Fredrick had experience. A lot of it. He was quickly promoted from watchman to guard, and then offered to be the town's temporary shield before graduation. Upon graduation, he would officially become a knight by decree of the princess herself.
A shockwave of impact burst through burning shelves, one after another. A dark shadow moved through the destruction. It was not the B Rank Unfaithful, but rather Fredrick himself, thrown through the air. He could not fight it properly. He was only human. What could he do against such a monstrosity that required three Awakened or a single Enlightened of the ascendant rank?
He thought quickly. He burst through a shelf, sliding, planting his feet on the ground. He used the momentum to push himself off and launched toward the shadowy beast. His fist was up, ready to throw a punch, but the shadow's substance parted and gave way, making him crash into another shelf nearby. A tendril followed immediately, slamming into his stomach and knocking the air out of him.
Slam.
He slammed into a fallen archive building, left from a previous encounter. Fredrick braced himself for another attack and met it with his forearm, dampening the impact. Something snapped within it as he got knocked back again.
The B Rank Unfaithful screeched, an unholy sound that made his ears ring.
He dodged an attack. He dodged another.
'It seems hopeless.'
But he had survived worse. He had survived them. Moreover, he had survived her.
This thing was nothing. A walk in the park compared to her.
As a tendril slammed into his stomach, he seized the moment and used his arms to wrap around it. It thrashed. It shook him violently. But he held fast. With intense pressure, he grabbed it and separated it from the main body with a brutal twist.
"Guess that worked," he muttered, wiping blood from his mouth with his good arm.
He looked down. His left hand hung useless at his side.
Then he felt a pressure so insane, so overwhelming that it caught him off guard.
"Miguel..." he whispered, cut off as something launched him through five shelves, burning his light armor, his blue uniform, wounding him in the process.
He found himself in a small opening, a circular clearing. The shelves burned slightly. Scrolls and burned purple grass fell like ash, tumbling down slowly through the smoke.
He tried to look around, to find where it was, where Miguel was. But immediately he felt a pressure behind him. An ache. Sorrow. Agony. Longing. Sadness.
He looked behind him.
His hands went up. His lips parted.
"Ela..." He could not even form her name completely.
The princess hung suspended on the crucified tree of agony, chains wrapped around her wrists and ankles. The corruption had climbed to her chest now. Her skin was turning black where it touched. Her eyes were drowsy, unfocused. But she was looking at him.
She whispered something. His name, perhaps. Or a plea.
Something inside him cracked. Not his bones. Not his body. Something deeper.
He looked forward again.
The B Rank Unfaithful swirled, wrapping around tanned arms, tracing up to a face that loomed over his head with hollowed white eyes and fangs. He stood in its shadow, dwarfed by its presence.
"Such a beauty, is she not?" Miguel's voice came from within the shadow.
"Say, someone was here. But she got away. No matter. That does not concern me. You are the only thing. The only one I sought."
Fredrick stood up slowly. Deliberately.
His face deepened into a grimace. His eyes were not visible anymore, hidden beneath the shadow of his brow.
"Hey, Fredrick," Miguel's voice was mocking, cruel. "Be proud of yourself. You have managed to avoid almost every attempt on your life from us true nobles. You have the honor to die as a knight, saving the one you loved. Is that not a good thing?"
Fredrick's jaw clenched. His fists tightened at his sides.
"Now awaken. Show me your true self. I know that you are hiding it."
'I could,' Fredrick thought. 'I could draw in the fate essence right now. Ascend. Become Awakened. It would be so easy.'
His chest tightened.
'But I chose not to. Not for them. Not to prove them right. Not to become like them.'
He looked up briefly. His face was devoid of the usual smile, the usual casual, friendly expression. Instead, it was replaced by something purely hopeless.
Miguel, looking at Fredrick, enjoyed his state. A twisted grin crept up his face.
"Oh, I see you do not have a sword," Miguel remarked with false generosity.
He put up his hand where his ring glowed and manifested a plain silver sword. He threw it to Fredrick. It clattered at his feet.
It was a plain iron sword. The tip was dull. The hilt was wrapped in worn leather. A battle sword, practically worthless.
But that was enough. That was what he needed.
Fredrick bent down and reached for the sword. He picked it up, weighing it, making faint arcs through the air to test its balance.
Miguel observed him with a smug face. Two other figures emerged from the shadow. The two Awakened he had fought earlier. A girl with a whip and a dagger. A broad man with an axe.
