Count Caspar couldn't fathom the gate's weight, but he remembered its installation - a hundred laborers struggling with every tool imaginable. Yet here stood Adam lifting it single-handedly. Was this even humanly possible?

  The count's cheek twitched violently. His wineglass slipped from numb fingers, shattering unnoticed.

  Dead silence gripped the square as Adam carved boot-shaped craters in the cobblestones. The swaying monolith sent villagers scrambling backward, forming a terrified corridor.

  Eightfold Might Enhancement - a third-tier spell mastered only by grandmages. Adam could push to nine layers, stabilize the gate effortlessly... and turn his bones to powder within the armor. Lich magic wasn't meant for living flesh.

  Wooden barriers splintered underfoot as Adam reached the arena. With earth-shaking finality, he planted the iron slab like a war monument. Chains thicker than ship ropes coiled around his body as he scaled his makeshift tower.

  From the battlement, the watching black cat's jaw hit stonework again as moonlight revealed the scene - Adam silhouetted against the silver disc, his shadow engulfing the opponent's entire fighting space.

  The challenger's face contorted beyond recognition.

  "Shall we begin?" Adam's voice echoed across the arena.

  The herald flinched as if struck. "C-commence!" he stammered, parchment trembling in his grip.

  Clang!

  Before the final syllable faded, the challenger's sword kissed cobblestones. "I... surrender."

  The square erupted. Stone gargoyles rattled in their niches as thousands roared approval. No duel had occurred, yet victory already crowned Adam's brow. Even Count Caspar's grip on reality seemed to slip, his jeweled goblet rolling forgotten into sawdust.

  It unfolded like some divine comedy - the iron colossus standing triumphant where lesser men should lie broken. What choice remained when facing a being who treated castle gates as parasols?

  "Next contender!" The herald's cry cracked mid-shout.

  Chainmail clinked as fresh victims were thrust forward, only to repeat the sword-abandoning ritual. Caspar sat frozen, liver-spotted hands trembling uncontrollably. His family crest's embroidered lions seemed to cower in their threadbare glory.

  "By the Nine Hells, not me!"

  "Madness! Sheer madness!"

  "You first!"

  The remaining knights dissolved into a shoving match of gilt armor, their ancestral pride crumbling faster than autumn leaves.

  The crowd's frenzy reached fever pitch. Maidens screamed themselves hoarse for the faceless champion, their clapping hands blooming crimson like poppy fields. This enigma wrapped in steel might as well have been moonlight given form.

  "Who is he?" Gossipmongers hissed through gold-capped teeth, parchment scrolls crumbling in frustrated fists. For once, their web of lies held no answers.

  Eileen petrified.

  Horus petrified.

  Abe Roberts petrified.

  Only Mac stirred, clawing upright from his makeshift sickbed. "Bloody hell..."

  "Looks like we bagged ourselves a war god!" Pasco whistled through bandaged lips, his mirth cutting through tension thicker than castle walls.

  By the ale-stained pillars, two gate guards exchanged panicked whispers: "Ain't that the village idiot who came begging this morning?"

  "COWARD! COWARD! COWARD!" The chant shook flagstones as spectators stomped in unison, their fury rattling Caspar's jeweled throne.

  "Fix this!" The Count's spittle flecked his steward's face.

  After frantic consultations, the sweat-drenched steward wheezed: "They'll renounce knighthoods before facing him... unless... mounted combat."

  "Mounted?"

  "Aye, my lord."

  The unspoken truth hung heavier than Adam's gate: No rules protected honor here. Only survival.

  Leaning heavily on his scepter, the Count rose like a marionette on frayed strings. "Your might astounds us, ser knight!" His voice cracked with forced grandeur. "As tournament master, I insist we witness your equestrian prowess!"

  "Jousting?!" Eileen slammed her gauntlets on the viewing box's edge. "The victor chooses combat terms per our pact!"

  "Ah, but without mounts..." Caspar's smile oozed venomous honey, "my valiant knights decline participation. No duelists means... eternal stalemate."

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  The arena became thunderstorm and earthquake fused.

  "JOUST! JOUST!" chanted gilt-armored cowards.

  "CHEAT! CHEAT!" roared the peasant tempest.

  Adam's silhouette shifted atop the iron monolith. "Question?" His voice cut through chaos like a whetstone.

  "Speak."

  "If I agree to ride..." He tilted his head, moonlight glinting off visor slits. "...could you send all your knights?"

  Eileen's strategic scrolls slipped from numb fingers. "All forty-seven?"

  "Precisely." Adam's tone suggested a child requesting extra dessert. "Reaching my fifty-knockout quota gets tedious otherwise."

  "Gods smile upon your valor!" Caspar's jowls quivered with barely contained glee. "The challenge stands!"

  Eileen's armored gloves creaked in protest. "You'd face forty-eight lancers? Alone?"

  "Is that... inadvisable?" Adam's helm tilted like a confused owl. The clank of shifting iron plates underscored his sincerity.

  "Inadvisable?!" The lady knight's braid whipped through air as she spun. "You might as well gift-wrap my fiefdom!"

  "Now now, dear niece," Caspar cooed, emerald rings glittering as he steepled fingers. "Shouldn't you rejoice? Your champion seeks glory even the bards would deem absurd!"

  "ALL! AT! ONCE!" The mob's roar shook tournament banners.

