The smell lingered.
Even after the fire had burned down to nothing and the rain had worked the canal road back into mud, Lore could still taste it at the back of his throat—oil, scorched flesh, mana residue clinging to the air like something unfinished.
They didn't talk while the recovery teams worked.
Crates were sealed.
Earth was shoveled.
The place where the body had burned was trampled flat until it became anonymous ground again.
Lore stood where it had happened anyway.
A pair of Holy Knights passed behind him carrying a reinforced crate between them. The runes along its edges glowed faintly, unstable in the damp air.
"Careful," muttered Ash, voice low and rough. He always sounded like he'd inhaled smoke once too often. "If that seal slips, we'll be back here again."
"It won't," said Needle, already moving ahead. Thin, precise, never wasted motion or breath. "They don't make mistakes twice."
No one looked at Lore. No one needed to.
This was his unit now.
They didn't wear banners. They didn't announce themselves. Names were for reports and memorials—out here, they worked with nicknames and silence.
Ash held ground.
Needle watched angles.
Crow ranged wide, never where you expected him to be.
Grave arrived last and left last, checking bodies no one else wanted to touch.
And Lore—
Lore was placed where pressure would break something.
Orders came in fragments. Targets. Windows. Exit paths. Never routes home. Never reinforcement guarantees.
Holy Knights didn't march with main columns. They appeared ahead of them, behind them, or not at all—leaving damage, silence, and unanswered questions in their wake.
The helm arrived without ceremony.
A courier found them at dusk, breath ragged, eyes refusing to linger. He handed Lore a wrapped bundle, nodded once, and fled back into the treeline.
The fire was low when Lore unwrapped it.
The helm enclosed the face fully—clean lines, deliberate weight. The mouth was shaped into a rigid snarl, reinforced fangs worked into the steel. Along the crown and down the back, thick Demon Snow Lion fur had been bound into the crest—pale, coarse, faintly iridescent. Cold clung to it stubbornly, refusing to fade.
Ash exhaled. "That's… not subtle."
Needle tilted her head. "It fits."
Lore said nothing.
When he donned it, the world narrowed. Sound dulled. Edges sharpened. Rain slid from the Snow Lion fur as if it remembered the mountains.
Something in him settled.
---
Time did not pass.
It repeated.
The same kinds of roads.
The same kinds of orders.
The same outcomes, reached faster each time.
Lore learned the rhythm of guerrilla war—how long to stay unseen, when to strike, when to vanish before certainty set in. He learned how absence could force the enemy to overcorrect.
Ash stopped charging. He started bracing.
Needle stopped scouting wide. She began predicting.
Crow ranged farther, more confidently.
Grave burned bodies without being told.
Crow laughed sometimes.
That should have worried Lore more than it did.
Villages were denied before they could be taken. Wells collapsed. Bridges vanished. The creatures failed loudly at first—tearing themselves apart when stolen mana surged unevenly through warped flesh.
Then they failed less.
They watched longer.
Lore noticed when his hands stopped shaking after fights.
He noticed when he stopped dreaming.
He followed orders.
Mostly.
Sometimes he stayed late. Sometimes he arrived early. Sometimes he pulled people free before the window officially opened.
He was reprimanded once.
Quietly.
He wasn't removed from rotation.
He was too effective.
Where Holy Knights passed, fights didn't continue.
They simply stopped happening in that place.
---
The village at the edge of the river looked wrong.
Too intact.
Too patient.
Crow signaled from the far wall, crouched low.
Lore felt it then—pressure behind the eyes, the sensation of being measured rather than hunted.
The Daemon stepped from the haze like it had always been there.
Humanoid. Tall. Wrapped in layered armor that looked grown instead of forged. Pale cloth hung from its shoulders, untouched by ash or soot.
Not an experiment.
This one stood straight.
It surveyed the ruins with detached interest.
Then it turned its head.
Its gaze settled on Crow.
Something flicked from its hand.
Crow screamed as the force tore through his side and slammed him into the dirt.
Ash surged forward—
—and stopped.
Muscles locked. Breath caught. A command without words pressed down on them all.
Witness.
The Daemon approached Crow and knelt, inspecting the wound like a craftsman examining a flawed mechanism. Two fingers pressed in.
Crow screamed again.
The Daemon rose.
Satisfied.
Its gaze lifted.
For one heartbeat, it met Lore's.
Not anger.
Not threat.
Assessment.
Then it stepped backward into the haze and vanished.
The pressure broke.
Ash moved first. Needle stabilized. Grave was already preparing extraction.
Lore hadn't moved.
Not because he couldnn't.
Because there had never been a moment where moving would have changed anything.
They carried Crow out.
Ash looked up at Lore, blood on his hands. "Then what was it?"
