A decade passed – a decade spent in pursuit of glory.
Everyone knew about the dark hunter – who wouldn't they had wiped out dark knights from the face of some of the continents. All highly dangerous had either been taken out or eventually joined the extremely dangerous.
The Knight had become such a sight for sore eyes that they abandoned their pride and joined forces. Some weren't bothered and remained individuals. After Revel Arc, this had become the Knights routine. The groups sometimes got out of hand forcing the knight to retreat, regroup, or just outright send the dragons after them since the only way to kill it was to be a destroyer, or kill all of its vessels simultaneously.
The Knight also had to consider the fact that it had to train its companions, so as to make them able to keep up – and unlike the Knight, they did not have a need for knowledge to grow their power levels – even if it had been a bit slower as of late.
There was one more thing on the Knights agenda – it was preparing for a battle beyond most. In total, the Knight had not actually removed that many dark knights – it chose to ignore those trained by other dark knights and focus on those that had received titles of knights before they deserted. The point of the Knights exploit was not to actually wipe all of them out – even if this was the goal.
The Knight looked at the three things before it.
A catalogue including a map and a list, the compass, and lastly a soul note. The catalogue had been cleared of many names – enough so that only a few groups and individuals of extreme or above dangers were left. In the extreme department, the Knight had managed to clear a lot of them.
This had not been done through covering them in the void like it did at the port city – it had gotten better at its tactics. It used straight up assassinations. None could keep up – being hunted by hundreds of silent, deadly, invisible, and incredibly agile monsters, each possessing over half a thousand skills.
Then it used strategies only someone on the knight level of thinking could counter. One of these were the [Desire] schemes. Some went like this: the Knight would give them true awareness. It would speak to them in their dreams – it had a vermin/monster with that skill – as such, so did it. In there it would tell it things only a mind like the Knight could handle – information so detrimental it would turn most of them mad.
Right before they killed themselves the Knight would use [Don't] to keep their souls from fading, teleport to them and collect it. It had more convoluted plans, especially for those bearing troublesome powers, for which unfortunately all of them did. At this pace the Knight would have to take a century or more – and it hadn't yet faced the pinnacles of the problem.
The second thing in front of the Knight was the compass. It had refused to point towards its sword. Which was supposed to be its original use. The Knight had been trying to make it since it first met up with the pattern smiths in Maroon city. It was finally able to by learning the ancient secrets of the Forest folk.
This is also how it had figured out how to help and eventually succeed in unleashing Forg's second seal. Forg's seal had been broken by killing her and forcing her to come back from the spirit realm – she said something about her grandma leading her back – there were other ways to unleash this seal – but this one allowed her to gain an incredible skill – [Realm Shift].
Apparently, in the second book in the royal archives, this skill somehow gave her a skill usually exclusive to top tier spirits, but it also meant that she would age slower, which no-one wanted.
Cathina's seal the Knight had figured out from its own knowledge of souls, the books about the heroes, and from observing Forg. And after unsealing hers, it used it as reference to unseal Kitrino's seal – she was still an incomplete general though.
'I guess the compass must not be pointing to the sword because something is preventing it from being noticed, someone strong I presume.'
The third thing before the Knight was a soul note.
There are three mainstream ways to send messages. [Telepathy] skill, devices, or soul notes. The telepathy skill needs to be learned and can be a bother. The devices are many and varied – electric ones like phones, or pattern ones like tabs, or even the rare ethereal pattern devices.
But devices are fickle and can fail, even under the guise of multiple fail safes. Thus, most use soul notes – the most convenient communicant. If one has the title of a person, the one the whisper uses to identify beings, they can send a note directly into their souls. An ethereal note that uses no materials, sent by most through the guild.
The Knight was looking at this ethereal note. And inside it had a blank paper, with scribbles on it. The Knight knew that it was official because only a few people knew its title – Vice and the other Bannerets. And on this note it said –
You have been invited to the House of Mother!
Simple and inconspicuous.
The Knight did not know just what had been accomplished by the other knight Bannerets before it, but apparently it had reached its threshold and received the invitation. The note mentioned nothing more. The Knight had actually ran into a few knights Errant. It had even fought with them to defend against the darkness a few times – and only one of the ones it met had been lost to the battle.
And compared to them, the Knights glory was surface level.
"It probably has to do with the fact that you had already gathered tons of glory before all this, Boss. How many can say that they repelled the darkness, defeated a divine spirit, created pure nothingness, and earned the respect of most, if not all the knights. You even helped to clear the foul tempered dragon Red Scorch – and now on top of all of that – you have cleared a major thorn in their sights.
Not just any thorn, the dark knights. Cowards galore. You may have not cleared all of them, but you managed to do two important things. One, cleared their numbers, making them a more manageable problem for those of the future. Two, you gave them something important – a kind of caution they will never forget – that at any time, the Order of Knights could do away with them, they should just count them selves lucky to be left alive. Their attacks have become less frequent.
Outside the warning, you also gave people the strength and courage to know that the dark knights are not invincible. The dark hunter might be a myth and a legend to most, but that is all that is needed for hope – and with it comes the end of many thing – I should know, boss, it happened to me too. Also, you did free many towns and repair many sites in a few hours."
