Norsen lowered his head in disbelief.
His gaze froze.
A sword tip gleaming with a silver-white radiance was piercing straight through the center of his chest.
Every detail of that sword was etched deeply in his mind—from the iris engraving on the guard to the cold, flowing glow along the blade.
It was the very sword he had personally entrusted to Morfiana.
A sharp, searing pain—
He had long since forgotten what raw pain felt like; this soul-rending sensation erupted explosively.
His formless, mist-like body should have been immune to all swords, blades, and axes in the world.
Yet now, he could clearly feel his life force rushing out wildly along the blood groove of the blade.
“Morfiana, you…”
He painfully turned his neck, each slight movement pulling at the core of his agony, his voice trembling with an uncontainable mixture of shock and fear.
Morfiana clenched her teeth tightly, a trace of blood seeping from her lips.
With both hands gripping the icy hilt, she pressed all her weight and willpower down without reservation.
Under the infusion of magic-enhanced brute strength, the blade plunged another inch deeper.
Ordinary steel indeed couldn’t even tear through the corner of his clothing.
But this knight’s longsword was forged from his own “Moon Silver.”
In other words, it was imbued with the same kind of magic.
“Ere” could not bypass its own kind of “Ere.”
Likewise, “Moon Silver” could not resist its same source of “Moon Silver.”
He had barely been able to maintain his immortal form by continuously drawing in the lingering disaster aura in the valley to repair the burns caused by Lortisa.
Morfiana’s strike pierced precisely through the ever-shifting core at his center.
It was like the final, heaviest weight on a balance scale.
He could no longer maintain the integrity of his form.
“Morfiana, you are not only a worthless failure, but now you also tarnish the honor of a knight with betrayal?”
Norsen let out a bestial roar.
Dense black mist violently poured from the wound in his chest, taking with it his strength and life.
“You don’t deserve to be called a knight!”
Morfiana’s back was perfectly straight, like an unyielding spear.
In her eyes burned an unprecedented flame of resolve, powerful enough to incinerate all falsehood.
“I have never betrayed. This strike is to uphold the true ideals of knighthood!”
A surging momentum burst forth from her battered body.
The “Prime Crown” of Heinetheon Shu was revealed in full force.
All the residual magic within her flowed unreservedly down her arm into the blade, converging into a dazzling, piercing light.
Her arm muscles tensed, gathering every ounce of strength she had left, and she thrust forward with all her might.
The longsword fully pierced through Norsen’s body, emerging from his back.
The “Moon Silver” light exploded within him.
“This strike is for vengeance—for all the fallen knights—”
Her voice trembled violently with extreme emotion; each word seemed squeezed from the depths of her soul.
“And for my sister, to complete the mission she couldn’t! Every last trace of disaster must be utterly cleansed from this world!”
Norsen writhed in bone-deep agony, desperately summoning his final black mist, forcing the deadly longsword from within his body.
But Lortisa was beside him.
The young soldier captain would give him no further chance.
Dark golden ripples surged around her, the scorching heat instantly dispelling and evaporating the black mist clinging to Norsen’s body.
The last shred of the Ere Knight’s pitiful defenses was stripped away completely, leaving him utterly exposed beneath Morfiana’s blade.
“An insignificant tool… how dare you…”
Norsen’s voice began to distort, losing all human tone, slipping back into the anguished wails of the countless spirits originally merged to form the Soul-Devouring Sovereign.
In that fleeting interplay of light and shadow, Norsen vaguely saw, on Morfiana’s resolute face, another figure.
That figure was just as determined, just as beautiful.
It was the female knight he had deliberately betrayed and murdered two years ago.
On that battlefield night, shrouded by cold rain,
He had intentionally provided false military intelligence, sending her and the elite vanguard knights charging headlong into the silent land already claimed by the Ere.
When the entire force was wiped out,
He appeared as a “savior,” “rescuing” the survivors, effortlessly harvesting the spoils of war and seizing enormous credit.
In the end, he casually shifted all blame for the failure onto that now voiceless fallen comrade.
And now, this sister, whom he had always seen merely as a pawn, a substitute for his sister, a tool to manipulate at will,
Had delivered to him the most fatal blow—with the very sword he himself had handed down when issuing orders.
“Traitor! You despicable tool!”
Norsen unleashed his final, most venomous roar.
“I curse you—”
The last flicker of hesitation in Morfiana’s eyes vanished completely with that curse.
She finally saw clearly.
This twisted, ugly soul before her was not the knight captain she had once admired and sworn loyalty to.
He was a schemer who would sacrifice anything for power and status, using any means necessary.
Her hands gripped the burning-hot sword hilt again.
She swung the longsword horizontally with all her strength and resolve.
The “Moon Silver” blade carved a flawless, decisive arc in the air—a perfect stroke of finality.
Norsen’s curse was abruptly cut off.
His body began to crumble simultaneously from the sword wound cutting through his chest and abdomen.
The dark matter that formed his body was purified by the power of Moon Silver, transforming into countless twinkling silver specks that silently dissipated into the night breeze.
His once proud, disdain-filled blue eyes last reflected the tear-streaked but unyielding face of Morfiana.
With Norsen’s complete dissolution, the Soul-Devouring Sovereign, now without its core will, instantly reverted to its original Ere form.
It was a massive shadow made purely of chaos and devouring instinct.
But before Lortisa, it did not last even a second.
Radiant golden light illuminated the entire valley, its brilliance surpassing even the moonlight above.
The last wisp of black mist was thoroughly purified by that holy light, leaving no trace behind.
An overwhelming silence descended.
The cold moonlight once again bathed this land, scarred and ravaged by disaster.
As if the fierce life-and-death struggle just now had been nothing but an empty illusion.
Only the scattered debris, broken weapons, and the lingering ripples of magic in the air silently testified to all that had just transpired.
Only the scattered debris, broken weapons, and the lingering ripples of magic in the air silently testified to all that had just transpired.