Treatise Of A Failed Knight-Chapter 251: March Towards Freedom

The interior of the Southern Kingdom is chaos incarnate.

The enemies have presented their lack of desire to surrender, so an announcement will be useless.

Only a resolute march remains.

Kalakuta leads the charge through the ruined walls, his blade already wet with blood. The Freedom Fighters pour in behind him, their battle cries echoing off the ancient stone buildings that make up this final bastion of the old world.

But something is wrong.

The defending soldiers don’t fight with the discipline of trained warriors.

Their formations are ragged, desperate. Their equipment varies wildly—some wear proper armor while others clutch weapons with hands more familiar with farming tools than swords.

Kalakuta cuts down an opponent and sees the man’s face properly for the first time.

Terror.

Not the calculated fear of a soldier facing death, but the raw, primal terror of someone who has no business being on a battlefield.

"Please," the man gasps, blood bubbling from his lips. "Please... my family... they have my family..."

The words hit Kalakuta harder than any blade.

Around him, the battle continues to rage. The Freedom Fighters push deeper into the kingdom, overwhelming the defenders through sheer numbers and momentum. The Magivores that the Knight controls rampage through the streets, smashing buildings and scattering soldiers.

But as Kalakuta looks—truly looks—at the faces of those opposing him, understanding crashes over him like a wave of ice water.

These aren’t professional soldiers.

These are civilians. Farmers. Craftsmen. Shopkeepers. People forced to take up arms not by conviction but by coercion.

"FREEDOM FIGHTERS, HALT!"

His voice booms across the battlefield with such authority that even in the midst of combat, his people hesitate. The fighting doesn’t stop completely—battles have momentum that can’t be arrested so easily—but it slows, creating pockets of stillness amid the carnage.

That’s when Kalakuta sees it.

On the walls of the inner citadel, hundreds of people are chained. Men, women, children—entire families bound together, surrounded by soldiers in the distinctive crimson armor of the Southern Kingdom’s elite guard. These are the real military force, and they hold weapons not pointed at the Freedom Fighters but at the captives.

A figure emerges on the highest rampart. An old man in royal regalia, his crown glinting in the afternoon sun. The King of the Southern Kingdom.

"Kalakuta!" His voice carries across the battlefield, magically amplified. "The great liberator! The breaker of chains! How fitting that you arrive just in time to see what your liberation truly means!"

The King gestures, and several of the elite guards press their blades against the throats of the chained civilians.

"Every person defending my kingdom has family up here. For every soldier you kill, I execute ten of their loved ones. For every step forward you take, more innocent blood spills. So tell me, great champion of freedom—whose freedom are you fighting for? Theirs?" He points to the chained masses. "Or your own?"

Kalakuta stands frozen, his crimson eyes wide with dawning horror.

The battlefield has gone eerily quiet now, both sides watching this exchange.

The Freedom Fighters look to their leader, waiting for guidance. The conscripted defenders clutch their weapons with shaking hands, caught between the army before them and the hostages behind them.

"You see, Kalakuta, I’ve studied you." The King continues, pacing along the rampart like a professor delivering a lecture. "I know your history. I know your pain. You were a slave who broke his chains and decided that everyone else should be free too. A noble goal, truly. But did you ever ask yourself why? Why does the freedom of strangers matter so much to you?"

Around Kalakuta, his closest advisors gather.

The War Council members and the all stand near, waiting for his response.

"Is it truly altruism?" The King’s voice drips with mockery. "Or is it something more selfish? Do you fight for their freedom, or do you fight to prove to yourself that you are truly free? That you escaped not just physical chains but the mental ones as well?"

Kalakuta’s hands tremble.

His blade—the sword that has cut down so many tyrants—suddenly feels impossibly heavy.

"If you continue this battle, you will kill them all. Every conscripted father fighting to protect his children. Every mother who took up a spear because her family was threatened. Every child old enough to hold a weapon who was told that compliance was the only way to keep their siblings alive."

The King spreads his arms wide, encompassing the entire battlefield.

"So I ask you again—whose freedom are you fighting for?"

Silence.

The question hangs in the air like a blade suspended above Kalakuta’s neck.

His mind races through years of struggle, decades of conviction. Every battle fought. Every sacrifice made. Every promise of freedom delivered to those who had forgotten such things were possible.

But why?

Why had he done it all?

For them? For the abstract ideal of universal liberation?

Or for himself? To prove that his own escape meant something? That he wasn’t just a lucky slave who happened to break his chains but a man who could break all chains everywhere?

The honest answer terrifies him.

Around him, the Freedom Fighters begin to murmur. Doubt creeps into their ranks like poison. Some lower their weapons, looking at the conscripted defenders with new eyes. Others grip their weapons tighter, angry at being forced into this impossible position.