'You're on point – but you missed one thing. No-one has faced off against the incredibly dangerous, and stopping right now would leave them still as a major threat.'
To itself: 'It most likely because of the [Belief of a Hero] skill placed on others.'
The knight put all three back into its soul inventory. It was too late anyway – the Knight was already gearing up for death at the hands of a true knight.
'Cathina, Forg, Kitrino, Red, Guilos – are you ready?'
'Ready and waiting!'
The Knight was too greedy for its own good – and well, this time a potentially ravenous greed had found way into its soul. The Knight looked, and far on the distance, there she was – one of the most dangerous dark knights – labelled as incredibly dangerous – no single knight sent after her had survived, and for good reason.
She had not just quit after facing the darkness – not at all, she faced and bared against it for centuries. Surviving on countless war front. Some swore she had died. Incredibly dangerous was put there as a warning to other knights, meeting her was a death sentence, a fatal mistake the Knight had spent countless years preparing for.
This was at the centre of the continent of Nhoils. She had figured out she was being followed and come here. She knew that the 'dark hunter' would not attack someone of her calibre anywhere near any people – the 'hero' had an image to uphold.
The Knight teleported right in front of her. She sat there in the grass; she had made it herself. she had a cup of tea in her hands, sipping it carefully. The Knight was wondering how she managed to make tea hot enough to burn her tongue.
You have encountered a level 390 human, Knight Banneret Quu-Quu. Type-Knight. Class-Leagues.
'No 'former' – how interesting…'
"Hello there, you were taking so long I thought I'd get myself a spot of tea."
Kitrino's arm then went through her.
"If you wanted to assassinate me, at least let me here your title – a hero must have one."
Around her, dozens of monsters started appearing out of thin air. The Knight even sent the vile hunter away, to avoid losing the teleport skill.
"My, my, such a wonderful party we have going on here now, it's not even my birthday."
She then drank some more. Red Scorch then descended from above the clouds, already fused into one. The bellowed smoke blotted out the skies, his chest puffed, and the sheer heat from all of it, instantly wiped out all of the clouds in the vicinity. And he shot a single breath of sheer heat and fire.
Time itself could not slow this breath down. Space warped around the heat blast, causing a surge of random teleport holes to open and close as the world tried and failed to match this surge of heat, and the demonstration of having absolute power over it.
It struck her head on, burning her straight to the surface of the core.
The smoulders ended right where the army had stood, surrounding her. After the initial temporal distortions passed, the smoke shot out ashes. And the ground cracked and collapsed in like the entrance to hell had been opened.
She rose up, floating on the air, her arm charred and glowing red.
She looked at where her grass had been – now gone. Her tea and cup – gone as well. Her armour was just glowing red, and covered with ashes and scorches, but mostly fine.
"What was that? No dragon should be that strong! You seriously got to be kidding! Just what kind of monstrosity is strong enough to render my hand made grass and tea set into cinders? You Know what, I think I'll handle you first."
Then she appeared before the dragon, no teleport, just her speed. The Knight teleported before her, about to block when it felt a jar, from the side as it was swatted away so furiously its fall path lit up into a furious red from the friction with the air.
The dragon shot out a breath upward, getting lost in space, she had dodged this one.
"You're a big one."
Then she spun around on the same spot, creating a disc of perpetual force. She slowly stepped out of it, and grabbed this energy and force disc. Then she stretched it out as if it was physical, making its spin wider. Then she thew it, cutting the breath in two before it flew off into space, even slicing the bottom jaw of the dragon brutally in two.
Before she did anything else – whilst in the air, she was instantly surrounded on all sides by monsters, powerful ones, ranging from small to large, ferocious to just barbarous.
She then got bit on the shoulder by a bear like monster, but she just grabbed the jaws from above, pressing the bite into her shoulder. But since her and her armour were leagues above, all the teeth instantly shattered on the cold steel, crushing the upper and lower jaws into her pauldron (shoulder of armour) – not even leaving a scratch.
The putrilage mixed with the ashes on the plating, as it dripped. But multiple other blades had shattered on her armour in the time it took her to crush it.
"There's just so many of you – I'm patient and thorough, so wait your turn."
Then she spun and stopped. She then grabbed all her motions, her side kick echo swipe, her punch, her hand air slice, her guard pierce (elbow), and she pressed all of them together, and she then wound up, whilst under constant assault, like a whirl wind, an air blade swiped through the air, leaving a dark trail filled with the putrid remains of the vessels.
She was creating and flinging around the motions left in her path.
The Knight felt multiple vermin flowing into its soul. One after the other. But it could not move, that hit from her, had bent the Knight's armour inward. And right now, it was trying to jam it open.
Then like a long-forgotten nightmare, she appeared before the Knight.
"We wouldn't want you to spoil the fun now would we, so you got to stay down her for just a little while longer."
Then she threw a massive arched kick to the Knight. As her heel struck the Knight's armour, it got crushed inward almost forcing the armour to crush the body into two – but the body held both itself, and the armour, from crumbling into pieces.