These words were like ice water poured into boiling oil. Galvin was stunned for a moment, then laughed in extreme anger.
"Hahaha... You think death can let you escape everything, that it can wipe the slate clean?!"
"Back then, you only cared about treating that damned honor as higher than life itself, single-mindedly upholding a hollow justice. Did you ever think that all I wanted was to run away, to flee far, far away from that damned truth..."
"Arthur, you destroyed a coward's retreat."
Arthur grew increasingly silent. His Soulfire flickered slightly as he struggled to remember who this powerful knight before him was, and what justice he spoke of. But his mind was a complete blank;
he could recall nothing.
Seeing him like this, the fury in Galvin's heart burned even more fiercely, threatening to consume his reason.
Bounty, mission, battlefield... all were cast aside.
At this moment, his eyes held only this man who had forgotten him, his mind filled with only the most primal, most intense thought—to defeat him.
"You died, so just stay dead! Why did you have to come back, why appear before me now?!" Galvin roared. A whirlwind suddenly rose around him. His knight's sword, wrapped in a violent wind pressure like the storm itself, launched a relentless barrage of fierce attacks at Arthur.
[Thorny Chain Thrust]
The sword strikes were fast and vicious, each carrying the will to tear everything apart and the formidable power of an Elite Professional.
Arthur swung his spear wreathed in ghostly blue flames, parrying with difficulty. His bones creaked under the violent collisions as he was forced to retreat step by step.
He felt somewhat confused, a nagging sense that he had forgotten something, forgotten a certain kind of power that could secure victory in a single strike.
On the City Wall, Chen Yu saw Arthur falling into a disadvantage. His gel body rippled slightly as he prepared to intervene.
"Your Majesty, there is no need." Arthur's voice came through the gel network, strained but exceptionally firm.
He suddenly exerted force, deflecting a heavy chop from Galvin, and used the momentum to leap back, catching his breath briefly.
He raised his empty eye sockets, looking at Galvin who was pressing forward step by step, and spoke slowly, "Your fighting style... feels very familiar."
Hearing this, Galvin sneered, pointing his sword tip at Arthur from a distance. "Familiar? It seems you still retain a pitiful shred of memory about the man you defeated."
"Back in the Knight Training Camp, if it weren't for you, I should have been the most dazzling number one of our batch!"
"The effort and sweat I poured in was ten times! A hundred times yours! And you... you disgusting bastard, just relying on that damned talent and the resources of the Arevalo Family, you always effortlessly overshadowed me!"
"You thought so highly of yourself, born in the clouds, while I, a Douglas from a declining family, was destined to live in your shadow, to be forgotten!"
His voice trembled with agitation. "But it's different now. After you died, I honed my skills every single moment, seeking breakthroughs at the edge of life and death. I am just one step away from the transcendent realm!"
"Wind! Hear my command!"
Galvin raised his longsword high. An even more violent whirlwind gathered around him, his aura climbing steadily.
[Gray Iron Guillotine]
Empowered by the wind, his attacks became even more fierce and ferocious, sometimes pouring down like a storm, sometimes launching a fatal strike like a hawk.
Arthur was almost purely on the defensive, with no chance to counterattack. His drifting Soulfire was constantly sliced by wind blades. The situation was perilous.
On the City Wall, Eserin frowned. "That blockheaded skeleton is completely outmatched."
Chen Yu, however, remained calm. "Have faith in him."
Actually, it didn't matter much anymore. With Galvin, their leader, gone, the remaining dozen or so mercenaries were completely surrounded by the Magical Creature Army. The outcome of his single fight could hardly turn the tide of the battle.
On the battlefield, sword light flashed again. Arthur dodged awkwardly to the side. Galvin's blade almost grazed his ribs.
The Soulfire in Arthur's eye sockets flickered violently. Amidst the familiar yet strange collisions with Galvin, fragments of memories sealed by death were struggling to surface from the depths of his soul.
While blocking the attacks, he spoke uncertainly, "You are... Galvin? That very strong opponent?"
"Hmph! Cunning Undead, you are not Arthur!" Galvin's offensive did not relent, the sword wind howling even louder.
Arthur forcefully took a heavy, powerful slash from Galvin, the impact making the metal of his armor tremble. But the images flashing in his mind grew clearer and clearer.
In a hazy vision, he saw a younger Galvin.
Proud, sharp, overbearing, not hiding his thirst for power and honor in the slightest, always challenging him on the training ground.
Back then, they fought like this too. The familiar wind, the familiar application of power. Only, the power he himself possessed back then...
Was different from now.
