[Soul Fusion: 1,000 Units Collected… Starting Soul Fusion]
"Not yet… not now!"
Knight roared in a raspy voice, trying desperately to hold onto his fading consciousness. But it was like trying to hold water in his hands; the tighter he gripped, the faster it flowed out.
As soon as the number hit one thousand, the silver mist around him was sucked into his body in an instant. The sky flashed a blinding white, drowning out all vision for a moment. A sound echoed within his head not an explosion, nor the wind, but something quieter and crueler, like the sound of something long-sealed being released.
When the light faded, a gargantuan ancient ruined church stood in place of the mist.
It was an architecture far older and grander than anything human hands of this era could produce. Fallen white stone pillars were bound by shimmering golden vines, as if nature were trying to suture the wounds man had inflicted. In the heart of the ruins sat an altar carved with a massive eye, the Eye of Judgment, identical to the one Knight possessed. And while this church shared the design of the one in the forest, it felt strangely different, as if this were the Great Cathedral of "Her."
But the eye on the stone altar did not look outward. It looked down at the floor, as if there were something it didn't dare face. As if shame itself had been carved into the stone.
However, relief lasted only a split second.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
War drums thundered immediately after the silver mist vanished. The Red Cross Army, which had been lying in wait, surged toward them with redoubled speed. It was as if they had been waiting for this moment waiting for the mist to clear, waiting for Knight to be at his weakest.
"Ugh… everyone! Hide in the ruins!"
Knight barked the command, his voice thick with pain but maintaining its authority. Because if he weren't decisive, if his voice shook even slightly, the people looking to him would know he had no answers. They would know he was lost, and that fear would spread faster than fire.
Hearing this, the villagers scrambled into the ruins in a panic, hundreds of footsteps echoing against the ancient stone floor. Leaving Knight to stand alone at the entrance, facing an army of tens of thousands charging toward him.
His body was in agony in every part. His consciousness was slipping. Memories that weren't his still vibrated in his head. And amidst all that pain, one voice rang clearer than the rest, a voice Knight finally recognized after piecing together the memories and the words of the old man in the black robe.
"Be quiet for a second, Uriel." Knight drew his greatsword from its sheath and slammed it into the earth.
Knight tried to use the Eye of Judgment, but he couldn't. It was as if he had to wait for the fusion to complete.
[Soul Fusion: 18%]
[Advisory: Skills are unavailable during soul fusion. Please remain in a safe area.]
'Safe area? Heh, as if.' Knight wrenched the greatsword from the ground, ready to face an army of ten thousand alone, even without his skills.
He looked at the approaching host. The front line consisted of heavy knights in polished plate armor, followed by an endless sea of infantry. Behind them, the drums beat like the heart of a tireless monster. Thump. Thump. Thump.
He took a deep breath. And let it out.
The lingering memories in his head vibrated as if trying to speak, but Knight suppressed them into the deepest part of his mind. Not because he didn't want to hear them, but because if he listened now, he wouldn't have enough focus for what was to come.
He gripped the hilt of his greatsword. And he felt it immediately.
It wasn't the power of the Eye of Judgment, nor the warmth of the runes. It was something deeper, beneath every skill and special power the system had given him. It was what the body remembers from countless battles.
The first knight charged, swinging a two-handed longsword in a vertical cleave meant to split stone. Knight didn't retreat. He stepped in. Closing the distance until the longsword lost its leverage, his elbow slammed into the knight's wrist, deflecting the strike. As the blade struck the ground, the pommel of Knight's greatsword crushed the knight's visor, hurling him back violently.
The knight fell before he could even process the move. It took less than two seconds.
Knight didn't think; his body simply knew. It remembered the movements from his previous battles and the memories embedded in his muscles, the angles he had seen and the strikes he had made. His body remembered how to dodge and how to kill.
But he had no time to reflect, for the second knight was already there. Two, three, five of them. They came in waves, and Knight fought with raw physicality, with nothing but his greatsword and muscle memory.
He didn't just meet force with force; he parried and redirected, using the enemies' own momentum to turn them out of alignment, letting them collide with each other. He didn't strike every opening; he chose only the vital ones: the back of the knee, the underarm where armor was thin, the neck exposed when a helmet tilted back. It wasn't elegant. It wasn't beautiful. But it worked.
[Soul Fusion: 31%]
The pain intensified. The fusion process was siphoning every ounce of his energy, leaving his mortal shell with no support. A spear tip bit into his left thigh, piercing the armor and flesh. Knight slashed it away, but the wound remained warm, sticky blood trickling down his leg. He shifted his stance, putting his good leg forward to bear the weight.
Two blades lunged simultaneously from different directions. Without the precognition of his Eye, he couldn't dodge both. He chose the lesser of two evils, letting a short sword graze his ribs while he delivered a skull-crushing blow to the first knight.
He dropped to one knee momentarily, gasping for air. His lungs felt as if they were filled with hot sand. Dark red spots of blood decorated the stone floor. 'Get up, Knight! Get up!'
[Soul Fusion: 47%]
Time lost all meaning. It was no longer measured in minutes, but in movements one strike, followed by the next, and the next. There was no visible end, no numbers telling him how many were left. For every knight he felled, two more took their place.
The wound in his thigh widened with every step; the gash in his ribs made every deep breath an agony of will. There was a new cut on his right shoulder he didn't even remember receiving. The body prioritized its pain, and he just kept moving.
[Soul Fusion: 63%]
He nearly collapsed. Not from an attack, but because his legs simply stopped responding. He braced himself with one hand on the floor, gaining a split second of reprieve. In that moment, a vision of the white-winged being flashed, besieged, bloodied, but unyielding.
'Why did you fight, Uriel?' No answer came, but his body rose anyway, as if it knew the answer even if his brain didn't. He fought on. There was no elegance in his struggle, only the dirty, blood-soaked reality of survival.
[Soul Fusion: 79%]
Almost there, he told himself. But his body wasn't so sure. When the army briefly paused to regroup, Knight leaned on his sword, chest heaving, his armor a patchwork of dents and blood. He looked at the vast host still waiting to kill him. Logic dictated he would lose. He was out of energy, out of strength, and hopelessly outnumbered.
But behind him was the door where dozens of lives were hidden. And that was enough.
[Soul Fusion: 91%]
He gripped the hilt until his knuckles turned white. His fingers were partially numb, but he forced them to feel. The army charged again. Knight wrenched his sword from the ground and stepped forward. If he didn't step, no one would. And if the door behind him opened, the screams would haunt him forever. He chose the pain of now.
[Soul Fusion: 99%]
The first enemy blade swung down. Knight raised his sword with trembling arms to meet it. Then, the unthinkable happened. His trusted companion, the greatsword, finally reached its limit. With a deafening crack, the blade snapped. The enemy's follow-through was unimpeded, tearing into his body with enough force to nearly cleave him in two.