  "A wise liege heeds his people's will." The Count's smile could curdle milk.

  Eileen collapsed into her seat, breastplate rattling against stone. Behind her, Horus resembled a landed fish. "Your friend's brains addled by forge-smoke?"

  "Sun-touched through and through," Pasco confirmed through a mouthful of stolen mutton.

  As stewards dragged lances into the arena, Adam began humming a tavern ditty. The iron "tombstone" behind him caught first dawnlight, casting forty-eight slender shadows across the lists - each precisely knight-shaped.

  "All combatants to the lists!" The herald's cry pierced the din.

  Forty-eight lancers emerged like steel floodwater, their barded destriers churning cobblestones to powder. What began as a tournament now resembled siege warfare.

  Eileen's knuckles whitened around her sword hilt. Could miracles strike twice in one dawn?

  Adam descended his iron perch with glacial calm. Chains fell away like serpent skins as he approached the screaming bone-steed. His whisper stilled the undead mount - a secret shared between old war comrades.

  A collective gasp rose when he drew his pitted longsword. No shield. No plate. Just moonlight glinting off nicked steel.

  "Adam! Adam! Adam!" The chant became a war drum as he trotted center-field.

  Horus gripped his spare lance until the wood creaked. "Should we...?"

  "Let the fool reap his folly," Pasco muttered, though his eyes tracked every twitch in the knight formation.

  Across the arena, forty-eight lances leveled as one. Caspar's grin stretched corpse-wide. "CHARGE!"

  The earth itself seemed to recoil as armored tons surged forward. No living thing could survive this steel tsunami - yet ten thousand throats roared in fervent belief.

  Adam raised his blade in salute.

  The bone-steed's hollow eye sockets flared crimson.

  Adam's bone-steed shot forward like a ballista bolt. Steel flashed - CLANG! - as his longsword rebounded off a knight's pauldron.

  The blade pirouetted through dawnlight, sailed end over end, and thunk into the dirt... three paces behind his mount's tail.

  Silence thicker than castle walls descended.

  "Er..." Adam's visor swiveled between sword and advancing horde. His armored fingers stretched, clanked, fell short by a handspan.

  "HE CAN'T REACH IT!" A squire's gleeful shriek broke the spell.

  The crowd's collective jaw hit sawdust-strewn ground. Eileen performed a perfect impression of a suffocating trout. Horus began systematically headbutting the viewing stand's marble column.

  "FINISH HIM!" Caspar's roar cracked octaves.

  Forty-eight lancers became a avalanche. A tsunami. A steel hurricane.

  Adam's panicked yelp carried clear to the outermost stalls as he yanked reins sideways. The bone-steed pivoted, accidentally mooning the charging horde with its skeletal hindquarters.

  Just as all deemed Adam's defeat inevitable, the bone-steed unleashed an earth-shaking screech and surged forward—not evading, but charging headlong into the storm of lances.

  Adam's lips moved in silent incantation. For a heartbeat, Horus—a cavalry master—felt his pulse stop. This suicidal charge defied every tactical principle burned into his soul. Yet the miracle unfolded anew, shattering mortal comprehension.

  "Quadruple Brute Force! Quadruple Shield! Stacked!"

  The lead knight's lance struck true against the skeletal neck... only to snap like rotten timber. A faint ripple shimmered at the impact point, leaving neither scratch nor dent on the bone-steed's obsidian-like carapace. This was no mere metal statue—no earthly forge could craft armor impervious to forty-eight charging lances.

  Adam's mastery eclipsed human understanding. While surface mages boasted of knowing two hundred spells, this undead knight wielded over a thousand arcane formulae. True, his offensive magic remained clumsy and aerial incantations nonexistent (what need for flight in lightless catacombs?). But survival magics? Those he'd honed to perfection during his year-long flight from Lich Brutus' wrath.

  The very spells that barely kept him ahead of an immortal horror now proved grotesquely excessive against flesh-and-blood knights. Where layered shields once barely withstood necrotic death beams, they now rendered mortal steel as threatening as raindrops.

  At last, the Lich resumed its rightful role as support, clearing the stage for tonight's true protagonist—the bone-steed.

  Chaos became poetry. The skeletal warhorse moved with divine fury, its hooves painting arcs of destruction through armored ranks. A triple-layered cocktail of might, armor, and gale-force enchantments transformed the undead mount into a living battering ram. Forty-eight knights might as well have been wheat stalks before this reaping.

  "Monster! I yield!" A knight's cry pierced the din as he abandoned his weapon.

  "Unholy abomination!" Another fled, spurs bloody from frantic kicking.

  Like dominoes they fell, until only Adam remained astride his panting steed beneath the blessed silvery moon. Torchlight danced across his dented armor as Lady Eileen descended the viewing stand, her gown's train sweeping through sawdust.

  The crowd leaned forward, breath held. This should have been legend-forging—the noble lady presenting her champion's sword beneath celestial glow. Yet the blade she retrieved was the same rusted scrap that had earlier flown from Adam's grip.

  "Er..." Adam adjusted his crooked visor, oblivious to the pregnant silence. "I counted exactly fifty. Does this mean I qualify for knighthood now?"

  The square exploded. Cheers shook pigeon flocks from rooftops. Truth be told, none cared about qualifications anymore—they simply needed to scream their awe into the night.