The Meaning of a Knight's Existence
The roar of the current Grand Duke, Roderick Hartvalt, who had finally grasped the situation, filled the waiting room thick with the stench of blood. "Kyle, you baaaastard!!!"
His gaze fell upon the corpses blanketing the floor. Knights sprawled in pools of blood. And at the center of it all stood Kyle Hartvalt, drenched in gore, his uniform torn to shreds. The culprit was unmistakable.
Forty-eight. Every last member of the Golden Lion Knights who had remained here—the full strength of the order, save for those already deployed to the battlefield. Yet in this cramped waiting room, Kyle had slaughtered them all.
"You..." Roderick's hand flew to his waist. Shing! Steel rasped free. His face twisted with fury. "I don't know what delusion makes you think you can commit such an outrage, but..." The tip of his sword leveled at Kyle. "I'll kill you where you stand and make you pay for your crimes!"
Kyle regarded him in silence, his blood-slicked blade hanging loosely at his side. Then—
"Shut your mouth."
The thunderous command cracked through the room like a whip, halting Roderick cold. The speaker was Valgrim, standing directly beside him.
Roderick whirled toward his father in disbelief. "Father!" His voice cracked with a toxic blend of rage and confusion. "Can't you see what this wretch has done? These were the Golden Lion Knights! One of our family's orders—every knight who remained within our walls—has been massacred by that lunatic's hand!"
"I see it," Valgrim replied, his tone ice-cold. "And that makes it all the clearer."
His gaze swept across the knights' corpses strewn through the blood. "What they committed was treason."
"Treason?!" Roderick snarled through gritted teeth. "That is nothing but absurd sophistry!"
"Sophistry?" Valgrim's eyes grew even frostier. "Those wretches called Kyle—a direct descendant of House Hartvalt—filth. They labeled him a madman, the disgrace of the ducal house."
Roderick's shoulders stiffened.
"And that was not all. They sullied the girl named Reina, who became Kyle's knight, with vile obscenities. They claimed she had been defiled by him, that she had shared his bed, that she would spread her legs for them as well. Such words from men who call themselves knights."
Valgrim's voice dropped to a dangerous murmur. "In response, Kyle—as the rightful heir of the ducal house—summoned them to the Grand Drill Hall. He demanded a proper duel from those who had insulted both him and his knight. He warned them plainly that refusal would be treated as treason."
His eyes bored into Roderick. "Yet those cowards never came. They hid behind their numbers, believing that invoking your name would render Kyle powerless."
"......"
"They insulted a direct line of the family, defied the orders of that direct descendant, and refused a legitimate duel without cause. Those men were no longer knights."
Valgrim's declaration was absolute. Roderick could offer no logical rebuttal. But logic had never been what mattered to him. Forty-eight men. An entire knight order that had buttressed his authority—gone in a single stroke. The realization gnawed at his sanity.
"This isn't one or two deaths," Roderick growled, voice low and venomous. "Forty-eight! This bastard has obliterated a pillar of our family's military strength in one blow!"
"You're mistaken, Your Grace," Kyle said with a faint, mocking smile. "There are still roughly three times that number of traitors left breathing."
Roderick's eyes wavered. The Red Griffin, Blue Tiger, and White Dragon orders—those who had also ignored the summons alongside the Golden Lion Knights.
He glared at Kyle. "You... you can't possibly mean to slaughter them all as well?"
"If necessary," Kyle answered indifferently. "I'll cut them down without hesitation."
"You've lost your mind!" Roderick's face drained of all color. "To speak of annihilating every knight order in the family—have you gone completely insane?!"
"The one who has lost his mind is you," Valgrim snapped, his rebuke striking Roderick like a second blow.
Roderick stared at his father, dazed. "Father?"
"What exactly has Kyle done wrong?" Valgrim asked.
Roderick's face contorted. "What has he done wrong? Even if our knights committed some fault, this kind of indiscriminate slaughter is utterly unforgivable—!"
Thud!
Roderick's words died mid-sentence. Valgrim's fist had slammed into his face. The unexpected strike sent the current Grand Duke sprawling sideways across the blood-soaked floor.
"Your Grace!" The escort knights rushed forward in horror. Yet none dared draw their weapons. Their opponent was the previous Grand Duke himself.
Valgrim stared down at his fallen son with glacial contempt. "You still don't understand the true problem."
"Ugh..." Roderick spat a mixture of blood and saliva from his split lip. Even so, his eyes continued to burn with defiance.
Valgrim regarded him coldly. "A knight is the sword of the family." His voice resonated through the blood-drenched chamber. "They fight at their lord's command, safeguard the family's honor, and lay down their lives when required."
His gaze shifted back to the corpses. "Yet these wretches insulted a direct descendant of our house. They defiled that descendant's knight with filthy rumors. They refused a legitimate order for a duel and cowered behind their numbers, using your name as a shield."
Valgrim's stare bore down on Roderick like a physical weight. "And you—who would protect such vermin simply because they are your private soldiers—are the one unworthy to rule Hartvalt."
Roderick's expression froze. "Even so..." His bloodied lips trembled. "Even so, the knight orders represent the ducal family's military power. We need them to defend the North. Surely you understand that much, Father!"
Valgrim let out a derisive snort. "Defend the North?"
