"Because you refused to yield" he said.
At this moment, a light of understanding shone in Kevin's eyes.
'So…it's like that' Kevin thought as he began to connect the dots. Things were becoming clear, including who had sent them. Then suddenly, he raised his head and stared at the knight in front of him, before questioning him.
"But…what does it have to do with you?" he asked the question he was most baffled about. For he couldn't find anything linking the empire with the man he was currently looking at.
"Tch" the knight clicked his tongue with a look of disdain, as if he had never seen a bigger fool. And then he replied.
"We both survived that ordeal and both gained life-changing artifacts"
He stopped and stared at Kevin, before continuing his monologue or whatever he thought he was doing.
"But…I had to surrender mine to the empire for the chance to obtain riches and become a noble, yet, surprisingly, instead of following in my footsteps, you did the exact opposite".
"What's worse, you kept soaring to the skies and didn't die through a multitude of ordeals that should have killed you. Don't you know…that was an indirect slap to the empire's face as well as most noble's, but most importantly, to my face?"
At this point, his face was filled with rage. Nevertheless, he kept on talking.
"Nobles of all statuses began to look at me, not envying my luck or my wealth, but like I was the worst of fools they had ever seen. But worse yet, even common soldiers began to do the same. AND IT WAS ALL BECAUSE OF YOU!" he suddenly screamed at the top of his lungs. After which, there was an audible sigh of relief.
Even the surrounding knights moved back a little, so one could imagine the rage he was feeling at the moment.
He looked back at Kevin, who remained motionless throughout the monologue and began speaking again.
"So…you can imagine my lividness when I suddenly received a letter detailing an attack to get rid of you once and for all. And the funniest part…it was signed by the emperor himself!" he stopped with a mocking smile on his face, letting Kevin digest all he was hearing.
At this point, Kevin was thoroughly shaken. A former comrade had come to take his head, and the man whom he pledged his allegiance to planned his death.
'And all because of this' he thought as he looked at the swords in his hands, various thoughts going through his mind as different emotions set in.
He first wondered.
'Did I fail my duty?' but he immediately shot it down, that wasn't it. He had obtained enough merits in war to make himself a noble at the very least, yet…'I was only promoted twice' he thought, smiling with a hint of understanding.
'Did I harm my people?' he asked himself again, but no, he hadn't harmed his people, rather, he protected them as much as he could. In fact…
'I was a leader who was always in front of my people'
That was it, he led his people into the heat of war headfirst, with himself at the forefront.
He tried to think of excuses as to why such a thing had happened to him, but there was none.
It was then that his mind went through a transformation, scenes of the great empire and all those so-called comrades of his flashing before his eyes.
He thought he had grown to the antics of all sorts of men, but he had been terribly wrong.
He thought he had become wise, for he was aged. Rather, looking at things now, he had been a fool of epic proportions.
He then looked at the knight in front of him, no longer having doubts or thoughts about where he had gone wrong.
No, now, he was just ANGRY!
His thoughts having become clear, in all intents and purposes, he could now see.
See the world for what it was, and what mankind was. And thinking like this, he suddenly had an epiphany.
The Emperor wasn't as great as he always thought!
If it hadn't been for him, the current emperor would most likely not have become the emperor. And yet…
'This is how he repays me?' he thought and then looked at the knight in front of him, recalling memories from years ago.
"This bastard!" was the only thing he could muster, for he felt stifled, at himself, at this shitty situation, at his entire life.
He felt so angry, because he had gained enlightenment on his ways of foolishness only at death's door.
'It would have been better to have not known at all' this was the answer he came up with, as he discovered that, as people sometimes say, ignorance is truly bliss.
He had been looking at humans as sunshine and rainbows, not forgetting the dark side, but subtly ignoring it, and now it had bit him in the back.
The nobles he respected and dignified, looking at it now, had always been looking at him like an animal to be spectacled in a zoo, with wonder and awe like a unique species, something which had always been bothering him, but he hadn't been able to understand at all at the time, yet now, he understood.
They were awed by how such a fool could exist, by how foolish his mentality was, for it was worse than a commoner.
He recalled having jokes with officers of a lesser rank, but looking at it now, they were always insulting him indirectly, with amicable smiles on their faces and with a playful tone.
To take it a step further, he remembered how he had toiled far more than any other, only to get meager rewards. And yet, he never stopped to think of why it was so.
