After blasting all my holy element in every direction at once, I heard screams everywhere. Those hoarse yet piercing voices of undead creatures sounded neither male nor female.
I then felt a sudden vertigo and almost collapsed onto the floor. Luckily, Cloud was there for me in time.
Without overwhelming holy and dark elements obstructing me, my sensing ability gradually returned. However, the first person I saw clearly was actually…
“Teacher?” Even Aldrizzt is here.
“You idiot!” Furious, my teacher gave me a heavy blow to the head that left me kneeling on the floor. He then yelled beside my ear, “How dare you lie to your teacher! Are you so tired of living that you want to repent directly in front of the God of Light? Huh?”
Suffering from both a headache and tinnitus, I clutched my head in pain. This feels even worse than Scarlet’s psychic magic. Teacher is indeed much more powerful than a lich… Wait a minute! Speaking of Scarlet, where is she? That blast of holy light might be able to kill other undead creatures, but is it enough to destroy a lich’s body?
Sensing my surroundings, I immediately found Scarlet lying on the floor not far away from me. However, Whitey was nowhere to be seen, and I wondered if it had run away.
Her condition was almost disturbing to see. Lying flat on the ground, her back melted beyond recognition, one could barely tell the shape of her body, and only half of her face was still intact. Despite her terrible state, she still tried hard to look up at me. It was hard to tell if it was blood or tears on her face.
Seeing that, I felt a twinge of pity, but it only lasted for a moment. She had repeatedly harmed the people around me. Not only did she cut off Teacher’s arm, she even killed Judgment! I can’t forgive her no matter what!
At this time, everyone who had been in the neighbouring street returned. It seemed like that blast of holy light just now had finished off the undead creatures there too. The people who had returned were Judgment, Blaze, Hell, Moon, Metal… All of the Twelve Holy Knights were actually here! Leaf stood in front of me. The moment he saw Teacher, he was stunned. He then exclaimed, “Former Knight-Captain Sun?”
Teacher’s eyes swept the crowd. Even though he had been retired for four years, the name and power of history’s strongest Sun Knight was still present. As his gaze fell upon them, everyone subconsciously straightened.
“What happened to your arm?!” Leaf exclaimed. Everyone’s eyes focused on Teacher’s empty right sleeve. Uniformly, everyone’s expression changed drastically, and their eyes grew one-and-a-half times larger than normal.
“Anyone who wants to admire the God of Light in person may continue to stare at my arm.”
After Teacher coldly said that, everyone’s gaze moved away from him. There were people staring at the sky, at the ground, at me, and even at the lich; only Judgment dared to continue staring at my teacher.
Teacher didn’t care about him, though. He just ordered, “Everyone stand in a circle and surround the lich. All of you possess at least some holy element, and you wield weapons brimming with holy light, so the lich’s soul will not be able to get past you all.”
Then, Aldrizzt walked towards me and passed me a necklace, which was of course the Eternal Tranquility.
I took the gem from him and looked at it while Aldrizzt explained, “A lich can never be killed. However, with the sealing ability of this gem, you may seal her soul into it. In just a moment, Neo will take care of destroying her body while the rest of the Twelve Holy Knights trap her. At that moment, you must catch her soul, throw her into the gem, and I will take care of the rest of the sealing process.”
Scarlet suddenly started to panic. She tried desperately to get up, but her melted hands made this impossible.
She looked up at me with a pleading look on her face.
No, no! Please, I’m begging you, I have never harmed you before… She used psychic magic to convey these words. I guess she probably couldn’t speak anymore, for even her throat had melted.
You’ve hurt the ones around me. That’s an even greater crime!
I made my reply with psychic magic as well. Suddenly, Teacher asked sternly, “Grisia, are you conversing with her?”
Teacher’s voice was so stern it was as if he was reprimanding me. A little confused, I turned around to look at him. However, someone suddenly snatched the Divine Sun Sword from my hands. I was stunned and in the next second, there was a horrendous scream.
Teacher had taken the Divine Sun Sword and attacked Scarlet. The speed of his swing was so fast that I couldn’t even see the sword itself. Scarlet’s shriek was a little piercing to my ears.
Isn’t Teacher overreacting a little?
“Everyone start to gather holy light!” Aldrizzt shouted anxiously, “Don’t move away from your position.”
The Twelve Holy Knights… actually, eleven. Well, it’s not wrong to say twelve, either, since Elijah is here. Elijah hesitated, and even looked around, before releasing holy light, although he did not have much of it.
He looked kind of guilty, and I thought it was hilarious.
After swinging the blade countless times, Teacher raised the Divine Sun Sword high above his head. The aura emanating from him was scarier than a dragon’s… Frantic, I shouted, “Earth! Shield!”
