[Passive Skill: Unconditionally Loyal to Brad]

[Grade: Legendary]

[Level: 1]

[Penalty: None]

[MP Cost: None]

[Effects:]

·[You prove the most noble chivalry.]

·[You protect your king by any means necessary, and the moment your king falls into danger, dramatic power boils up and you become 20–30% stronger than usual.]

·[Just by being with the king you are loyal to, all stats increase by 5%, and attack power, defense, and skill damage increase by 5%.]

·[When you fight to protect your king from enormous danger, you do not fear or submit in the slightest.]

·[However, for any reason whatsoever, you cannot harm your king.]

·[If some foreign power is peeled away, something special may happen.]

[Description: A power that began to be granted by a foreign power, a skill only a single knight can obtain.]

[However, this can be said to originate from Luxiu’s innate nature rather than that foreign power.]

It was a skill Luxiu possessed.

As he forced his way past one door after another on the way to the audience chamber, Hyunsoo had a question.

Loyalty was created by a foreign power?

Was it a kind of brainwashing?

He didn’t know exactly.

But when he reached the end of the description and saw that it said it originated from Luxiu’s innate nature, Hyunsoo shook his head.

Even if some foreign power forced that loyalty, as the description says, it still originates from Luxiu’s nature.

Right. Luxiu had been born that way.

When he wanted to protect someone, he would even offer up his life.

If he decided someone was his person, he would give them everything.

A man who cultivated true chivalry through an inborn nature knights could want their whole lives and still never obtain.

Thinking about it, Hyunsoo didn’t actually know Luxiu well.

He only knew Luxiu had fought to protect the kingdom from demon Gremory.

Luxiu hadn’t told Hyunsoo anything.

Of course, Hyunsoo’s decision to fight the Kingdom of Enya began with the Blood King and his lot mocking him.

Hyunsoo was a man who would become a king as well.

So was he supposed to sit back and watch the Blood King take Luxiu away?

When something like that happens, do I keep yielding again and again?

A king couldn’t be made by repeating concessions and compromises.

RIIIP—!

To enter the audience chamber, you had to pass through multiple doors.

He smashed through another one—

And then he heard it.

[A knight who once served you, Luxiu, is in pain.]

[He is even prepared for his own death.]

Hyunsoo’s lips tightened as a strange unease rose with it.

In the end, Luxiu had already broken free of the vassal state.

And yet this notification still sounded.

Ares never gives pointless notifications.

So this had to be a notification tied to what was happening right now.

Hyunsoo moved even more urgently, and at last he reached the final door.

[A knight, Luxiu, by the Brainwashing Orb of the black mage Lily......]

I have to shatter the orb in a surprise strike.

Hyunsoo prepared the most perfect trinity.

As he did, the story reached him—

That the king Luxiu had cherished by nature told him to die.

If I were in that situation... what would it have been like?

It would have felt like the entire world collapsing.

Hyunsoo loosed the bowstring.

KWAHHHHHHHANG—!

CRASH—!

The gate tore open, and the shot struck the orb in the Blood King’s hand with perfect accuracy.

[Brainwashing Orb of the black mage Lily is destroyed.]

[Luxiu is freed from brainwashing.]

And to Luxiu, standing there with a stunned expression, Hyunsoo smiled brightly.

Luxiu had been about to accept death with his own hands. Hyunsoo wanted to give him relief.

Then he strode past Luxiu and twisted his face into something vicious.

Hyunsoo still hadn’t forgotten yesterday’s humiliation.

The Blood King who had looked at him with a face that said Hyunsoo wasn’t even worth facing.

He was slammed into the wall.

*****

Blood King Brad was disappointed.

The man who sealed demon Gremory and held onto the knight Luxiu.

The moment Brad first saw him, he thought Hyunsoo was an unexpectedly weak opponent.

Worse, he was nothing more than the lord of a tiny territory.

To the Blood King—who had once ruled fifty million people—Hyunsoo was just a brat.

