The mutant didn't respond because it was currently being electrocuted by Lin Xue's lightning gun. It shuddered, its muscles locking up and causing it to seize. As Lin Xue dialed down her attack, the cyborg stumbled forward and crashing to its knees.
Without waiting for it to recover, I stepped forward and beheaded it. the flare of the disruption field sizzled as it bit deeply into the metallic joint between neck and head before easily cleaving through armor, flesh and bone. The head bounced, with no spray of blood or lubricant because the extreme heat had cauterized the stump.
"That was anticlimactic," I remarked and flicked my newly acquired sword. The blade of Arondight remained clean, mostly because whatever blood or oil that would stain it had vaporized instantly upon contact with the energy field. Said energy field faded away when I deactivated it. "Thanks, Arondight."
"It is an honor to serve."
With that, I now owned a sword and a shield, both of them constructed using advanced technology. Though Arondight wasn't a laser sword in the strictest sense, he was the next best thing. He still featured a blade to provide a counterweight when I swung a sword, and also because the energy emitters were built along the length as well. Probably more energy efficient this way. I didn't know because I wasn't an engineer.
The knights stared at me in awe, and I turned away uncomfortably. I wasn't the type who craved attention and preferred a low profile. Drawing too much attention from others tended to bring nothing but trouble. Instead, I focused on clearing out the room. Aside from the two cyborgs and the altar, there was thankfully nothing else of note.
We then set everything on fire to burn away the organic material and destroy the cursed sigils and runes scribbled on the stone surfaces. After torching the place and ensuring it was clear, we proceeded back out and toward the place where the others were.
By now, the fighting had largely died down. The other rooms and chambers were cleared out and secured. Most of the knights were converging upon the last known location of Lionel Johansson. Some were concerned for his wellbeing, while others thirsted for glory and desired to fight alongside their liege and earn his approval.
As it turned out, neither their worry nor assistance was needed.
Lionel Johansson had headed straight for the basement of Carleon Castle…or its dungeon. Located below, it was a vast cavernous space filled with cells, each crammed with signs of madness and atrocities that just seeing them was enough to almost drive the knights accompanying Johansson insane. Indeed, only his presence calmed them down enough to maintain their sanity, and they went about putting everything to the flame.
The knight-general himself pushed onward, sensing that some dark ritual was about to be realized. There, in the midst of the dungeon, he found the largest concentration of Romulus Knights, already slitting open the throats and wrists of their victims as sacrificial tribute to the dark entities they worshipped.
I wasn't there in person, but judging from what I heard from the accompanying knights who witnessed the whole thing – chief among them Rex Luther, Johansson's right-hand man – the knight-general flew into a cold rage. He descended upon them like a storm and butchered them mercilessly. The surviving Romulus Knights didn't even know how they died, their corpses almost exploding from immense impact or carved into hundreds of pieces, their blood spilling to join that of their victims and turning the floor into a sea of red.
Apparently, it was too late. Disembodied laughter filled the space and…things began rising out of the thick fluids that stained the ground crimson. Creatures that didn't belong to the known galaxy, mishappen mounds of flesh and claws, multiple mouths opening across the pulsating bodies like slits.
Half of the knights died, too paralyzed by fear to react in time when they were attacked, or their minds shutting down from the sheer impossibility of what they were witnessing. The rest fought bravely, and would have been massacred if not for Johansson.
Bellowing at them, he rallied their spirit and began a fightback against the demonic entities – for what were they, if not demons? When reinforcements finally found them, the surviving knights were locked in a desperate battle of life and death.
Apparently, the most effective weapons were blade and fire. Bullets and ranged projectiles appeared to pass through their bodies, or these things simply healed from all but the most devastating wounds, injuries knitting together. Several were obliterated by the sheer volume of miniature missiles blasting into their distorted shapes, reduced to nothing more than ectoplasmic shreds. Several knights, finding themselves too close to the enemy, resorted to lashing out with spear and sword, and found that their melee attacks inexplicably dealt more damage than their guns.
Johansson demonstrated this best, having abandoned the tactic of shooting the enemy and laying into them with his sword. As I said, when we found him, he didn't require our assistance. He stood alone in the center of the maelstrom of violence, surrounded by disappearing carcasses of those monsters. Instead, we had to rescue our more…mortal companions.
I didn't hesitate, activating Arondright once more and cutting a path through a trio of giggling horrors that belched pink flames. Aegis deflected the fire, though her energy field appeared bruised upon contact, the usual azure color turning a sickly purple.
"Running diagnostics…no sign of any damage or anomalies, but the energy readings are sharply dropping. Will attempt to deactivate and reactivate energy shield once more."
"Just what the hell are these?!" Lin Xue cried, squeezing the trigger and unleashing a lightning chain that jumped from creature to creature. Surprisingly enough, her electricity was extremely effective against the shrieking monstrosities. At what appeared to be the slightest touch of her psychic power was enough to burn them out of reality.
"I don't know!" Luther snapped as he decapitated a red-skinned devil with horns and hooves. It had been trying to cut him down with an infernal sword, its jagged blade painted a hellish orange. "I've never seen anything like them before! They just appeared out of nowhere!"
"The Knights of Romulus must have summoned them!" Another knight cried, his trembling voice filled with fear. "They manifested shortly after our lord killed the last of them! They must have planned to sacrifice themselves to create these foul spawns!"
