludger thought back to Ruthers’s aura.

That blow they exchanged in the forest—

If he exaggerated a little, Ruthers’s aura at that moment seemed high enough to touch the sky.

To draw out that much aura in the blink of an eye, swing it, and then withdraw it again...

It was so fast and natural that it was hard to believe.

It ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) made him wonder if even drawing out every ounce of aura in one’s body could achieve that.

For a mage, it was like reaching a full 100% mana release.

On the flip side, it seemed only fitting that such a feat was worthy of the title Continent’s Strongest Sword.

“That man is basically a living natural disaster. What’s scarier is that he controls that power completely.”

“Phantos, do you agree?”

Phantos, his body wrapped in bandages, replied.

“It was the same force I felt facing the ocean’s roughest storms. A terrifying disaster that raises waves and capsizes ships.”

His impression of Ruthers was identical to Alex’s.

Having fought him with their lives on the line, they both understood clearly.

“So—”

Ludger looked at the two of them.

“What will you do now?”

At the somewhat provocative question, both Alex and Phantos’s eyes sharpened.

Their lips twisted into faint smiles.

“Obviously.”

“We’ll pay him back.”

They were grateful for meeting Ruthers—

Because of him, they could grow stronger.

* * *

The incident that had happened in the middle of the night was quickly wrapped up.

The place where Phantos and Alex had fought was a deserted alley.

The area itself was already slated for redevelopment, so there were no residents.

The only complication was the white shooting star people had seen streaking across the city’s sky, but no one knew what it actually was, and it remained only as rumor.

Even so, they couldn’t have erased the traces in the nearby forest.

Reading the front-page article about the “star” in the night sky, Ludger thought this.

While events in the city could be covered up, the traces of battle outside it should have remained.

Especially the scar that ran across the entire forest.

Anyone seeing that would assume something had happened.

Considering the direction the light had flown, rumors should have spread quickly, yet there was still no news. That was curious.

A knock at the door pulled Ludger from his thoughts.

“Come in.”

The one who entered was Sedina.

She looked at him with slight concern and asked,

“Are you alright? I heard there was an incident at the Kasarr Basin...”

“It was nothing.”

“That’s not good news. The death of First Order Lesley is already widespread.”

Ludger’s blue eyes turned toward Sedina.

“And there’s talk that you, being present at the scene, were the one who killed Lesley.”