Treatise Of A Failed Knight-Chapter 253: I Am Sorry

Kalakuta’s legs finally give out.

He collapses against the throne, sliding down until he sits on the blood-soaked steps leading to the seat of power he has just claimed. Pathfinder clatters from his weakened grip, the armament’s crimson glow fading as it rolls across the marble floor.

In the silence of the throne room, with only the King’s corpse for company, Kalakuta’s mind drifts.

He thinks of Kamal.

His first friend.

The brother who tended to his wounds and broke some of the chains present on his mind so long ago.

Kamal was the first to agree as he whispered dreams of freedom in the darkness, even when hope seemed like a fantasy too cruel to entertain.

"I’m sorry, brother," Kalakuta whispers, his voice barely audible. "I was selfish. So selfish."

Then comes Garett.

The man who could see patterns in chaos and turn desperate fights into calculated victories.

Garett, who followed Kalakuta’s dream even when the odds screamed impossibility. Garett, just like Kamal, perished because of his Kalakuta’s hubris in the Eastern Sects.

Even then, he died standing, with a smile on his bloody face, because he believed his sacrifice meant something.

"Forgive me, Garett. You deserved better than to die for my ambitions."

Jeophrey next.

The eccentric... a man dissociated from everything in the world. Yet for some reason, he had felt drawn to Kalakauta.

Unlike the others, whom Kalakuta had to seek out on his own, Jeophrey was the one who sought Kalakuta out. He could sense a revolution at hand, so he handed Kalakuta his masterpiece—The Pathfinder.

He also desired to make even more Armaments for the cause, hoping to fabricate a masterpiece.

An A Grade Armament!

To think he would perish in his very workshop and not a battlefield.

At least he died doing what he loved...

"I used you, brother. I used all of you."

The faces come faster now, a cascade of memories. Brothers and sisters of the original movement.

The ones who started this journey with nothing but conviction and desperation.

The ones who believed in Kalakuta’s vision before it became a movement, before it became an army, before it became a world-changing force.

All dead.

Every single one of them, gone.

And for what? For Kalakuta’s freedom. For his selfish need to prove to himself that he was truly free, that breaking physical chains meant something more than just changing location.

"Everyone wants to believe in something," Kalakuta murmurs, staring at his blood-stained hands. "I believed in freedom. And they... they believed in me."

The realization settles over him like a shroud.

His friends hadn’t followed freedom. They had followed him. They had taken his personal crusade and made it their own because they loved him, trusted him, needed something larger than themselves to give their suffering meaning.

And he had led them all to their deaths.

"But I did it," he says, looking up at the empty throne. "I fulfilled the dream. I tore down the old world. I broke the chains. Maybe... maybe that makes it worth something. Maybe your faith in me wasn’t completely wasted."

He wants to believe that.

Needs to believe it.

But the doubt gnaws at him even as he tries to push it away.

Then—

’What’s that?’

A sound interrupts his reflection. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Distant at first, but growing louder. Screams. Roars. The unmistakable sounds of battle erupting outside the palace walls.

Kalakuta’s head snaps up, his remaining eye widening in confusion. The battle should be over.

The King is dead.

The palace is taken.

Why is there still fighting?

Suddenly, shadows move in the throne room.

He hadn’t noticed them before, but now they seem to materialize from the darkness itself.

Figures in dark cloaks, their forms obscured, their faces hidden behind eerie masks. They emerge from every corner, every alcove, surrounding him in a loose circle.

Kalakuta tries to reach for Pathfinder, but his body refuses to cooperate. He’s too weak, too damaged, too depleted.

Fear—an emotion he thought he’d conquered long ago—surges through him.

"Who..." His voice cracks. "Who are you?"

One of the figures steps forward, their movement graceful despite the concealing cloak. When they speak, their voice is distorted, unnatural.

"We are the Dark Guild."

The name means nothing to Kalakuta, but the threat is obvious. These people have waited until he was at his weakest, most vulnerable moment to reveal themselves.

"What do you want?" He tries to inject authority into his voice, but it comes out as barely more than a rasp.

"What we’ve always wanted," another figure says. "What we’ve worked toward throughout the year."

More sounds from outside.

Louder now.

