The battle should have been over.
The Chained Titan had fallen. The demons had retreated. The city of Solmaria still stood.
But he was still here.
The Black Knight.
Unmoving. Watching. Waiting.
His armor, obsidian-dark and cursed beyond reason, had barely taken a scratch. The very ground around him was scorched and lifeless, the grass and soil rotting just from his presence.
Leon could still feel it—the weight of his gaze.
And then—
He moved.
Faster than thought.
Leon had no time to react—no time to breathe—before the knight closed the distance in a single step, his massive sword swinging with brutal finality.
Leon barely raised his katana in time.
CLAAANG!
The impact shattered the ground beneath him.
Leon's arms screamed in pain as he skidded backward, his feet digging into the dirt. The sheer force of the blow sent shockwaves rippling through the battlefield.
And before he could even recover—
The knight was on him again.
A second strike.
Then a third.
Leon blocked each one just barely, his body moving on instinct. He knew, deep down, that one clean hit would kill him.
This wasn't like the other demons.
This thing wasn't just stronger—
It was designed to kill heroes.
And it was winning.
She saw it happening.
Leon was losing.
And for some reason—she cared.
Sylva had never fought for someone else. Never risked herself for the sake of another.
That's what Cassandra had taught her.
But this wasn't about Leon.
It was about the look in his eyes.
The look of someone who still thought he had a chance.
He didn't.
Not alone.
Sylva moved.
She surged forward in a blur of motion, daggers flashing in the moonlight. She went low, twisting her body mid-air, aiming for the joints in the Black Knight's armor.
CLANG!
Her blades struck metal.
And did nothing.
She landed with a silent curse, darting backward just as the knight's sword came down—cleaving through the space she had been standing a fraction of a second ago.
The power behind it was monstrous.
One hit would have split her in half.
She had faced monsters before.
She had killed nobles and warlords.
But this wasn't like anything she had ever fought.
And for the first time in years—
She felt real fear.
"We can't win this."
Leon's voice was steady, but his breathing was ragged. He had taken too many near-lethal blows, his body already reaching its limits.
Sylva gritted her teeth. "Then what's the plan, Leon?"
Leon's katana glowed faintly. The blade responded to his rage, but even at full strength—
It wasn't enough.
"We buy time," he muttered.
Sylva laughed bitterly. "For what? A miracle?"
And then—
The air shifted.
And they weren't alone anymore.
They came like phantoms, slipping through the darkness.
The Night Reapers.
Cassandra was at their head, daggers drawn, eyes locked onto the Black Knight with an intensity that even Sylva had never seen before.
"Get up, Hero," she said flatly, stepping past them. "We'll handle this."
Leon blinked in shock. "Wait, you think you can—"
She didn't answer.
Because the fight had already begun.
They attacked together.
Faster than any human army could react, their movements so perfectly synchronized it was like watching death itself take form.
One shadow leaped high, tossing three cursed knives at the Black Knight's exposed back.
CLANG!
They bounced off.
Another Reaper lunged for the knight's leg, trying to sever a tendon—
The knight didn't even flinch.
Instead, he moved.
The greatsword blurred—
And the first assassin was gone.
Not wounded. Gone.
Cassandra's eyes widened slightly. "Damn it."
The second assassin barely had time to scream before a single swing cut him in half.
The Black Knight wasn't fighting back.
He was executing them.
One by one, they fell.
Even as they tried every technique they had, every strategy, every dark trick from the underworld itself—
They were being erased.
And in less than a minute—
Cassandra was the only one left standing.
Blood dripped down her arm, her cloak torn, her mask cracked further down the center.
But she did not run.
She did not break.
She simply adjusted her stance.
"Demon bastard."
The Black Knight paused, tilting his head slightly.
Cassandra spat blood onto the ground.
And then—she moved.
Faster than Leon or Sylva had ever seen.
She struck low, her daggers carving through the air, her speed almost inhuman.
The Black Knight reacted, raising his greatsword—
And Cassandra was already behind him.
Her blade found his armour's gap, plunging deep into his side.
The Black Knight staggered.
A first.
The first time he had ever been wounded.
And then—
He retaliated.
It was too fast.
Cassandra tried to move.
Tried to dodge.
But she was just a second too slow.
The greatsword went through her chest.
Leon heard the sound before he processed what happened—the sickening, wet crunch of ribs breaking, of steel cutting through flesh.
Cassandra stopped moving.
For the first time in her life, she had been caught.
She coughed once, blood spilling from her lips.
The Black Knight tossed her aside like a broken toy.
