Hi everyone! I couldn't help myself. I love this novel and I've already been getting SO many ideas for other stories so I want to get further in this as quickly as possible. (so much for working on the less updated stories...) Anyway, please enjoy the story! Also I apologize for the confusing format of my expression of Sun's thoughts and such. I have set it now. Underline is only when Sun is saying something she expects someone to understand the true meaning. Otherwise her real thoughts will be in the 'adf' just like everyone else. Again I'm sorry for the confusion.
Chapter 3: If you're going to die, you'd better do it elegantly
Sun rushed to the undead's location led by the squire. When she looked over she noticed an enormous aura coming from her destination. 'That seems too strong for a normal undead…' she thought with a bit of worry, 'I know I asked for a stronger undead, but teacher said the Church was too cheap to give me anything but the weakest creatures...' With that in mind, Sun jumped onto the roof of a small house to get a better look at the battlefield, located the undead, and leaped off the roof declaring, "Undead creature that violate the laws of nature and death, I, the Sun Knight of the Church of Light, swear upon the blinding sun in the sky to wipe out this blight and cleanse this beautiful world of your evil presence!" landing gracefully onto the ground with the other soldiers.
"Sun, you're finally here!" Leaf exclaimed with relief. Standing behind him were Storm, Earth, Frost and several knights from their own teams. In total, there were about 20 or so holy knights gathered for the undead.
'Why so many?' Sun wondered; this was a bizarrely large group for a mere undead. Sun looked over to the undead in question, it was basically a skeleton with armor and a rusted sword. 'The strong aura… isn't from that one.' Sun glanced over to her fellow knights, 'They probably thought he was a Death Knight.' Thinking of a Death Knight, and how she wouldn't last even a minute against one if not for her light magic, made Sun think back to Neo Sun's teachings.
It was when Grisia came of age to go on missions, Neo Sun said, "Child, you are now finally able to go out and start carrying out missions. I am immensely proud of you. But before you go, there's one more thing I have to tell you."
"What teacher?" Grisia inquired
"A Sun Knight must be elegant and graceful at all times." Neo Sun replied
"Teacher, don't worry." Grisia reassured, "I will be elegant and graceful in completing my mission."
Neo Sun shook his head and stated, "Child, completing a mission elegantly is only the basics."
"Then what else must I do, Teacher?" Grisia asked politely
"Child, should you ever fail in your missions and may be about to die, you have to contemplate how you will die." Neo Sun bluntly stated
"Excuse me?" Grisia asked honestly confused now
"Contemplate how you will die and which expression you should have. Should you look peaceful , or defiant? And most importantly, should you be killed by being stabbed in the heart, or should you kill yourself rather dying at the hands of your enemy? As a Sun Knight, even if you were to die, you still have to die very gracefully!"
"Sun," Leaf called, breaking Sun from her musing, "This Death Knight is pretty strong. Don't underestimate him." With that, all the knights backed away to give Sun and the dead knight space.
A few knights exclaimed, "Isn't a bit much to let the Sun Knight handle the Death Knight alone?"
"Relax," Earth childishly smiled, "My best friend would never lose to an undead."
"Yeah," Leaf agreed, "Sun becomes stronger when she faces the undead. Don't intervene or she'll get angry!" Leaf then looked over to Sun and gave a proud smile. Don't worry Sun; I won't let anyone interfere with your fight!
Sun smiled back to Leaf and looked over to the dead knight. Said knight's sword suddenly burst into flames and opened his rotting mouth to let out an inhuman roar. Sun quickly took out her sword and engaged in combat with the knight. Once the two collided, Sun sighed, 'Definitely not a Death Knight. There's no way I could even attack a Death Knight with my sword, I mean just a few days ago Leithe finished me off in 3 moves…' Sun continued to strike at the dead knight as she inspected the undead's strength, 'A single holy spell should be enough. But I'll prolong the fight a bit longer…' she decided thinking back at Neo Sun's teachings.
