Every Morning, My Mirror Saves the World - Chapter 29

Chapter 29

There was no warning, no declaration, not even a spray of blood. The pitch-black helmet flew into the air, then dropped sharply with a crisp clang before rolling several steps away.

Ruiyin stared, dumbfounded, at the Black Knight who had lost his head in an instant. Somehow, he could still slowly raise a hand and feel around the armor encircling the cleanly severed stump of his neck.

“Ruiyin! Ruiyin!” Lars grabbed Ruiyin in a panic and shook her like there was no tomorrow, both hands clamped on her shoulders as he flipped her this way and that like he was turning a pancake. “Are you all right, Ruiyin? Are you hurt? Frightened? Did he… Where did he take you? What did he do to you? Why aren’t you saying anything? What happened? Are there any other problems QAQ?!”

…Every single thing about this was a huge problem, okay?!

Ruiyin shoved the frantic Lars away and pointed at the decapitated Black Knight. “He-he-he… Why did you kill him?”

Lars gave the headless knight a casual glance, then snapped his attention back in less than half a second, his rhythm completely undisturbed. “Does anything hurt? Were you poisoned? Maybe cursed? Ruiyin, say something! Hurry up and answer me QAQ!!!”

There was no communicating with someone like this!

With a dark expression, Ruiyin rapped Lars on the wrist and snatched the sword from his hand. Then, quick as lightning, she flipped the hilt around and brought it down on his head with a solid clang. His eyes spun dazedly for a few circles before finally settling again.

“Calmed down now?”

Lars nodded timidly, though he still looked unwilling to give up as he pawed through Ruiyin’s hair, searching for the wounds he had imagined into existence.

Ruiyin pushed him away impatiently and turned back, a little nervously, to look at the Black Knight. He was still headless, half-crouched on the ground as he fumbled bit by bit for his own head. After much difficulty, he finally found it, only to accidentally kick it because of his height. The head rolled even farther away…

“Excuse me,” the head on the distant ground said with exceptional calm. “Could you help me find my body?”

Without a word, Ruiyin walked over and picked up the head.

“Thank you,” the head said politely. “On behalf of my body, I thank you.”

“…You’re welcome.”

This sense of wrongness was truly indescribable…

To her surprise, the head in her hands was astonishingly light. She happened to glance inside the helmet and froze solid on the spot.

“…There’s nothing.” Ruiyin stared at the helmet in her hands in disbelief. “It’s empty inside!”

Lars rushed over in three strides and snatched the helmet from Ruiyin’s hands to take a look. His face immediately fell. Carrying his sword, he strode back. Before Ruiyin could figure out what he was doing, Lars had already raised the blade and, with one clean stroke, sliced off the Black Knight’s arm!

Ruiyin went completely silent on the spot, staring at him as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

Lars picked up the arm from the ground, frowned, and peered inside. Then he straightened with a blank expression and, moving as smoothly as flowing water, chopped off the other arm too.

“…” This wasn’t a dream after all. Ruiyin hurried two steps forward and seized the sword from Lars’s hand.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she snapped, glaring at him. “Do you think you’re chopping vegetables? I’m never giving this back to you!”

“B-but…” Lars stammered, aggrieved. “He’s… he’s empty inside.”

Ruiyin instinctively glanced at the arm in Lars’s hand. Inside the hollow metal shell, there was only coiling black mist. Other than that, there was nothing at all.

“Hey,” Ruiyin said hesitantly, making a request. “Um… Mordova, since you can still move even like this, can we take the other parts apart and have a look?”

Black Knight: “…”

Half an hour later, Ruiyin, Galahad, and Lars sat in a circle. In the middle lay armor parts dismantled all over the ground.

These three little brats!

“There really isn’t anything.” Galahad’s expression was grave as he casually tossed aside an emptied finger joint of armor. The black mist inside the metal shell squirmed pitifully, then slowly searched the ground in vain for the remains of the companion that had once held hands with it.

These little brats had removed every last screw from the Black Knight’s armor, yet they had not found anything inside that could represent the Black Knight’s existence. The only thing supporting that massive shell’s movement seemed to be the clump of black mist within.

Even an Undead, at the very least, had to have something that allowed the soul to remain. For someone like the Black Knight, who had nothing at all, there was only one possibility: he had died because of the most vicious forbidden curse. This kind of forbidden curse could not be cast by humans. It could only be triggered when the ultimate form of “evil” appeared.

