Arknights: Soul Knights of Terra — Chapter 82

Chapter 82: Walking with the Innocent

Shining sheathed her long blade with a soft, metallic click. She remained perfectly still amidst the settling dust, her posture serene as she waited for the inevitable encounter.

It did not take long. A sharp, impatient voice cut through the heavy air from the shadows ahead. “Where is that guy?”

Unfazed, Shining offered a graceful bow toward the seemingly empty space. “The sinner is dead.”

Vera stepped out from the distortion of the shadows, her crimson eyes narrowing. “Did you kill him?”

Keeping her head lowered in a posture of absolute reverence, Shining replied, “I did.”

“Shouldn’t you be trailing behind the main group?” Vera crossed her arms, her tone laced with suspicion. “Why are you standing guard out here?”

“All things are but an intersection of destiny…”

“Speak human,” Vera snapped, entirely devoid of patience for riddles.

Shining released a soft, apologetic sigh, silently asking forgiveness from her absent mentor. “It is the guidance of the Cyclops.”

“The Cyclops?” Vera frowned, sifting through her knowledge of Kazdel. “Aren’t they only capable of foretelling disaster and death?”

“That is indeed true.” Shining offered a slight nod. Recalling the ancient prophecy, she repeated the words with a tranquil cadence. “Regarding my presence here, the exact words of the vision were thus… When every foreseen path descends into ruin, the single remaining blank space is the sole avenue to survival.”

Vera stared at her. “…What kind of twisted process of elimination is that?”

‘So they can’t actually tell you where it is safe,’Vera thought dryly,’they just point out every place you might die and leave you to guess the rest.’

“And you blindly believed such a vague hint, deciding to wait here in advance?” Vera pressed. The Sarkaz swordswoman’s sheer straightforwardness was baffling.

“That is not entirely the case.” Shining shook her head, her voice a steady stream of calm. “I simply sensed the lingering aura of your battle with him. To end his wretched existence here was my duty.”

Vera shifted her weight, a deep sense of awkwardness creeping up her spine as Shining maintained that perfectly respectful posture. “What on earth did that Cyclops tell you? Why are you acting so damn humble?”

Shining remained entirely unshaken by the blunt inquiry. “The prophecy stated that if I followed you, it would be possible to touch the future I desire most.”

“You believed that just like that?” Vera arched an eyebrow. For a warrior of her caliber, pledging oneself to a stranger over a few cryptic words seemed absurdly rash.

“I did not believe it at first,” Shining admitted with refreshing frankness. She finally lifted her head. “But…”

Her serene voice hitched. The moment her gaze rose, the ethereal golden crown resting upon Vera’s head entered her vision, unobscured and radiant. Silence stretched between them.

Catching the sudden shift in the swordswoman’s demeanor, Vera followed her line of sight and subconsciously brushed her fingers against the Overworld crown manifesting above her hair. Her confusion deepened into a scowl. “But what?”

Shining lowered her head once more, a soft, airy laugh escaping her lips. There was no mockery in the sound, only a deep, washing relief. “But… I am entirely certain now.”

“…You are a very strange person,” Vera muttered, utterly baffled by the nonsensical reverence. Still, the woman had just assassinated Blood Slaughter, permanently erasing a lingering threat. Averting her gaze to the scorched earth, Vera forced out a stiff, quiet whisper. “…But still. Thank you.”

“It is merely within my duties.”

“Don’t make it sound like you are already my subordinate,” Vera grumbled, entirely unable to stomach this suffocating formality. She pivoted on her heel, preparing to head back to the crater.

Just as her boot crunched against the gravel, Shining spoke from behind. “If you do not wish to invite further scrutiny, temporarily concealing that extraordinary artifact upon your brow would be a wise choice.”

Vera paused mid-step. She offered no verbal reply, but with a mere pulse of thought, the golden crown dissolved into the air. Shining moved to follow her, her footsteps entirely silent. Vera did not look back, nor did she voice a single complaint, tacitly allowing the enigmatic Sarkaz to trail in her wake.

When the pair finally crested the ridge overlooking the battlefield, Vera froze. The scene below was entirely wrong. The mercenaries were not resting, treating their wounds, or looting the dead as she had expected. Instead, they stood in absolute silence along the scorching, jagged rim of the massive impact crater. The intense heat waves radiating from the molten rock blurred their silhouettes, projecting an atmosphere of suffocating grief that reached Vera even from a distance.

“What are they doing?” Vera slowed her approach, a flicker of genuine confusion crossing her features.

Her immediate instinct flared with tactical paranoia. Had her orbital strike missed a secondary target? Had the shockwave caused accidental casualties among the squad? A sharp knot tightened in her chest. She rapidly scanned the soot-stained crowd. One, two… Hoederer, Ines, Reese. Every face she recognized, and dozens she did not, were accounted for. They were battered, bleeding, and covered in ash, but the headcount remained perfectly intact.

