Others Summon Dragons, I Summon Legendary Knights novel Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Summon Awakening Ceremony

"Are you alright?" Isolde’s voice was calm, though her expression betrayed little. Her tone carried more weight than her face ever did.

"Man, I expected him to break out of it eventually, but he would’ve really fallen. Tsk. Pathetic." Siegfried pointed mockingly at Godfrey, while Snow carried his tray to a table as if nearly throwing someone off the third floor was no different than swatting a bothersome fly.

"You’re laughing? At nearly killing me?" Godfrey’s jaw tightened, his ocean-blue eyes narrowed as he glared at Snow. His chest swelled with restrained fury as he pushed through the crowd and into the heart of the cafeteria.

Beside him, Isolde moved with her usual grace. Sixteen, the same age as Godfrey, her golden-white hair and golden-orange eyes gave her an almost ethereal air. The tension of the cafeteria seemed to bend around her.

"You still run that mouth of yours!" Siegfried barked, stepping forward and throwing a straight punch. It carried strength, but it was reckless, riddled with openings.

Godfrey’s instincts surged. He seized Siegfried’s arm, twisted the elbow, pivoted, and flung him over his back. The sophomore crashed into the ground with a bone-jarring thud.

"I’ll kill you!" Siegfried roared, scrambling to his feet. This time his punch carried his true strength, the kind that could crack cement walls. But to his shock, Godfrey raised his forearm and blocked it.

A strike that should have snapped bone barely made Godfrey flinch.

Siegfried froze. His connection to his beast, gone and strength was gone. In that instant, he was no different from a powerless human.

Godfrey’s fist struck him square across the face. A second blow, an uppercut, lifted Siegfried off his feet and sent him sprawling across the cafeteria floor.

"Did you see that?" a student gasped, abandoning his untouched tray. Another, midway through shoveling food into his mouth, stopped to gape.

"He beat Siegfried. That’s... impossible!" Cecil, the bob-cut girl at Dale’s table, frowned deeply.

Dale, however, only chuckled, arms crossed, eyes sliding mockingly toward Snow, who, for once, looked frozen.

Just then, another lackey surged forward, too fast for Godfrey to follow. Even with his guard raised, the boy’s fists broke through, hammering Godfrey with blow after blow. A final uppercut, the same blow as revenge, launched him into the air, crashing him hard against the wall. He slumped to the ground, unmoving.

The cafeteria fell into stunned silence.

Snow stood. His expression distorted in disdain, then, without a word, he stormed out. Students followed quickly, scattering like startled birds. The idea that Snow had lost his composure was unsettling. Had it been Dale, perhaps they’d accept it. But Snow? No. That was alien.

When the hall had emptied, only Isolde remained. She stood before Godfrey’s crumpled form, her gaze cool.

"Giving you an opportunity for a fair fight was stupid," she said flatly. "You were doomed from the start."

"Even then..." Godfrey’s voice was low, but steady. He forced himself upright, meeting her eyes. "I gave him what he deserved."

Isolde’s golden eyes narrowed, but she said nothing.

"Thank you," Godfrey continued, his breath uneven. "He got to taste what it’s like, calling to your soul and hearing nothing in return. For a minute or two, he lived what I’ve lived for sixteen years."

He pressed a hand to his chest, wincing. "Something’s broken," he muttered, staggering toward the exit.

Minutes later, Godfrey lay on a sickbed in the academy’s infirmary. Manhattan High’s "sick bay" was not for illness, it was for the battered, the broken, the survivors of fights that pushed students to the brink.

Growth was forged in conflict. To maim or to kill was forbidden, on paper. Godfrey wondered if the rules truly mattered. Snow had nearly ended him.

The nurse, dressed in a pristine white coat over pale blue attire, extended her hand. Behind her, a glowing magical circle bloomed, from which descended a radiant dove. Its beak and talons glimmered gold, and its wings spanned twice that of a Steller’s sea eagle, the largest bird recorded before the cataclysm a century ago.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify