The Old District, which had been a teeming hive of life only weeks ago, was now a hollow echo of its former self. Of Glasslovar’s two hundred thousand residents, nearly a hundred and fifty thousand were being herded like cattle toward the rear. Even the families who had occupied the three floors below Richie’s home had vanished into the gray morning.
Richie would never forget the look of righteous indignation on their faces when they learned his mother intended to stay. It was as if his family’s refusal to flee was a personal insult, a cheat against the shared misery of exile. It was a bitter irony; they had spent a lifetime’s fortune to buy their way into the building, only to be forced to abandon it weeks after the ink had dried. They clearly felt their gold had been stolen by the tides of history.
The house was a ghost-shell now, but Richie’s family didn't move back in. The sale was final, and the currency had been spent on survival; to return would be trespassing, and they had no desire to court the city’s thinning patience for the law.
Richie and his classmates were among the last group of evacuees. According to the school’s mobilization orders, he arrived at the assembly point outside the southern gates at nine in the morning. This field was usually the site of traveling circuses and the city’s annual carnival—a place of sugared treats and childhood laughter.
Now, it was a sprawling, muddy military camp, choked with the canvas of standard-issue tents. The main road to the rear ran only dozens of meters away, a frantic, pulsing artery of travel. Every fifteen minutes, a long caravan of heavy supply wagons would thunder past, the teamsters' whips cracking like gunshots.
On either side of the road, the masses were divided with cold, military precision. To the right were the civilians—families huddled together with their meager belongings, a sea of frightened eyes retreating from the storm. To the left were the engineers, their faces grim and soot-stained as they labored over earthworks.
Since reports had confirmed the enemy's intent to open a new front in Glasslovar, reinforcements from the rear had been pouring in. The city’s atmosphere had reached a fever pitch, the air thick with the smell of horse sweat and coal smoke.
Richie’s hand blurred. As if he possessed eyes in the back of his skull, he snatched a jagged stone out of the air a microsecond before it would have shattered his head.
He turned his head slowly. As expected, it was the same group of upperclassmen he had thrashed weeks ago. Richie casually dropped the stone and began to walk toward them, his steps measured, his boots crunching on the gravel with a deliberate, predatory rhythm.
The boy who had thrown the stone began to back away, his bravado dissolving into a mask of regret. He had only thrown it because his peers had egged him on; now, he remembered exactly what it felt like to be under Richie’s fists.
"Don't... don't come any closer! You have no proof it was me!" the boy shrieked, pointing a trembling finger that betrayed his terror.
The crowd around him reacted with a mix of instincts. Those who had felt Richie’s strength before edged away into the mud, while a few others—fools who hadn't learned the lesson of the camp—began to close in, their intentions written in their sneers.
"That's strange," Richie said with a cold, hollow laugh. "Since when does a reckoning require a trial?"
Suddenly, he lashed out with a kick. It wasn't aimed at the stone-thrower, but at an upperclassman who was creeping toward his flank. The strike landed perfectly in the boy's crotch—a brutal, precise application of force that was designed for maximum agony without permanent rupture. The boy collapsed, clutching his groin and howling in a pitch that made the surrounding crowd wince.
"You... you're being unreasonable!" "Get him!" "You're dead, kid!"
The others shouted their threats, but none of them moved an inch. Despite their numbers, they remembered the last encounter. No one wanted to be the first to taste his fists; they were all waiting for a martyr to make the first move.
Since they were all cowards at heart, no one moved at all.
"Who needs a reason for a fight? I'm just here to practice," Richie said, and then he unleashed himself.
Just like before, he used these seniors as training dummies. But there was a fundamental difference this time—he wasn't just defending. He was testing his newly discovered 'Rubbing Strike'. He didn't believe his intuition was entirely useless; he wanted to find a way to make it work, if only to justify the time spent under Lady Merlin’s tutelage.
