Chương 64: Fire Knight

Lloyd kept falling. Absolute darkness swallowed everything around him. There was no sky, no ground, no sense of direction. The world had simply vanished, leaving behind an endless void where nothing existed except himself and the relentless fall into the abyss. The last thing he heard was the desperate scream of one of the Players. The voice rang out somewhere nearby, tore through the silence, and almost instantly dissolved into the darkness, as if the abyss itself had devoured it. Lloyd squeezed his eyes shut.

The wind slammed against his face and whistled in his ears. His clothes fluttered wildly, his hair was tossed about, and his stomach painfully tightened from the endless sensation of falling. He had already lost all sense of time. A second? A minute? Maybe longer? In the darkness, time itself had become meaningless.

"What the hell is happening?!" His thoughts scattered in every direction, never lingering long enough to make sense of anything. His mind refused to accept what was happening. He reached his hands out, hoping to grab onto something—anything—but his fingers touched nothing except empty space. His heart pounded violently in his chest. And then it ended. No impact. No collision. No pain. The fall simply stopped, as though some unseen force had halted him in the middle of the abyss with a single motion.

A cool breeze brushed across his neck. Instead of the freezing air of the void, it carried the scent of damp earth, fresh grass, and newly grown leaves. Lloyd slowly opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was sunlight. Warm golden rays streamed through the dense canopy above, painting long streaks of light across the forest floor. Towering trees stretched high into the sky while their emerald branches intertwined overhead, forming a living ceiling of green. Leaves drifted lazily nearby.

Some floated gently to the ground while others were caught by the breeze and lifted back into the air. Somewhere in the distance, birds sang peacefully, their melodies calm and steady, as though monsters and deadly trials had never existed in this place. Lloyd stood motionless. After everything he had just experienced, the scene before him felt almost unreal. The forest looked too ordinary. Too peaceful. Too alive. Grass rustled beneath his feet. Dry branches covered in soft moss lay scattered across the ground.

Tiny wildflowers pushed through the roots of ancient trees, and the air was filled with the rich scent of pine and damp wood. A warm breeze gently swayed the treetops while the leaves whispered softly overhead. This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. For a brief moment, Lloyd almost believed everything that had happened before had been nothing more than a terrible dream. But the feeling disappeared almost immediately.

He knew far too well that an exam like this would never turn into a peaceful walk through the woods. Behind this tranquil scenery, deadly danger was undoubtedly waiting. He slowly got to his feet. His knees trembled slightly after the fall, but his body obeyed him without issue. Lloyd carefully scanned his surroundings, trying to memorize every tree, every bush, and every shadow. His instincts screamed that this place was nowhere near as safe as it appeared.

Taking a cautious step forward, he suddenly felt something hard beneath his foot. Startled, Lloyd instantly jumped backward. His heart leaped into his throat as his hand instinctively reached for his waist—where there wasn't a weapon to be found. For several tense seconds, he stared at the ground. Then he slowly let out a breath. It was just an axe. A simple iron axe with a blade darkened by age. The wooden handle was worn, as though someone had used it before, and half of it had sunk into the soft forest soil.

Lloyd carefully picked it up. The reassuring weight of the metal settled comfortably in his hand. It was an ordinary axe—no decorations, no magic, no special properties. But right now, it felt like a priceless treasure.

"Nice bonus. Looks like every Player gets a weapon. I was already starting to worry I'd have to survive three days with my bare hands." A faint smile appeared on his face, though it faded almost as quickly as it came. Lloyd looked ahead. The shadows between the trees gradually deepened. The farther the forest stretched, the less sunlight managed to reach it. In the distance, the woods grew so dense that they resembled a solid wall of darkness. No birds sang there. No animals rustled through the undergrowth.

It was as if life itself avoided that place. Lloyd couldn't help but shiver.

"Well... I just have to survive for three days." Taking one last slow breath, he headed deeper into the forest. A knight stood in the clearing. The forest around him was silent. No birds sang. No branches swayed. Even the wind seemed to avoid this place. A tall figure stood at the center of the clearing, clad in black armor. The armor resembled solidified obsidian. Its dark surface was covered in dozens of thin cracks through which a molten orange glow pulsed, as though lava flowed slowly beneath the metal.

One larger crack ran straight down the center of the breastplate, glowing brighter than all the others. Its light slowly brightened and dimmed, almost as if the armor itself were breathing. Massive pauldrons covered with sharp spikes rested upon his shoulders. The crimson light pouring from the cracks illuminated the surrounding trees, causing them to cast long, trembling shadows. The knight's face was hidden behind a horned helmet.

Two long, curved horns swept backward, while bright amber eyes stared through the narrow visor slit—unblinking, empty, devoid of any emotion. A long, tattered cloak hung from his shoulders. Its frayed edges smoldered constantly, and from time to time tiny sparks of ash drifted away before disappearing into the air. In his right hand, he held a long black sword. The blade looked as though it had been forged from volcanic rock. Burning cracks stretched across its entire length, filled with flowing molten fire.

The air around the weapon shimmered faintly from the intense heat, and the grass near the blade had been scorched black. The Flame Knight slowly raised the sword and stared at it in silence for several seconds before smoothly sliding it back into its scabbard. A quiet crackling sound echoed through the clearing. A shower of tiny sparks burst from the sheath, flaring brightly before fading away almost instantly. The knight turned around. His heavy footsteps broke the deathly silence.

Every step left scorched footprints in the earth. Grass blackened. Leaves curled inward. The air filled with the scent of burning metal and ash. Without looking back, he walked toward the forest, disappearing into the deepening shadows between the trees. Only the bodies remained. Dozens of them. Slashed apart. Burned. Mutilated. Some had been charred so badly that they resembled little more than blackened statues.

Thin trails of smoke still rose from several corpses, while broken swords, shattered shields, and splintered spears lay scattered across the scorched grass—the silent remains of one final, desperate attempt to survive.