So he didn’t even feel there was value in facing him.

And then there was Luxiu begging him to spare Hyunsoo.

Brad had granted it.

Of course, it was a false grant.

He hadn’t felt any need to reveal his true intentions to Luxiu right then.

After I swallow Luxiu, I’ll return and subjugate the Master Blacksmith.

He’d been harboring that gloomy plan.

But the instant the arrow struck—

[You take 47,431 damage.]

Along with pain that gouged through his chest, he was slammed into the wall by an irresistible force.

And the brainwashing orb he had kept for so long was completely destroyed.

The Blood King fell to the ground, then steadied himself.

“Luxiu. Now what was suppressing you is gone.”

But Luxiu didn’t change before and after the orb broke.

He still held the sword, but he couldn’t draw it and swing it.

The Blood King knew why.

“The brainwashing orb only helps you be more loyal. Luxiu has spent his whole life with me.”

It came from certainty.

“...Even without it, Luxiu cannot cut me down.”

Brad knew it too.

It was Luxiu’s nature.

And in this medieval world, no knight—no matter if the king was trying to kill him—could easily raise a blade against his sovereign.

Modern people’s thinking and the thinking of those who lived in Ares were different.

In other words, even if [N O V E L I G H T] the orb broke, Luxiu’s loyalty to him would not change.

“You bastard!”

“Do you know where you are!”

Captain Sun and hundreds of knights who had chased Hyunsoo burst into the audience chamber in a flood.

“...Luxiu.”

Even at Hyunsoo’s voice, Luxiu couldn’t stand. He just remained there gripping his sword.

So that line in the skill works like this...

No matter how sad he was, no matter how desperate, Luxiu was someone born to live and die for one king.

And the situation Hyunsoo faced was the worst possible.

[Blood King Brad Lv.542]

Brad stood before him.

Behind me... about two hundred knights...

Hyunsoo hadn’t been able to purify the strongest knights, including Sun.

He’d forced his way in by inflicting heavy damage, that was all.

The biggest problem was the skills and MP he’d burned on the way here.

If it was only the Blood King, I thought I might be able to take Luxiu and escape somehow.

Hyunsoo was trapped.

There’s no way I can beat the Blood King and hundreds of knights alone.

No matter what, Hyunsoo’s level had only just passed 400.

Considering the Blood King was in the 540s, this was the strongest enemy he had faced so far.

TZZZT—!

Cold sweat ran down his back, and every muscle kept twitching.

Then Luxiu spoke.

“How did you get here?”

Within Luxiu’s common sense, Hyunsoo couldn’t have reached this place.

“...On horseback.”

Luxiu stared at him with a dumbfounded expression, even in this situation.

“I called our friends.”

Luxiu’s brow furrowed.

“Why go that far....”

“No idea.”

Hyunsoo swallowed the rough words in his mouth.

“...You know there’s no chance, don’t you?”

“...Honestly, yeah.”

A quick admission.

The knights closed in, and the Blood King watched with an interested expression.

So Luxiu said,

“Run.”

Hyunsoo didn’t move.

With his broad back, he blocked Luxiu’s front. There was clearly no chance.

“Let’s go home, Luxiu.”

And yet in that moment, he swapped from the Sain Sword to the Twin Dragon Sword.

The Twin Dragon Sword rose toward the sky, showing a pride that would not retreat.

Even if it broke.

Even so, he would not abandon Luxiu and leave.

[I have a will sworn to mountain and sea......]

[Loyal and righteous spirit is the same in ancient times and now.]

The blood-red inscription carved into the Twin Dragon Sword.

A power like pride that refused to give up surged outward.

TZZZT—!

[Even if it breaks]

[You found a breakthrough in a moment of crisis.]

[The Twin Dragon Sword’s effect becomes stronger, shattering artifacts across a wider range.]

[Legendary grade. The Blood King’s armor is destroyed.]

[Legendary grade. The Blood King’s sword is destroyed.]

[Epic grade. Natalie’s sword is destroyed.]

