Chapter 87: The Knights' Arena on the Other Side

On the far side of the arena, the grand finale was drawing to its inevitable conclusion. Or rather… everyone in the stadium was politely holding their breath, waiting for the Nightmare Knight to deliver his final, spectacular display.

“Clang!”

Margaret Nearl’s spear crashed heavily against the Nightmare Knight’s blade, sending a shower of sparks cascading across the scorched earth. Like wandering rangers from a bygone era, they broke apart the moment their weapons met, retreating in perfect unison to gather momentum for the second strike. Blinding, intense light spilled from the seams of Nearl’s armor, carving a stark contrast against the visceral, blood-red aura radiating from Tora. Radiant gold and crimson blood split the arena perfectly in two.

The only reason Tora was allowed the time to showcase his martial elegance was because the battle on the opposite end of the arena had devolved into a complete, suspense-free farce.

The clash between the Delivery Knight and the Blood Knight was a mismatch of cosmic proportions. In terms of sheer experience, Patriot was a military veteran with decades of brutal warfare under his belt, having shielded his people through endless cycles of resistance and exodus. The Blood Knight, by contrast, had never fought a single battle outside the manicured sands of a dueling arena. In terms of race, the last pure-blooded Wendigo utterly eclipsed an ordinary Minotaur. In terms of ideology, the gulf was staggering: Patriot led a desperate guerrilla war against the Ursus Empire’s war machine to save the Infected, while the Blood Knight merely sold his martial prowess to survive in the cracks of Kazimierz’s corporate greed.

To make matters even more insulting, the Blood Knight couldn’t even compete in Originium infection rates against a man whose entire body was practically a walking Originium cluster!

There was no epic struggle. No back-and-forth. While Nearl and the Nightmare Knight were passionately hacking away at each other, Patriot quickly realized this opponent lacked the threat level of his past foes. He decisively abandoned his usual tactic of pinning the enemy down with one hand.

He used both hands.

If the Blood Knight were a Caster, Patriot might have at least needed to throw a halberd or use basic tactical maneuvering to close the gap. But against a pure melee brawler? The result looked like a fighting game matchmaking glitch where a max-level Saria was pitted against a squishy Nightingale. Patriot casually clamped one massive hand around both of the Blood Knight’s wrists, and his other hand around both of his ankles. Whenever the Minotaur arched his back, desperately trying to exert force and break free, Patriot simply gave him a firm shake, treating the reigning champion like a squirming toddler to keep him from running loose.

“Bang!” Nearl and Tora collided again. Hairline fractures spiderwebbed across both their armors, but Tora’s fighting spirit only surged higher.

“That’s right! This is true combat! My Celestial Path truly lies with you, Radiant Knight!” Ignoring the blood pooling in the webbing of his hands, he hoisted his longblade high. The crimson aura thickened violently with his movements. “Radiant Knight! My final opponent in this hollow, boring city! Kill me, or be destroyed by me!”

Sensing that the Blood Knight was getting inspired by the shouting and was now twisting frantically in his grip, Patriot calmly rotated his massive wrists and shook the champion twice. “We do not learn from him.”

The Blood Knight still tried to roar, his voice muffled by his helm. “For the future of the Infected, I cannot—!”

Having spent entirely too much time absorbing the Doctor’s cynical wisdom, Patriot’s immediate internal reaction was: ‘Ah. He just exposed his soft spot. It is the Infected.’

The Blood Knight instantly went dead silent, freezing in Patriot’s grasp.

Damn it, why did I just shout that out loud? It felt exactly like a captured undercover agent slipping up. Tora was over there screaming ‘For country and faith!’, and he had practically just yelled ‘For my wife and newborn son at 326 Huayang Gold Road!’

Seeing the Blood Knight twitch and then go completely rigid, Patriot suddenly recalled the Doctor’s bizarre pre-match instructions. Holding the champion securely, the Wendigo hesitated for a second, extended his massive pinky finger, and began carefully picking at the edge of the Blood Knight’s faceplate.

The Doctor had said, if you find a canned enemy, open the can. It will make the ‘can-obsessed people in the high-dimensional narrative layer’ cry…

Patriot had absolutely no idea what those words meant, but the Doctor had been very specific about the ‘can-opening’ procedure!

The Blood Knight, initially drowning in despair, twisted his head left and right in sheer helplessness. When he realized this unfathomable Delivery Knight was repeatedly trying to pry his helmet off with a single pinky, his pride shattered completely.

“What are you doing?! Are you trying to humiliate me?!”

Patriot had not considered that angle. Belatedly, he realized that his actions did, in fact, look incredibly condescending. He pondered what the Doctor would do in this awkward social situation. Ah, right. The Doctor would change the subject.

