Chapter 7: Those Ancient Matters

As he gripped the long sword tightly and charged at the grotesque, otherworldly monster, Gawain felt none of the usual tension, hesitation, or fear. If anything, there was only a faint sense of unreality, as if he were watching himself from afar.

He still vividly remembered the moment his plane crashed.

He still remembered the hundreds of thousands of years he had spent suspended high above this world.

He hadn’t yet fully adjusted to the identity of Gawain Cecil, this man who had seemingly fallen from the sky.

And yet, in this very moment, he clenched an ancient family longsword and lunged fiercely at a bizarre creature—whether demon or undead, he couldn’t tell.

Thud!

A tremendous impact reverberated through the blade, instantly clearing every distracting thought from his mind.

With near-instinctive reflexes, Gawain dodged the monster’s sweeping claw, twisting his upper body just enough to let his sword arc through the air, slicing fiercely at the creature’s shoulder. At the same time, he summoned the latent power within this body, channeling it into the blade.

A faint red glow at the sword’s base flared brilliantly, spreading like wildfire along the edge. The heat was so intense that even the air around them warped and shimmered.

The three-meter-tall beast recoiled, sensing the threat from the searing blade. Despite its massive size, it moved with surprising agility, leaning back sharply—just narrowly avoiding Gawain’s strike.

It was the first time he had unleashed this seemingly magical, supernatural power with his own hands. A surge of excitement and exhilaration briefly clouded his focus, causing him to miss the rhythm of his initial attack. But he quickly steadied himself, pouring his strength back into the longsword.

The skills and knowledge from Gawain Cecil’s memories were indeed accessible. This body hadn’t deteriorated so much as to be powerless. Though he wasn’t sure how much of his true strength he could wield, a newfound confidence blossomed within him.

He immersed himself in the fight, rapidly converting the foreign combat experience in his mind into usable skill, sharpening his control over this new form.

Meanwhile, Byron was locked in a desperate struggle.

A mid-level knight and one of the finest warriors in the Cecil domain, Byron had amassed formidable battle experience even before pledging loyalty to the family. But the earlier monster assault on the castle had drained much of his energy. Coupled with the corrosive effects of the creature’s strange magic, his internal injuries sapped his fighting ability, reducing his full strength to barely half.

Facing the monster’s relentless onslaught, he gripped his sword tightly, fighting to hold his ground, conserving energy while searching for an opening.

Rebecca gathered her magic, conjuring a fiery orb the size of a human head. It shot from the tip of her staff, colliding midair with a shadowy arrow fired by a spellcasting monster. The resulting explosion shook the earth. Gasping for breath, she immediately noticed Byron’s perilous situation and shouted to the nearby soldiers, “You three, go help Byron!”

One soldier hesitated. “But, my lady—”

Rebecca was already forming another fireball. “We’re fine for now—but if Byron falls, it’s over! As your lord, I order you to go!”

The three soldiers had no choice but to obey, joining Byron in battling the fearsome beast.

Gawain sank deeper into the fight, the alien memories and experiences rapidly becoming his own, enhancing his mastery over this body. The sense of accomplishment was immense. When he finally emerged from this trance-like state, he realized he had the upper hand—the monster was on the defensive.

The creature’s twisted, sludge-like form was not invincible. It could be wounded, and if struck enough, it could be killed. Despite their immense strength and size advantage, once the right tactics were known, human bodies could still bring them down.

This was knowledge passed down from seven centuries ago.

The monster’s claw swiped overhead. Gawain ducked low and drove his sword into its thigh. The beast let out a guttural roar and staggered sideways, losing control of its balance. Seizing the moment, Gawain shouted to Byron, “Aim for their abdomen and legs! Don’t bother with the chest—they don’t have hearts!”

Twisting around, Gawain circled to the creature’s flank and thrust his sword into its lower back. “Besides the belly, their other weak spot is the lower back!”

Inspired by the ancestral guidance, Byron’s spirit lifted. With the help of the three soldiers, he quickly restrained the monster’s movements. Despite a claw piercing his shoulder plate, he slipped under the beast’s body and struck a critical blow.

Just a moment before Byron finished off his foe, Gawain’s opponent collapsed heavily.