As the fight progressed, he began to find the 'feel'. The Rubbing Strike was about the application of parallel force. With a simple sliding motion of his palm against an opponent’s chest or hip, he could strip them of their center of gravity in an instant.
It felt remarkably like wrestling—the kind of low-class brawling seen in the dockside pits.
Richie felt a pang of disappointment. No Knight cared about wrestling. In fact, Knights ignored unarmed combat entirely; their focus was solely on the blade and the cannon. Precision of strength was meant for the hilt, not the palm.
His interest waning, he quickened his pace. A flurry of fists and kicks later, the upperclassmen were all in the mud. Richie savored the fading sensation, beginning to understand why Merlin had dismissed the technique.
To drop a man with a Rubbing Strike took focus and finesse, but a simple punch was fast, direct, and brutal. And that was without a weapon. With a sword, he could have ended all of them with a single sweep. A Knight’s duty wasn't to fight—it was to liquidate. In killing, there were no rules, and a weapon always reigned supreme. A weapon provided reach, and in that reach, the intricacies of unarmed combat vanished into the air.
*It really is a useless technique,* he thought with a heavy heart.
"Don't look for trouble with me again," Richie said, extending a bloodied fist toward them. "I was restrained before because I was a student. Those days are over. If you cross me again, I will break you every time I see your faces."
Had he said this at the start of the term, they would have laughed. Now, no one dared to even breathe.
Leaving the fallen seniors behind, Richie walked back to his assembly point, only to find a large crowd of students watching him with a mix of fear and curiosity. Most were from his own school.
"You're quite something, aren't you, Richie?"
Caroline, the class president, approached him. She looked at him as if she were seeing a stranger. It was understandable; Richie had always been a middle-of-the-road student, a piece of the background. The only reason the girls didn't dislike him was that he didn't swarm around them like the other desperate, fly-like boys.
"I’ve asked you before, and I'm asking you again—be my Knight."
Ginny, a girl whose beauty was on par with Caroline and Isabella, sashayed toward him. Of the three 'idols' of their class, Richie liked her the least. She felt artificial, a creature of rehearsed smiles and calculated glances. The boys secretly called her the 'Vixen'.
Isabella and Caroline had nicknames too. Isabella was the 'Narcissus'—refined, elegant, and possessed of a quiet fragrance that made one want to protect her from the world. Caroline was the 'Princess'—her family’s wealth and her golden-haired, blue-eyed beauty fit the fairy-tale image perfectly. Her skin was a translucent jade-white, unlike Isabella’s pale, malnourished complexion.
"Join us," Isabella added softly. She was surrounded by her younger siblings, who were blissfully unaware of the danger, playing tag around her skirts only because she had forbidden them from wandering into the muddy tents.
Following Isabella to where they had been waiting, Richie finally understood why they wanted him. Parked by the roadside was a strange wagon—over four meters long but barely a hand-span wide. It had three wheels in a line, with the front one connected to a T-shaped handle for steering.
"Who designed this?" Richie’s interest was piqued. Working with Lady Randy had given him a taste for mechanics, and he could see the elegance in the design. It was specialized but incredibly practical for moving people quickly without the need for a heavy horse.
"It’s not bad, right? Emily designed it," Caroline explained. "She saw something called a 'bicycle' in Sava. A bicycle was too complex, with all those gears and chains we couldn't replicate in the school shop, so we made this instead. We have a group of girls and four children; we can't exactly walk all the way to Morena."
Richie knew Emily. She was a member of the Rose Society and legendary for her intelligence—she was the undisputed top of their class. Seeing the wagon, Richie realized her reputation was well-earned.
The assembly was at nine, but it was noon before the group finally moved. The inefficiency made Richie’s head spin with frustration. The future seemed a bleak, aimless void.
Finally, they were on the road. The girls of the Rose Society and Isabella’s siblings were all perched on the wagon. Because there were so many of them, they had to sit chest-to-back, straddling the narrow frame. From a distance, it looked like a massive centipede crawling along the road.