Vaguely, within those fragmented combat memories, he saw the roaring head of a frost wolf on a crest. A sense of power, both familiar and strange, faintly reached him.
He instinctively tried to grasp that power, but it was like trying to catch the moon in water—elusive and intangible.
Galvin's sword tore through the Illusion once more, chasing after him with anger and resentment accumulated over a dozen years.
The fierce wind lifted his gray-white hair. He roared, his longsword vibrating in his hand.
"Tell me, what do you have now?!"
"Power?"
"Let me show you what power is!"
"Knight Trial, grant me the Body of Bedrock!" As his words fell, the immense vitality of his body and his unyielding will transformed into a tangible pressure that came crashing down.
"Gray Eagle Trial, taught me to listen to the rhythm of the heavens!"
Boom!
A pair of illusory gray eagle wings, composed of pure, fierce wind, spread out behind his back, flapping violently and stirring up air currents.
With each step he took, it was as if he trod upon a staircase of wind. His speed increased dramatically, his figure becoming elusive. Wind blades shrieked as they coiled around his sword's edge.
"Guardian Trial, forge my Unyielding Bulwark!"
Hum—!
A complex and brilliant diamond-shaped shield insignia flashed briefly on his chest before merging into his entire being.
An indestructible force field spread out from him as the center, as if no magic could come near him.
"War Trial, grant me Unmatched Battle Will!"
It seemed as if molten battle will burned within his eyes. A terrifying, unstoppable willpower emanated from his body, even affecting the surrounding reality. The air twisted slightly under the influence of this pure battle intent.
The longsword in his hand emitted an excited hum, thirsting for the blood of a powerful foe.
"Fourfold Trial—this is who I am now!"
Knight's Body, Gray Eagle's Wings, Guardian's Bulwark, War's Will—they interwove and fused upon him, ultimately converging into a suffocating, dreadful oppressive might.
He seemed no longer a mere knight, but an incarnation of war forged from power, wind, light, and battle will.
"You now, a rotting pile of bones—what do you have to oppose me with? How can you possibly defeat me?!"
He roared, launching a devastating assault at Arthur once more, carrying his terrifying might.
Wherever the sword wind passed, the ground cracked slightly, the air shrieked. The power was far more dreadful than any previous attack.
Under this onslaught, Arthur retreated and blocked continuously. Scratches appeared on his armor, its aged edges constantly shattering into tiny metal fragments. He seemed to be in dire straits.
But the look in his eyes, visible through the leaping Soulfire, grew more and more focused, more and more serious.
That expression, for a fleeting moment, made Galvin, who had unleashed his full power, feel as if that opponent he had once feared and couldn't help but admire... seemed to have returned.
Arthur slowly spoke, his voice still hoarse, but now carrying a hint of nostalgia. "I remember now, Galvin. Thank you."
"Thank me?!"
Galvin was so angry he laughed, his offensive faltering for a moment. "I bring you destruction, and you thank me? Arthur, after becoming Undead, have you lost even your last shred of sanity?!"
Arthur replied with unusual seriousness, "Thank you, for helping me find... the power I had forgotten."
As his words fell, that blurred silver wolf head crest before his eyes suddenly became clear.
This time, he no longer needed to reach for it in vain. That icy, piercing, vast will actively resonated with him.
The Soulfire in his eye sockets blazed intensely. He raised a skeletal hand, grasping at empty air before him, as if an invisible sword hilt had always existed there.
"Frost Wolf Trial..."
An ancient term echoed in the depths of his soul.
It was the Arevalo Family's most difficult, and also most powerful, trial.
It wasn't originally a tradition of knightly families. Its origins could be traced back to the ancient days when northern orc tribes lived alongside frost wolves.
It was a path to communicate with ancient wolf spirits and master the power of extreme cold.
This power had been buried by wind and frost with the decline or migration of the orc tribes, even forgotten by some clan members, but through a twist of fate, it eventually became a symbol of strength for the Arevalo Family's powerful members.
He had once been the Arevalo Family's youngest Frost Wolf Knight. But this power had been lost along with the forgotten glory of his family.
And now, the Frost Wolf had once again found its master.
Suddenly, the hot, dry air of the battlefield seemed dispelled by a chill. The ground rapidly crystallized with a layer of glistening white frost, spreading outwards from Arthur as the center.
A distant wolf's howl, as if from an ancient frozen plain, rang out, piercing through the clamor of the battlefield.
Galvin's pupils constricted. He saw two Frost Wolf Spirits, composed of pure ice and ancient will, leap fiercely from the frost beneath Arthur's feet.