"Child, even if you meet the strongest undead, remember to prolong the fight before using a holy spell to give it eternal peace." Neo Sun stated
"Why not from the start?" Grisia inquired
"Child, here's a math question. When a monster appears it takes 10 minutes for innocents to be killed to display the monster's powers, another 10 minutes for the people to scream in panic, and another 10 minutes for them to run for their lives. How long does it take in total?"
"30 minutes." Grisia easily replied
"Good, now it's a multiple choice question. In Situation 1: you K.O. all the monsters within 3 minutes. In Situation 2: spend 5 minutes to reach a standstill, 5 minutes on being beaten (to create suspense) and allow the enemy to taunt you and spend the last 5 minutes to draw out your inner strength and use a holy spell to gracefully defeat the enemy! Child, which situation do you think will satisfy the audience who have waited for 30 minutes?"
'Ergo why I distaste missions that require fighting… the effort to prolong the battle is ridiculous!' Sun prefers to let Judge Knight deal with these missions. Unlike Sun, Judge tends to finish off his enemies as quickly and as efficiently as possible.
A citizen cried, "Go Sun Knight!" from her window, Grisia turned to smile gently and faced the dead knight once again
'Almost time…' she sighed before taking a side glance at the, still there, intense evil aura. 'Where is this coming from?'
"SUN!" Leaf cried turning Sun's attention to him, "Watch out!"
"Huh?" she gasped, a large swing cut through her back, 'From behind?' Sun turned to see her attacker. It was another undead.
Faded brown hair, ghostly pale skin, worn silver armor, a sword blazing like the sun itself, and the symbol of a Death Knight: grey flames burning in the place of eyes. 'He's a Death Knight.' Sun easily deduced
The Sun Knight hates those who defy the laws of death, amongst them is the rare, high class undead called "Death Knights". The creation of a Death Knight is extremely difficult since two rare conditions must be met. The first is a powerful necromancer, the second is "hatred": the fresh corpse of an unsatisfied soul. What makes a young Death Knight grow faster and stronger is an unattainable desire. The harder it is to attain, the greater his hatred; this acts as the fuel or his growth. When the Death Knight's hatred and desire becomes overwhelming, he evolves into something exponentially worse… the Death Lord. The Death Lord posses the abilities of a nigh level necromancer, besides raising an army of undead, he can cast multiple buffs on his undead army. Centuries ago, a Death Lord was born and his undead army laid waste to many towns. Only the combined strength of many armies succeeded in defeating him.
"Sun!" Leaf cried as he quickly destroyed the dead knight with his arrow and rushed to Sun's side. Sun sighed internally at the loss of her stress relief but appreciated Leaf's concern.
'Earth?' Sun questioned the sudden appearance of the Earth Knight as he materialized his Earth Shield. As Earth was protecting Sun from the Death Knight that just attacked her, Frost raised his Holy Frost Blade and attacked the Death Knight. 'Wow… Frost is great.' Sun thought with awe, 'Why can't I fight like that?' she sobbed
"Sun…" Leaf hesitated, "Doesn't it hurt?"
Sun looked over curiously at Leaf before shaking her head. Her outfit made it impossible for her to see her own back, much less know if the Death Knight's attack did any real damage to her.
"Are you sure?" Leaf seemed really worried
"The God of Light's gentle rays can instantly heal such a small injury." Sun replied, I don't really know if it should hurt…
All of the Knights looked at Sun with shock and downright depression. Storm was saying "Is she really alright…?"
Leaf was amazed, "Sun is incredible, to call such an injury 'small'…" The other knights couldn't even bring themselves to speak.
Sun was slightly worried at the reaction she got and tried to look at her back again. 'After all I've been through, I don't feel pain that often… Is my injury really that serious?' Seeing as she couldn't get even a glimpse of her back, Sun gave up and returned her attention to Frost's fight with the Death Knight.
The Frost Knight uses a passive fighting style: which means he can stand completely still for the entire day whilst holding his sword, until the opponent grows impatient and attack. He then deals a fatal blow that kills the opponent. The Death Knight was a good distance from Frost when, within the blink of an eye, he appeared before Frost and attacked.