Isolated and distant from the other knights, Lionel Johansson grunted and cleaved through another mysterious monster. He then stumbled toward something painted across the stone floor. An eight-pointed star, its circumference littered with indecipherable sigils and scribbled using blood. With a roar, he plunged his sword into the middle of the gigantic star symbol.
There was a sharp crack, followed by a shockwave that battered the knights and sent many of us bowling over. I flinched and crouched, almost knocked off my feet as well, but when I opened my eyes, I saw that the extradimensional monsters had disappeared. There was a faint stink of ash and brimstone, but apart from the death and violence they left, there was no trace that they had ever existed.
"W…what was that?" One of the knights gasped.
"T…they are gone. The monsters are gone." Another knight sat, staring hollowly at his surroundings. A few of his comrades laughed, a combination of hysterics and relief, and perhaps joy that they were still somehow alive after all that.
"Ignis!" Johansson barked, not sparing even a moment to rest. "Burn this. Burn all of it."
"Right away, my lord."
The fiery knight was still alive, hurrying over with his flamethrower. The tanks sounded emptier than before, with much less fuel sloshing within them as he moved. Even so, there was still enough left for him to set the remnants of the eight-pointed star and the ritual grounds ablaze, reducing all of it to naught but ash and a nightmarish memory.
Johansson didn't let his guard down, though. Already moving, he scanned the area cautiously to ensure that nothing escaped his notice. Whatever corruption that was soaked into the bones of Carleon Castle, he was going to flush it out and utterly annihilate from existence.
*
It took several more hours to confirm that the Knights of Romulus were no more, their accursed organization completely exterminated. Carleon Castle was demolished, Johansson directing his knights to rig the entire place with explosives. Carefully placed bombs in the interior, embedded within strategically selected structures to maximize their destructive potential, disintegrated the enemy stronghold. So complete was the demolition that not even rubble was left behind.
With the destruction of Carleon Castle and its masters, whatever tainted the forests of Carmarthen was gone. As we returned to the woods, I sensed a change. The gloom that had once permeated it was gone, as were the dreadful presences of unnatural beasts that inhabited it. The trees looked less threatening, and the atmosphere felt lighter.
"I don't believe it."
Thanks to her special ability, Lin Xue felt the transformation most keenly. She looked around in awe, raising her hand to attune herself to the elemental energies that saturated the area. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, smiling in bliss.
"It's true. The forest really is…cleansed."
"That was my objective all along."
We both turned and caught sight of Lionel Johansson trotting toward us, now unhelmed. He nodded at us approvingly.
"I hear that the two of you acquitted yourselves in battle."
"We did no more than the same thing that all of your knights did. If anything, I apologize for not being able to prevent more of their deaths."
Johansson shook his head. "We all knew the risks when we swore our oaths as knights. Most of us were prepared for a return in a coffin or as ashes. And many of those still alive owe you a debt of honor. I heard that you encountered two more of those…human-like behemoths."
"Yeah," I confirmed. "They were wielding weapons more advanced than anything Carmarthen has."
"Gifts from their dark masters, I suspect." Johansson's eyes were hooded. I sensed that he knew more than he was letting on, but if he didn't want to tell us, then there was no point prying. Instead, I bowed my head and presented Arondight to him.
"I recovered this sword from Carleon Castle. He was of great help in the defeat of those two behemoths."
"I heard. It looks like a good blade." Johansson nodded as he examined Arondight. He handed the sword back to me and smiled. "Keep it and put it to good use."
"You will not ask me to surrender him?" I asked, astonished. To be honest, I wasn't going to relinquish Arondight and had prepared a series of argument to persuade the lord of the Order to allow me to keep him.
As it turned out, I needn't had worried. Johansson simply snorted and shook his head.
"No. You've earned the right to wield that sword. In fact, you're probably the only one who can wield the sword buried within the Rock of Rowlan."
"I heard your knights mentioned that. Who's Rowlan?"
"Ah, yes. I forget that you're not from around here." Luther snickered as he joined us, a canteen in his hand. "The Rock of Rowlan is a myth passed down since antiquity. That sword has been stuck in it for centuries, if not millennia. Before it was excavated and found its way into Carleon Castle, no doubt stolen by the Knights of Romulus who thought they could use it as a relic for one of their fucked-up rituals, it was located within one of the biggest cities in the continent. Knights would line up before it and try their hand at extracting the sword from the Rock of Rowlan. None have succeeded…until now."
"…really?"
"That's because none of them passed the biometric identification," Arondight explained, his telepathic voice heard only by me, Aegis and Lionel Johansson. "None of them bear the same Soul Imprint as you, Commander. As such, you are the only one authorized to wield me."
"Oh…uh, thanks."
"As I said, you're the only one who can wield that sword, so it's only fitting that you keep it." Johansson didn't respond directly to Arondight, but from the impassive stare he gave him, it was clear that he heard the telepathic exchange. "You can also think of the sword as a reward for aiding us in our campaign against the Knights of Romulus."
"Against such despicable enemies, we would have joined the fight regardless," Lin Xue argued. "I don't know what they were trying to accomplish, but from what I've seen of them so far, there's no way we could allow them to behave freely."
"Regardless, we still wish to express our gratitude for your help." Johansson nodded before turning away. "For now, you should rest. I believe you have a journey to make tomorrow."
Oh, right. I had almost forgotten that it had already been forty-eight hours since we arrived in Carmarthen. Another day, and the Crusader would be here in orbit. Either that, or the nanobots would have fully restored the portal that brought us here.
We could finally go home.