With the enemies defeated, Gawain looked up toward the distant monster exchanging shadow arrows and fireballs with Rebecca. Just as he was about to charge head-on, the creature suddenly let out a piercing scream and convulsed violently before falling.

Amber appeared behind the monster, twirling two poisoned steel daggers in her hands. “I’m good at this,” she said with a smirk.

Rebecca lowered her staff, cheeks flushed from casting spells in quick succession. Catching her breath, she corrected Amber sternly, “Ancestor said the lower back.”

Amber spun her daggers twice more, then they vanished as if hidden by magic. She stepped over the corpse, rolling her eyes. “Tch, no sense of humor at all.”

The monsters’ bodies began to rapidly disintegrate. The flowing, muddy substance that made up their flesh ceased moving, then dried and hardened, cracking with countless tiny fissures. As this corrupted “flesh” fell away, they quickly transformed into massive, twisted, blood-red skeletons.

Standing beside the monster he had slain, Gawain watched this process and muttered to himself, “So these are the things attacking the Cecil lands…”

Hetty looked at him curiously. “Ancestor, do you know where these monsters came from?”

Gawain’s deep understanding of these creatures had already shown during the battle, even guiding Byron on how to fight them. There was no point hiding it now.

“We might encounter more if we stay here. Let’s head into the old tunnels. There’s something down there that suppresses those monsters—they rarely enter,” Gawain said as he strode forward. “I’ll explain everything on the way.”

After entering the ancient underground passage and walking some distance, Gawain finally broke the silence.

“I did fight them back then—actually, those were the main enemies we faced. You all know the history of the fall of the Gondor Empire and the Second Expansion, right?”

“Of course,” Rebecca nodded eagerly. “That’s a required subject for noble children. Over seven hundred years ago, the Loren Continent had only one human kingdom—the Gondor Empire, located in the continent’s center. Historical records say it was the most powerful empire of its time, so formidable that even the Silver Empire of the southern elves dared not challenge it lightly. But then the Aether Sea surrounding the world became turbulent, triggering a catastrophic event known as the ‘Dark Magic Tide.’ The epicenter was deep within Gondor’s heartland—almost overnight, the capital and a third of the empire’s territory were swallowed by the tide, shattered by surging elemental forces…”

“Not overnight, actually. The process lasted nearly a month. The court mages of Gondor didn’t just stand by,” Gawain interrupted, then gestured for her to continue. “But the outcome was much the same. Go on.”

Rebecca blushed slightly, speaking more cautiously, as if under a parent’s watchful eye. “After that, the magic tide spread outward, eventually destroying the entire empire. That was the fall of Gondor. When the Aether Sea calmed, the tide’s power waned, and the surviving Gondor refugees began rebuilding civilization. Since the central lands were ruined and uninhabitable, they followed a group of pioneers and left the ruined empire, expanding in four directions—east, south, west, and north—in what’s called the Second Expansion. Ancestor, you were one of the most famous knights among those pioneers.”

“Not bad on the history,” Gawain said casually. “You’ve probably heard that even after the magic tide ended, the ruins of Gondor were still infested with monsters born from the tide. Those creatures were one of the greatest threats humanity faced during the Second Expansion.”

Hetty’s eyes widened. “You mean…”

“Exactly. Those were the very things we fought back then,” Gawain sighed. “They emerged from the magic tide, shaped vaguely like humans but definitely not human. After Gondor’s collapse, countless such monsters poured out from the ruined heartland, spreading in all directions, hunting the survivors. So the early days of the Second Expansion were less about exploration and more about escape. Even after we left the wasteland and established new kingdoms on the continent’s edges, the monsters didn’t stop. They kept pouring out from the ruins, constantly assaulting the borders of civilization. In the first ten years after Ansu was founded, I was fighting them almost every day.”

Rebecca’s eyes grew even wider, clearly captivated by these ancient, legendary tales. “Ah, so after those ten years, the monsters stopped appearing?”

Gawain smiled, reaching out to ruffle the girl’s hair with a fond, almost amused expression. “Silly child, that’s when your ancestor died…”

Rebecca: “…”

(End of chapter)