To summarize: only top-tier VIP members of the Association of Creative Ways to Court Death could possibly trigger the aforementioned scenario and thereby achieve the effect of lingering in the world even after death. Ruiyin felt this example was more than good enough to use as the association’s membership recruitment slogan.
“What’s so strange about that?” Galahad said with a broad wave of his hand. “He’s the God of Darkness, the leading figure of evil and deception! If even he couldn’t trigger that legendary forbidden spell, then no one could! But that’s not what I care about. At least now I understand one important thing!”

He puffed out his chest, his face full of barely restrained, sleazy excitement. “I’ve been wondering for ages. The legends say the God of Darkness was best at magic, so how could he possibly have such a tall, imposing build? Now it looks like it’s because he didn’t have a physical form, so that suit of armor got stretched into that shape. I knew it. How could there possibly be anyone with a better body than me, Galahad? Wahahaha!”

Ruiyin lowered her head in thought. The Black Knight’s helmet rested on her knees, and while they shamelessly discussed his body, the Black Knight maintained a very gentlemanly silence.

Of course, it was also possible that these brats had angered him speechless.

Compared with War God Xisaluo, there were pitifully few records about the God of Darkness. No one knew what kind of family he had been born into, what he had done while alive, or what suffering he had endured before his death. He existed only as a defeated man, mentioned with disdain in a few scattered words in the glorious histories written about others. Aside from the Dark Races, who could only live in the shadowed underground, no one cared about anything to do with him.

It sounded… a little sad, actually.

Ruiyin poked Lars, who had remained absolutely silent since earlier. “Lars, what do you think?”

Lars, stuck in a crashed loop: “Ruiyin likes Mordova and doesn’t like me Ruiyin likes Mordova and doesn’t like me…”

Ruiyin: “…Hey, when did I ever say I liked him and didn’t like you?”

Lars, still crashed: “Ruiyin only cares about Mordova and doesn’t care about me Ruiyin only cares about Mordova and doesn’t care about me…”

“…” Forget it.

“Huh? He disappeared!” Galahad cried in surprise.

Perhaps because no one had paid attention to him for too long, while they weren’t looking, the armor pieces piled on the ground were slowly losing their black color, fading little by little into the smoky gray of a true Undead. Even the armor on Ruiyin’s knees slowly turned transparent. The Black Knight did not say another word, and after a short while, every trace of his existence vanished into the air.

“He’s gone?” Galahad murmured blankly. “Then where are we supposed to go?”

“Into the city,” Ruiyin said, standing up and patting the dust off her clothes. “See that tallest tower? Mordova told me there’s a passage to the outside world there.”

She lifted her head thoughtfully, gazing at the spired tower that glimmered faintly even in the darkness. “Besides, I keep having this feeling that Mordova won’t disappear that easily.”

Ruiyin turned her head. “All right, time to set out. Lars?”

Lars, still looking as if his soul had left his body: “Ruiyin only wants him and not me only wants him and not me…”

“…” Hey, that’s enough out of you!

Ruiyin borrowed the Silver Sword from Galahad, tested its weight, then expressionlessly brought it down on him. Facts proved that a move did not need to be new as long as it worked. Although still dazed, the Little Knight finally regained his ability to move.

They packed their luggage, briefly treated the two warriors’ wounds with medicine, and prepared to set out again. Ruiyin had just shouldered her pack when Lars, behind her, suddenly tugged on the hem of her clothes.

“I… I’m not the God of Darkness,” Lars said softly, head lowered, seeming a little embarrassed.

“I don’t know magic. I don’t have an army or a city. I’m just an Apprentice Knight. And all along the way… I’ve always had to trouble you to take care of me, Ruiyin.” His voice grew lower and lower as he spoke, but he continued all the same.

“But can you not abandon me? I-I’ll learn! Even if I’m useless right now, one day, I… I’ll become like Mordova. I’ll be able to lay the territories of all four continents before you.”

The boy’s body had long since stretched into a deliciously grown-up stage, but his face still carried a trace of youth that had not yet faded. He lowered his head, his voice trembling, and spoke those words, many of which were practically plagiarized, one by one. He was as devout as he had been many years ago, when he had made his vow before Xisaluo’s divine statue.

Only, this felt completely different from when the Black Knight had said it.

She is my god.

The words she had once heard in another dimension echoed by her ear again. They were so soft they could almost not be heard, yet they crashed into Ruiyin’s heart with a boom, blasting open an enormous pit she could hardly bear.

…The Parenting Bible never mentioned what to do when your brat enters a melodramatic phase! And it definitely never mentioned what to do when your brat acts so cute you can’t handle it!!!

Author’s Note: Shy, bashful, adorable hunks are so… hardcore! I can’t even imagine it!