No, rather, he worked harder only for the same thing to happen again, and that was how he lived till now.
"Hah…I was a fool all my life" he said, sighing with regret beyond words, but, reality was unforgiving, there was no second chance, for milk spilled wasn't worth crying over.
"Baam!" a loud sound rang out as Kevin was kicked a few meters away.
"So how does it feel to know that your stubbornness killed all of your comrades" he asked Kevin, as he pulled his hair up and looked at his bloodied face.
But what he saw wasn't what he was expecting.
'I thought he would be angry or he would be crying, but to think he would be…smiling'
That's right, Kevin's bloodied lips slowly curved in a wicked smile, and then…'
"Hahaha, my stubbornness you say, MY STUBBORNNESS?!"
"Are you REALLY saying that this was my fault?" Kevin asked.
His abrupt shouting had put the surrounding knights on guard, with their swords drawn. Even the one holding his hair had hastily backed away, quickly going behind two knights of the same rank.
For they had seen his strength, and learned not to underestimate him the hard way, after 8 of them died.
But contrary to their expectations, Kevin hadn't even moved from where he had been, whether he liked it or not, his body had severe injuries that would take at least half a month or more without any supplements before healing completely.
Since he knew this, he had given up the possibility of leaving here alive, but maintained the façade of healthiness.
But with a deep cut in his chest, as well as numerous other injuries out in the open, not to mention, the completely destroyed armor, he couldn't really fool anyone. But he continued talking nonetheless, his finger lifting up and pointing towards the knight now hiding behind two others.
"You came to kill me because of an inflated ego, which was the same reason you were so quick to hold hands with those bastard nobles at the first chance you had"
"And that weasel who calls himself the emperor now wants to get rid of me, one of the greatest contributor to what he became today?!"
He then looked at the battlefield before pushing on.
"You killed my team, the ones who looked after me, and ALL BECAUSE OF WHAT!?"
He asked as he raised the two glowing swords and shouted.
"THIS? IS THIS WHY MY COMRADES HAD TO DIE?"
His rage had turned into deep resentment and hatred, at the deceiving and conniving nobles, but mostly, at his own existence.
At that moment, tears began to drop slowly, his only thoughts were…
'If only…if only I had known'
But he quickly wiped such thoughts along with his tears away, before staring resolutely at the knights, which had once again startled them, and then…he looked at his hands.
To be precise, he looked at what he was holding, the two glowing swords, raised them up and then spoke again.
"This is what you want, is it not? THIS WAS WHY MY FRIENDS HAD TO DIE?"
"Then, try taking it" he whispered, but the expert knights heard what he said.
Kevin mustered the last of his strength and stood up, taking a battle stance.
The others had put up their shield or a defensive stance and all of sudden, Kevin's mana levels began to skyrocket, baffling the surrounding knights.
It wasn't until a voice rang out from afar.
"NOO, STOP HIM" said another knight approaching on a horse with shining blue armor and a cerulean great sword hilted to his horse with about fifteen knights behind him.
'Hmm, as expected, I guess he saw through my bluff, well, I wasn't planning on running anyway'
Steadying his resolve, Kevin mana continued rising, and seeing this, the expert knights understood what he wanted to do and attacked to destabilize his mana.
But…
"Too Late" Kevin murmured as he overloaded his meridians and directed all the mana he could muster to the two swords.
Specifically, their mana circuits, as destroying the core part would render it useless, well, they could be used as ornaments.
And then…
BOOOOOM!
The swords blew up, which caused the mana in the area to react, blowing the knights away and simultaneously killing most of them.
With this, one didn't need to ask about Kevin, who initiated such an attack, his body was practically blown to pieces.
The explosion has caused the approaching knights to stop in their tracks and start retreating, with the horses trying to run away, as well as distorting the mana in the area and, because the artifact had been destroyed, their mission was already a failure, so there was no need to stay anyway.
What? Those still alive but injured? The kingdom thanks them for their services and shall commemorate them with a grand funeral.
After all, only the expert knights were actually worth anything, but they were all dead or gravelly injured with missing limbs.
With such a mindset, the team of knights retreated with utmost haste. For they didn't know it, but they were unbelievably lucky.
Had they stayed, they would have seen the two swords, now turned to scrap, begin to glow and levitate, which caused the extremely chaotic mana to begin warping like a whirlpool.
A phenomenon that would make the knights who had retreated turn pale at the sight.
A mana vortex.