By midnight, a torrential downpour swept across the battlefield, turning the fierce engagement into a brutal, mud-drenched melee.
Artillery fire from both sides had completely ceased. Most of the cannons were soaked, and a vast portion of the gunpowder had grown damp. Out of every ten shells fired, only two or three would ignite, and even then, their efficacy was highly doubtful. Aside from canister shot intended for direct anti-personnel damage, standard explosive shells simply sank deep into the thick mire upon impact. They detonated with spectacular roars, launching geysers of mud and water dozens of meters into the air, but their actual lethal radius was minimal.
The heavy rain plunged the battlefield into absolute darkness. The massive torches that had lined the streets were extinguished by the deluge. Even the few that managed to sputter against the storm cast only a weak, flickering glow—enough to guide the soldiers' direction, but utterly useless for illuminating the surrounding terrain.
In such atrocious weather, a ceasefire would have been the logical course of action, yet both armies were trapped in a vice of their own making.
A series of fierce, back-and-forth skirmishes had left the front lines completely tangled together. Whichever side attempted to withdraw first would inevitably sacrifice every soldier trapped in the pocket. If only a small number of troops were isolated, they could be sacrificed to secure a strategic advantage. But now, the elite divisions of both nations were locked in this muddy death grip. To abandon them meant risking an immediate, catastrophic collapse of the entire front.
In this hour, there was only one choice: fight to the death.
Under the freezing rain, only Knights in their Magitech Armor could hope to maneuver. The muddy expanse of the earth became a grim arena where armored juggernauts clashed.
Squad 105 was ordered to the front. In a battle of this scale, every scrap of strength had to be thrown into the grinder.
The squad had suffered severe casualties, which was a tragic reality, yet it had also granted them a strange stroke of fortune: they were placed in the reserve corps.
The reserve corps generally consisted of two types of units. The first were the elite of the elite—the razor-sharp spearheads held back to deliver the decisive, killing blow at the critical moment.
The second type was the exact opposite: shattered, understrength units thrown together simply to swell the ranks. They were used to harass equally depleted enemy forces or to wear down exhausted hostiles, denying them any chance to rest.
Since Squad 105 was severely depleted, it was naturally categorized as a weak reserve unit. However, this supposedly weak squad possessed a newly minted Ace Knight in Lina, a formidable commander in Calli, a superior scout in Nora, and Richie, whose bizarre defensive abilities defied conventional categorization. This miniature team of four was anything but weak.
The four of them advanced silently through the pitch-black battlefield. The distant fires did nothing to illuminate their path, and they had no desire to step into the light; that would only turn them into targets. The dark was their shield. With Nora leading them, not a single movement within a two-kilometer radius could escape her senses. Though the others could see nothing, they held the absolute advantage by relying on Nora's precise descriptions.
Using the terrain to their advantage, they repeatedly bypassed the enemy's sentries to launch devastating ambush strikes from the rear. They chose their targets carefully, attacking only the most vulnerable groups and completely ignoring any hardened positions.
Aside from Nora, the squad possessed another formidable asset: Randy, who followed roughly five hundred meters behind them.
Randy operated a heavy, specially modified transport vehicle. The driver’s cabin was encased in armor three inches thick, built to the specifications of a Magitech Suit. Even a full-force strike from Dana would struggle to breach its hull.
Mounted atop the cabin was a massive, circular metal disc. This advanced sensor array mapped every movement within a twenty-kilometer radius of the battlefield. It functioned like a divine eye floating thousands of meters in the sky, overseeing the entire theater. Though it couldn't capture fine details, it provided an invaluable, birds-eye view of the battle.
Thanks to this array, the squad could locate the most vulnerable targets in record time. It also allowed Nora to detect enemy movements and assess their strength long before they crossed the hostiles' own detection fields.
Furthermore, Randy's transport vehicle provided a crucial mobile base. In a chaotic melee like this, most Knights had no way to retreat for repairs or resupply. Once their armor was damaged or their power drained, even the strongest combatants were rendered useless. But Squad 105 could cycle back for quick refits, ensuring they remained in peak condition throughout the night.