Lore swallowed.
"An observation."
---
They returned to Windas in fragments.
Holy Knights never came back together.
No one asked where Crow was.
The briefing room beneath the Magic Knight Headquarters was stone and warding runes, maps weighted with iron.
Commander Threx entered.
He did not sit.
"Knight Lord Semir has reviewed the field report," Threx said. "His assessment aligns with other fronts."
Observation-level.
Not engagement.
"Doctrine is adjusted," Threx continued. "Reduced exposure windows. Shorter operations. No lingering."
"And Crow?" Ash asked.
"Alive. Stabilized. He will not return to field operations," Threx replied. "Advisory capacity."
Crow was still breathing.
That was the mercy.
"These adjustments come directly from Semir," Threx added. "You're being kept where you are for a reason."
His eyes lingered on Lore—not scrutiny, but the impatience of someone executing another man's design.
"You are not being punished," Threx said. "You are being refined."
---
Lore went to the forge because there was nowhere else left to go.
Windas slept poorly that night. Even the ward-lights dimmed earlier than usual, their glow softened as if the city itself were conserving strength. Garron's forge was still awake.
It always was.
The heat hit Lore first—not the press of it, but the familiarity. The sound of steel cooling. The smell of worked metal that had been handled too many times to still be clean.
Garron stood at the central table, arms braced against its edge.
The sword lay between them.
Whole.
Not gleaming.
Not pristine.
Finished.
Lore stopped a few steps short.
Garron didn't look up. "You're late."
"I didn't know it was ready," Lore said.
"You never do," Garron replied. "That's on purpose."
Silence stretched. The forge crackled softly around them.
Lore's gaze stayed on the blade. The fractures he remembered were gone—not erased, but resolved. Like scars that had healed cleanly instead of disappearing.
"You broke it," Garron said, still not looking at him. "Not carelessness. Not weakness. You pushed it past what it was made for."
Lore nodded. "I know."
"So I rebuilt it," Garron continued. "Not to survive you—but to keep up with you."
That got Lore's attention.
Garron finally straightened. His eyes were tired, sharp, honest in a way few people dared to be with Lore anymore.
"This sword isn't fire," Garron said. "It's not ice. It's not anything tidy you can name and feel good about."
He tapped the blade once with his knuckle.
"This thing amplifies whatever you are when you swing it."
Lore stepped closer. "My armor—"
"—anchors you," Garron cut in. "Keeps your body and magic from tearing each other apart. This does the opposite."
Lore frowned slightly.
"It extends you," Garron said. "Every doubt. Every conviction. Every moment you decide something needs to end."
The forge seemed to listen.
"You won't be able to keep it summoned anymore," Garron added. "You'll carry it. Weight matters now."
Lore nodded. That felt right.
Garron's voice dropped. "And when you lose control—not if, when—this sword won't stop you."
Lore's jaw tightened.
"I won't lie to it," he said.
Garron snorted. "Good. It'd know."
Garron rested his hand on the flat of the blade.
"This isn't a legendary sword," he said. "It's not meant for songs."
He tapped the steel once. The sound was deep. Certain.
"It broke when it had to. Held when it shouldn't have."
Garron looked at Lore.
"You didn't swear anything to survive," he said. "You just refused to stop."
He nodded once.
"So I call it Oathless."
Lore didn't answer right away.
Then he inclined his head. "It fits."
Lore reached out.
The moment his hand closed around the hilt, the forge answered.
Not violently. Not wildly.
The fires swelled in a single breath, climbing higher along the walls, reflecting off racks of steel and half-finished armor. Heat sharpened, steadied—not hotter, but truer.
Mana aligned.
Fire, restraint, exhaustion, resolve—none of it fought anymore. The sword didn't demand a shape.
It accepted all of it.
Lore inhaled sharply.
For the first time since the Demon Snow Lion.
Since Crow.
Since the war stopped feeling temporary—
Something sealed inside him.
The fires settled back into their banks.
Silence reclaimed the forge.
Lore stood very still.
"It feels…" He searched for the word.
"Whole," Garron said quietly.
Lore nodded.
He lifted the sword fully from the table.
It wasn't lighter.
It wasn't heavier.
It felt right.
"You're a Holy Knight now," Garron said. "You don't get forgiving tools."
Lore met his eyes. "I don't want one."
Garron grunted approval.
Lore sheathed the blade.
The sound of steel sliding home was steady. Final.
He turned to leave.
"Lore," Garron said.
Lore paused.
"Bring it back," Garron added. "Not clean. Just… back."
Lore inclined his head.
"I will."
He stepped out into the night with Oathless at his side.
Not summoned.
Not hidden.
Carried.
And somewhere far to the east, something that had finished observing now began to prepare.