“What?! Nidhogg, Blight of the Heavens, defeated?! Crow Titus... I knew he was an excellent warrior, but this?!”
Vortigern, leader of the dark magus organization Wanpurgis, was at a loss for words. He trembled on his throne, his mind racing with thoughts of Crow—that inhuman, monstrous man.
A legendary dragon! One of the Seven Calamities! Countless magus knights had given their lives to merely seal it! The beast had been a key element of his plan!
How could that man have defeated it?!
“He...was overwhelmed, at first,” he mused to himself, astonished. “All he could do was run from Nidhogg. Even after he managed to fight back with his little tricks, it wasn’t long before he was beaten half to death, and yet...”
Crow’s body had been reduced to mincemeat. He’d lost one of his arms and dropped from the skies right smack into the middle of a settlement. To Vortigern, victory had seemed all but assured. The dragon wouldn’t even have needed to deliver the final blow, so close was the swordsman to his end.
“But then, on the brink of death, his strength surged...”
And the curtains had risen on the macabre dance of death that followed. The legendary evil dragon toyed with. Its every action stopped in its tracks. Crow had reaped its life in a crushing victory.
Indeed, the young man had, in that moment, been the very picture of the Grim Reaper. Through the black dragon’s eyes, Vortigern had felt the unfathomable menace of the raven-haired swordsman in his very bones. The dark magus’s arms—so strong, so muscular—had trembled in fear.
“Ha ha! Oh, Crow, how I despise you! Twenty long years building up to this, to the torment of the empire’s pathetic lot, and it’s all gone awry because of you. But... Hah! I see...” Vortigern gave a small chuckle.
It wasn’t the chuckle of the leader of a terrorist organization, but that of a man who had once been destined to be the emperor of Lemuria.
“Making a display of your power to protect the people. How gallant, Crow!” he exclaimed in sincere praise, breaking into a wide grin.
His plans had been thrown into disarray, all because Crow Titus had happened to drop onto a small town. That was fate’s turning point, Vortigern knew.
“As soon as the dragon swooped down, and the people’s cries rang out, that boy transformed into something truly terrifying!”
Crow had risen in response to the screams of the people. He’d made a solemn vow, a knight’s pledge to protect them, no matter what. The fury in his eyes had been nothing more than a manifestation of the justice burning bright in his heart.
“A man who can rise from the brink of death and turn into a demon to protect others...”
Crow, the Condemner of All Evil.
Leader of dark magi though he was, Vortigern felt respect for the young man. He wouldn’t have minded being condemned by Crow’s hands.
Except, of course, in reality, Crow was no protector, not at all.
All that had happened was that his anger had reached a boiling point and he’d snapped. But to Vortigern, he looked like nothing less than the greatest of all knights. The absurd delusion that this era had produced a hero to stand against him, the king of all evil, was intoxicating to him.
“Ha ha ha! Very well, then, Crow. I look forward to meeting you face-to-face. It’s about time I took the stage myself,” Vortigern said, stroking his goatee. “But before I do...”
He paused, filled with anticipation of what was to come.
“You’ll need to survive, boy. That coward of an emperor is far, far more terrifying than I am, in a way.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Crow!”
Tiana ran through the woods at a far greater speed than that of an ordinary person, propelled by her aethereal weapon.
“Please! Be safe, I beg of you!”
She knew Crow had defeated the dragon. He’d left her with the mission order the prime minister had entrusted to him, and since the completion mark had emerged on the paper, she knew the outcome of the battle.
“Crow! Oh, Crow!” she exclaimed, in tears, as she ran toward where he’d fallen.
The last time she’d seen him, the dragon had been viciously flailing around, battering his body. His left arm had been torn off, and he’d dropped to the ground.
How things had gone from there, she didn’t know. All she knew was that, even if he had won, Crow had to be on the brink of death.
Panting, crying, she continued to run, calling out his name.
Finally, in the distance beyond the woods, a devastated settlement came into view. In the middle lay the dragon’s limp body. Beside it, the villagers admiringly surrounded her first love, the young man who had overcome a terrible ordeal.
And in the next instant, the swordsman was surrounded by masked individuals carrying numerous aethereal arms.
“Crow Titus! Apologies, but we have to destroy you.”
At the sight of the strangers, the villagers fled, screaming in terror.
“Wait, that’s the assassin group under direct command of the royal family—the Masquerade!”
The royal family’s trump card.
They were the darkness that nested within the hidden depths of the empire. Grim reapers with permission to kill, only ever deployed against those who had truly incurred the wrath of the royal family.
So that’s what this is! Crow was no ordinary rookie, of course, but even then, the mission had been overkill. If it became public knowledge, why, everyone would think they were trying to make the young man disappear. Crow would instantly become a national hero for defeating the dragon, noble or not. The royal family would come under fire for forcing a rookie to hunt down a dragon!
Which could only mean...
“They wanted to make sure Crow was dealt with, even if he managed to defeat the dragon! What the hell?!” Tiana exclaimed in anger as she continued to press on.
She couldn’t allow it. She wouldn’t allow it. Why should someone who had given his all to overcome the impossible be subjected to such a terrible fate?!
She shoved the thought of her own weakness to the back of her mind. That meaningless facet of reality was no longer a concern.
With no regard for her life, Tiana simply lunged with all her might at one of the members of the Masquerade near Crow.
“What?! Who the hell are you?!” the masked figure yelled.
“Lend me your strength, Gleipr, Bolt of Nirvana!” Tiana shouted, clenching her pink gauntlet and sending her fist flying at the enemy.
Her fist sank into the stranger’s head, and their skull burst, sending the pieces flying.
She heaved. Her fist dripped with a large amount of fresh blood—her enemy’s, yes, but her own as well, gushing forth from her shattered hand.
Gleipr, her aethereal arm, allowed her to manipulate the electrical current within her own body. In other words, she could control the signals flowing from her brain to her nerves, which enabled her to unleash several times her normal physical strength.
“Shit! Ugh!” She’d taken down one enemy, but in so doing, she’d rendered one of her hands unusable.
That was the result of carelessly using her weapon’s power. Manipulating one’s brain signals was no simple task, and a miscalculation in the amount of power exerted could easily lead to one’s body falling apart.
She didn’t care.
“Crow,” she said, turning quietly to face the man who had set her heart alight for the first time.
He really did look like he’d reached his limit. Just the wind from her punching the masked figure to death seemed to have caused him to collapse.
Beside him, his black sword vibrated, as if concerned for his safety.
“Ha ha! Even your cursed sword cares for you, huh, dear?” she remarked, amused.
Such a remarkable man. On top of his many achievements, he’d summarily defeated the Nidhogg. At this point, he was already a legend. For humanity, ever suffering from the threat of aetherborn, he was a beacon of hope.
Tiana steeled her resolve.
“Please rest, Crow. I’ll protect you with my life!”
She turned back around, and a dozen or so Masquerade members were raising their weapons at once, shouting from beneath their masks the names of their aethereal arms, which caused destructive aether to overflow from the weapons.
“Disruption encountered in the assassination mission. We will now eliminate the abnormality!” they declared, and all fell upon her at once.
Tiana was fearless, however, and charged straight into them. “Don’t you dare touch my man!”