Within a single hour, Richie’s kill count had skyrocketed to twenty. This was several times more than all the enemies he had slain over the past year. He found himself growing remarkably fond of these silent, brutal ambush operations.
Richie’s impressive tally was second only to Lina, who operated like a human reaper. Her kill count had already reached thirty-seven and was rapidly climbing toward forty. Her most terrifying display occurred when, before anyone else could react, she single-handedly annihilated a nine-man enemy squad. Her martial style was wide and destructive, her strikes packing immense power and range. A single, sweeping shockwave from her blade had instantly slain three of them.
Despite his brilliant performance, Richie kept a cool head. He knew this did not mean his combat strength had surpassed Calli's or Nora's.
Calli rarely engaged in direct combat; as the squad commander, she focused her mind on directing the battle and formulating their next moves.
As for Nora, Richie had a sneaking suspicion that the quiet scout was intentionally feeding him kills.
Several times, he had found his targets already incapacitated. Even if he hadn't struck them, they would have bled to death within minutes. The one who had left them crippled but alive was the silent woman shadowing his steps.
Richie knew Nora was doing this on purpose, but he didn't voice his suspicions, keeping his gratitude locked in his heart.
As the rain intensified, the first signs of dawn began to bleed into the sky. Once daylight broke, their advantage would vanish. The squad was simply too small. While their ambush tactics worked perfectly in the dark, a head-on engagement in the light would be highly perilous.
"It seems we have no choice but to bite into a few hard bones," Calli's voice crackled over the internal comms. "The remaining enemy forces are consolidating. They've gathered in two main groups, and we can no longer isolate them."
Her assessment was obvious to everyone. The scattered, lone combatants on the battlefield had been systematically eliminated; only the large groups survived.
Behind them, a group of Republic Knights had also gathered, numbering roughly forty men—the equivalent of a full company.
Normally, the safest course of action for a depleted unit like Squad 105 would be to merge with this larger force. But none of them had any interest in doing so. Joining a larger group meant yielding command to a stranger. Having grown accustomed to Calli's precise, brilliant leadership, none of them wanted to take orders from anyone else.
Their only other option was to navigate the gaps between the enemy and friendly forces, which was entirely feasible with Randy's sensor tracking. Yet, they couldn't simply flee. Behind them, in the city, were the people they cared about: their wounded comrades, Richie's family, and his growing harem.
"Which group are we hitting first?" Lina asked, casually spinning her long sword.
Of the two enemy groups, one numbered twenty-four, while the other had sixteen.
"Either is fine by me," Richie said, indifferent.
"I think the larger group is actually the better target," Randy chimed in from the transport. "There is a friendly unit stationed only four kilometers away from them."
"I agree," Calli said, her thoughts aligning with Randy's. Once they engaged the larger force, the nearby friendly Knights would undoubtedly hear the commotion and join the fray.
Knights rarely ignored comrades in distress. Every Magitech Suit recorded combat data automatically, and these logs could not be deleted or altered. Once the battle ended, the logs were submitted to High Command for review. Any Knight found guilty of ignoring a comrade's plight or fleeing from combat would face a harsh military tribunal.
With their target decided, the squad prepared for the assault. They took a brief fifteen minutes to refit. Richie replaced his left arm's Mirror Shield, which had developed several deep fractures, and swapped out his dented breastplate.
A quarter of an hour later, the squad set out.
Taking a wide, looping path around the battlefield, they approached the target from the rear. They halted roughly two kilometers away.
Silencing their armor, they waited for Nora to scout the position.
After a tense silence, Nora’s low voice came through the comms. "Their numbers have dropped to twenty-three. One is unaccounted for." She paused, analyzing the readings. "A stealth approach will be difficult. They have at least two Recon Knights among them. We can only approach to within one kilometer before we are detected."
Sprinting a kilometer in heavy armor would take nearly ninety seconds—more than enough time for the enemy to form a defensive wall.
"What is the state of their gear?" Calli asked.
Nora remained silent for a moment. She dropped to the muddy ground, crawling forward like a chameleon—completely silent, her armor adapting to the dark. She crept forward three hundred meters and remained still for over half an hour before carefully backing out.