“No one is missing…” she murmured to herself, her brows knitting together.

“Perhaps,” Shining murmured, stepping up beside her, “the one they are desperately searching for… is you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Vera shot back instantly, her scowl deepening. “How many days have I even known these people? It is a strictly transactional employment relationship.”

The very concept was absurd to her. How could a handful of days and a fistful of coin forge a bond strong enough to make hardened killers mourn?

“Then I ask that you simply watch them for a moment longer.” Shining did not argue. She merely shifted her serene gaze toward the silent vigil below. “You will witness with your own eyes what your existence truly means to the children of Kazdel.”

Vera bit back her retort. Folding her arms tightly across her chest, she stood upon the ridge and observed.

Down in the inferno, a silver-haired blur suddenly broke formation. W threw herself into the steepest, most treacherous section of the crater like a rabid animal, tearing at the superheated rubble with her bare hands. A second later, Reese silently slid down the embankment to join her. Then a third. A fourth.

Dozens of Sarkaz mercenaries plunged into the suffocating heat, using shattered blades and raw fingers to dig through the cooling magma. The blistering temperatures seared their exposed skin, and whatever wet streaks tracked through the soot on their faces evaporated instantly in the thermal updrafts.

Even Hoederer, the ever-pragmatic commander, descended into the ash. Ines lingered on the rim for a fraction of a second. Her sharp gaze swept the distant ridge, locking onto Vera’s concealed position. The Caspell caster offered a microscopic nod, then threw herself into the pit alongside her comrades.

Vera’s breath hitched. The casual, detached ease she had maintained since arriving on Terra fractured. Her fingers curled inward, digging painfully into her own arms.

As the angry red glow of the magma slowly cooled into blackened slag, the physical toll broke them. The first mercenary collapsed into the ash, his lungs failing against the toxic fumes. Then a second fell to his knees. A third slumped against a boulder, hands blistered and bleeding.

“A bunch of absolute idiots…” Vera cursed under her breath. Her voice was uncharacteristically hoarse, lacking all its usual bite.

“You are correct,” Shining murmured, her tone carrying the weight of a tragic truth. “Countless Sarkaz have known nothing but displacement and slaughter since the day they drew breath. They possess no systematic education, no refined society.”

The swordswoman looked down at the desperate figures. “They may be physically strong, forged into lethal instruments of war, but in their capacity to process and express emotion… they are closer to innocent children acting purely on instinct. Action is their only honest language.”

Vera swallowed hard, offering no rebuttal. She watched the battered mercenaries drag each other upright, their shoulders slumped in absolute defeat as they prepared to abandon the graveyard. A strange, uncomfortable pang of guilt took root in Vera’s chest. She needed to formulate a logical, watertight excuse for how she had survived a localized apocalypse and simply walked back into camp.

Before she could invent a lie, her crimson eyes locked onto the most stubborn figure in the pit. W swayed violently on her feet, her hands raw and bleeding. The explosive specialist tried to take another step toward the deepest pocket of ash, desperate to keep digging, but her exhausted body finally betrayed her shattered will. She tipped backward into the void.

A blur of motion crossed the crater.

Vera materialized behind the falling girl, extending an arm to catch W securely against her chest. The sudden displacement of air and the sharp crunch of boots on gravel drew the attention of the mourning squad. Dozens of heads snapped toward the sound.

Time seemed to fracture. The mercenaries stared through the shimmering heat waves, their minds struggling to process the visual data. Was it a mirage? A cruel hallucination born from dehydration and grief? Or had the ghost of their invincible employer returned to haunt the ashes?

A suffocating, deathly silence gripped the crater.

Then, a single, trembling voice broke the quiet. “Big… Big Sister…?”

The incredulous, breathy whisper hit the stagnant air, igniting the entire squad like a spark to a powder keg.

“Big Sister!”

“It’s Big Sister! She’s still alive!”

“She’s alive! The Boss is alive!”

The mercenaries erupted. They scrambled up the treacherous incline, completely ignoring the jagged obsidian tearing at their boots and the residual heat blistering their skin. They surged toward Vera in a desperate, chaotic tide.

Hoederer remained rooted at the base of the pit. He watched the untouchable vampire instantly drown in a sea of weeping, cheering Sarkaz, and let out a long, shuddering exhale. Ines stood at his shoulder, the corner of her lips curling upward in a rare, imperceptible smirk.

Remembering the caster’s cryptic behavior on the ridge, Hoederer shot her a dark, sidelong glance. “You knew. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“If I had told you,” Ines purred, her tone dripping with dark amusement, “I wouldn’t have been able to witness that pathetic expression on your face.” She reached out, her fingers slipping naturally into Hoederer’s grip. Before the stoic commander could process the sudden intimacy, she tugged him forward. “Don’t just stand there, Commander. If you don’t hurry up, your entire squad is going to be snatched away by another woman.”

“And what about you?” Hoederer asked quietly. “Will you be snatched away as well?”