Richie was at the front, acting as both the draft horse and the girls' bodyguard—a role that fit a squire perfectly. The entire school, over a thousand strong, looked on with envy, but no one had the nerve to ask for a seat.
Four days of relentless travel left everyone drained of their will. They walked for over ten hours a day, woken before dawn and given three hard biscuits as their only sustenance for the sun's passage. Rest only came when the world went black.
Complaints were common at first, but they eventually died away—not because people accepted their fate, but because those who complained were left behind. There were no words of encouragement, no mercy from the military escort. If you couldn't keep up, you were a ghost.
Several of Richie’s own classmates fell behind. On the first day, they had managed to catch up during the night, but by the second, the gaps were permanent. Surprisingly, few of the girls fell behind. Perhaps they knew they were the most vulnerable and that to leave the group was to die. They gritted their teeth and pressed on, often helped by the boys who would carry their bags or offer a hand.
But at noon on the fifth day, chaos erupted ahead. The sharp, rhythmic crack of gunfire echoed through the trees.
The road was bordered by a dense forest. Those with any sense scrambled into the shadows. Richie and the girls followed, stopping only when they were deep enough to be hidden yet still able to see the carnage on the road.
Richie parked the wagon and gave them a sharp, commanding look. "Don't move and stay quiet. I'm going ahead to scout."
The girls, their nerves frayed, could only nod in wide-eyed silence.
Richie slipped through the trees toward the sound of the fighting. As he ran, he unbuttoned his tunic, revealing a wide leather belt around his waist. The belt was lined with flattened steel spikes, each with a foot-long cloth streamer attached to the tail for stability.
This was his weapon. Within twenty meters, they possessed the kinetic power of a bullet. Within fifty, they were lethal. Even at a hundred meters, they could kill if they found a soft vital point.
After two kilometers, he saw the smoke. Bodies lay in the middle of the road, and more were groaning in the ditches. The gunfire ahead was becoming more intense, a continuous roll of thunder. The forest on either side was alive with muzzle-flashes and rising cordite smoke.
The men fighting were dressed just like Richie’s father—NCOs and reservists. Their commander was a short, round-faced man with a thick beard and a booming voice. "Fire! Keep the rhythm! Fire!"
Richie slipped into the forest on the flank. He moved with a speed that defied the gloom, a steel spike already in his hand. The forest was dark, making the muzzle-flashes blindingly obvious targets. The smoke hung low among the trees, turning the battlefield into a shifting, gray fog.
Though the combat was fierce, the marksmanship was abysmal on both sides. The trees provided too much cover for the untrained.
Richie didn't stay back like the reservists. He took to the trees, leaping from branch to branch with a Knight's grace.
"Heads up! Someone's in the trees!"
The enemy were clearly veterans. Even amidst the roar of the guns, someone had heard the rustling of the branches and guessed his approach. A barrage of lead tore through the canopy above him, shredded leaves and wood raining down like hail.
Richie scrambled for cover, a bullet nearly taking his head off. He grew instantly alert. These were elite soldiers; they shouldn't have been pinned down by a group of reservists for this long. There was something fundamentally wrong here.
He leapt to a neighboring tree, spotted a group of soldiers, and whipped his arm. A steel spike flashed through the air, its streamer a blur of white. A muffled cry followed as a soldier behind a tree collapsed, the spike buried deep in his skull.
Reloading a flintlock took time. Richie seized the gap, leaping down from the branches. He had two more spikes in his hands before he hit the ground and unleashed them in a single, fluid motion. Two more cries echoed. One hit a vital point; the other caught a shoulder, the force enough to send the man sprawling.
Suddenly, a metallic *click* reached his ears. He dove behind a thick oak just as a shot rang out, a chunk of bark exploding near his head.
Richie didn't underestimate them again. He blurred from tree to tree, unleashing three spikes in a single burst. The screams intensified. In such complex terrain, a Knight—even a squire with a Knight’s conditioning—was unstoppable.
"Knight!" "It's a Knight!" "Fall back! A Knight is here!"
