Chapter 287

Chapter 287
### Chapter 287: The Genesis of Devotion

The name felt like a malignant growth when it left Lyca’s lips: Isabella von Dercian.

Ever since her encounter with Randolph and the subsequent revelation regarding the “God-Soldiers,” Isabella had been consumed by a burning necessity for the truth.

“Lyca,” she began, her voice steady despite the weight of her words. “Were you aware of the Dercian lineage’s involvement in illicit human restructuring and the creation of clones?”

She was referring to the grotesque laboratory where her own existence began as the ninth successful clone. It was a place of nightmares where countless souls, including Sonora, had been sacrificed on the altar of science.

She needed to know if the most formidable knight in the Empire—the commander of the Eight Excellence Knights and the pillar of the nation’s military might—had been a silent accomplice to such depravity.

Lyca’s response was a slow, knowing smile. To him, her youthful coldness during her days as an apprentice had always seemed like a thin veil for something deeper.

“Is that the source of your curiosity? Is that why you’ve aligned yourself with these shadows? With the remnants of Wilhelm’s legacy?”

The phrase “Wilhelm’s leftovers” caused Isabella to pause mentally. It was clear Lyca had drawn a direct line between her and the companions at her side, Serengeti, the Pure White Knight, and the Saintess Seya. It was a logical leap, considering both had accompanied Wilhelm during the legendary Great Expedition.

Lyca rubbed his jaw, his gaze piercing. “Once, when I asked who held the greater power between Wilhelm and myself, you chose him without a second thought. I often wondered what fueled such unwavering certainty. Now, the pieces are falling into place.”

Isabella remained silent.

“Tell me,” Lyca continued, “does that conviction still hold? Do you still believe Wilhelm sits on a higher throne of strength?”

“There is no question—”

“And you, Serengeti?” Lyca interrupted, turning his focus toward the Pure White Knight. “Does the woman who fought by his side for so long share that assessment?”

Serengeti didn’t blink. She offered a firm, singular nod. Despite the exhaustion of their recent exchange of blows, her face remained a mask of absolute certainty.

Yet, as they all knew, these verbal comparisons were ultimately meaningless. Both Isabella and Serengeti were bound to Wilhelm by ties of loyalty and history. The only true metric of power would be a direct confrontation, a clash that the laws of nature had seemingly forbidden.

“I truly desire a contest with him,” Lyca mused. “The ghost known as Wilhelm.”

It was a wish that could only be granted in a realm beyond the living, given that Wilhelm had perished during the Great Expedition. However, for Lyca, that transition was looming. His recent transcendence beyond the mortal wall had granted him a reprieve, but his life was a candle flickering in the wind—he had a year remaining at best.

“If you want the secrets of the Dercian family, Isabella, then earn them,” Lyca challenged. “Overpower me, and the truth is yours.”

“That is precisely what I intend to do,” she replied.

With a sharp crack, Isabella lashed out with her whip, the weapon coiling around Lyca with preternatural speed and binding him tight. It was a window of opportunity that lasted only a heartbeat.

Serengeti didn’t waste it. She blurred forward, a streak of white steel aimed at the immobilized knight.

“Do you truly believe the two of you are enough?” Lyca’s voice remained calm.

*Clang!*

Serengeti’s blade was violently repelled before it could touch its target. An unseen force, hard as diamond and sharp as a razor, had intercepted her strike.

*A blade…?* Serengeti thought, her eyes widening. For a fraction of a second, she had glimpsed the silhouette of a weapon, yet Lyca’s hands were empty. There was no surge of mana to explain it; it was something else entirely.

The chilling sensation of impending doom washed over her. She leaped backward, trying to create distance, but the invisible assault was relentless.

A thunderous impact echoed through the chamber. Isabella’s form was thrown back with the force of a coiled spring, and Serengeti was sent hurtling into the stone wall.

“Gah!”

Serengeti slumped to the floor, coughing up dark, metallic-tasting blood. Shaking, she pressed her palms to the cold stone and forced herself back onto her feet, her grip tightening on her sword.

Lyca watched her with genuine appreciation. Even when faced with a gap in power that felt like an ocean, her fighting spirit refused to drown.

“Impressive,” he remarked. “To sense that attack and survive it is a testament to your skill.”

“Is that… Heart Sword?” Serengeti gasped.

“I reached that realization only recently,” Lyca confirmed.

The Heart Sword—the manifestation of one’s very will into a lethal edge. It was a tier of martial prowess far removed from mere telekinesis or the application of Sword Force. At this stage, a warrior didn’t just cut flesh; they could shatter an enemy’s internal organs or stop a heart with a simple thought.

Serengeti’s heart sank as the reality set in. She was facing a Half-God Half-Human. Lyca had transcended the limitations of mortality while maintaining a physical form. He was no longer just a knight; he was a catastrophe.

Regardless, Isabella pressed on.

Three marks had been placed. If her ‘Serpent’s Binding’ could reach five, the entity known as Jormungand would rise to claim Lyca. Even a being of his stature could not ignore the hunger of the World-Eater.

—

In the periphery of the battle, the two children were paralyzed by the sheer pressure of the combatants. Isera held a sobbing, terrified Lucaria, whispering desperate words of comfort that she herself barely believed. She was in no position to intervene.

Isaac, too, was struggling to maintain his composure. His ascent of the Tower of the War God had been overshadowed by a revelation that threatened to shatter his mind.

*Why that name…?*

The name “Park Hyunmyeong” haunted him. Those three syllables belonged to the architect of his misery—the “criminal” who had pulled his strings like a marionette. When Isaac had consumed the Star of the Decapitated and undergone his own transcendence, that name had been burned into his consciousness.