Kalakuta feels the movement fracturing around him.

The cause crumbling.

The dream dying.

All because of one question he cannot answer.

Then, like dawn breaking through storm clouds, something shifts in his expression.

The terror fades.

The doubt evaporates.

A smile spreads across Kalakuta’s face—not the warm, reassuring smile of a leader comforting his followers, but something wilder.

Something more dangerous.

"Haaa... haha..." He begins to laugh.

It starts as a low chuckle but builds into full-throated laughter that echoes across the shocked battlefield.

People stare at him as if he’s gone mad.

Perhaps he has.

"You’re right," Kalakuta finally says, his voice carrying the same terrible clarity as the King’s amplified words. "You’re absolutely right."

He raises his blade, not pointing it at the King but holding it high for all to see.

"I have been lying to myself. All this time, I told myself I fought for others. For the abstract ideal of freedom. For the dream that all people deserved to choose their own paths." His crimson eyes blaze with new intensity. "But that was never the truth. Not completely."

The King leans forward, sensing victory.

"I fought for my own freedom," Kalakuta continues, his voice growing stronger. "I thought that by freeing others, I would somehow free myself from the chains that still bind my mind. I thought that if I could tear down every wall and break every chain in the world, I would finally prove to myself that I was truly free."

He lowers his blade, pointing it now directly at the King.

"But I was wrong. Freedom isn’t something you prove. It isn’t something you earn through righteous action or moral superiority. Freedom is something you claim. Something you seize. Something you define for yourself."

Kalakuta turns to face his army, his followers, the people who have believed in him for so long.

"I am free," he declares, "because I choose to be. Not because I have freed others. Not because I have torn down kingdoms or broken tyrants. I am free because I have decided what freedom means to me, and I march toward that vision regardless of the cost."

The smile on his face is almost serene now.

"So yes, old King. You are right. I fight for myself. I have always fought for myself. The liberation of others was the path I chose for my own freedom, but it was always my choice. My freedom. My dream."

He raises his voice so that everyone on the battlefield can hear.

"FREEDOM FIGHTERS! Brothers and sisters who have followed me this far! I will ask nothing more of you. You have your own freedom to claim. Your own ideals to pursue. If you believe in the dream of universal liberation, fight for it. If you believe in protecting the innocent, fight for that. If you believe this battle has become something wrong, then lay down your weapons."

His blade points forward, toward the citadel, toward the King, toward the impossible choice.

"And if your ideal of freedom opposes mine—if you think I have become a tyrant pursuing his own selfish vision at the cost of innocent lives—then fight me. I don’t mind. I welcome it. Because that would be you exercising your freedom to choose."

The battlefield holds its breath.

Then Kalakuta’s smile transforms into something fierce and wild and utterly uncompromising.

"But I will march forward. Not for you. Not for them. For myself. For the vision of freedom that burns in my heart. I will tear down this kingdom because that is what my freedom demands. And yes, blood will be spilled. Innocents will die. The cost will be terrible."

He takes a step forward, and the ground seems to tremble beneath his foot.

"But that is the price of pursuing one’s own freedom to its ultimate conclusion. That is the cost of choosing your own path and refusing to be deterred by obstacles, no matter how sympathetic those obstacles may be."

Another step. Then another.

"I am Kalakuta. I broke my chains. I claimed my freedom. And I will pursue that freedom until either I achieve it or I die in the attempt. Nothing will stop me. Not kings. Not armies. Not moral dilemmas. Not even the innocents used as shields against my advance."

The Knight watches this transformation with an expression impossible to read.

Slowly, almost unconsciously, a smile forms on his face.

A smile of recognition.

A smile of understanding.

A smile of something darker.

’So you finally understand it, too... The selfishness hidden within your ideal.’

Kalakuta raises his blade high, and when he speaks again, his voice contains all the terrible certainty of a man who has finally, completely, honestly understood himself.

"Fight for what you believe in! Your own ideal of freedom! Whether it aligns with mine or opposes it, fight for it with everything you have! That is the only way any of us will ever truly be free!"

Then, without waiting to see who will follow, without looking back to count his supporters, Kalakuta charges forward.

Alone at first, a single figure sprinting toward impossible odds.

But not alone for long.

Because behind him, some of the Freedom Fighters—those who understand this terrible, honest vision of freedom—begin to move.

Not all of them.

Perhaps not even most of them.

But enough.

Enough to shake the earth.

Enough to remind the world what it looks like when someone pursues their own freedom without compromise, without hesitation, without the comforting lies of altruism to soften the edges of their ambition.

The battle resumes with renewed fury.

But this time, everyone knows exactly what they’re fighting for.