Under the distant moon's perfect glow, two formidable Knights were at each other's throats. The atmosphere was cozy and lush, an ideal time for a pleasant evening, but not for these two. All they could smell was blood and each other's murderous intent.

Spector's movements contradicted his previous demeanor. They were violent and aggressive. He seemed desperate and deeply wounded within.

This was exactly what Halo had wanted. It gave him control over the fight's tempo, but Spector's raw power was something he hadn't anticipated.

With his shoulder wrenched, he couldn't rely on strength, only skill and experience to redirect the attacks. Exhaustion crept through his arms, but he couldn't let his confidence slip.

Mid-swing, Spector's blade disappeared. Halo's momentum faltered, but his composure held strong. In a flash, he shifted Magnus into a dagger and drove it toward Spector's throat.

He narrowly avoided the attack and put a distance between himself and Halo.

The world slowed to a crawl. Above, Spector's azure fragments descended like a blue meteor shower. Halo gritted his teeth, forced his mangled arm into guard position, and rushed headlong into death.

The blades raked his back. Minor wounds, cloth, and skin shredded, but nothing vital. The pain was excruciating, but that didn't matter. What mattered was his act, he wouldn't stop intimidating.

Spector's composure cracked, his expression shifting to bewilderment. He hadn't expected such recklessness.

That moment of confusion was all Halo needed. He closed in fast, his strike finding Spector's stomach, driving him into the dirt.

Before Spector could stand, Halo was on him. Another strike sent him bouncing across the ground, blood streaming from his nose.

But Halo wasn't done with him.

The next seconds were brutal. Halo manhandled Spector across the ground, mimicking how Spector had dragged the Perverted Sinner's corpse.

But the bastard was still alive.

Spector's handsome face was battered, his ponytail disheveled, and his white shirt caked with dirt. And despite everything, he was smiling. The smile became a chuckle, then full laughter.

His actions were confusing, which forced Halo to reconsider his attacks.

A creeping dread made him glance up. His blood went cold. His carefully maintained composure was nearly shattered.

The air filled with azure mist, so thick the sky itself looked blue. It appeared static, suspended. But Halo knew better. It was racing toward him impossibly fast.

He gulped.

It was Spector's blade. While taking that brutal beating, he'd been concentrating, fragmenting his weapon into microscopic shards. Too small to block, and too many to dodge. All through thought alone, injured and under pressure.

Halo sneered in annoyance.

He wanted answers, but with a cloud of microscopic blades bearing down on him, staying alive mattered more.

No time for hesitation. He shifted Magnus into a sword and swung. Spector's severed head bounced once, twice across the blood-soaked earth.

His laughter ceased, filling the air with dense tension.

Without missing a beat, he grabbed Spector's body and held it up like a shield. The man's own fragmented blade would tear through his corpse instead.

As the mist of fragments reached the corpse, they were drawn back to the hilt, briefly reforming the blade before vanishing.

He reluctantly pushed the corpse away and lay on the ground, panting.

Then, the bronze screen materialized before his eyes.

***

[ Congratulations! You've slain a Knight. ]

[ You've received a Sin Fragment: arrogance. 1254/10000 ]

[ Your precision has increased. ]

***

The screen blinked out of existence and appeared barely a second later.

***

[ Would you like to trade Sin Fragment for a secret? ]

| Yes | No |

***

Halo pondered this for a moment.

The main reason behind his battle with Spector was to extract information and gauge his strength. Now that he'd gotten a glimpse of his own capabilities, he needed information about the Chaos Eaters even more urgently.

The secret extraction was a gamble. It might reveal something important, something trivial, or absolutely nothing. He'd wasted fragments on it before with zero results. That made him cautious now.

But weighing his options, he decided to give it a shot.

Most of his Sin Fragments came from Saint and Sunday. With them operating in other territories where targets were plentiful, they could easily replenish whatever he spent.

This still wasn't easy on him. He was throwing away his chance to increase his precision. It was a blow to his gut, and he might not recover.

'Yes.'

Soon enough, the bronze screen disappeared.

Halo exhaled slowly, tension bleeding from his muscles as he stared at the sky. The moon was just another light among countless stars, yet it outshone them all. There was poetry in that. But he couldn't afford to dwell on it.

He stopped fighting the pain, letting it consume him as he waited. The secret had to arrive eventually. Right? But having never received one before, he couldn't be sure.

After a moment, he grew bored and rose to his feet.

The moment he did, it struck him.

Foreign memories crashed through him. Not his, yet they felt lived-in, real, as if his brain couldn't distinguish them from his own experiences.

He reconsidered them and sighed in disappointment.

As he feared, it was a wasteful secret.

Spector happened to be the only person aware that the Prince, the person in charge of all the guards in StoneHaven, was a woman. A young woman around Halo's age, who pretended to be a man for unknown reasons.

He got to know exactly what the Prince was, and though Spector didn't serve her directly as she was in charge of the worthy district of StoneHaven, and there was a possibility that this ordeal wouldn't lead to her, he still got to know her secret.

Still, this stung him badly. Even the injuries he'd suffered from the battle concerned him less. He'd wasted a Sin Fragment for nothing.

That could have bought him something dreadful to eat.

While his frustration grew, so did his urgency to get back home. He was a fugitive on this land, and he just slaughtered one of its guards also. He couldn't risk being caught.

Spector was dead. Now it was the guard's move.

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