"Oh, by the way, you should have killed them earlier," Miguel said, his voice dripping with condescension. "Like that idiot, what was his name?"
"Lucid, was it?"
"I kept my eyes on that brat ever since he came to vex, through the eyes of my conjured rats"
"You mean the unfaithful were not..."
"That's right they were mine..."
"I even altered his destination from that, little group so he would have better chance dying"
"but alas..."
"He does a far better job than you. He does not play hero. He is annoying, but he is efficient when it comes to doing a job right. Unlike you."
He laughed, the sound echoing through the clearing.
Fredrick looked back at the princess. She twisted slightly against her chains. Beautiful even in agony.
'There is still time. I cannot lose this. I cannot break this oath. I cannot lose her.'
A brief moment. The B Rank Unfaithful shot toward him, closing the distance in less than a second. The girl twisted and swung her dagger in the air while flying toward him in an arc. She wrapped her legs around his neck in a restraint.
It was the girl from earlier.
"Eyes up here, Fred," she purred, motioning with her dagger in an arc toward the side of his neck.
Blood spilled. Red. Warm. Wet.
It spilled everywhere.
In front of Fredrick.
But it was not his.
His blade lay poised, thrust toward her abdomen just behind his head where she had managed to sit on top of him. He withdrew the sword. Blood trickled down the blade as she fell from his shoulders, gasping, clutching her wound.
"Fine then," he said, his voice cold and flat. "I will show no mercy."
They braced themselves. Miguel was already forming a sickly green rift where an endless amount of rats resurfaced, running toward him in a chittering mass.
Fredrick slowly put his sword up above his head and breathed. The sword was already cracking under the pressure, but he tried to restrain himself from unleashing what it could not handle.
The man with the axe stood back, sensing something wrong.
Burst.
Air exploded everywhere as if the air itself had been sliced in a horizontal line. The rats immediately exploded into green, sickly gore that painted the ground. The man was caught in the aftermath, clutching his torso with a deep gash to his left side, blood pouring between his fingers.
But that was not all. The aftermath revealed what seemed to be silhouettes behind Miguel. Assassins from another faction. Not students.
Miguel smacked his lips in frustration.
"Tch. Fine then!"
Miguel had his hand on his sword, still focused intently on Fredrick.
Just then, a figure manifested. A pale white rift opened behind Miguel.
"Is this the oddity?" a voice asked, cold and clinical.
It was another man, hair slicked back, wearing a black suit that seemed out of place in the burning archives.
Miguel looked back in a flash of happiness. Relief flooded his features.
"Yes, it is him!" Miguel shouted. "Kill him!"
The man nodded slowly.
He walked forward and put his hand on Miguel's back, fingers splayed.
"What... what are you doing?" Miguel's voice shifted from confidence to confusion.
"The B Rank Unfaithful I graciously gifted you," the man said, his voice cold and chilling. "I expected something in return. This was it."
Miguel immediately screamed in agony as purple luminescent light consumed him from within, similarly to the princess that hung suspended on the tree. His veins throbbed visibly beneath his skin. He fell to the ground, hitting his hands in pain, clawing at his own face.
"AHHHHH!"
The man in black observed him like some specimen, a fascinating creature under examination. A faint smile crept up his face.
"Yes. Feel it," he muttered.
The shadow around Miguel consumed him, tearing his arms in different directions, decapitating his head and carrying it with its form like four symbols on each side. Until it resumed a compact form of shadow with his twisted, lifeless head embedded within.
The B Rank Unfaithful had absorbed Miguel's body completely. The pressure intensified. Grew heavier. More suffocating.
It was no longer B Rank.
It had become an A Rank Unfaithful.
Fredrick looked at this and immediately braced himself, assuming a defensive stance.
The man in black looked at Fredrick, then at the princess hanging on the tree.
"Kill him," he said simply, as if ordering someone to sweep the floor.
The A Rank Unfaithful surged forward, faster than before, empowered by Miguel's essence. Fredrick gripped his cracking sword tighter.
'Her whisper. Miguel's taunts. The betrayal. All of it crushes down on me.'
His shoulders sagged for a moment. His breathing grew ragged.
'But I have to remain strong. For myself. For them. For her.'
He straightened. His grip on the sword steadied.
'And perhaps, maybe, to stand against them once again.'
There was no more room for hesitation. No more room for mercy. He had survived worse. He would survive this.
For her. For the oath he swore.
He raised his sword and prepared for the storm.