Myths Reawakened

With her attempts failing, Vera lay on her mother and sobbed in heartbreak. As Wayne had expected, seeing one’s hope shattered and having disappointment evolve into despair was a bottomless pit of pain one could not crawl out of.

“Let me try!”

Wayne clenched his jaw, patting Vera on the shoulder. If the conventional ways didn’t wake her mother, surgery would be the only option.

“I’ll be upfront with you. The risk is high, and her mind may end up twisted. If something goes wrong, don’t blame me...”

Wayne muttered. The way Vera’s eyes lit up with hope stressed him out, but after more hesitation, he still took Carter’s hand.

Once he touched the knight medal, golden light soared toward the sky. Warm sunlight shrouded his entire body, manifesting armor pieces on his chest, shoulders, and arms, and then a pair of gauntlets covered his hands. By the end of it, he was clad in a full set of knight armor that glinted with golden light.

The radiance was imbued with a sacred energy. Each armor piece was finely crafted like an artwork, with every curve embodying power and beauty, as if crafted from the rarest gold. The dignified and stunning armor seemed capable of dispersing the darkness of the whole world.

Vera stared at Wayne and the Sun Knight’s armor he wore, her tears dropping in starts and stops. She cocked her head in confusion. To her knowledge, Wayne was the future Nature Knight. How could the same person be the successor of two chosen knights? It didn’t make sense!

Valkyrie was beyond shocked. What was the goddess thinking, and what even were the criteria for chosen knights? Did he really qualify?

She recognized Wayne’s value and incredible talent, but his personal life... left much to be desired. Forgive her bluntness, but Wayne’s chivalrous spirit—or the lack thereof—set the lowest bar for all Sun Knights throughout history. He could singlehandedly lower the average score to rock bottom.

Wayne was entirely unfazed. When he touched the coffin, the Book of Greed acquired part of the Sun Knight’s power. He just couldn’t be bothered with turning into the Sun Knight because it was just another Tuesday for him.

This had been the third time that it happened to him. He no longer felt the excitement to experiment.

Just then, Carter woke up from her slumber like the seal had been lifted. She slowly opened her eyes, looking at the radiant knight before her. She blurted out, “Sir Leo!”

Who’s Leo? The current Sun Knight?

Wayne got to his feet and let out a sigh of relief as Carter roused. He was this close to making Vera hate him. He still remembered how Senna had changed. While her mind resisted him, her body was honest with her yearning. She would fall deeper and deeper, even without him doing anything. Perhaps she would be volunteering to warm his bed the next time they met.

Thankfully, touching the medal woke Carter up. Otherwise...

Wayne’s heart thumped with belated fright. Although having both the mother and daughter sounded thrilling, there was a limit to how scummy a person could be. He would be worse than an animal if he went for that.

“Mo-mother...”

Vera stumbled with her words, her big eyes brimming with tears. She threw herself into Carter’s arms and bawled.

Her childhood memory of her parents had long become blurry, and she could only ever fantasize about reuniting with them through the pictures they had taken. Now that her fantasy was becoming reality, her joy was inevitable.

Carter was stunned into inaction for a long time. She put her arms around her now adult daughter, her expression still one of disbelief. She had been asleep for years, unaware of the passage of time. The baby daughter she remembered had suddenly become a big girl, leaving her at a loss.

Wayne nodded at Carter and dispersed the armor of the Sun Knight, taking a few steps back.

That was only part of the chosen knight’s power, imperfect because he lacked the key divine weapon. Among his four chosen knight forms, it was the weakest. It might even be less powerful than simply putting Valkyrie on.

The mother and daughter embraced each other. The daughter cried nonstop while the stunned mother hurriedly attempted to console the girl. Soon, the mother started crying, too.

It was the appropriate response given the circumstances.

Valkyrie disintegrated into light particles before manifesting into armor on Wayne. She felt around with her fair hands, checking if he had become any different.

“Please behave yourself, Valkyrie,” Wayne deadpanned. “A student-master relationship is strictly forbidden.”

Valkyrie smiled awkwardly, apologizing immediately for her unbecoming behavior. Then she asked Wayne to open his thoughts to her so that she could interact with him and inspect him more directly.

That won’t do. You’ll fall!

Wayne turned her down decisively. Curiosity would kill a knight.

Of course, Valkyrie had received an ancient god’s blessing, so her unusual thoughts defied common sense, and she might just be perfectly fine after staring at Wayne’s thoughts directly. However, he had too many secrets to allow her a glimpse. If he was going to show her the truth, she had to fall and serve him.