Isabella had claimed to have seen the face of Park Hyunmyeong. This was the man who had hijacked Isaac’s body, decimated a mining city, and turned him into a hunted animal. He was the one man Isaac had sworn to butcher.

So why was his name surfacing here, in the heart of the Empire’s mysteries?

“I’ll end him,” Isaac whispered to himself, a mantra of vengeance. “I will find Park Hyunmyeong and kill him.”

He looked at Isabella, his confusion turning to a quiet frustration. Why was she so calm? When she left for the Dercian household, she had been a storm of rage, seeking the source of her “God-Soldier” curse. But now, even knowing the name of the man responsible for their shared trauma, she showed no sign of that fury.

*Isabella… how can you stand there like that?* he wondered. *How can you face this as if the world hasn’t been torn apart?*

—

“Serengeti!”

Hudson lunged forward, catching the Pure White Knight just before she crashed into the ground again. Her body was a map of lacerations and bruises, but her sacrifice had bought them the moments they needed.

Isabella’s whip lashed out one final time. Five marks.

“Jormungand!”

The air groaned as a colossal, ethereal white serpent manifested behind Isabella, its jaws wide enough to swallow the horizon.

“How interesting,” Lyca murmured, watching the World-Eater with scholarly detachment.

The serpent struck. Its authority over space was absolute, and in a flash of blinding light, Lyca vanished, swallowed whole by the void of Jormungand’s maw.

“Is he… gone?” Isaac breathed.

A horrific shriek suddenly tore through the air. The sound of sizzling heat preceded a jagged tear in reality itself.

*Thud.*

A blade materialized from the rift, burying itself deep in Isabella’s midsection. She gasped as Lyca stepped out of the tear, walking on thin air. He was drenched in the vibrant green ichor of the serpent, looking less like a man and more like a deity of carnage.

“Quite a feat,” Lyca said, looking down at his bloodied hands. “Jormungand’s sub-space is a fascinating place. But trying to consume me while you’re still in your infancy was a fatal error in judgment, Isabella.”

Isabella collapsed, her teeth bared in pain and frustration. Even her ultimate gambit had failed to stop him. Now, both she and Serengeti were broken, their strength spent.

As Lyca stepped toward the fallen women, Hudson moved to block his path.

“No further,” Hudson grunted.

“Oh?” Lyca looked at him as if seeing a speck of dust. “I hadn’t realized you were still standing.”

To Lyca, Hudson was an insignificance. He didn’t even harbor enough respect for the man to acknowledge his bravery; Hudson was simply too weak to matter. With a casual flick of his wrist, Lyca sent a wave of pressure that launched Hudson across the room, slamming him into the far wall.

Suddenly, Balte, the spearman, began to convulse. His eyes turned a vacant, terrifying white as he succumbed to his ‘Berserker Mode.’

“The Berserker Set,” Lyca noted, his interest piqued for a fleeting moment. He knew the equipment was a death sentence for most, a cursed armor that traded the wearer’s sanity for raw, explosive power.

Balte lunged, his spear a blur of motion. Lyca danced back, the tip of the weapon missing his throat by a hair.

“You have a remarkable gift,” Lyca mused while observing the frenzied warrior. “But it’s a talent that doesn’t belong among the Eight Excellence Knights.”

A man who loses his mind to bloodlust cannot lead. He would eventually be consumed by the very darkness he sought to fight. Yet, Lyca could see the foundation beneath the madness—the years of grueling practice that allowed Balte to maintain his balance and technique even while his mind was gone. He was a diamond in the rough.

*In five years, he might have been a legend,* Lyca thought. *A pity he met me today.*

With a series of blindingly fast strikes, Lyca’s blade severed the tendons in Balte’s limbs. It was the only way to neutralize a Berserker without killing them outright.

With the frontline collapsed, only Isaac and the young Dragon Gods remained. Lyca was unconcerned; he knew that the presence of the War God’s divinity in this Tower would suppress the children’s powers. Any attempt to use their full strength would likely result in a catastrophic backlash.

“Isabella,” Lyca said, standing over his defeated foes. “If you want their lives to continue, you will tell me what I need to know. Where is the ‘Golden Goat’? What transpired in the Abyss?”

He needed the pieces of his own fractured past. He needed to understand why his memories had been stolen and why he had been pushed to the brink of death at the 5th Gate.

Isabella remained stubbornly silent.

“Very well,” Lyca sighed, approaching Serengeti. “I suppose I’ll start with the Pure White Knight. Perhaps her death will loosen your tongue.”

He raised his hand to strike.

*Boom!*

A heavy broadsword slammed into the floor between Lyca and Serengeti, the impact cracking the stone.

“Take another step,” a voice rang out, “and I’ll take your head.”

Lyca paused, looking up. “And who might you be?”

“I am Gracia,” the man declared, his voice trembling with a mix of fear and newfound resolve. “The true strongest knight of the Empire.”

Gracia had been broken by his defeat at the hands of Baal in the Abyss, but the sight of Serengeti in mortal danger had shattered his paralysis. He was a man possessed by a sudden, overwhelming devotion. He didn’t know that the “Serengeti” he had originally fallen for back in the Empire was actually Hudson in disguise; to him, the woman bleeding on the floor was the angel who had once told him to find his courage.

*She is still so radiant,* Gracia thought, his heart hammering against his ribs.

In his eyes, he wasn’t just defending a comrade. He was protecting the woman who had slapped sense into him, the first person to ever make his heart race. He had thought his feelings were a delusion born of trauma, but standing there, ready to die for her, he knew the truth.

*Is this… is this love?*