"Confirmed twenty-three Magitech Suits," Nora reported. "Twelve Iron Crusaders, six Leopards, two Greystones, and three specialized suits. Of the twelve Iron Crusaders, four are Heavy Defenders. One of the specialized suits is also a Heavy Defender. Most of them are in poor shape; at least six suits have severe structural damage, two have broken weapons, and half of their remaining melee weapons are near the point of failure."
Despite the enemy's degraded state, Richie didn't let his guard down. The hostiles could easily scavenge replacement weapons from the dead.
Following Nora's example, the four of them dropped to their bellies, crawling through the thick mire. In this sea of mud, slithering was far more efficient than walking; it prevented their heavy armored boots from sinking knee-deep into the muck.
Richie cursed the endless mud in his head.
They crawled for half an hour without alerting the enemy. Suddenly, Nora froze.
"The missing Knight has returned," she whispered. "He is also a Recon Knight."
That explained his absence. Just as Squad 105 was hunting them, the enemy was undoubtedly scouting for other targets.
"We've been spotted," Nora warned, her voice as flat and indifferent as if she were reading a weather report. "The scout has detected us."
"Rise! Full charge!" Calli’s commands barked instantly. "Richie, take the vanguard!"
Pushing off the ground, Richie didn't even wait to stand fully before launching himself forward, his armored boots kicking up sheets of mud.
His unique movement technique proved remarkably effective in the mire, but he didn't worry about leaving the others behind.
Every member of Squad 105 possessed extraordinary skills. Lina charged forward, the mud beneath her boots rippling like water as she glided over the mire, leaving soft waves in her wake. Nora moved with the light grace of a cat, her boots barely sinking an inch into the mud, leaving shallow prints that didn't even cover her insteps.
But the most remarkable was Calli. Wherever her boots touched, a square foot of mud instantly froze solid. By the time she passed, she had constructed a solid, frozen pathway that allowed her to sprint with perfect traction.
Both sides closed the distance with terrifying speed. Within a minute, Richie had sprinted to within three hundred meters of the enemy line.
The enemy reacted swiftly, splitting their twenty-four men into three groups—eight in the center, and eight on each flank, attempting to envelop them in a pincer movement.
Against a standard unit, this tactic would have been devastating. But they had no idea they were facing a monster like Lina.
Three hundred meters was the maximum range for ranged Aura attacks. The moment Richie crossed the threshold, the enemy lines flared with colored light—the telltale sign of Knights channeling their Aura for a strike.
Richie focused his own Aura into his hands, the twin Mirror Shields on his forearms glowing with a dull, amber light.
Both sides unleashed their attacks simultaneously. Six distinct beams of destructive light surged toward Richie. Some were as swift as lightning, arriving in the blink of an eye. Others floated slowly like glowing balloons. Some were massive, sweeping pillars of fire that threatened to swallow all four of them. Others were dark, ghostly embers that flew in erratic, weaving paths.
But Richie remained utterly unfazed. His *Mirror Reflection* had never met an attack it couldn't turn back.
A blinding cascade of light erupted as the enemy strikes slammed into his shields.
If all six attacks had hit at the exact same millisecond, the sheer kinetic force would have shattered his shields and crushed his arms. But the strikes arrived in a rapid sequence, fractions of a second apart.
The earliest attacks were instantly reflected, followed by the rest.
The true terror of the *Mirror Reflection* lay in its timing; the attacks were returned precisely when the casters were still channeled in their offensive state, their defensive Auras at their weakest. A chorus of agonized screams erupted from the enemy lines as several Knights were struck by their own returned magic.
The enemy center was instantly thrown into chaos.
Behind him, Lina had already prepared her strike. She didn't use her signature *War Wave* because the enemy numbers were too high; the attack consumed too much energy, leaving her vulnerable during the recovery window.
Instead, she swept her massive sword in a wide, horizontal arc, unleashing three crescent beams of razor-sharp Aura in rapid succession.
The enemy were seasoned veterans. Two Heavy Defenders immediately stepped to the front, raising their massive shields.
Lina had anticipated this. Knowing they possessed five Heavy Defenders, she had adjusted her strike.