His voice dripped with a contempt so profound it seemed to have moved beyond mere anger. "What kind of knights are these men who view armor as barbaric, who strut about in fancy uniforms hoping only to catch the eyes of noble ladies? What shield of the North could they possibly be?"
Roderick's face flushed crimson. "The times have changed since your era, Father!" he shouted, pushing himself up from the floor. "How long will you cling to that old era of wading through mud and monster blood? The North must evolve!"
He continued through clenched teeth. "To protect the North as a knight no longer means simply fighting on the front lines. We must show the entire continent how advanced and refined the North has become. We must prove we possess a dignity the central nobles cannot dismiss!"
His eyes blazed with genuine conviction. "I am transforming the Hartvalt Ducal Family to match the age! Not a house of brutish slaughter, but a noble ducal house of the North!"
Kyle listened to this tirade and scoffed inwardly. He's even more drunk on superficial vanity than the martial artists of the Central Plains.
In his previous life, the Central Plains Murim had been filled with those who had forgotten the essence of power and become consumed by empty pretense. Take the Namgung Clan's Boundless Void Sword Art, for instance. A grandiose name for a flashy technique that couldn't even protect the user's own arm in real combat.
Or the Heavenly Demon Descent Steps of the Demonic Cult. When Kyle had faced it himself, it proved nothing more than a showy display meant to kick up dust and intimidate. The cult leader who relied on such vanity had his jaw shattered by Kyle's fist while attempting to use it.
Kyle had seen enough of such men during his days as Blood Cult Leader to grow sick of them. That was why he never gave grandiose names to the powers he created. The same principle applied to his Blood God's power. Awakening the body through blood, drawing strength from wounds—a single intuitive name was enough.
His mental cultivation method shared no similarities with the common techniques of the Central Plains. It had been forged with a completely unique character.
Vanity is simply poison. In real combat, superficial flair was a toxin that stole lives. The martial artists of his past life had been destroyed by him precisely because of it. Yet here was Roderick, packaging that same poison as "dignity" and "the flow of the times."
"Do you know why you fools can play at being nobles with your pathetic vanity?" Valgrim's voice had grown dry and heavy. "Because there are still men at the northern front who wear armor, helmets, and endure covered in mud and blood."
"Must we hear this again?" Roderick replied petulantly. But Valgrim continued without pause.
"Those armored knights you deem vulgar are, even now, bleeding at the very forefront of the North. And you sit atop their blood, prattling about uniforms and refinement."
The moment he heard those words, Kyle became certain. As expected.
This was why Valgrim had looked upon him with faint expectation. Why the old man had come all the way to his quarters—before the inner energy test had even concluded—to test him. All of it now made perfect sense.
Valgrim had known. He had known how deeply House Hartvalt had rotted. He had known the direction in which Roderick was dragging the family. He had known how thoroughly the knight orders had been corrupted by vanity and pretense.
And he had known that if no worthy successor emerged even in his grandson's generation...
Grandfather truly intended to abandon all hope in House Hartvalt, just as I predicted.
Kyle gave a small nod. Even blood kin could be discarded if they proved hopeless.
Roderick, however, remained oblivious. "No," he insisted, shaking his head. "The front lines are already stabilizing. The old knights who followed you have held firm until now. They need only endure a few more years."
Valgrim's eyes went completely cold. Roderick, failing to notice, pressed on.
"After those few years, the North will be transformed. A noble, refined North that no one can ignore will be complete. Then we will no longer need to rely on these barbaric, blood-soaked methods."
"......"
Valgrim said nothing. No anger remained in his gaze. Not even disappointment. There was no longer any desire to persuade. The way he looked at Roderick was the look of a man who had already rendered his final judgment.
Kyle saw that look and smiled inwardly. It's finished.
Roderick still didn't understand what his own words had truly meant to Valgrim. In essence, he had said that the North's true knights merely needed to bleed and hold on for a few more years. In that time, he would complete his elegant North to show off to the central region.
He had reduced the blood of Valgrim's comrades to a mere stalling tactic for his own reputation.
At that moment, Roderick Hartvalt ceased to be someone worth even getting angry over in Valgrim's eyes.
"Kyle Hartvalt," Valgrim called.
"Yes, Grandfather."
"You said the other knight orders committed the same crimes."
"Correct." Kyle's lips curved into a cold smile. "Red Griffin, Blue Tiger, White Dragon. None responded to the summons at the Grand Drill Hall."
Roderick's face went rigid. "Father, surely you don't—"
Valgrim ignored him, looking only at Kyle. "Go. Eliminate every traitor you spoke of."
Roderick's eyes widened in shock. "Father!"
Valgrim finally turned to his son. His gaze was frigid. "If you wish to stop him," he said, "then draw your sword and block Kyle yourself."
Roderick's lips pressed into a thin line.
"But know this." Valgrim's voice dropped to a lethal whisper. "From that moment on, you too will be nothing more than a shield for the traitors who have defiled the Hartvalt name. And if that happens, I will kill you."
A heavy silence blanketed the waiting room. Shock rippled across the faces of Roderick and his escort knights.
Kyle, however, simply raised his blood-drenched sword. "Then," he said, his blood-red eyes flicking across Roderick with open mockery, "I shall go deal with the next batch of prey."
"Stop gawking and be on your way," Valgrim added, even waving him forward.
Roderick could not utter a single word.
And so, within that blood-soaked waiting room, the authority of House Hartvalt had already begun to split in two.