[@PaulHaynek][@VitaVitaAR][@Raineh Daze][@Psyker Landshark][@ERode]

[color=goldenrod]"We should hope."[/color] came the weary affirmation from Gerard, blade still very much in hand. [color=goldenrod]"Maybe not [i]totally[/i] dead yet, but if he could survive a thrashing like that, it would simply be inhuman."[/color]

He had once again sobered with the finality of the blow and subsequent fall of Jeremiah. He felt the lightness and heat in his chest and frame leaving him, his fullness of reason returning. The battle was by all means won, and there was no need to match its heat within himself. He breathed deep as he took a step back from the burning man's frame, pulse following closely behind his departing fierceness.

He had felt the resistance giving way beneath his sword when he'd swung, even through the roaring flame of the Artificer's blasting rod. Skin, muscle, viscera— he had not swung through empty air, surely. He doubted, though, his ability to point out the wound he had left upon the Bandit King's body. Somewhere upon his left side, of course, but the man was still covered in lingering flames and embers. There would definitely be no bloodflow to attribute to his name. Fire had a way of welding wounds closed much as it could steel.

However, it did nothing to mend the torn structure beneath.

[color=goldenrod]"So saying, is everyone well?"[/color]

He had little time nor presence of mind to extend his concerns for the others before this point— one of the many reasons he was a devout Reonite, after all, was that the Sun Goddess's philosophy of whole-heartedly taking down the evil before you meshed well with him. He had turned all his focus onto "Knight's Doom" and ending him rightly from the moment he'd seen the man, after all. The chaos that followed did little to give him any opportunity to divide his attention elsewhere.

[color=goldenrod][i]Though... It's not as if I am much good for more. I hold no shield to protect with. I would have likely died if I hadn't given my whole being to the fight. With how easily he cut through our fellows... This was the right path for me. So I believe.[/i][/color]

He would still have much further to go and much more to learn before embodying the chivalric ideal he dreamed of, but he had made sure the task at hand was done today. As he regarded the burning body of that titanic murderer with slowly steadying breaths, he offered what small prayer he could muster to the Goddesses for the man's twisted soul.

It was a good deed to strike down the wicked. That was why he had joined this Order.