The defining trait of an Ace Knight was their supreme control over their Aura. Even after an attack was unleashed, they could subtly alter its trajectory.
The three crescent beams suddenly dipped, skimming a mere foot above the muddy ground.
Only two of the enemy Knights reacted in time, leaping high into the air to avoid having their legs severed. The moment they hit the ground, they turned and fled. They had realized Lina was an Ace Knight, and seeing Richie's terrifying reflection ability, they assumed they were facing the legendary squad of three Ace Knights and an Honor Knight.
With their leaders fleeing, the remaining six center Knights were left crippled on the ground, their legs shattered by Lina's low sweep.
Squad 105 was upon them in an instant. Richie vaulted over the fallen Heavy Defenders. Killing these armored behemoths was no easy task; with his low offensive power, it would take him minutes to chip through their armor.
As he hung in the air, a cold gleam flared from his right flank.
In that split second, his master's countless warnings flashed through his mind: *Never lose contact with the ground in battle. You need traction to react. A Knight in the air is a helpless target.*
He couldn't dodge, and he couldn't raise his shields in time. In desperation, he gathered every drop of his Aura to his right side, his armor glowing with a intense, amber light.
With a sharp *clang*, a spear of light struck his right ribs.
Richie felt a powerful impact. The outer two-millimeter layer of hardened steel shattered instantly, and the underlying one-centimeter layer of soft steel deformed under the force.
Yet, he perceived the entire event in slow motion.
As the impact reached the inner layer of his armor, the metal vibrated, and the Aura woven into it flared. The outer plating absorbed the bulk of the kinetic force as it collapsed, converting the remaining energy into a subtle, outward counter-pressure. This rebound force deflected the spear of light, causing it to slide harmlessly across his armor, leaving a long, ugly scratch.
The defensive miracle had occurred in a fraction of a second.
Surviving the brush with death, Richie was consumed by fury. He twisted his body in mid-air, shifting his weight.
With a sharp *click*, five-inch blades snapped out from the heels of his armored boots—a hidden modification he had forced Randy to install. His customized suit was packed with over thirty such hidden mechanisms. Proper Knights looked down on such underhanded tricks, but Richie didn't care about honor; if throwing sand in an enemy's eyes worked, he would do it.
Channeling his entire weight and Aura into the heel blades, he stomped down onto the Knight who had ambushed him.
The enemy raised his armored arm to block. He managed to deflect one boot, but the second plunged straight into his throat joint.
Richie’s Aura surged through the breach. With an agonized scream, a geyser of blood erupted from the collar of the suit.
Lacking offensive Aura techniques, Richie resorted to these brutal, mechanical finishes. He hopped from one fallen enemy to the next, plunging his heel blades into their vulnerable neck seals. The crippled Knights had no way to defend themselves and were systematically executed.
His kill count rose to twenty-four.
The remaining two Heavy Defenders were too resilient to crack quickly, so he left them to the others. Nora finished them off with two swift, silent strikes to their vision slits.
With their center destroyed, the enemy flanks fell into a panic. Some turned and fled, while others tried to form a defensive circle.
"Lina, take the left! The rest, follow me!" Calli commanded.
Richie was already moving before the words finished.
As he ran, a strange sensation washed over him. His sensory field had suddenly expanded. He could perceive the fractured blade in his left boot, the missing wire teeth on his forearm shields, and even the way the mud beneath his boots parted into water and soil under his weight.
"Richie, focus!" Calli barked.
Before Richie could respond, Nora’s flat voice came through the comms. "He just broke through."
*A breakthrough?* Richie stood frozen.
Nora’s quiet voice echoed in his mind. "Channel your Aura into the ground."
The instruction was simple, and Richie instinctively obeyed as he charged the next enemy.
The moment his Aura seeped into the earth, the slick, treacherous mud beneath his boots suddenly transformed, acquiring a tough, rubbery elasticity.
It was the unique property of his Aura: *Rubberization*.
"Watch out!" Nora’s voice flared.
Before Richie could react, a powerful force shoved him aside. A crimson bolt of lightning hissed past the space he had occupied a millisecond prior.