Ines froze, her teasing smirk vanishing. Taking advantage of her hesitation, Hoederer shifted his grip, firmly enveloping her hand in his as he took the lead.

“…What if I said I would?” she challenged softly.

Hoederer’s voice remained entirely devoid of fluctuation, but his fingers tightened around hers. “Then I suppose I will just have to follow you.”

Higher up the slope, Vera stood rigidly in place, supporting the dead weight of the unconscious W. She was entirely surrounded by a wall of ecstatic mercenaries. The deafening cheers, the weeping, and the chaotic barrage of questions assaulted her sensitive eardrums. She flinched slightly, utterly unaccustomed to being the center of such raw, unfiltered affection. The harsh command to shut up danced on the tip of her tongue. She swallowed it down.

She looked down at the silver-haired bomber slumped against her chest. Even unconscious, W wore a faint, relieved smile. Vera lifted her gaze, sweeping over the bruised, tear-streaked faces of the idiot mercenaries crowding her personal space.

‘So incredibly troublesome,’she confirmed to herself, her inner walls reinforcing their defensive posture.’But… I suppose it isn’t entirely awful.’

“Ahem.”

A deliberately heavy cough cut through the pandemonium. The mercenaries reluctantly parted like the sea, making way for their commanding officer. As Hoederer approached, the chaotic noise level dropped to a nervous murmur. He stopped a few paces from Vera. Rather than inquiring about her miraculous survival, the pragmatic Sarkaz cut straight to the bloody heart of the matter.

“Employer. Do you still intend to proceed with the next phase of the mission?”

His voice was measured, yet it instantly drained the remaining sound from the crater. Dozens of eyes locked onto Vera. The atmosphere grew thick with suffocating tension, desperate expectation, and a sharp, underlying panic.

They all knew the truth. Whether Blood Slaughter had been erased from existence was utterly irrelevant now. The localized catastrophe Vera had unleashed upon the valley was a calling card forged in hellfire—a display of absolute supremacy that would shake the foundations of Kazdel. Babel could not possibly ignore such a cataclysm. Vera’s stated objective of attracting Babel’s attention had not merely been met; it had been violently overachieved.

Therefore, what logical reason did a god-like entity have to maintain a petty employment contract with a band of mud-crawling mercenaries? The Sarkaz held their breath, their hearts pounding against their ribs.

They had witnessed the heavens tear open. They had felt the crushing weight of her true power. Compared to the wrath of falling stars, their crude swords and petty tactics were nothing more than children playing house in the dirt. The realization hit the squad like a physical blow. The light dimmed in their eyes, and one by one, the hardened killers lowered their heads in silent resignation. A few cast envious, bitter glances toward the unconscious W resting safely in Vera’s arms.

At least the lunatic who spent every waking hour pestering the Boss had secured her place at her side. If only they had known. If only they had fought harder, bled more, proved their worth when they had the chance.

Vera let the silence stretch. She could feel the crushing weight of their despair. This entire pack of feral idiots, who had been weeping with joy over her resurrection mere seconds ago, were now actively mourning their own abandonment.

‘Troublesome. Unbelievably troublesome,’ she thought, her crimson eyes narrowing. But…

“We continue.”

Her voice was not loud, but it struck the silent crater like a thunderbolt. Every single lowered head snapped upward, an incredible, blazing light reigniting in their eyes.

Vera averted her gaze, staring pointedly toward the distant horizon to hide the microscopic softening of her expression. She adopted a tone of resigned, aristocratic casualness. “Consider it a public service. We will proceed to exterminate the remaining pests on that list, one by one.”

It was a transparent, entirely perfunctory excuse. But for the Sarkaz standing before her, it was gospel.

“Ooooooh!”

“Long live Big Sister!”

“Exterminate the pests! Leave absolutely no one alive!”

The crushing gloom evaporated instantly. The mercenaries hoisted their battered weapons toward the sky, howling and roaring with feral elation as if they had just conquered the entire world.

Hoederer took a deliberate step backward, placing his right hand over his chest in a crisp, respectful bow. “As you command, Boss.”

Vera watched the rowdy, screaming mercenaries, a phantom headache already throbbing behind her temples. She sighed, looking away from the chaotic display. ‘Yes. Definitely troublesome.’

However…

She adjusted her grip, lifting the sleeping W a fraction higher against her shoulder, and shot Hoederer a sharp glare. “Set up camp. Rest and treat the wounded immediately.” Her crimson eyes swept over the severe burns, the exhaustion, and the trembling limbs of her squad. “The cleanup mission… can wait until tomorrow.”

“Yes, Boss!”

The mercenaries formed a tight, protective perimeter around Vera, marching away from the ruined valley toward a new horizon. Hidden from their view, the absolute faintest trace of a smile curled the corners of Vera’s mouth. The moment Ines glanced her way, the expression vanished without a trace.

‘I suppose… I don’t entirely hate it.’