And she hit the ground, unmoving.
* * * *
Pain was nothing new to her.
She had been beaten. Burned. Starved.
She had been hunted. Betrayed. Broken.
She had survived.
But this time…
This time was different.
The Black Knight's blade had torn through her chest, carving through bone and flesh like she was nothing more than a worthless insect.
Her body lay motionless, her breath shallow, her blood pooling around her in a growing crimson lake.
She couldn't move.
She was dying.
And all she could do was think.
Of the past.
Of the vow she had sworn.
* * * *
Her earliest memory was a chain wrapped around her throat.
She had been born a weapon, raised in the pits where assassins were forged from suffering.
The first lesson? Pain makes you stronger.
The second? Obedience keeps you alive.
The third? Never dream of freedom. It doesn't exist.
She had accepted it. For years, she had accepted it.
Until the day she met him.
Her master.
A man with hollow eyes and a voice like poisoned honey.
A man who had given her everything, only to take more than she ever had to give.
"You belong to me."
She had believed it, once.
And then—
One day, she didn't.
That was the day she killed him.
Or so she thought.
But no matter how many times she tried—he always came back.
Not in flesh.
But in her mind.
A voice, a shadow, a whisper that never left her.
Even now, as she lay dying, she could hear him laughing.
"You never had a choice, Cassandra."
Her fingers twitched.
No.
She wouldn't die like this.
She hadn't killed him yet.
She hadn't kept her vow.
She wasn't done.
And in that moment—
Something answered her.
"How pitiful."
The world around her vanished.
She was no longer lying on the battlefield.
She was somewhere else.
A space of nothingness, where even time refused to exist.
And before her—
A woman sat upon a throne of blackened bone, her eyes glowing like embers beneath a dying fire.
The Demon Lord.
She looked amused.
Cassandra tried to move, but found that she had no body. Only her thoughts remained, swirling like fragments of broken glass.
"So much hate. So much envy."
The Demon Lord's voice was silken, sharp, curling around her mind like a coiled snake.
"You resent them, don't you? The hero. The girl. The ones who had the privilege of living a life without chains."
Cassandra wanted to deny it.
Wanted to spit at the Demon Lord's feet and say she was nothing like her.
But she couldn't.
Because it was true.
She did envy them.
Leon Yuuki—summoned from another world, given power, called a hero without ever knowing real suffering.
Sylva—born in chains, yet found someone who fought for her, someone who wanted to set her free.
And all the people who lived normal lives, who would never know what it meant to be owned, to be used, to be broken and remade into something monstrous.
Why had they been given so much—while she had been given nothing but pain?
The Demon Lord smiled.
She already knew the answer.
And so did Cassandra.
"You don't have to die here."
A whisper. A promise. A trap.
But Cassandra was already falling.
The darkness curled around her like a lover's embrace.
And then—
She felt it.
Power.
Raw, hungry, writhing with the same venomous envy that had consumed her soul for years.
It pulsed in her hands.
A weapon.
A scythe, long and curved, its violet blade burning like cursed moonlight.
Her own envy, made manifest.
A gift.
A curse.
And for the first time in her life—
She took something for herself.
*
*
The battlefield shook.
Leon and Sylva barely had time to react before the Black Knight turned suddenly, his crimson eyes narrowing in confusion.
Because the woman he had killed—
Was standing again.
Cassandra rose from the blood-drenched earth, her body still covered in wounds, but her eyes burning with something unnatural.
A deep, violent violet glow.
And in her hands—
The scythe pulsed with unholy hunger.
The Black Knight raised his sword.
Cassandra vanished.
One moment she was there.
The next—
She was behind him.
A single clean slash.
And then—
The Black Knight's head fell from his shoulders.
The great executioner, the demon who had killed dozens of warriors in mere moments, was dead before he even understood what had happened.
And as his body collapsed into dust, Cassandra stood motionless, her grip tightening on the scythe.
The battlefield was silent.
The surviving soldiers stared in horror.
Leon took a step forward, his katana still drawn. "Are you alright?…"
She turned her gaze toward him.
And for the first time—
He felt afraid.
Because the woman standing before him was no longer human.
Her violet eyes pierced through him like blades.
And when she finally spoke—
Her voice was calm.
Cold.
Final.
"The next time we meet, Hero… we will be enemies."
Leon's breath caught.
Sylva said nothing—her grip tightening on her daggers.
Because they both knew the truth.
Cassandra was gone.
What stood before them was something else entirely.
And then—
With a final flick of her new weapon, she turned—
And vanished into the night.