Every artifact in the chamber snapped.

In the gap, Hyunsoo met the knights pouring in.

SHIIING—!

SHIIING—!

Hyunsoo cut them down at a speed like light, not giving up a single inch.

The Blood King looked at Luxiu’s hands.

Twitch—twitch—

“Kgh!”

Every time Hyunsoo cut someone down, Luxiu’s hands twitched.

He wanted to fight for him, but killing the Blood King’s followers—the ones belonging to the king he had served—was the same as killing himself, so he couldn’t move.

The Blood King admired the holy loyalty, and the tool he had made.

He was delighted that Luxiu—so thoroughly steeped in obedience he couldn’t swing even once at his king—stood helpless.

And he wanted to crush that pathetic lord’s conviction and justice one more time.

He wanted to be certain once more that Luxiu was his eternal dog.

After all, Luxiu would soon become his power and die.

[Life Drain begins.]

Stealing Luxiu’s vitality through a blank stare, he spoke.

“...Luxiu. Just like that day, I want to hear the knight’s vow.”

The day cherry blossoms had fallen in thick drifts.

The vow Luxiu had made, prostrate before him, when he rose from soldier to knight.

“It is my request.”

Like a fool, Luxiu began to recite it right here.

Even without the orb, the very start proved he was still the Blood King’s loyal dog.

“Don’t, Luxiu!”

Behind Hyunsoo’s desperate shout, Luxiu recited it.

The knight’s vow.

“It is the road of fate that was decided.”

That day’s resolve had been made while watching scattered cherry petals fall.

“I, Luxiu, kneel before one person at the end of that road, and with sealed lips I make my vow.”

Today was different.

“Kgh!”

He spoke it amid the screams of a lord—one who had only briefly stayed in a small territory—now growing more and more drenched in blood as he fought hundreds of knights.

And with the king before him, wearing a delighted smile as he stole Luxiu’s vitality.

“I, Luxiu, will become a knight for you alone.”

[HP drops below 27%.]

The lord was dying, and Luxiu’s vitality was being stolen away.

“Lu...xi...u! Let’s go home!”

“Kkh—! Khahahahahah—!”

At the vow being spoken once more, the Blood King laughed.

“I, Luxiu, will become a sword for you alone.”

“I will not break, I will not retreat, and I will become a knight for him.”

The Blood King marveled.

The strongest knight in the world was making a second vow before him.

Was there any king as great as he was?

Watching Luxiu’s lips open for the final line, he was filled with awe.

“Become my power, Luxiuuu!!!”

He knew his own name would come next.

But then—

Luxiu’s eyes changed.

The eyes of the man who had only gripped a sword and never swung it until now.

“His name—Hyunsoo.”

SHIIING—!

The Blood King’s mind went numb.

His body split diagonally, and the man who had been kneeling rose to his feet.

Facing the blood spraying into the air, Luxiu gripped the sword in both hands again.

Only now did Hyunsoo understand.

In this world, every notification had a reason.

The reason the System had warned him about Luxiu’s danger.

Luxiu’s emotions were changing by the second.

Of course, even so, Luxiu was born with a fate that could not cut down his king.

It came from his nature.

Luxiu, born to move forward only to protect one person, could never cut down a king for his entire life.

But the notification that followed made it possible.

And the method was simpler than he thought.

“...He is the lord I will serve!”

That method was holding a new lord in his heart.

Once you held someone new, you could cut down anything that threatened him.

Blood King Brad’s eyes shook.

“No one can harm my lord!”

[Passive Skill ‘Unconditionally Loyal to Brad’ changes.]

DING!

[Passive Skill changes to ‘Loyal to Hyunsoo’.]

Luxiu, gripping the sword in both hands, drew it back.

[He values you more than any knight, and to protect you, he will never break!]

SHIIING—!

To protect his new king, Luxiu cut down his former king, and Brad screamed.

[It is recorded in history.]

It began to be written.

The legend of the lord of a tiny territory and the strongest knight.