As Lucian leaped into the falling meteor, his soul gleaming gold, a single tear dropped from his eye. He shut it, accepting what was to come.
The Price of a Guardian
A flash of memory, eight years old. He saw his mother, slumped and drunk, her eyes pale purple and droopy.
"Mom, I'm home!" he called out, having just returned from learning at the Sanctuary. His mother simply ignored him, paying him no heed.
"Mom... I said I'm home..." he repeated, gently tapping her shoulder.
THUD!
She slapped his face hard. "I'm not deaf!" she yelled, turning her eyes away to continue drinking.
Lucian ran to his room, heavy tears streaming down his face. "You caused this... You caused this, Dad! You turned an angel into an absolute monster! I'll never forgive you for this!" Lucian roared. Vices raw, dark energy began to boil up from within him, subtly forming into a black gate in the corner of the room.
His mother, hearing the sudden, destructive ruckus, staggered into his room. Without a second thought, she dropped her bottle, lurched toward him, and pulled him into a desperate hug, using her own life force to absorb all the rising Vice from within him.
"I'm sorry for yelling at you earlier... You don't have to fall down this path of depravity, too... You're a strong boy, Lucian! Make sure you get to the root of this..." Lucian's mother cried into his shoulder.
SPLASH!
In a sudden, bloody scene, her body violently burst, blood splashing all over the room.
Lucian simply looked on in horror. His grandfather, Nexus Crossveil, walked in moments later.
"It's not your fault, lad... it's the path she chose. Using her Wondrous technique, she absorbed all the Vice from within you... her weak state couldn't handle it, so she collapsed," Nexus spoke, his hand softly rubbing Lucian's hair. "Your dad, her, life itself... has been merciless to you. But alas! You have to persevere."
"NOOOOOOOO!" Lucian screamed, kneeling to the ground and gripping his mother's corpse tightly.
Back to the present. Lucian was suspended in mid-air, fused with Durandal. "I see... these flashbacks... it's why I vowed to be an absolute guardian, though... Mother, I'm sorry I wouldn't be able to continue with my research... perhaps this is somewhat more necessary!" Lucian thought, a faint, resigned smile touching his lips.
Arrival of the Knight
SHNK!
Space tore open with a sound like grinding metal. A grey-haired, muscular man in full, majestic silver Divine Armor flew out, his heavy crimson cape billowing toward the meteor.
"You've done well, young Saint!" the man said. He snapped his finger, and Lucian instantly appeared on the ground next to his teammates.
Lucian stumbled, still reeling from the sudden displacement. He stared up in shock as the man glided through space like a true beacon of hope.
"What's going on... who's that!" Solen questioned, eyes wide. All the other Saints stared with profound awe.
"That's a Knight of Wonder!" Lucen answered, his voice hushed.
"Sir Valerius Ferrum! The Knight of Metal Wonder!" Lucian added, his shock giving way to reverence.
Sir Valerius took a deep breath, stretching his open palm toward the descending meteor. He didn't scream, but the word was amplified by his metallic power, echoing across the dimension: "LUX SOLARIUS FALX!"
A shimmering, impossibly thin blade of white-hot, silver-blue plasma extended from his gauntlet. With a single, effortless horizontal swing, the colossal meteor, the embodiment of Planetary Annihilation was cleanly bisected into two equal halves. A massive, brilliant explosion occurred high in the sky as the meteor dissipated, scattering into shimmering light and harmless motes of energy.
All the Saints gasped in unison. "He cut the meteor so neatly!" Solen whispered, awestruck.
"Well, that's because his secondary ability is to cut through space itself," Pollux replied, calculating the sheer impossibility of the feat.
"Secondary ability?" Solen questioned.
"After honing their skills to the fullest, their core elements become a primary ability and births a new, affiliated secondary ability," Orin explained, still shaken. "Sir Valerius's primary ability is Absolute Control over Holy Metal, and his secondary ability is to Cleave Space itself."
"That's so cool!" Solen thought, a new goal of accomplishment igniting within him. "I'll be a Knight of Wonder someday!" Solen declared, his clenched fist rising to the barren night sky.
"Tehehe... it's a very tedious journey, y'know?" Sir Valerius said, appearing behind them in a blur.
All the Saints shrieked in shock.
"S-Sir V-Valerius! You nearly gave us a heart attack!" Castor stammered, clutching his chest.
"Hehe... that's the normal reaction I always get. After all, moving at speeds far greater than light can be shocking to the awareness of most Saints," Sir Valerius replied, his face showing mild amusement.
"Do all Knights of Wonder move like this?" Orin asked.
"Some... even faster!" The Saints' jaws dropped, stunned by Sir Valerius's casual reply. "Now... how do I take this dimension down without you guys getting affected by the impact?" he wondered aloud.
"You want to destroy the dimension... if I may ask, why?" Lucian questioned, his strategic mind returning to focus.
"Hmm... well, being a dimension of one of the 72 demons of the Ars Goetia, it does carry a lot of Vice that could easily affect the balance of our world if they by chance amalgamate," Valerius replied.
"I see... so those undead Vices back then were just like sleeping spirits of Vice... and they still exist here presently," Solen thought, grasping the metaphysical threat.
"Can't you just tear us a portal out, just like you came in, and finish the work here?" Lucian questioned.
"Nice perception, but there's still the 'Dimensional Rule'," Sir Valerius replied.
"What's that?" Lucen asked.
"The Sanctuary defines it as a law that states that whenever a being leaves a dimension to another one, a portion of the predominant energy is carried along. In this case, coming into this world, I carried along little to no energy because the energies of darkness and light were more or less in some sort of equilibrium, canceling themselves out," Sir Valerius explained.
"He's nerdy like you, Lucen!" Orin quipped, staring at Lucen.
"I see... which would mean leaving this world full of Vices would cause a large portion of that Vice to merge with our dimension, finally destroying the balance of light and darkness," Pollux calmly calculated.
"Tch! We're in a tight corner..." Castor muttered.
"The only way out is to destroy it and leave... but I don't want you guys to be caught up with the impact of the destruction," Sir Valerius said.
SIGH!
"Honestly didn't want you guys to see the scene of how a world falls... hope it doesn't give you nightmares." Sir Valerius enveloped the Saints in a brilliant, shimmering shield of metallic light that instantly separated them from the bounds of space.
"I've put you guys outside space... you should be safe now," Sir Valerius assured them.
Wondrous energy, concentrated and pure, started pulsating out of Sir Valerius as he floated high into the sky. He was releasing so much energy that his visible presence began to read as a hydrogen bomb.
"FERRUM DIVINITAS RUPTURA!!!"
Sir Valerius exploded with Metal Wonder energy. The sheer force permeated through the whole dimension, instantly turning everything to absolute nothingness. It was an unreal display of power, as even the moon in that sky seemed to fade from the canvas like a painting being wiped clean.
Amidst the complete erasure, the Saints, who were excluded from the bounds of space, remained completely unaffected.
"The end of a world looks so...terrifying..." Orin whispered, fear trembling in his voice. The Saints tried to act strong, but deep down, an unknown, primal fear gripped them all.
"I see... so this is what it means... to be... The Strong," Solen spoke out, his gaze fixed on the fading light.
"An absolute guardian..."