“Who am I supposed to protect?”
After shouting uncertainly, Earth immediately came to a realization and set up a shield around Teacher. However, the shield was not meant to protect him. The person the shield was shielding against was none other than history’s strongest Sun Knight, Neo Sun.
Whether it was the battle aura or the impact of the powerful hit against the floor that stirred up the wind was a mystery, but anyway, I almost got blown away. Aldrizzt, who was much lighter, was literally knocked down by the wind. After the windstorm, everyone looked a little worse for wear, especially Earth; he looked even worse than Scarlet, who had been lying on the floor.
Teacher had actually created a huge crater in the ground, a crater big enough to bury all of us in it. Scarlet, who had been lying there a moment ago, was now gone, and not even a single distinguishable piece of flesh could be seen. All that was left were some tiny fragments… Teacher, did Scarlet murder your parents or something?
Then, a small cloud of dark element about the size of a clenched fist slowly gathered from the crater that Teacher had created. After that, it started to float up.
“Can you see it? The lich’s soul?” Aldrizzt asked, slightly nervously.
Surprised, I asked, “Can’t you all see it?”
Almost everyone shook their head, except for Leaf, who hesitated before saying, “Just a little.”
As I watched that cloud of dark element slowly rise, I shouted with all my psychic power. Stop!
That small cloud of dark element immediately stopped rising and became completely immobilized. It really worked. I quickly held up the Eternal Tranquility and enticed it with psychic magic.
Here! Come here…
The cloud of dark element initially drifted forward, but then drifted back a little again, as if it was struggling. I shouted to it more urgently. Come here, come here…
Aldrizzt said nervously, “If it’s been sealed in Eternal Tranquility, you have to tell me right away so that I can help you in time.”
I nodded, and slowly, slowly pulled it into the Eternal Tranquility. The instant it entered the gem, it started struggling like crazy. I had to use all my powers just to keep it in the gem; I couldn’t even keep my sensing ability up.
Immediately, I sank into total darkness and had to grit my teeth in order to hold back that cloud of dark element that was acting like a horse off its reins. I need to open my mouth quickly and tell Aldrizzt that… Then, I heard Leaf shout, “Now!”
A pair of hands covered the gem and I heard Aldrizzt’s gentle voice as he chanted a long spell, gathering a large quantity of water element. Ice walked forward and helped to gather the water element as well. As more and more water element gathered, the pressure on me was gradually relieved. Finally, I could even restore my sensing ability. However, I did not choose to regain it. Instead, I helped them gather the water element.
Aldrizzt’s spell was so long that it felt as if it was never going to end… Luckily, it was just one of those “as if” situations, as the spell did end after all. By then, a huge quantity of water element had been compressed into a thin coating, trapping that small cloud of dark element inside the Eternal Tranquility, from which it could never escape.
I heaved a sigh of relief. I was finally finished with that troublesome existence—Scarlet.
After recovering my sensing ability, I wanted to pass the necklace to Aldrizzt. However, he would not take it. He even tried to persuade me. “Wear this necklace, it can protect you from the intrusion of the dark element…”
Cutting him off, I asked agitatedly, “Why would the dark element attack me? That’s illogical. I am the Sun Knight; the Sun Knight who is full of light!”
Aldrizzt seemed to be taken aback by my reaction. Not knowing what to do, he looked at Teacher.
I followed his gaze and also looked at Teacher. Looking back at me, Teacher asked calmly, “You sure you want to talk about it here?” He glanced around—the Twelve Holy Knights, and even Elijah, were here.
“Right here!” I replied decisively.
Teacher was a little surprised. Passing me the Divine Sun Sword, he took the Eternal Tranquility from my hands. While hanging the necklace around my neck, he said, “Ten years ago, before you came to the Holy Temple and opted to be a Sun Knight candidate, you had already been adopted.”
“I know.” I nodded and touched the Eternal Tranquility that was around my neck. Then, I suddenly realized something… Did Teacher go to that cave and get this gem for my sake?
After a moment of silence, Teacher continued, “You were adopted by Scarlet and her underling, a demoness.”
I was stunned. Sister and the little girl… were a demoness and Scarlet? So the people who adopted me back then weren’t human, but undead creatures?
The Sun Knight who abhors undead creatures was raised by undead creatures…
“You went looking for your sister a few times but couldn’t find her anywhere, so I went to look for her with you. We ran into Scarlet, and she asked for me to return you to her. Well, of course I wouldn’t hand you over, as I had already discovered that she was a lich! So we fought, and it was then that I destroyed her body.”
“I don’t remember anything about that fight…” I replied blankly.