Richie broke into a cold sweat. Losing focus on a battlefield was a quick way to get killed.
"Thanks, Nora!" he shouted.
Suddenly, the earth beneath them shuddered violently. The muddy ground rippled like a stormy sea as a massive shockwave swept outward.
Lina had unleashed her signature *War Wave*. The circular ring of force shattered the enemy's defensive formation in an instant.
The *War Wave* was an unstoppable, wide-area attack; the only defense was to prevent Lina from channeling it in the first place.
After unleashing the strike, Lina’s Aura flared weakly, her energy severely depleted. But her targets were in a far worse state: four lay dead, and the remaining four were crippled on the ground.
At that moment, the thunderous clatter of armored boots echoed from the distance.
Lina raised her sword, her expression turning grim as she took a defensive stance.
"Relax," Nora’s voice came through. "It's our people."
The friendly company of Republic Knights had finally arrived. Hearing the commotion, they had rushed to assist, though they were too late to join the fight. They stood frozen, staring in absolute awe at the devastation Lina had wrought.
The company of thirty-odd Knights stood in stunned silence as Lina systematically executed the remaining hostile combatants.
On the other side, Richie finished off his targets, bringing his kill count to twenty-six. Calli had also claimed two kills, her ice-attribute Aura freezing the Heavy Defenders' joints solid before she shattered their armor.
The twenty-four hostiles had been utterly annihilated; only six had managed to escape. It was a spectacular victory.
The friendly company finally recovered from their shock. Their commander stepped forward, delivering a crisp military salute to Lina.
"Captain Adrok of the Second Company, Fourth Division, Twenty-First Legion, reporting!" his voice boomed through his suit’s external speakers. "On behalf of my men, I request that you assume command of our unit for the remainder of this operation."
Lina was caught off guard.
In terms of military rank, the Captain easily outranked her. But since he was offering command, she wasn't foolish enough to refuse. Having forty additional Knights under her control vastly increased their chances of survival.
"Very well. Bring your men into formation," Lina replied.
With the battle won, Randy drove the transport vehicle forward.
When the weary survivors saw a fully stocked transport vehicle rolling onto the field, their respect for Squad 105 grew to near-worship. To bring a transport onto a chaotic front line required immense courage from the military officer, and the ability to keep it safe proved the squad's absolute dominance.
The forty-odd Knights finally felt a profound sense of security.
***
The rain gradually dwindled to a soft mist.
By the time the first rays of dawn pierced the gray clouds, the last pockets of enemy resistance on this front had been entirely wiped out.
The final cleanup had been incredibly easy; Richie didn't even get a chance to strike. But he didn't care. His twenty-six kills from the night were more than enough to secure a First-Class Medal of Valor—assuming the Republic won this war. If Glasslovar fell, his medals would be worthless.
To Richie's annoyance, their victory didn't mean they could go reinforce other sectors. Under military regulations, their unit was assigned to this specific zone; leaving it for any reason would be classified as desertion. Yet, retreating to the rear was perfectly legal. Richie found these military rules utterly absurd.
He was beginning to understand why the Junior Army existed, and why it had grown so rapidly. The number of soldiers disgusted by the High Command's foolish regulations had to be immense.
A distant, resonant bell echoed through the misty morning air, and Richie finally let out a long sigh of relief.
It was the victory chime. Glasslovar remained in their hands. They had won.
With the battle over, the tedious work of clearing the field began, which was left to the standard infantry. Richie dragged his exhausted limbs back toward the staging area.
The camp was as crowded as before, but the faces inside the tents were far fewer. Weariness hung heavy in the air. The Knights had suffered the heaviest losses during the night's brutal melee.
Richie found a relatively dry patch of ground, climbed out of his Magitech Suit, and collapsed. He was too tired to move.
The forty-odd Knights who had joined them were resting nearby. Several of them stared at Richie in absolute shock when they saw his youthful face.
"How old are you, kid?" a bearded Knight called out.
Richie didn't bother to reply. In the past, he would have basked in their awe, eager to be called a genius. But now, he only cared about keeping his secrets safe.