The enemy realized the situation with terrifying speed. The survivors scrambled out of the forest, shouting for a retreat. It was common knowledge: you only faced a Knight in the open, with a disciplined volley.
But the soldiers on the road weren't organized enough for that. They were too busy worrying about the reservists charging their position. The enemy retreated, firing blindly as they vanished into the smoke.
Richie stopped at the edge of the trees. He had tried to pursue, but a volley of bullets had sent him rolling back into the shadows. He finally understood: open ground and a disciplined volley truly were a Knight's bane.
But he didn't head back yet. The whole situation felt wrong. He found the tallest tree in the vicinity, scrambled to the top, and scanned the horizon. Sure enough, on a nearby hillside, a group of soldiers was frantically loading crates into wagons.
He dropped from the tree and sprinted toward the hill. Before he even reached the base, he unleashed a handful of spikes at a forty-five-degree angle, letting them fall like iron hail from the sky. The soldiers were elites; they dove for cover, and the spikes, lacking their usual momentum, did little damage.
But it was enough. While they were pinned down, Richie reached the hillside. As he threw his second volley, the enemy returned fire. Richie twisted his body in mid-air, bullets shredding his tunic as they missed him by inches.
Once again, he had narrowly escaped death. He rolled into a crouch and unleashed a continuous stream of spikes, sealing off every possible escape route. One by one, the soldiers were silenced.
He finished them off with a quick follow-up before approaching the crates. The hillside was a perfect location—visible to a trained eye, yet hidden by dense brush. The crates were painted a forest-green, making them nearly invisible from a distance.
Richie pried one open with a pickaxe. The sight inside made his blood run cold.
It was synthetic sinews. He pried open another: rows of high-grade Energy Crystals.
A sudden, icy dread gripped his heart. They were building a hidden repair and resupply point for Knights. Such a facility only existed within ten kilometers of a major battlefield.
And he knew exactly what was within ten kilometers of this spot: Morena.
According to the plan, the refugees would reach Morena by evening. A hundred and fifty thousand people were currently converging on a city that was about to become a slaughterhouse.
Richie sprinted back toward the girls, a single Energy Crystal in his hand and two more tucked into his pockets. He needed one to show as proof; the others... well, it was a habit he’d picked up from Lady Randy. Seeing these things, he couldn't help but take a few.
"Quick! We have to leave! Now!" he shouted as he burst into the forest where the girls were hiding. "If we stay, we're all dead!"
"What happened?" A boy from his class was the first to emerge.
Richie held up the Energy Crystal. In the gloom of the forest, its blue glow was unmistakable. "Enemy Knights. Morena is being encircled."
It was a lie, or at least a half-truth, but it was far more effective than the complicated reality. Most of the students chose to believe him. The gunfire they’d just heard was enough to make them want to turn back to Glasslovar, and the crystal in his hand was the ultimate proof. Few of them had ever seen one, but they all knew they were the heart of a Knight’s power.
But there was always a skeptic. A boy from his class stepped forward. "You're just a handyman in the camp. You probably stole that from the supply room."
Richie didn't even look at him. He searched for Isabella.
"We're here," her voice called out from the shadows.
"We have to go. Now."
"How?" Isabella looked at her younger siblings. Without the wagon, they had no hope of moving fast enough.
Richie looked at the other girls of the Rose Society. They were hesitating, caught between two fears.
"I believe you," Caroline said, her voice trembling. "But my parents are in Morena. If I go back to Glasslovar, I have no one."
She began to sob, and the other girls joined her. They were all in the same position. Rations and orders had dictated that the civilians walk to Morena to leave the road clear for the military, so many families had sent someone ahead to secure a place. The girls had stayed behind to travel with the school, but their families were already in the city.
"I can't wait," Richie said. "Isabella, we're leaving."
He scooped up the two youngest children. The ten-year-old and eight-year-old could walk. Isabella didn't hesitate; she followed him, though she stole one last, pained look at her friends before running out of the forest.
