Nicol, her forehead swollen from a flick, waved at Pablo's shrinking silhouette.
He was heading towards Pleast Castle, welcomed as the paladin who saved the kingdom. The atmosphere of the ruined great hall was as packed and warm as it could be.
In the throne room afterward, King Althem was revising the law with his advisors. They were in such a hurry because an enacted law stated that anyone who laid hands on Nilrend, the devil sword that had almost wiped Pleast off the map under the former kingship, would face a 5-generation execution sentence. And no one wished to see that exercised on Pablo.
Though Pablo insisted on cutting ties with the Gaius family. "Well, then this is our goodbye."
Confused, King Althem had royal guards surround Pablo. "Don't be silly, Pablo. I'll finish the new legal provision by today. You'll be more than fine with 2 extra resting days. I and our knights will set out to distribute rations from what's left in our vaults first. You can go direct the town rebuilding squads when you feel better..."
Althem stopped when he felt something different from Pablo this time.
"My king, I need to borrow your devil sword a little longer."
"Pablo was expelled from the Gaius family and committed treason. Only a death sentence awaits him."
Althem wasn't really sure why he didn't ask anything further. Perhaps it was a hunch from over 20 years of friendship. He decided to let Pablo go. In his own way. "Catch him now, this is the king's order!"
The 2 royal mages formed a barrier around Pablo. Fellow paladins, royal guards, and royal knights started dashing and leaping around the castle trying to catch him. A game of chase where everyone used their swords and magic to immobilize Pablo while he was the only one who solely evaded without fighting back. Then standing on the window of Pleast Castle, Pablo took a last glimpse of his brothers in arms and this familiar place. "I won't cry," said Pablo, with tears jerking out of his eyes like a waterfall. "But thank you for everything. Please take care of my family — I mean, who cares about that Gaius house that the king so graciously expelled me from." Pablo jumped off the castle. Every knight and mage dropped their weapons and bawled their eyes out. Althem was no exception, perhaps a little louder than anyone.
And so Pablo was on his way to defeat the eschaton in the far eastern continent, with Nicol following him everywhere he went. They either slept under trees or helped out villagers with chores to earn a night in their barn or spare room. On day 3, Nicol started whining as she brushed a villager's horse. "I'm an apprentice mage of the prestigious Light Arcane Tower, and you're Lord Pablo Gaius, the greatest paladin of this era. How did we end up in this old, stinky barn?"
Pablo raked up hay with one arm and turned to Nicol. "Now I'm just a rootless man. Also, coins from every valuable I traded might not cover our traveling costs and rations. Unless you do a magic show to earn some for your own luxury."
From what Ranyu had told him, they needed to travel for over a year to reach the land of a thousand cloud-crowned mountains where the eschaton resided. Nicol was conscious that time when Ranyu descended into her body. It was just that she didn't want to accept a reality so different from the fantasy she had imagined when she was chosen by the archmage of light for this task.
That night, Nicol started conjuring a pigeon out of light and had it flying around the barn. Pablo peeked at the trick she was practicing. But instead he found an illuminating bird so big it blew the barn open.
"Hey, Nicol!" Pablo was about to stop her but then saw her caught in the grasp of a giant talon. "A gryphon?!"
A barbarian with a flaming sword was riding it. Pablo cut him down. The barbarian's upper half fell. Pablo launched himself midair to catch Nicol as she fell from the panicked gryphon's talon, but the gryphon recovered and snatched her before Pablo could reach her.
"Ha ha ha, a clean cut like this. It's the real devil sword. MY DEVIL SWORD." The severed barbarian spoke with ecstasy. His severed surfaces had stretching fiber-like strings reaching out, connecting and pulling toward one another. Pablo cut him again into pieces, but he kept reconnecting his body — and now at an even faster pace. Pablo's plan for a free mount was ruined and Nicol was now held captive. He had no choice but to lower the devil sword and begin his greeting. "You really are as undying as they say, Bovorn. Is this the first thing you sought after regaining your freedom?"
Witnessing his characteristics, Pablo knew immediately he was facing the devil sword's former wielder, the worst criminal on the continent, sealed away in the deepest dungeon beneath Pleast Kingdom. Now that this man had broken free, it was most likely due to the damage from the recent invasion. Pablo needed to buy time and assess the situation.
"Bovorn the walking calamity?!" Nicol exclaimed before covering her mouth. She never thought the ancient barbarian solely responsible for the fall of empires and kingdoms in famous folktales was still alive after his defeat decades ago.
Pleased by the recognition, he waved his hand for the gryphon to carry Nicol far above him and Pablo.
Pablo glanced at Nicol briefly and refocused on Bovorn as if she didn't matter to him. "Your gryphon is strong. That lass sure is heavy."
"H-hey!" Nicol was mortified but too afraid of heights to throw a tantrum.
Not getting the reaction he wanted, Bovorn had his lower severed parts jump off the gryphon. "You were dead right."
sniff sniff
"The smell of my precious Nilrend is irresistible. I need it. GIVE IT BACK."
With his body parts close together, Bovorn reattached even faster than before. Pablo cut him into even tinier pieces at different angles and alignments, varying the speed and sizes, but nothing could stop this undying man from regenerating.
"Let's bring havoc to this world like we once did. Come back to me, Nilrend." After Bovorn finished speaking, the devil sword no longer cut through him. With the blade stuck in Bovorn's torso, Pablo couldn't swing it any further. Bovorn shove-kicked Pablo flying meters away. "Nilrend picks only the strong!! I'm stronger!!" Bovorn's shout reverberated as a black and shadowy purple aura seeped from the devil sword in his torso. That aura condensed above his shoulder and manifested as an adorable winged girl with horns. "I missed you, my warrior. With your special body we shall travel anywhere once again."
Sensing the powerful presence of the shadow devil, Ranyu descended into Nicol's body to intervene. "O devil behind the sword. Your kind sure loves a stronger wielder, but this time you shall lend the crippled hero your edge. Otherwise this world would be set on fire — and I won't let that happen." Still in the gryphon's talon, Ranyu summoned numerous glowing hands to threaten Nil.
Nil had no interest in following anyone's orders and exuded a suffocating pressure into the air. The clash of Omnia and devil power was so intense that Bovorn's skin was cut deep all over his body. Nicol felt a burning light as though she were about to explode, the most pain she had ever felt. So much that she regretted accepting this task and was certain she would die before getting rich. Her soul wept quietly somewhere in the background while Ranyu wore her tears. Her last thought was that ever since she had been with Pablo, she had known nothing but danger and hardship.
By then, Pablo, whom everyone had forgotten, gave Bovorn stars with one sucker punch right to his face and knocked him out with a second. "So you're immune to cuts, but are you immune to blunt force too?" Pablo grabbed Bovorn's head and smashed it into the ground repeatedly, then choked his limp frame from behind. "Seems like you're not."