Luke was a prominent Grandmaster Rank knight serving Reynold Stroptor, and he had watched his friend rise since childhood. Coming from a small town, he had only ever had two friends.
Reynold and Lucia.
Reynold had always been smart in everything, while Lucia and Luke took responsibility for protecting him as he did business.
Slowly but surely, Reynold continued rising through the ranks as a merchant through sheer talent, eventually marrying Lucia, whom Luke himself considered a sister.
But after Lucia passed away, she had asked him for a single favour.
To protect her family.
Luke had already failed her once.
And now, as the two monsters before him, a boy barely looking past twenty, released an aura of Ascendancy, his body trembled with primal fear.
Sweat covered his body, and all he could think about was running away. His body refused to follow his commands, refusing even to draw his sword and defend his friend from these monsters.
