Seventy years ago, in the Maweera Desert.

In the afterglow of the setting sun, a middle-aged man in shabby plate armor and a face scarf around his mouth led a tall Bactrian camel and walked with difficulty in the boundless sea of sand. Behind him, a boy wrapped in a cloak followed suit.

As he passed a cluster of dry, thorny bushes, the boy's eyes were drawn to a sand lizard hidden in the bushes. The sand lizard was now closing its eyes as if taking a nap, and the boy stopped, hesitated for a few seconds, and then walked towards the bush.

He cautiously reached out his hand, trying to grab the small sand lizard waiting for the night to fall. The boy's attention was all on the sand lizard, but he ignored the hideous spikes that littered the bushes.

"Ahh His hand was unexpectedly cut by the spikes, and a few drops of scarlet blood dripped down the wound, and in an instant they were sucked clean by the yellow sand under his feet.

The sand lizard was woken up by this low cry. It slid swiftly on all fours, sliding out of the bushes and crawling to a nearby sand dune, where it vanished, leaving only a trail of shallow paw prints.

The boy's low cry also startled the middle-aged man who was silently moving forward in front of him, and he let go of the reins of the camel, put his hand on his waist, and hurriedly looked behind him.

There was no sign of any monsters or beasts behind him, only the boy himself standing in place. The man relieved himself, pulled down the face towel, and shouted to the boy not far away, "Darren, what are you doing? It's getting dark, keep up!"

"I'm hurt, Mr. Hall!" the boy staggered over and reached out to the man.

After looking at the boy's injury, the middle-aged man known as 'Mr. Hall' took off the metal glove of his right hand and rested his palm on top of the wound.

Immediately after, a soft and divine brilliance suddenly burst out from the man's palm, and after two heartbeats, the brilliance disappeared, and the man put on the metal gloves again, turned around and walked forward.

Boy Darren looked down at the back of his hand, the wound on it had healed completely, leaving only a pale pink sign of new life. He smiled happily and chased after him.

At night, the desert sky is vast and clear, with the occasional meteor passing by, falling into the unknown distance. Under the misty moonlight, a small bonfire burned quietly, and the light smoke rose like silk.

Beside the campfire, the boy Darren was nibbling on the jerky and asked the middle-aged man who was staring at the campfire silently, "Teacher Hall, when will I be able to use those magical abilities like you?"

Hall turned his head to look at the boy, "After you answered the call and became a true paladin." ”

"Then, when will the summons come?" the boy asked again.

"After you have been systematically trained, learned combat techniques, and prepared in your heart, the summoning will naturally come. "When the time comes, all you need to do is respond to it and make it your life's mission and destiny." ”

"Whose summoning is that?" the boy said with a bright bonfire in his eyes, "is it a god?"

"Nope. Paladin Hall shook his head, and then felt that this answer was not accurate, so he further explained, "In ancient times, most of us paladins did come from those invisible gods. As long as you are determined to embark on a path of devotion and justice, and are prepared to fight for it for the rest of your life, the gods will whisper to you, and if you respond to it, you will become a glorious paladin, a defender of justice, and a destroyer of evil. ”

"So, now?" the boy's face was full of curiosity.

"Nowadays, there are very few holy warriors who have been summoned by the gods. Hall replied, "It's not that serious, though. You see, unlike pastors, our strength comes from our own faith, from a glorious sense of mission, and from an unbreakable sacred vow, not from the gods. ”

The boy listened so intently that he forgot to chew the jerky in his mouth, and he subconsciously swallowed the half-crushed jerky directly, but he choked so much that he kept beating his chest with his hands.

"Even if there are no gods...... Hale handed the kettle to the boy, "we still have a 'legacy'!"

"Legacy?

"You can think of him as 'Tinder'!" Hale said solemnly, "When I and the other paladins believe that you are ready and qualified to be one of us, we will summon you through the 'Inheritance', which will plant divine power within you, and you will need to learn how to use this power and make it grow. ”

The boy excitedly took several sips of water, and then couldn't wait to ask, "Is that 'inheritance' in the Glory Castle where we are going?"

"Yes. Hale nodded, "Although the Castle of Glory was a small and inconspicuous stronghold for the paladins in ancient times, it has now grown into our center. Almost all the paladins came from there. ”

"Why don't you build it in a more prosperous place, even if it's not in the human countries in the south, as long as it's on the border of the Takara Kingdom, it's very good!" the boy tilted his head and asked suspiciously, "It's too remote here, we've been walking for more than a month since we left the 'Shengshihua Village', and we haven't seen a single traveler." ”

"It's because it's in the middle of nowhere, it's ......" Hall stopped suddenly, and after a moment of silence, he replied again, "You don't need to understand this question now, and when you have the opportunity in the future, you will naturally know." ”

The boy obediently didn't ask much, but reached out and handed the kettle back, took another bite of the jerky, and ate it silently.

After eating the jerky, the boy seemed bored, so he grabbed a handful of warm sand from the ground and slowly ran it between his fingers. After playing like this for a while, the boy twisted his body a little awkwardly, as if he didn't like this kind of silence to a slightly depressing atmosphere, so he asked another question, "What if the inheritance is gone?"

When the middle-aged man heard this, he couldn't help but smile for the first time, "Don't worry, Darren, no matter when, the Holy Warrior will exist." "When you encounter some terrible evil that is slaughtering innocent people and you vow to destroy it, when you wake up from your sleep and suddenly find that a sacred mission is imprinted in the depths of your soul and you know it will be with you for the rest of your life, when you pass by a quiet and peaceful village and you feel the beauty and happiness in it and want to protect it...... Either way, you can hear the call. ”

"It's not the gods who call us, it's not the 'inheritance', it's not the imprint of the depths of the soul, it's not the quiet and peaceful village. Hall looked at the boy and said word by word, "It is justice and goodness themselves that call us, and we are their servants." As long as justice and goodness are needed in this multiverse, we will live on forever. ”

"So, what if, one day, the multiverse is not needed?" the boy asked innocently.

......