Screams of pain. Screams of terror. Screams that sound horrifyingly like his Freedom Fighters.

Kalakuta’s heart races. Despite everything—despite his epiphany about selfishness, despite his acceptance of using others for his dream—he realizes something fundamental.

He doesn’t want to die.

Not yet.

Not like this, surrounded by mysterious enemies in a throne room still warm with his victory.

He has earned the right to see what comes next. To witness the world he fought so hard to create. To finally, truly rest.

The throne room doors burst open.

A familiar figure strides in, and relief floods through Kalakuta’s body like a physical wave.

His brother—The Knight.

The man who has stood beside him through countless battles, who has guided him through moments of doubt, who has been the one constant in this ever-changing crusade.

Javier Aditi!

"Brother!" Kalakuta gasps, hope rekindling in his chest. "These people... the Dark Guild... we need to fight them together. I’m weak, but if we combine our strength—"

His brother shakes his head.

The gesture is small, almost gentle, but it carries the weight of finality.

"I’m sorry, Kalakuta."

The words land like physical blows.

"What?" Kalakuta stares, unable to process what he’s hearing. "What are you sorry for? Brother, what’s happening? The sounds outside—the fighting—what’s going on?"

"The Freedom Fighters are being eliminated as we speak," Javier says, his tone almost emotionless. "They are being torn apart by my Magivores. It will take some time, but the goal is to kill everyone who followed us here."

"H-huh?"

Kalakuta’s mind reels.

Nothing about this makes sense.

The words are in a language he understands, but they form sentences that reality refuses to accommodate.

"You... you’re not making sense. Why would your Magivores attack our people? Did you lose control? We need to—"

Laughter erupts from one of the Dark Guild members. Sharp, mocking, feminine.

"Oh, this is precious. He still doesn’t understand. After all this time, after everything, he actually doesn’t see it."

The voice is familiar.

Kalakuta’s eye widens in recognition.

"You... I know that voice. Former Minister of Combat? But you died. During the campaign in the Central Continent, you were killed by Southern forces during—"

"Enough."

Javier’s voice cuts through the confusion like a blade. He turns to the laughing figure, his expression stern despite the gentleness in his tone.

"Acting Leader, be quiet. This isn’t the time for mockery."

The figure—the Combat Minister, apparently very much alive—immediately falls silent, though Kalakuta can sense the smile behind her mask.

Combat Minister.

His brother does not display any surprise by the fact that his woman, his own lover, is actually alive despite supposedly dying in battle several months ago.

Not just that, he has just addressed her by a different title. Finally...

... He speaks to her with authority.

The pieces begin to shift in Kalakuta’s mind, forming a picture he desperately doesn’t want to see.

"Brother..." He whispers. "... How do you know these people?"

Javier regards him for a long moment, and for the first time since Kalakuta has known him, there’s something like genuine regret in his eyes.

"Kalakuta, I don’t just know them."

He gestures to the assembled Dark Guild members, and as one, they move. Every cloaked figure drops to one knee, heads bowed in perfect synchronization.

"I created them."

The throne room spins. Kalakuta tries to speak, but no words come out.

His brother stands before the kneeling figures, looking every inch the leader he truly is.

"I am the founder of the Dark Guild," he says, each word carefully enunciated, ensuring Kalakuta hears and understands. "I built this organization from nothing, piece by piece, over these past months. Every member you see before you answers to me. Every action they’ve taken has been according to my design, mirroring that of the Freedom Fighters."

The kneeling figures speak in unison, their voices creating an eerie chorus:

"We greet the Supreme Leader."

The title echoes through the throne room, bouncing off walls slick with blood, reverberating in the space between Kalakuta’s shattered understanding and the terrible new reality being forced upon him.

His brother—his trusted advisor, his closest friend, his most loyal companion—stands among these dark figures not as an enemy or an ally of convenience.

But as their creator.

Their master.

Their Supreme Leader.

Kalakuta stares at the man he thought he knew, blood pooling beneath him, body broken, world crumbling, and for the first time in his life since breaking his chains, he feels truly helpless.

"Why?" The word escapes as barely more than a breath.

Javier’s expression softens, and that somehow makes it worse.

"It is all for the sake of this world."