Refragmentz: Souls of Memory

Chapter 5- Radiant Order

I slowly raised both of my hands and said, "Commander Hale, please listen to me first..."

"Listen?" Commander Hale said that as his horse stepped forward. "You are standing beside the Crimson Executioner! She destroyed three of our camps and killed more than two hundred of our knights. What is there to listen to, Ardent?"

I looked at Vexa. She was standing still beside me with her arms crossed and her chin raised, as if she did not care about anything. But I could see her fingers twitching. I do think she was ready to fight at any moment.

"My squad was sent to this ridge alone," I said to him. "All of them were killed by her army. I was the only one who survived, and I captured her. That is why she has no weapon."

"Captured?" Hale narrowed his eyes. "Then why is she not in chains?"

"Because she cannot run away from me," I said. Even to my own ears, it sounded like a bad excuse.

Some of the knights began to whisper to each other. A few of them laughed quietly. A level nine knight capturing the strongest commander of the Left Wing, with no chains, was not something anyone would believe.

"Do you take me for a fool, boy?" Hale said. "Seize him. Seize them both."

Ten knights jumped down from their horses and surrounded us with their spears pointed forward. Vexa lowered her body a little and her red eyes started to shine.

"Chase," she said that to me in a low voice. "Give me my sword. I will kill all of them."

"No," I said immediately. "Do not touch anyone."

"They will kill you!"

"Then let them try. But if you kill them, there will be no way back for us." I said that as I picked up Captain Orrin's sword. "Just stay close to me."

I think she wanted to argue, but she only clicked her tongue and stayed where she was.

The first knight attacked from the left, a young man with a short beard. I stepped aside and tapped the flat of my blade against his wrist, and his spear flew out of his hand. The second came from behind. I turned around, used the hilt to hit his shoulder, and he fell to his knees. In less than a minute, six of them were on the ground, holding their wrists and arms, and none of them was bleeding.

I did not kill anyone. It was harder than killing them, honestly, but I had spent a whole lifetime as a hero. I knew how to hold back my sword.

"That technique..." Hale said slowly. His face had become very serious. "Where did you learn that? You are a level nine knight, and that is a master's sword."

"I trained hard, Commander," I said. It was not a lie, even if it was not the whole truth.

Hale got down from his horse and drew his own sword. It was a thick, heavy blade with the white sun carved on the guard. "I do not have time for stories. Let me see how much of it is real."

He attacked, and it was like facing a falling mountain. Commander Hale was level sixty-two, and every strike he made carried enough force to crack a boulder. My stats were doubled with Vexa beside me, but doubled was still not enough. Each time our swords met, my arms shook all the way to the shoulders.

But my skills were the skills of a hero. I knew where his sword would go before he moved. I stepped to the right, slipped under his swing, and turned his blade aside again and again. I think Hale also began to realize that he could not hit me, no matter how strong he was.

"Impossible," he said, breathing heavily. "A boy of twenty... Who are you?"

Before I could answer, I heard a low chant from behind the knights. An old mage in a gray robe was holding up a staff, and a circle of white light spread across the ground under my feet.

[Warning: Suppression Seal detected.]

[All skills sealed for ten minutes.]

My sword suddenly felt twice as heavy. I tried to use Dawn Cleave, but nothing came out, and Hale's blade hit my shoulder so hard that I fell to the ground. Pain ran down my whole arm.

"Chase!" Vexa shouted, and I saw her take one step forward, her hands glowing red. "Stop! Do not touch him!"

The knights froze, and the whole ridge became quiet again. Hale looked at Vexa with narrowed eyes, as if he was seeing something that he had never seen before. A demon commander was begging, in her own way, for a human to be spared.

I forced myself to stand up. My shoulder hurt, but I kept my sword down. "Commander Hale," I said, "I will not fight anymore. I could kill all of your men if I wanted to, and you know that. But that would prove that you were right about me."

"Then what do you want?"

"I will go with you, quietly, in chains if you want. But she goes where I go."

Hale stared at me for a long time. Then he sheathed his sword slowly. "Fine. Put suppression shackles on both of them. We will take them to the lower camp, and then the capital will decide what to do."

The cold iron closed around my wrists, and Vexa's as well. She gave me a sharp look the whole time.

"You surrendered," she said that quietly, so that only I could hear. "For me?"

"For both of us," I said.

She turned her face away, and I thought I saw her ears turn a little red. I began to wonder whether I was only imagining it.