Chapter 8 ( The last knight Volume 1 )

The battlefield around the ruined outpost had become a storm of steel and blood.

Kaine moved like a force of nature. The single obsidian dragon wing beat powerfully behind him, carrying him through the seven vow-bound killers with terrifying speed. 

His Sword of Bloodshed sang as it carved through armor, flesh, and desperate screams. 

One by one the criminals fell  their own Heavenly Vows granting them unnatural strength, yet none could match the raw fury of a man who had nothing left to lose but his final purpose.

The normal soldiers did not stay idle. While Kaine clashed with the seven, spears and swords rained down on him from every side. He answered with sweeping arcs of crimson light. Dozens fell. 

Then scores. Half the Eastern army lay dead or dying before the last of the seven vow-bound men finally collapsed, his body twitching as his own vow claimed its price.

Kaine staggered to a halt in the center of the carnage, breathing hard. The dragon wing flickered, its edges turning translucent. Exhaustion crashed over him like a tidal wave.

 Blood some his, most not coated his arms and chest. The markings on his skin pulsed weakly.

Only General Kimar remained mounted on his warhorse, watching with that familiar, mocking grin.

The outpost burned brightly behind them, flames licking the night sky and casting long, dancing shadows across the field of corpses.

Kimar slowly dismounted, drawing his own heavy blade. He circled Kaine with deliberate steps, eyes gleaming with cruel delight.

“Look at you,” Kimar sneered. “Still pretending to be something more than a rat hiding among corpses.

Just like that day on the muddy field. Remember? You lay there so still, eyes barely open, while we hacked your brothers into pieces.”

Kaine’s grip tightened on the Sword of Bloodshed. His dragon wing gave one final, weak flap.

“And poor General Kai…” Kimar continued, voice dripping venom. “You watched me take his head, didn’t you?

 Couldn’t even stand up to stop it. Now here you are  all alone again. Pathetic.”

The words struck deeper than any blade. Memories flooded back: the rain, the burning bodies, the headless corpse he had sworn over. Kaine’s golden eyes burned with fresh rage.

“No more words,” he growled.

They charged.

Steel met steel in a furious duel. Kimar was strong, experienced, and vicious  but Kaine fought with the desperate power of a dying star. 

The Ascended Dragon form surged one last time. The dragon wing propelled him forward in blinding bursts. 

His sword moved faster than thought, each strike carrying the weight of every fallen brother, every tear Enid had shed because of him.

Kimar laughed at first, then grunted in pain as a deep gash opened across his shoulder. He countered viciously, but Kaine was no longer the broken knight from the mud. He was vengeance given form.

With a final, thunderous roar, Kaine drove the Sword of Bloodshed straight through Kimar’s chest. The general’s eyes widened in shock. His mocking laugh died in a wet gurgle.

Kaine twisted the blade once, then yanked it free.

General Kimar, butcher of Westbank’s last stand, crumpled to the blood-soaked ground. Dead.

Silence fell over the burning outpost, broken only by the crackle of flames.

Kaine stood victorious… but the price came immediately.

The single dragon wing began to fade. Its obsidian scales turned to ash and drifted away on the wind. The golden fire in his eyes dimmed. 

The dark markings on his skin cracked and flaked. Strength drained from his limbs like water through open fingers.

If the form disappeared completely, the Heavenly Vow would claim him.

He had only minutes.

Without a backward glance at the carnage or the dead general, Kaine turned and ran not toward glory, not toward any capital, but west. Toward Oakrest. Toward her.

His legs burned. Every step sent fresh agony through his fading body. The dragon wing grew smaller, more transparent, until only faint outlines remained. 

Yet he kept running, faster than he had ever run in his life, the Sword of Bloodshed still clutched in his weakening grip.

He had to see her one last time.

The landscape blurred past him  forests, hills, the long road he had walked away from weeks earlier.

 Dawn was breaking by the time he reached Messar’s Hill, the same vantage point from which he had looked down on the village before.

Kaine collapsed to his knees at the crest, gasping. The dragon wing gave one final flicker… and vanished completely.

The Heavenly Vow settled its final debt.

He could no longer stand. Pain unlike anything he had ever known tore through every vein. His vision swam. Yet he forced himself to look down into the valley.

There she was.

Enid moved quietly through the small garden behind her hut, a woven basket on her arm filled with fresh carrots. The early morning light caught in her hair. 

She looked tired, but peaceful the same gentle girl who had once leaned her head on his shoulder under the old oak tree.

She had no idea he was there.

Kaine’s lips trembled. Tears  the first real tears he had allowed since the battlefield slipped down his blood- and dirt-streaked face.

“I never wanted to leave you…” he whispered, voice cracking. “I wanted to stay, Enid. As a farmer. As your family. I wanted the quiet mornings, 

the teasing, the simple life… but the vow was made long ago. Under the blood moon. Over his body. I regret it. Gods, I regret it so much.”

His body began to break apart. Fingers turned to fine gray dust that caught on the morning breeze. The disintegration slowly climbed his arms, his chest, his neck.

“I don’t want to die…” he breathed, the words barely audible. “Please… save me again, Enid. Just like you did before. Please…”

But she could not hear him.

Enid straightened, brushed a strand of hair from her face, and carried the basket toward the hut without ever looking up at the hill.

Kaine’s vision darkened. The last thing he saw was her figure moving peacefully in the golden light alive, breathing, real.

A small, broken smile touched his lips.

“Thank you… for saving me once.”

The wind carried the rest of him away.

By the time the sun fully rose over Oakrest, nothing remained of Kaine Magnus on Messar’s Hill but a faint pile of gray dust that slowly scattered across the grass.

The Last Knight was gone.

The Heavenly Vow had been fulfilled.