Patriot honestly retracted his pinky, leaned down, and whispered to the furious champion bundled in his arms: “Shh. Watch the match.”

The psychological damage was highly effective. The Blood Knight fell instantly silent, his chest heaving violently with suppressed rage. For a moment, he was simply too apoplectic to form words.

Across the arena, Tora launched another frenzied charge. Following a deafening clash, blood poured freely from his hands, but his blade managed to graze Nearl’s cheek. A bead of golden blood slowly trailed down her skin.

Tora’s own injuries were compounding, yet his blood fairly boiled in his veins. The deep red energy intensified, swirling around him in a suffocating mist. This was the ancient inheritance of the Nightmare bloodline—they recorded every trauma and hardship they endured, projecting it outward to intimidate their foes, feeding on their fear to grow stronger with every strike.

As Tora threw himself forward without a shred of hesitation, the crimson mist finally coalesced into a massive, blurred projection.

Countless black silhouettes marched in a rapid, unstoppable tide. They left no grass alive in their wake, ruthlessly crushing all resistance and planting their war banners in the dirt. Yet, where the phantom army passed, they left behind nothing but scorched earth and jagged clusters of Originium…

The stadium audience erupted into fanatical cheers, but Patriot and the Blood Knight—observing from their bizarre front-row VIP hold—keenly noticed a glaring plot hole. They exchanged a look of deep confusion.

Why would the ancient Nightmare Khan leave Originium crystals in his wake? Is Tora’s bloodline a cheap knockoff?

Or perhaps, the Originium wasn’t literal, but a visual metaphor symbolizing the spread of suffering? Did the ancestral Originium Arts use metonymic rhetorical devices to enrich the thematic connotation and deepen the philosophical impact of the inheritance?

“Bang!” This time, Tora slammed head-on into the Radiant Knight. He refused to yield a single inch, using his sheer momentum to force her half a step backward.

“Hahahaha! My Celestial Path! My Khan!” Tora’s fanaticism reached a fever pitch. Fresh blood sprayed from his wounds into the mist, dyeing the illusion a brilliant, terrifying scarlet.

“What exactly are you fighting for? To throw your life away for this so-called Celestial Path?” Nearl saw right through his frenzied state. He looked as though he were on the verge of a martial breakthrough, but in reality, he was merely approaching an infinite asymptote. Even if he bled himself entirely dry, he would never touch that horizon.

Tora ignored her entirely. His longblade, slick with his own lifeblood, carved through the air, forcing Nearl to raise her spear in a heavy block. “You don’t understand! This is the necessary Celestial Path for a Nightmare! We will eventually find our Khan and restore our ancient glory!”

His wandering, tragic past had warped his ideals into pure paranoia. The ‘Celestial Path’ had become the desperate answer to all his unanswered questions. The crimson aura thickened, and the phantom sound of clashing armor echoed through the arena.

Nearl tightened her grip on her spear. She took a measured step back, her voice dropping into a low, commanding register. “Wake up, Nightmare Knight. This… is not the true meaning of the Knight Major!”

She fully unleashed her Originium Arts. A brilliant, blinding radiance instantly shattered the encroaching darkness, suppressing the blood-red mist step by agonizing step. Nearl swept her spear outward. Golden blood dripped from her chin, but her eyes were firm, bright, and entirely unfazed by the bloody illusions swirling around her.

“A true Knight should be a noble beacon that illuminates this land! If your actions and your thoughts remain true to your heart, then you need no judgment from this ‘Celestial Path’ of yours!”

Nearl took one decisive step forward. She raised her spear high, the weapon now forged of pure, brilliant gold by her Arts, and brought it crashing down like a divine judgment!

For a breathless second, the entire arena was swallowed by a sea of shining gold. No one could see the final exchange.

When the blinding light finally dispersed, Tora’s longblade was pointed directly at the tip of Nearl’s spear. He hadn’t retreated a single step. He had blocked the apocalyptic strike head-on!

Did Nearl… lose?

Margaret let out a long, heavy sigh. She slowly withdrew her spear, took half a step back, and looked directly into her opponent’s eyes, offering him her absolute, highest respect.

And then, Tora slowly collapsed to the ground.

The outcome was decided.

`[Rhodes’s Note: “Opening a can” () is Chinese gaming community slang for unmasking or breaking the armor of heavily armored characters, a moment often highly anticipated by fans of those specific character designs.]`

[Rhodes’s Note:

Enjoying the operation so far, Doctor?

(This daily grind literally pays the landship’s rent! 🙇‍♂️):

Massive thanks for reading and supporting the operation!]