Racheal didn't second-guess her choice. The moment she left the manor, her bow still slung across her back, she commandeered one of the flying vessels tethered outside and forced it skyward, its haul screeching against the wind as she steered it toward the source of the battle.

There were many reasons why she would risk everything for Leon. But above all, one truth cut deeper than the rest: if Leon fell here, the trial would be as good as over.

The world of Pandora, was beautiful, merciless and endless but it was never meant to be theirs. It was a trial. A test of survival. A battlefield carefully crafted by forces beyond comprehension. And yet… this was no ordinary trial.

What had once been a D-rank challenge had warped into something unrecognizable. An SSS-rank trial. Tier VII. The very peak of difficulty. A scale of danger meant to crush even the most terrifying of powerhouses, yet a handful of E and F ranks had been thrown into it, expected to overcome the impossible.

It wasn't survival. It was suicide.

Racheal gritted her teeth, the vessel jolting beneath her as she pushed it to maximum output. The air grew hotter the closer she came, the sky itself tinged with the aftershock of battle, but she didn't let herself falter. She whispered into the wind, a vow laced with desperation:

'If we want to clear this trial… we need him.'

The forest stretched open below her like a scar, blackened earth and shattered trees marking where divine destruction had been unleashed. And in its heart,

Lancelot still stood.

The imperial guard's once-gleaming armor hung in ruin, jagged plates ripped apart, his bare chest exposed to the air. A raw scar wound carved deep across his torso, evidence of Leon's strike, still smoldered with power. But the man stood firm, ignoring the pain, his expression cold, eyes locked on something far more terrifying.

At his feet knelt Leon.

The young warrior's chest bore a gaping hole, wide and impossible, where life itself should have spilled away. Yet no blood flowed. Instead, within the wound, the void churned, it was a shifting, endless darkness knitting itself together, twisting and pulling as though reality itself was trying to close the boy off from the world's gaze.

Leon was unconscious, head bowed, shoulders trembling as if straining against forces unseen.

And in that moment, Lancelot's jaw clenched. His mistake burned in his mind.

His original intent had been clear: capture Leon alive, drag him back to the capital for questioning. But when Leon's dragon might and hypnotic gaze had snared him, instinct had taken over. His hand had gone for the kill, unleashing Singularity, a form meant to erase.

Now he stood before something he could not explain.

A boy with a void in his chest, still alive. Still mending.

Lancelot's gaze darkened. There was no hesitation this time.

'He needs to die.'

With that thought, his aura erupted like a storm, black energy whipping around him in violent arcs as he drew back his spear. The forest trembled under the weight of his killing intent.

****

As Lancelot lunged to finish Leon, an arrow cracked the air toward him. It was too slow and obvious; his hand simply snapped up to catch it. He glanced at the shaft caught in his palm just as it exploded, but the useless flourish barely tickled him. He didn't flinch. The blast peeled harmlessly off his body; dust and ash slid down his cheek like rain.

When he looked up, the sight that met him was simple and unbearably human: an elf girl barreling through the blasted clearing, cradling Leon's limp form like fragile cargo. Her breath came ragged and urgent. For a heartbeat it looked like she might make it, then Lancelot's presence washed over her.

His pressure fell on her like a wall. Where Leon had shrugged off the world's edge, she broke against it. Racheal's limbs froze mid-stride; the bow fell from her fingers as if gravity itself had betrayed her. For someone whose life was knotted to high ranks and hard rules, the gesture was casual: he had stopped her with the same economy he used to dismiss lesser threats.

Lancelot stretched out a single hand. Leon's body floated toward him as if pulled by an invisible tide, weightless and bloodless, a boy caught in a draft. Racheal, still pinned, stuttered forward with the sound of a plea caught in her throat.

"Please… don't kill him," she begged.

Lancelot paused, then moved as if for the simplest courtesy. He extended his other hand and dragged her close; now he held them both, Leon's form in one palm, Racheal trembling in the other, as easily as one cradles a rodent. Up close, she could see the lines at his eyes, the tiredness beneath the stern. He didn't look cruel. He looked like a man deciding whether to sue for advantage or mercy.

"And why shouldn't I kill him?" Lancelot asked, his voice flat but searching. It was neither a threat nor a test. It was a request for currency. He had no illusions about nobility. He could have ended the boy and left the world one fewer anomaly to worry about. He didn't ask because he had pity, he asked because he recognized value.

Corruption, the empire's plague, was a problem without easy answers. This boy had just torn through its grip in a place where seasoned forces had failed. That alone put Leon on a ledger Lancelot respected: an instrument that could change the balance between ruin and control. Lancelot wanted a reason to keep that instrument intact. He wanted Racheal to give him one.

****

Racheal dangled in Lancelot's grip, her breath ragged, her chest tightening with panic. She had spoken too soon, blurting out the plea not to kill Leon without a single thought of what would come after. Now the imperial guard's eyes bored into her, waiting for an answer that would decide whether they lived or died.

Her mind spun. 'If he truly wanted Leon dead, he wouldn't ask me why. He'd have done it already.' That realization landed like a stone in her chest. He wasn't seeking permission. He was seeking justification. For what, she didn't know. Maybe leverage. Maybe something deeper.

'Think, damnit, Racheal. Think.' If she failed here, it wouldn't just be her life forfeit. It would be Leon's, and the fragile chance she still clung to of reshaping her people's fate.

Her lips parted before her mind caught up. A single word slipped out:

"Community."

Lancelot's brow furrowed, his grip unshaking but his gaze narrowing in puzzled silence.

The word carried her back through memory, Shantel's ruined streets, the shattered hopes of its people, and Leon, standing at the center of it all. A stranger with no obligation, no ties, no debt to them, yet he fought for them, bled for them, and led them as though they were his own. He didn't act like a lord, and yet the city had begun to breathe again because of him.

Her voice found strength where moments before there was only fear.

"You can't kill Leon," Racheal said, her tone clear, unwavering despite the iron band of Lancelot's aura crushing her. "Because he's a good person."

The words were simple, almost absurd against the weight of the battlefield, but they rang out with a defiance that startled even her.

Lancelot blinked once. The faintest flicker of surprise cracked his mask of cold authority. He hadn't expected that. Not power. Not strategy. Not even a plea for mercy. Just a declaration, bold and naive, that cut through the smoke of battle and into something far harder to measure.

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