The air smelled like burnt meat left on a grill for way too long mixed with old pennies. That metallic, rusty smell of blood that had been sitting around for hours.
Sir Cassiel stood up slowly from where he had been kneeling over the dead children. He did not look anything like the shining hero from those golden murals on the walls anymore.
He looked like what happens when you hollow out a person completely, scoop out everything inside them, and leave nothing behind but an empty shell wearing armor and carrying five thousand years of regrets.
His hands were shaking so badly he looked like he had hypothermia, not from being scared or weak, but from carrying the crushing weight of what he had done to those kids lying dead at his feet.
"You..."
Cassiel's voice came out as barely a whisper, like his throat was full of broken glass.
He pointed the black katana straight at Kaizen's face. The golden streak running down the blade pulsed like a heartbeat that was about to stop beating any second now.
"You brought me back to this moment. You dragged me back to this despair I was trying to forget."
Kaizen gripped the rusty pan handle with both hands so tight his knuckles turned completely white. His palms were already slippery with nervous sweat, and his heart was doing backflips and somersaults inside his ribcage like an Olympic gymnast having a panic attack.
"No. I did not bring you anywhere. You are the one who refuses to leave. You are choosing to stay here."
"SILENCE!"
Cassiel vanished from his place.
It was pure speed. The kind of speed that made physics cry and give up. D-Rank speed that should not be physically possible.
Kaizen's pathetic F-Rank eyes could not track it at all. To him, the Paladin just dissolved into a blur, like the world was lagging and dropping frames. One second Cassiel was standing there, the next second he was just gone.
Kaizen did not see the slash coming. He could not see anything. His brain was still trying to figure out where Cassiel went when his body screamed at him.
But something deep in his lizard brain knew.
It was that primal animal instinct that kicks in right before you get hit by a car. That feeling a rabbit gets right before an eagle's talons close around it. Pure survival mode activating.
MOVE OR DIE!
Kaizen's arms jerked upward without him telling them to. It was not a skilled block. It was not some cool defensive technique he learned. It was pure panic. His body just shoved the rusty pan up between his face and whatever invisible death was screaming toward his head at a billion miles per hour.
CLANG!
The sound exploded through the temple so loud it made his ears ring. It sounded like someone took a massive church bell and hit it with a meteor.
Sparks sprayed everywhere like a fireworks show gone wrong.
The black katana slammed into the rim of the rusty pan hard enough to dent steel.
But it held.
The metal did not snap in half. The rust did not explode off in a cloud. The pan held together against a legendary cursed blade because it was not garbage anymore. His Nonstandard Weapon Authority had turned it into a D Rank weapon, enough to stand against the legendary katana.
Trash Metal versus Holy Despair.
But even though the pan survived, Kaizen's body absolutely did not have a good time.
"GUH!"
The impact shot down his arms like someone had plugged him into an electrical socket.
His elbows locked so hard he heard them pop. His shoulders felt like someone was trying to rip them out of their sockets with pliers. His feet slid backward across the bloody floor, leaving these deep scratch marks in the ancient marble.
'So heavy. He is so stupidly heavy. How does armor weigh this much?'
Kaizen gritted his teeth so hard his jaw hurt, his knees shaking and threatening to just give up on life. Cassiel was pressing down on him with his full weight, and up close Kaizen could see his face twisted into this horrible mix of crying and screaming.
How was Kaizen supposed to win against someone like him?
This was too much. He hadn't thought this through. He knew how to get here but didn't know how to finish this job.
'Man, I don't even know my purpose in this life and I am about to die here!!'
"Why will you not just let me forget?!"
Cassiel screamed right in his face, spit flying, pushing the blade down harder.
"Why must I remember their screams every single night? Why do I have to see their faces every time I close my eyes for five thousand years?!"
Kaizen could feel his bones creaking like old floorboards. He was losing badly. He was F-Rank trying to arm wrestle a D-Rank. He was going to get squished into a red stain on the floor like a bug.
Then he noticed something weird.
[Ding.]
A little number popped up in the corner of his vision.
[Kinetic Energy Absorbed.]
[Multiplier: 1x]
Kaizen's brain stopped panicking for exactly one second.
'Wait. What?'
He stared at the floating number. He could feel the pan vibrating in his hands, humming like it was charging up.
'One times what?'
Then he remembered. The pan's description. "Absorbed the kinetic energy of countless angry chefs." It was not just a blunt weapon. It was a freaking battery.
Every hit it took, it stored the energy. Every block added to the counter. Which meant all that force Cassiel was putting into crushing him was being saved up.
And if it could store energy, that meant he could let it out.
It was not about being stronger. It was about being a punching bag first, then hitting back with everything at once.
Kaizen looked up at Cassiel's face, all covered in black tears and twisted with five thousand years of guilt. He realized he did not need to beat Cassiel in a fair fight. He just needed to tank enough hits to fill up his revenge meter, then dump it all back in his face.
A slightly insane smile crept onto Kaizen's face despite the fact that his arms felt like they were about to fall off.
"You want to remember everything?"
Kaizen grunted through gritted teeth, still straining under the weight of that cursed sword.
Cassiel blinked, looking genuinely confused about why this kid was smiling while getting crushed.
"Then let me help refresh your memory real quick."
Kaizen shoved the pan forward with everything his noodle arms had, breaking the lock.
He did not back away. He stepped closer, right into the danger zone, like an absolute idiot.