Flutter!

Snow glided down from the sky, giving Wayne suspicious looks. It had seen him turning into the Sun Knight. No matter how it thought about it, it couldn’t figure out how the Death Knight had turned into the Sun Knight.

“Kekekeke—” Wayne turned around and cackled at the snowy owl perched on his shoulder. “It’s all because of you. I turned into the Sun Knight because of you, the goddess’s messenger.”

Snow’s pupils contracted. Yes, it was the one to let the Death Knight in. It was the reason Valkyrie had mistaken Wayne’s identity and taught him the dragonslaying swordsmanship thoughtlessly. It was a sinner. Even after its sentence, a longer punishment awaited.

After scaring Snow, Wayne recalled what the messenger bird had seen with a frown. A terrible monster lay hidden behind the black mountains, or, rather, the black mountains were the monster’s body.

Thoggua!

Golden City was only the start. The monster could wake up at any time. If it roused, it would be a terror on the scale of a natural catastrophe.

What about the Frozen Land? Was the monster there even worse?

Wayne’s brows furrowed tightly. In the image Snow transmitted to him, there was a rapidly running figure who possessed part of the Sun Knight’s power, and they were about to climb over the black mountains.

Thankfully, all was going according to plan. There was still time.

Wayne closed his eyes and waved, trying to summon the power as the Sun Knight. All three tries failed.

He looked at the black mountains in surprise, suspecting their magnetic field was the cause of the failures. He took two steps forward, ignoring the bawling mother and daughter as he extracted the medal from Carter’s hand.

The duo didn’t look very smart.

Holding the medal, Wayne tried to summon the power again, but it didn’t work. The power in the distance refused to listen to his command.

His eyes throbbed. The Sun Knight’s power that he had swallowed was too weak for him to tame the stray power into submission. He turned to Carter and said, “Folks, I know this isn’t a good time, but the knight’s power is getting closer to Thoggua and will soon become Thoggua’s food. Auntie Carter, can you retrieve that power?”

He handed the medal over.

Carter consoled Vera before asking curiously, “Sir Knight, if it’s something even you can’t do after gaining the goddess’s recognition, how can I possibly do it?”

Whoa, that makes so much sense!

Wayne blinked. Before he could respond, Carter inquired in a respectful voice, “I’m Carter Watson, wife of the chosen knight’s squire, Cushing Watson. I don’t believe I have asked for your name.”

“Wayne.” He patted Vera’s head. “Her boyfriend.”

“Huh?”

Carter was shocked. Her daughter was only five. Why would she... Oh, she was turning twenty-one soon. It was natural for her to have a boyfriend.

“Yeah, Wayne’s my boyfriend.” Vera nuzzled her mother’s chest and mumbled, “Where’s father? Why isn’t he with you?”

“Oh, no. Your father!”

Carter might have slept for so long that her thoughts had gotten rusty, or she might not have been that bright to begin with. Hearing her daughter’s question, she suddenly remembered that she had a husband.

“The Church of Darkness failed the seal,” she said hurriedly. “We were on a mission to reapply the seal in the Ocean of Mist. That was when we discovered the Golden City and the followers born from Thoggua’s will...”

“Our companions fell one by one in the fight. To protect me, Cushing gave me the medal, while he continued fighting with the rest of the Sun Knight’s power. Now...”

Carter looked into the distance, her tears dropping nonstop. “The power that Sir Knight mentioned has to be him. He hasn’t forgotten his own name.”

Wayne’s pupils contracted. No wonder he wasn’t able to summon the knight’s power. The current Sun Knight, Leo, had entrusted his power to Cushing, and since Leo had higher authority over the power than Wayne, he couldn’t summon it.

Then...

Wayne looked at the mountain ranges in the distance. The monster that Snow had seen had to be Cushing. He narrowed his eyes, Knight’s hideous form flashing through his mind. If the monster was Vera’s father, did he avoid his daughter because he didn’t want her to see him like that?

He’s a real man!

Wayne took a deep breath. “Don’t cry just yet. I’ll check. Once I take him back, it won’t be too late for the three of you to cry at the family reunion.”

He was going to have Valkyrie teleport him, but Vera took his hand, crying silently. She wanted her father back, but she didn’t want to lose her boyfriend. Her gaze was filled with complicated feelings.

“Don’t worry. It won’t take long.” Wayne smiled. When Vera refused to let go, he dragged her out of Carter’s embrace and lowered his head to kiss her deeply.

“We’ll continue after I return, my dear...”