Sir Galahad grabbed the hilt of his sword, his knuckles white against the leather wrapping. The Sword of David hummed in his grip not with light, not with power, but with anticipation. It knew what was coming. It was ready.
"Are you ready now?"
His voice cut through the chaos of falling rods, through the crash of black steel against sand, through the desperation of the moment.
Percival and Tristan tightened their faces. Their jaws clenched. Their eyes one pair bleeding, one pair sharp locked onto the falling rain. They nodded in unison.
"Alright." Percival's voice was steady. "Let's do this, shall we?"
Tristan said nothing. Just nodded again.
Galahad released his ability.
Cut the power that had been holding the rifts open, that had been redirecting the rods to empty sand ended. The cuts in the sky closed like rivers drying up at once, their edges sealing, their surfaces smoothing.
The rods were no longer blocked.
They fell straight, true, deadly toward the knights below.
Percival moved first.
His spear rose. His arms stretched. He spun the weapon above their heads not in a circle, but in a dome. A sphere of spinning steel that redirected the incoming rods, deflected them, threw them aside.
CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.
Black steel clattered against the spear, sparking, shattering, falling.
Percival's eyes those bleeding, strained eyes mapped the battlefield. He saw every rod. Every trajectory. Every point where they would land. He completed a full 360-degree rotation, his body spinning within the dome, his spear never stopping.
Then Tristan took over.
His sword moved not in spirals like Kay, not in domes like Percival, but in cuts. Precise cuts. Efficient cuts. He broke the rods that Percival's spear could not reach, shattered them before they could touch the ground.
And his feet his special feet moved.
The technique was known as the Sliding Foot. It allowed him to use the ground like butter, following the flow of the earth's vibrations, gliding across the surface without friction. He could avoid any attack coming toward him not by speed, not by agility, but by knowing where the ground would take him.
In this battle, he used it only to evade.
But it was enough.
Galahad saw that the plan was working.
He did not waste time watching. He moved.
The Sword of David cut the air beside him not a rift, not a gate, but a doorway. The cut was the size of his height, just wide enough for a man to pass through. He dropped half of his body through it, his torso vanishing into the space between spaces.
On the other side of the battlefield near Sir Leodegrance a cut appeared.
The old knight lay on the sand, his body broken, his arms gone, his blood still pouring from a hundred wounds. His vision was blurry the world a swirl of grey and red and nothing. He looked up at the cut, at the figure emerging from it, and for a moment, he thought he was dreaming.
A god. Reaching out to him.
His vision cleared just for a moment and he saw Sir Galahad's face. The pure knight's expression was hard, determined, but his eyes were gentle.
"Alright, come on, buddy." Galahad's hand closed around Leodegrance's shoulder. "Let's get out of here, shall we? We're going to escape from this side of the battlefield."
Leodegrance stared at him.
His lips trembled.
"What's the use?" His voice was barely a whisper. "We've lost so many brothers. So many sisters. At this point..." He looked at the grey sky, at the rods still falling, at the hopelessness of it all. "...it's almost hopeless."
Galahad's grip tightened.
"The sun will shine on Camelot."
The words were simple. But they carried weight.
Leodegrance's heart was unstable. It fell from grief to joy. From joy to hate. From hate back to grief. The emotions swirled within him like a storm, threatening to tear him apart.
But he made a decision.
It would be better to leave these grounds.
He nodded.
Galahad pulled him into the cut.
They landed on the ground beside the others.
Leodegrance's feet touched the sand the same sand, the same battlefield, but a different part of it. A safer part. He looked around and saw Sir Tristan's boots beside his head.
He looked up.
Tristan's face was sweating great droplets rolling down his temples, his cheeks, his chin. His eyes were focused, sharp, alive. He was in the midst of battle, his sword still moving, his body still fighting.
Leodegrance's heart swelled.
Tears poured from his eyes not from pain, not from grief, but from joy. His fellow comrade was still alive. Still standing. Still fighting.
At least, he thought, not all of us are dead.
He smiled through his tears.
Does this mean my prayers could be answered? Does a god truly exist?
He looked up at the grey sky.
May he answer my prayers today.
Galahad did not stop.
He reached out again not through a cut, but through will. His body transferred across the battlefield, appearing where Sir Kay and Lancelot lay. Kay was still spinning his dragon spiral, still defending, still surviving but his body was breaking. His hands were blue. His eyes were bloody. His muscles were twisted beyond recognition.
Galahad raised the Sword of David.
He launched a wide-range attack not at the rods, but at the air around them. He applied his ability Cut to the very atmosphere, creating a vacuum that sucked the falling rods toward a single point.
They spiraled hundreds of them, thousands into a single, dense mass.
And then they shattered.
CRAAAAAAAAASH!
The sound was deafening. The black steel exploded into fragments, raining down as dust rather than death.
Galahad did not wait.
He grabbed Sir Kay with one hand the knight's armor hot to the touch, his body trembling with exhaustion. He grabbed Lancelot with the other the transformed knight still unconscious, still bleeding, still alive.
He pulled them through a cut.
And they landed beside the others.
Sir Kay collapsed.
His body had pushed itself to its limit and beyond. His muscles, twisted and dense, could no longer hold him. His eyes, dry and bloody, could no longer see. His hands, pale blue and ruined, could no longer grip his sword.
He lay on the sand, breathing in shallow gasps, and did not move.
But he was alive.
Galahad stood at the center of the group.
He looked up at General Titus.
The rain of rods had stopped. The sky was clearing still grey, still empty, but no longer black with steel. The general hung in the air for a moment longer, surveying the knights below, the damage he had inflicted, the survivors who still stood.
Then he landed.
His feet touched the sand with a soft thud. He straightened, rolled his shoulders, and smiled.
"That was really nice of you all." His voice was calm, almost friendly. "I congratulate you."
He spread his arms.
"You have managed to awaken my spirit of battle. Again." He chuckled. "So what's your plan now?"
His eyes swept over the group over Galahad, over Tristan and Percival, over the fallen bodies of Kay, Lancelot, and Leodegrance.
"To tell you the truth, this matchup was truly unfair. But I have fully adapted now." His smile widened. "This time, I assure your death."
Sir Galahad rose.
His sword the Sword of David gleamed in the grey light. His body wounded, tired, but unyielding stood straight. His eyes fixed on Titus, on the general who had killed so many, who had broken so many burned.
"This attack is my strongest." His voice was quiet. "A final attack from the sun of Camelot."
He raised the blade.