They had gone barely two hundred meters when a voice called out behind them. "Wait! I'm coming with you!"
It was Ginny, the 'Vixen'. Richie hadn't expected her to be the first to trust him. And then another girl followed—Sophie, a quiet girl Richie had always thought was indecisive.
"Wait for them," Isabella pleaded, grabbing his arm. "Please."
"Fine," Richie sighed. "But only until they reach us."
But then he saw what he had really been hoping for: the wagon was being pushed out of the trees. The girls of the Rose Society had chosen to trust him after all. Only one person remained in the forest.
With the girls and the children back on the wagon, Richie began to run. He didn't push his full speed, fearing the fragile frame would disintegrate.
People began to emerge from the forest on either side of the road, watching the lone wagon racing back toward the city. "What happened?" "What’s going on?"
Richie’s answer was simple: "Run."
They had gone about a kilometer when a thunderous boom shook the earth. The ground trembled, and the girls turned pale. This was no gunshot; it was something far more catastrophic.
Richie alone was relieved. He had set the charge. Energy Crystals were stable, but with the right materials from the supply crates, he had built a simple timer. Two crates of crystals had gone up in a single, devastating blast.
It wasn't just about denying the enemy their supplies. It was a signal. Morena was less than ten kilometers away; they couldn't have missed it. If they weren't alert after that, it wasn't his problem.
The explosion had one more effect: those who hadn't believed him before were now convinced. The road turned into a scene of panic as everyone began to flee back toward Glasslovar.
But Richie had the advantage. He wasn't the fastest, but his endurance was legendary. He had been running for an hour without slowing down. The wagon actually helped; once it was moving, it carried its own momentum, almost pulling him along.
In the rhythm of the run, Richie fell into a strange, meditative state. He was thinking about something Lady Dana had said: that power starts in the feet, flows through the waist, and ends in the hands.
He had always believed it, but now he realized that momentum—inertia—had its own power. He had used it to save Merlin, charging down that hill. If he could harness that force, it would be a game-changer. His massive shields were heavy and slow to maneuver, but that was because of their inertia. What if he could turn that hindrance into an ally?
As he was on the verge of a breakthrough, a faint metallic sound reached his ears—the grinding of heavy Magitech Armor.
"Hold on tight!" he barked. He yanked the handle, steering the wagon off the road and up a steep hillside. The three wheels carved deep ruts into the soft earth.
He didn't stop until they were deep in the trees. He could see the dust rising from the road—at least a full squadron of Knights was approaching at high speed.
"Everyone out! Into the ditch! Keep the children quiet!"
The girls scrambled into a muddy ravine. Richie shoved the wagon into a thicket and tore off his red uniform—the color was far too obvious. Beneath, he wore a simple white shirt and a wool vest. He dove into a patch of mud, rolling until the white fabric was a dull, camouflaged brown.
He hid his uniform under a bush and lay flat, peering out at the road.
Two minutes later, the Knights appeared. Richie pulled himself deeper into the shadows. He recognized the suits: Iron Crusaders and Leopards. But three of them were unfamiliar—custom models, not standard military issue.
He held his breath, praying they didn't have a Psion with them. He prayed they wouldn't notice the ruts the wagon had left in the mud.
His prayers were answered. The squadron thundered past without a glance toward the hill, vanishing toward the horizon.
Richie waited another fifteen minutes before signaling the girls to get up.
"Were they the enemy?" Caroline asked, her voice trembling.
"Varedin Knights. Same ones I saw before. It looks like the Empire is the primary force here." He retreated back to the group. He was still cautious; no one knew the reach of a Knight better than he did.
A girl with chestnut hair and grey eyes—Emily, the genius—spoke up. "What are they doing? This road is only for refugees. Why send a full squadron here?"
Richie was stumped. It was a good question. "I don't know. I was a handyman, not a strategist."