Lina strolled over, giving his leg a playful kick. "I heard you broke through. Let me see what you've got."
Richie remained flat on his back, but he raised a hand and tapped the muddy ground.
The earth beneath them rippled like a wave, the kinetic force traveling outward in a circular ring. It looked remarkably like Lina’s *War Wave*, but it was merely his Aura altering the properties of the mud, turning it into highly elastic rubber to project the force.
"I'm not sure if this counts as a true breakthrough," Richie muttered, staring at the sky.
"It does," Lina said, her answer bringing a surge of relief and excitement to his chest.
"But don't get cocky," she added, always eager to throw cold water on his pride. "An Apprentice Knight's defining trait is the ability to project their Aura outward. A formal Knight must display a unique property in their Aura. Since Aura is primarily used for combat, the ability to channel that property into a viable offensive technique is the true proof of knighthood."
To demonstrate, Lina stomped her boot. A violent shockwave rippled through the mud, traveling outward in all directions.
"I can achieve the same kinetic effect using a simple physical vibration," she explained.
Richie ignored her teasing, his mind focusing on her demonstration. An idea began to take shape.
His breakthrough was somewhat accidental, triggered by the intense concentration of surviving the ambush. His only gain so far was the ability to channel his rubberization property into the ground, allowing him to sprint across the mud. It was a rather underwhelming utility.
He needed a proper offensive technique.
His *Mirror Reflection* was powerful, but it was purely defensive. His *Aura Shield* was similarly passive. Lacking any projection ability, he had no way to strike at range.
Normally, offensive techniques were built upon the foundation of projecting Aura shockwaves. But his Aura could not travel far.
He had nearly resigned himself to being a pure defender, but Lina’s stomp had given him a new path.
He couldn't project shockwaves, but he could generate *vibrations*.
Vibrations were a highly specialized, close-quarters technique. They didn't require Aura projection, but they packed minimal range and required direct physical contact to be effective. Most Knights ignored them in favor of flashy, long-range strikes.
But Richie had no other choice.
***
The camp cooks arrived, carrying massive cauldrons of stew.
The rich scent of pork did nothing to stir Richie's appetite. He had eaten his fill at the ball, and the intense combat had consumed his energy without fully digesting the rich meats in his stomach.
Seeing the others crowd around the cauldrons, Richie wandered off into the mist.
The heavy fog obscured his figure after only a few dozen meters. Navigating the deep mud would have been impossible before, but now, he moved with ease.
Stopping on a patch of semi-solid ground, he focused his Aura into his boot and stomped.
His foot sank deep into the mire, coming up caked in thick, dripping mud.
It was a failure.
But Richie didn't lose heart. He took a deep breath, adjusted his focus, and tried again.
The quiet morning air was filled with the wet, rapid *splat-splat* of his boots hitting the mud.
After dozens of failed attempts, his trousers caked in filth, his boot suddenly struck the mud and generated a perfect, elastic rebound. The kinetic force traveled back up his leg, launching him several inches into the air.
Richie grinned. More than the successful jump, he was fascinated by the counter-pressure of the rubberized ground.
He tried again. A failure. He tried once more, and succeeded.
He could control the force of the rebound.
He had set out to master physical vibrations, but he had accidentally created a revolutionary new movement technique.
His old *Rubbing Step* was decent for quick, lateral movements, but it required solid ground to generate traction. On mud or sand, it was useless. But this new method utilized his Aura to alter the earth itself, generating its own traction.
Richie practiced with his other leg.
By the time the sun burned through the mist, he could generate the elastic rebound with absolute precision, controlling the exact height of his leap.
With every stomp, his body bounded forward. It was a perfect integration with his *Rubbing Step*.
Looking back at his strange, circular footprints in the mud—which looked like ripples on a still pond—Richie smiled.
"Maybe I'll call it the *Skimming Step*," he muttered.
He had his movement, but he still lacked an offensive strike.
As he pondered the problem, the sound of rushing air signaled an approach. Richie spun, raising his guards, but relaxed when he saw Lina glide out of the mist.
