The rust-laden wind carried ash across the battlefield, while the evening light bathed the corpses in an almost warm hue, cruelly ironic.
"Adam!"
A voice roared among the lifeless bodies.
"Why did you start this ridiculous war? Do you know how many people have died?"
Adam Hall stood with difficulty. His armor was torn to shreds, embedded in his flesh, and every breath was torture. He coughed violently, and a mouthful of blood fell onto the blackened earth.
He slowly raised his head and stared at Louis.
"To avenge them."
He didn't need to say more. The images of his ruined home and the lifeless bodies of his family burned in his mind from the day the kingdom of Kamelot mercilessly massacred them.
Adam raised his trembling sword and pointed it at Louis.
Behind him, there were only a few soldiers left: the last ones who had not abandoned him—those who still dared to follow him to the end.
"My sole purpose," he said in a hoarse voice. "Is the destruction of Kamelot."
Kamelot was known as an undisputed military power. Its armies had subjugated entire kingdoms. Even so, Adam Hall was one of the ten strongest men on the continent, a man whose mere presence had caused countless enemies to retreat.
But even monsters could bleed.
The battle had dragged on too long. One by one, his subordinates began to retreat. Some fled. Others lowered their weapons... and turned against him. Each betrayal was a blow deeper than any sword.
Surrounded, exhausted, and with blurred vision, Adam finally fell to his knees. His sword dug into the ground to prevent him from collapsing entirely. The pride that had kept him standing was broken, but his gaze still burned.
Louis approached, watching him from above.
"Any last words?"
Adam spat blood and smiled bitterly.
"None. I only regret not destroying them completely. So kill me, bastard."
Louis' expression did not change. He only frowned slightly, as if something unpleasant had crossed his mind.
"Think," he said coldly. "That we had to cooperate with your own kingdom to destroy your family."
The world seemed to stop.
"...What?"
"Didn't you ever find it strange how they died?"
Confusion crossed Adam's face. Louis then leaned in close enough that only he could hear him.
"The Noble Hall..." he whispered. "After your fiancée's death, you disappeared from the world, didn't you?"
The words cut deeper than any wound.
Adam's heart pounded violently, as if trying to escape from his chest. His breathing became irregular, and for the first time since the battle had begun, his hands truly trembled.
"How the hell do you know that?" he growled, his voice breaking.
For a brief moment, he thought he saw something different in Louis's eyes. Not mockery. Not pleasure. Just cold certainty, like someone watching the inevitable outcome of a well-calculated move.
Louis slowly straightened up, putting distance between them again.
"I've said enough."
There were no further explanations. As far as Louis was concerned, Adam Hall was already dead.
The steel left its sheath with a clean sound.
Fwoosh!
For a moment, the world shattered.
The battlefield, the corpses, the red-tinged sky... everything blurred. A cold sensation brushed his neck, followed by a feeling of utter emptiness, as if something essential had been torn from him.
His vision began to spin uncontrollably.
As blood spurted in a silent rain, Adam felt all the emotions that had sustained him until that moment emerge one last time.
The hatred that had driven him to take up the sword.
The longing for a home that would never exist again.
The sadness for the hands he could not protect.
And the regret... deep and unbearable.
Not for having started the war.
But instead of having come too late to understand the truth.
Thud.
His severed head rolled across the ground, coming to rest amid ash and mud.
With his eyes still open, fixed on a sky he could no longer see clearly, the Wandering Swordsman, Adam Hall, met his end.
...
..
.
"Adam…"
"Adam…"
"Adam Hall!"
"Eh?!"
Adam opened his eyes wide and sat up abruptly, looking around, confused and disoriented.
"Why are you so distracted, my son?"
'What the hell?'
Adam couldn't believe his eyes.
"Father...?"
"Are you hurt? I was told you were kicked by a horse. Are you okay?"
He was still in shock; his father should be dead; it wasn't possible that he could see him now.
'Don't tell me...'
A realization struck his mind.
"I see... now I understand, so you ended up in hell with me too; after all, it's something I expected."
"What?"
Adam grabs his father's hand, his eyes shining.
"Someone who always talked about knightly honor, ending up in hell with me is nice..."
His father, initially nervous, finally did what he always did: hit him.
"Why the hell are you looking at me like I'm dead?"
Adam, with his hand on his head, looks at him.
"Even in hell, you have that habit of hitting; you haven't changed a bit."
"What's wrong with you? The horse's kick has driven you crazy."
"Maybe I am crazy..."
Adam stopped mid-sentence when he saw the familiar surroundings: the bookshelf, the thick curtains.
There were no flames, no pleading people, no sinners; it was too normal to be hell.
The place was like his old room, before everything was destroyed and stained with blood.
Then the door to his room opened, and a woman entered.
"Honey, Adam's awake. Should I be worried?"
Adam looked at the woman; her black hair fell over her shoulders, and she had obsidian eyes that radiated sweetness. She moved gracefully and possessed the unique charm of a mature woman.
This woman was Adam's mother, Alisha Briol.
'Mother...'
He turned back to look at his father.
Standing before him was a middle-aged man with a firm bearing and a stern gaze. His face was well-groomed, his beard neatly trimmed, and beneath his clothes, broad shoulders could be seen, marked by years of battle. Several scars crisscrossed his arms, traces of past wars that Adam knew all too well.
There was no doubt about it.
That man was neither a stranger nor an illusion.
He was Baron Zephyr Hall, the current head of House Hall... and his father, someone who should have died many years ago.
Seeing both his parents standing there, alive and breathing, Adam's chest tightened. An unbearable pressure rose from the depths of his throat to his eyes.
He wanted to speak.
He wanted to shout their names.
He wanted to apologize for not saving them.
'Dad... Mom...'
Everything he had wanted to say during his entire life remained trapped inside him, heavy as a slab.
"…No way," he finally murmured, his voice trembling.
He felt his parents' eyes fixed on him, full of concern and confusion. He could no longer deny it. No matter how much he wanted to run away from that truth.
The world was not hell.
It was not a dream.
It was not a cruel illusion before death.
Adam clenched his fists, feeling the real texture of his skin, the rapid beating of his heart, the air entering his lungs.
He had returned.
He had gone back to the past... to a time when everything could still change.
And this time, he would not make the same mistake.