'Fast!' Sun exclaimed, 'No wonder I got injured even with so many Holy Knights around, even directly in front of Earth whose specialty is defense.' Frost and the Death Knight began to continuously slice their swords at each other now.
"Sun, shouldn't you get healed first?" Leaf offered, clearly deafly worried
"Sun feels fine!" Sun easily replied as she intensely watched the fight. She noticed Frost's expression, 'Huh? Frost is scowling… the Death Knight has to be very strong. What would happen if Frost loses?' Sun began to wonder, 'Leaf is an archer and Earth is a support knight, which means… I would have to fight? With my horrendous swords skills?' she panicked, "Frost, I will help you!" Sun declared getting Frost's attention slightly. Sun at first tried to give a holy blessing onto Frost's sword but it was moving too fast for her to actually lock onto it. 'I guess I'll just cast it on Frost!' she decided, "The supreme God of Light, who shines brightly on the world," At this time, the Death Knight has finally been able to land a few hits on Frost.
"Frost Knight!" Leaf cried
"Holy Blessing!" Sun finished. A bright but gentle light enveloped Frost and he suddenly grew faster and stronger. 'Holy Blessing can grant the target with holy powers for a short period and increases the attack power against the undead by several fold. That should help Brother Frost.' Sun hoped as Frost began to attack the Death Knight.
"Sun, there's still me…" Leaf commented slightly darkly
'Leaf is angry!' Sun realized
Usually, Leaf looks like a very gentle person, but when he raises his bow he instantly changes into a 'very scary person'. He can fire five arrows within ten seconds with all of them hitting the bull's-eye.
Because Sun couldn't bring herself to mention the God of Light again she simply stabbed her hand upon Leaf's arrow. "My blood has been imbued with holy powers for a long time, it is poison to the undead." She explained with a reassuring smile
"Your sacrifice won't be in vain!" Leaf cried. With precision only Leaf could hold, the arrow stabbed the center of the Death Knight's chest, Sun's blood increasing the damage to the Death Knight causing the wound to 'bleed' black ooze. With the Death Knight distracted, Frost quickly cut his arm, nearly detaching it.
The Death Knight growled and quickly fled to the roof of a large building, 'He's moving too fast… there's no way Frost can catch up! It's up to Leaf!' Leaf quickly shot another arrow, but it did absolutely nothing to the Death Knight. To fix that Sun quickly splattered her blood on all of Leaf's arrows and Leaf began to go into rapid fire. Three holy arrows landed on the Death Knight and he let out a cry of pain as he continued to run from Leaf's arrow.
"Oh no! He's getting away!" Leaf realized, as a result Leaf merely increased the speed of his shots
'No wonder he's the archer of the Holy Knights…' Sun sweat dropped
The Death Knight paused before declaring, "Sun Knight! I will definitely come back for you!"
'Eh?' Sun gasped, 'Why me? I know I'm supposed to hate the undead, but I'm pretty darn sure I didn't do anything to piss you off!' she cried internally
With the Death Knight gone, Earth removed his earth shield and turned to smile to Sun. "Sun… Whoa!" but he couldn't. Not after looking at Sun. All four of the Holy Knights stared at Sun clearly worried beyond belief.
Is something wrong with me? Sun merely looked at them curiously. To respond to Sun's unasked question, Frost pointed his glance go the ground. What's on the ground? When she looked down, Sun was shocked to see it was covered in blood. 'Why is there blood everywhere? Did it get on my clothes? I hope not, blood stains are hard to remove!'
"Sun… are you really okay? You're bleeding all over the floor!" Leaf exclaimed as he became near tears.
'Wait…' Sun took in what Leaf just said, 'All this blood… is mine?' "Leaf…" Sun gasped while still smiling, "help… me…" before collapsing, gracefully, from the blood loss she only discovered
"Sun!" Leaf cried as he rushed to Sun's side