They were crystalline and transparent, their eyes gleaming with an eerie blue light, their forms agile and brimming with wild power.
They circled Arthur at a run, then let out a submissive low growl before crashing into the empty space his hand was grasping.
Extreme cold erupted!
A frost sword, its hilt inlaid with two roaring frost wolf heads, materialized out of thin air in Arthur's hand.
The blade emitted a visible mist of cold air. The surrounding air seemed on the verge of freezing.
Galvin floated mid-air, like an incarnation of storm and steel, looking down upon Arthur.
However, when he saw the frost sword formed from ancient wolf spirits and extreme cold power in Arthur's hand, when he felt that vast, icy, yet incredibly pure and powerful aura, the anger and obsession on his face instantly vanished.
It was replaced by a complex, indescribable emotion, which ultimately transformed into a laugh of relief and joy.
"Hah... hahaha! Good! Very good! This is the real you. This is the Arthur Arevalo I knew."
"This is worthy of being the power I chased after, the power that made me resentful, the power I've remembered all this time."
His laughter no longer held the previous hatred, containing only long-absent excitement.
"Come! Let me see if the Silver Wolf's fangs are still as sharp as they were back then!"
Before his laughter faded, the Gray Eagle wings behind him gave a mighty flap. He transformed into a cyan storm greatsword tearing through the sky, carrying terrifying might as he launched a wild and fierce assault towards Arthur.
This was his all-out attack, condensing all his power into a single strike.
[Gray Eagle Slash]
Facing this fearsome onslaught, Arthur simply calmly raised the frost sword in his hand.
The twin wolf heads on the hilt seemed to come alive, issuing silent roars.
The extreme cold no longer spread outward. Instead, it contracted intensely, concentrating on the sword's edge. The surrounding light seemed to be devoured and twisted by that extreme chill.
There was no earth-shattering collision.
Only a crisp, faint sound, like the gentle shattering of an ice crystal.
"Ting!"
That seemingly invincible cyan storm greatsword, the moment it made contact with the frost sword's tip, seemed to meet its nemesis. The **violent wind force** was instantly frozen solid, then shattered inch by inch.
He felt as if his all-out attack had slammed into an eternally unmoving, towering ice peak of ten thousand *zhang*. All his power was mercilessly annihilated by that pure "coldness."
The next moment, an irresistible, immense force traveled along the blade.
"Pfft—!"
Galvin violently spat out a large mouthful of blood. His entire body was as if struck by an invisible giant hammer, sent flying backward. He crashed heavily into the muddy ground dozens of meters away, tumbling several times before barely coming to a stop.
His armor was damaged, his longsword flew from his hand, embedding itself in the ground nearby with a slight tremor.
He struggled to lift his head. The tip of a frost sword, emanating cold air, was already suspended above him.
That icy sword intent pricked his skin, also freezing his last shred of thought to resist.
Galvin lay in the mire, coughing violently, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
His unfocused gaze swept across the battlefield—the once somewhat orderly mercenary formation was now in complete disarray. Most survivors had dropped their weapons, surrounded by those terrifying swarms and Beetles. Any sporadic resistance was quickly suppressed.
Defeated... utterly defeated.
But unexpectedly, the anticipated resentment and anger did not appear.
Instead, an unprecedented sense of tranquility enveloped him.
He stopped struggling, letting himself lie back on the cold ground, gazing up at the azure, cloudless sky and the leisurely white clouds above the swamp.
In this moment, the boulder that had been pressing on his heart seemed to disappear.
The guilt for bringing shame to his family, the self-blame for betraying his past, that twisted pride, the resentment towards all injustices... all became insignificant under this tranquil sky.
He was defeated.
But his opponent was Arthur Arevalo.
The man who, by virtue of his strength, had earned all his resentment and respect, had returned with even greater trial power.
So, the defeat was not unjust.
He slowly closed his eyes, his voice calm and hoarse. "Do it. Give me the end a knight deserves."
However, the anticipated icy piercing did not come.
He waited a moment, then opened his eyes in confusion. He saw Arthur still maintaining the posture of pointing his sword at him, but the tip had not descended.
"Your crimes will naturally be judged by His Majesty," Arthur's voice said steadily.
"His Majesty?"
Galvin forced himself to sit up halfway.
"You really acknowledge a Slime as your boss?"
Arthur's skull tilted slightly, as if seriously considering Galvin's question, his Soulfire jumping steadily.
"Is there a problem? Also, you must address him as King Majesty," he said, his tone matter-of-fact.
No problem?
The problem was huge.