“You fainted at that time. When you woke up afterwards, you didn’t remember anything about that fight and never mentioned anything about looking for your sister again.” Impatient, Teacher continued, “The Pope mentioned something about post-traumatic stress disorder… Anyway, you’d forgotten about it, so I pretended that nothing had happened. Since it happened so long ago, I didn’t think there was a need to tell you.”
Being raised by undead creatures… the seriousness of this issue was debatable. I was at a loss as to how I should react. Looking at the Twelve Holy Knights, I saw that they were equally expressionless… I glanced at Teacher’s empty right sleeve and was overwhelmed by grief. Depressed, I said, “Because of me, you lost an arm.”
Teacher suddenly raged and bellowed, “She lost the fight and lost a body; I lost and I only lost an arm! It has nothing to do with you! If you dare to utter one more word about it I will never come to find you again!”
I immediately replied, “Fine, fine, I won’t say anything about it anymore!”
With a harrumph, Teacher said, “You’re almost perfect, but you just talk too much! Oh yeah, and your swordsmanship sucks.”
Someone laughed. It was Elijah. He was the only one who didn’t know my teacher well enough to actually dare to laugh when he was speaking…
Teacher glanced at him and asked coldly, “Who are you?”
Elijah immediately stopped laughing and stammered, “I, I’m a royal knight, Elijah.”
“A royal knight?” Displeased, Teacher said, “What are Archer’s people doing here? Undead creatures are the responsibility of the Holy Temple. Since when were the royal knights involved?”
Archer referred to the current king. In this world, probably only the former real pig of a king, the queen, and Teacher could directly call him by that name.
Elijah was stunned for a while when he heard the king’s name. Finally, he responded, “Then, I should report back to His Majesty that the situation has been resolved.”
With that, he saluted me and left awkwardly… He actually forgot to salute Teacher. Theoretically, Teacher was no longer the Sun Knight, and there was nothing wrong with not saluting him. However, that was just theoretically speaking, since a person who could chop a lich into fragments was much more worthy of a salute than someone with just a title.
After Elijah had left, the others seemed to want to leave, too.
I immediately shouted, “Wait, Judgment… and everyone else, don’t go yet!”
Everyone stopped in their tracks. Teacher turned and glanced at me, but then he left while dragging Aldrizzt along with him.
In the end, there were just twelve people left at the scene—the Twelve Holy Knights.
Everyone looked at me, while I looked at Judgment and said, “I know you’re hiding something from me. Let me guess, it’s not about how I was adopted by undead creatures, right?”
Judgment hesitated, and just when he was about to say something…
“Listen to me first!” I stopped him. After seeing him nod, I continued, “You once asked me if there was anything I could discuss with Silent Eagle that I couldn’t with the Twelve Holy Knights. I’ll give you the answer right now—no!
“I was once afraid, afraid that there really was some kind of unspeakable secret about me, afraid of your reactions if you all were to find out about it. That was why I secretly went to look for Silent Eagle. But I understand now, compared with some unspeakable dark secret, compared to protecting everyone… no matter what the reason is, the worst thing is none other than ‘hiding the fact’ itself!”
With that, Judgment’s expression seemed to relax a little and the others even nodded in agreement with what I had just said.
“So, so…” Taking in a deep breath, I continued, “Regardless of why you’re keeping a secret from me, are you now willing to tell me what you’re hiding?”
Frowning, Judgment asked, “Is it a must for me to tell you?”
“You once promised me three demands.” Calmly, I said, “Do you still remember?”
Judgment’s expression changed, and he nodded solemnly.
“Very well, then. I’m going to make my first demand.”
Judgment’s expression became gloomier. He still looked as if he was unwilling to tell me. Why is that so? I was really curious and tempted to find out, but… I raised my voice, saying “And my demand is, you’re only allowed to hide three things from me in your entire life. Just three! Understood?”
He was stunned.
After saying that loudly, I then asked softly, “So, is this the first thing you’re going to hide from me?”
Staring intently at me, Judgment nodded and said, “Yes!”
“Okay! Then you’re only left with another two,” I agreed. I then coolly reminded him, “Don’t use them up too quickly. We will be together for the next sixteen years!”
He laughed and nodded. “That’s more than enough.”
“True, in twelve years you’ve only used one…”
“Ah, dammit!” Storm suddenly sighed loudly. “And I actually thought I would get to hear some gossip!”
“In the end it was just that Sun was once adopted by undead creatures… boring!” Earth commented, disappointed.
“…Somehow, I think that being raised by undead creatures is not as bad as being raised by history’s strongest Sun Knight, right?” someone whispered softly.
Oddly enough, no one dared admit to saying that sentence.