"Impressive," she smirked, her boots executing the exact same rippling glide. "No one taught you, yet you've already found a style that suits your unique Aura. For a freak like you, focusing on close-quarters vibrations is the correct path."
She stepped closer, a teasing grin on her lips. "You really should have been my apprentice."
It was a joke, but she spoke the truth. Her own Aura attribute was *Vibration*, and her devastating *War Wave* was a complex integration of kinetic shockwaves, physical vibrations, and sonic resonance.
"You're in luck," she said, her eyes gleaming with a strange, mischievous light. "I happen to have a technique I can teach you."
"Won't that bring you trouble?" Richie asked immediately.
He had learned enough about the noble houses to know that sharing family techniques was a grave taboo.
Lina’s heart warmed at his concern. She hesitated, wondering if she should teach him a few standard, practical strikes instead. But she quickly dismissed the thought; if the High Command discovered she was sharing military secrets, both of them would suffer. She decided to stick to her original plan.
"Don't worry. This technique has nothing to do with my family. I acquired it by pure chance."
She pointed toward a fallen, withered oak tree some fifty meters away. Richie followed her.
Stopping five meters from the trunk, Lina raised her hand, her fingers curling slightly. A dry, yellowed oak leaf flew from the ground into her palm.
Holding the leaf flat against her palm, she stared at the tree. "A genius once formulated a theory: if you can channel a physical vibration into a perfect, circular loop along the edge of an object, the energy will never dissipate. It will continue to build, lasting far longer than a standard strike."
With a flick of her wrist, she spun the leaf. It hissed through the air like a tiny buzzsaw, striking a branch as thick as a man's wrist.
With a clean *snip*, the branch was severed, the cut so smooth it looked as though it had been polished with sandpaper.
"Incredible," Richie gasped, his eyes wide. This looked even more lethal than her *War Wave*.
But a doubt crept into his mind. If this technique was so powerful, why had he never seen Lina use it?
He shot her a suspicious glance, wondering if she was playing a trick on him.
Despite his doubts, he listened intently to her explanation.
The theory behind the *Circular Resonance* was incredibly complex. Lina spoke of fluid dynamics, kinetic loops, and harmonic frequencies. Richie struggled to comprehend even ten percent of it.
Lina had anticipated this and handed him a small, metallic recording device containing her detailed notes.
"How long did it take you to master this?" Richie asked.
For the first time, a faint flush of embarrassment colored Lina’s cheeks. She quickly covered it by rapping his head with her knuckles. "Just focus on the notes! I have no intention of repeating myself."
Richie grinned, knowing his suspicion was correct. Lina hadn't mastered it herself.
"Has anyone actually used this in combat?"
Lina glared at him, giving his head another sharp tap. "Are you doubting my good intentions, brat? Of course people have mastered it! Two, to be precise. The creator of the technique, and his fifth-generation maternal granddaughter."
She crossed her arms. "So, do you want to learn it or not?"
"Yes! Of course!" Richie said quickly. He had never been one to turn down a free gift, and he desperately needed a way to hurt his enemies. His current arsenal of hidden blades and darts was useless against thick armor.
More importantly, he knew Lina was incredibly proud; for her to speak so highly of a technique meant it was truly exceptional.
He was no longer the ignorant commoner he once was. He understood the hierarchy of the Knightly world.
The gap between ranks grew exponentially. Above the Ace Knights stood the Honor Knights. Above them were the Brilliant Knights—of which the Monstoke Republic possessed only three, along with two semi-Brilliant Knights (one of whom was Dana's father). These five represented the absolute pinnacle of the nation's military power.
But even Brilliant was not the end. Above them were the legendary Heavenly Knights; in the Republic's seven-hundred-year history, only six had ever achieved this realm. Richie had always suspected Lina’s family was descended from one of these six legends.
And above the Heavenly Knights lay the mythic Saint Knights.
The Republic had never produced a Saint Knight; only the ancient, massive empires of the continent boasted such demigods.
Richie had no idea that the technique Lina was sharing was far more ancient than he could imagine.
Nor did he know that while Lina’s ancestors did indeed include Heavenly Knights, her bloodline was far more ancient and noble: she was a direct descendant of the Saint Emperor.