"Enough," said a girl with black hair and a commanding presence. It was Melissa, the student leader. She was the one who kept the peace in the school, and even the seniors respected her. "The priority is getting back to Glasslovar."
She looked at Richie, and the other girls followed her gaze. Seven pairs of eyes were fixed on him. Richie felt the weight of their expectations. He had to think of a way out.
He recalled his military theory lessons—the simplified versions Dana had given him. "The main road is out. We'll be caught sooner or later." He wanted to convince them, so he didn't sugarcoat it. "Our best bet is the mountains. Glasslovar is surrounded by them. That's why it's always been safe; an army can't easily blockade the peaks."
"We'll follow your lead," Caroline decided. Isabella and Ginny nodded instantly, and the others followed.
Richie didn't want to get lost, so he stayed within sight of the road but kept to the high ground. The main problem wasn't the enemy scouts; it was food. His three biscuits a day were gone, and there was nothing to replace them.
Fortunately, Merlin had taught him how to find wild greens and edible fruits. They survived on what they could forage, keeping their hunger at bay as they moved. Because they were in the mountains, they couldn't use the wagon anymore, so the girls had to walk. They moved slowly, hiding at every sound.
On the afternoon of the third day, a horrific screeching sound echoed through the peaks, followed by the sound of metal shattering. Richie led the girls to the top of a small, craggy hill. The height offered safety and a clear view of the combat below.
Nine Knights were fighting in the valley. Two were on one side, seven on the other. Yet, the pair was slaughtering the seven.
Richie’s blood ran cold. One of the two was simply watching, while the other took on all seven. He had seen Lina fight three, and Merlin fight five... but this was on a different level. Merlin had only survived because of the terrain; this Knight was playing with his food.
The seven were Republic Knights—five of them in Striker suits. The two enemies were in custom models. The one fighting was in a gold-and-red suit, wielding a massive, double-headed lance with a shield in the center. It was twice as long and three times as heavy as the one the sisters used, yet he handled it like it was weightless.
The lance was a blur of golden light, moving like a venomous snake. And the Knight’s Aura... it was terrifying. It didn't move in straight lines; it curved and twisted, homing in on the gaps in his opponents' defense.
Richie broke into a cold sweat. If he were down there, how would he block that? His shields were for a direct defense, but an attack that could bend would find the gaps easily. This Knight was his perfect counter.
Suddenly, the red Knight seemed to grow bored. His speed increased, and his fluid strikes turned into a brutal barrage. A lightning-fast thrust carved through a defender's guard and pierced the suit. Before he could even recover, he had impaled a second and unleashed a shockwave that mirrored Lina's 'Azure Tide', wiping out several more.
The survivors turned to flee. One Knight broke away, racing toward the hills.
A twisting golden light erupted from the red Knight, catching the fleeing suit in an instant. A single, glancing blow, and then the light withdrew. The Republic Knight continued to run, vanishing behind a ridge.
The red Knight didn't pursue. He turned back to finish the others. The survivor from the watcher’s side finally moved, his blade carving a Striker in two with a single, massive arc of light.
Then, the red Knight looked toward Richie’s hill.
Every hair on Richie’s body stood on end. A cold, predatory gaze seemed to pierce through him. He had been found.
But the red Knight simply turned away, signaling to his companion. They vanished into the distance as if nothing had happened.
It took a long time for Richie to find his breath. He knew they’d been found, but the Knight had chosen to spare them. *A Knight does not slaughter civilians.* One of the old codes.
Richie scrambled to his feet. "We have to move. The enemy will be here soon to scavenge."
He looked for a path, and his eyes settled on the footprints of the Republic Knight who had escaped. He thought of the red Knight’s final blow. It had been a blur of speed, yet the result seemed... incomplete.
Did the red Knight miss? Or did he let him go? Was it a trap?
Richie’s mind was a whirlwind of suspicion. He decided to follow the tracks. If it was a trap, he might be able to stop it. If the red Knight had truly let him go, it was the safest path for the girls. Either way, he had to know.