Ch.583Wolves Upon the Ruins

The Deathknight I encountered again had changed significantly from before.

The only thing that remained the same was the longsword in his grip. His once-green eye light now burned like flames with an eerie blue glow, and his previously tattered armor had transformed into black full-body plate that seemed forged from gathered darkness.

His aura was on an entirely different level than before.

[Hmm. Quite an enjoyable opponent. It seems my days spent searching for this place were worthwhile.]

‘Indeed. It would have been dangerous if I hadn’t come.’

Even before, he had been a monster capable of easily handling three or four Masters, but now he seemed even stronger, his mere presence creating a tingling tension in the air.

Beyond Rurik, but below the Arm of Evil God, I’d say. If I had left this to the Imperial Knights or Paladins, they would have suffered massive casualties.

“Is that the ‘Knight of Ruin’…? Certainly an impressive sight.”

Leonore must have sensed an aura she couldn’t approach with her current abilities, as the chest area of her top was soaked with cold sweat.

“I don’t understand why he’s just standing there. He’s not charging at us, not walking toward us… is he wary of us?”

Well, that’s because his target has arrived before him. As I suspected, he had definitely been walking to the island looking for me. How petty and persistent to chase me all the way here, destroying several castles just because I demolished his home.

It’s not like he’s some house-poor fellow who sank his entire fortune into a single home. Houses can always be rebuilt.

“Leonore, take Lena and fall back.”

“I’d like to try fighting him too… but I’d probably die, right? Understood.”

“Be careful, sister…!”

As Leonore retreated with Lena on her horse, I gently tapped Cascador’s flank and approached the Knight of Ruin. My right hand rested on Durandal’s hilt.

Eventually, the monster who had been quietly looking down at me drew his sword that had been embedded in the ruins.

“þú þjófur.”

He spoke. His voice was like a knife scraping across glass. I wasn’t surprised that he could speak, as I already knew that fact.

“Hálfguð…? Nei, Er of veik. skrítið….”

“What are you saying? If you have something to say, speak Imperial. Or Eastern language.”

His pronunciation had become much more fluent than before, but I still couldn’t understand what he was saying. What language was that? Was it the ancient Dane language Lacy had mentioned?

I dismounted from Cascador while maintaining my guard and drew Durandal. With the surroundings full of shattered rocks, fighting on foot seemed better than on horseback.

“Hrrrrrrrr….”

After tilting his head thoughtfully for a moment, the monster flashed his blue eye light and pointed his sword at me. A longsword with swirling black currents. The ‘ᚻ’ shaped mark engraved on the lower part of the blade emitted an ominous light.

“You want to talk with swords? Fine by me, I prefer that anyway.”

Right. What’s the point of trying to converse with someone I can’t understand? He seems to have come to collect a debt from me, so I just needed to pay it back with interest.

With my sword.

—-

“I’ll bury you again!”

I awakened the power of Karma and infused it into Durandal as I charged toward him, crimson tentacles billowing like a cape.

“Graaaaaaaa!”

The Knight of Ruin, sensing my clear hostility, roared fiercely and charged at me with his sword of destruction gripped in both hands.

The blue-silver arc and black vortex collided violently, scattering fragments of light in all directions.

“That’s it! You need to put up at least this much of a fight to make my journey worthwhile!”

I laughed at the sight of the undead who didn’t budge despite taking my sword head-on.

A hero-class battle after so long. My heart, which had grown bored from facing only weak opponents, pounded violently. An electrifying excitement coursed through my peripheral nerves, sending pleasure throughout my body.

Perhaps I had become addicted to adrenaline. At some point, I had started enjoying battles with strong opponents.

It might be a somewhat petty emotion, limited to enemies I could defeat, but…

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, and since it’s something I have to do anyway, isn’t it better to enjoy it if I can?

With a chuckle, I swung my left arm. Frosting wrapped in crimson lightning. The Knight of Ruin twisted his blade to deflect my left hand and swung his sword to counterattack.

Beast-like sharp reactions with lightning-fast speed. Good. This is how it should be. I bent my waist to avoid his sword. A few strands of my hair were cut and scattered.

“Grrrrr!”

Dark mana slashes came in succession, as if not giving me time to regain my posture.

I avoided his sword by rotating my body while planting my hands on the ground like a handstand. The blade swirling with dark mana grazed my side slightly, but thanks to Rotholandus’s blessing, it was just a minor cut.

Then came my counterattack. As the tentacles of Murder Karma extended to pierce through the monster’s limbs, his sword momentarily blurred before emitting dozens of slashes simultaneously. All my Karma tentacles shattered. It was like crimson glass shards raining down above my head.

[Not bad!]

‘Indeed!’

The trajectory of black slashes flowed like water. I swung Durandal, imbued with the power of Defying Fate, toward the tip of his sword aiming at my brow. My blade, extending at an impossible speed by compressing time, collided with his sword and released a fierce explosion.

“Ha…gal….”

“Shut your mouth!”

I kicked away the monster who was trying to activate the seal of destruction without delay, sending him flying. Even with the blessing of protection, taking that power at close range would be dangerous.

“Graaaak-!”

A clear footprint was imprinted on the monster’s breastplate, scattering fragments of dark mana.

The Knight of Ruin bent at an angle as he cut through the air. His body crashed through the remains of the fortress wall and fell. Pieces of broken bricks scattered like a house hit by artillery. My thigh stung from a cut I hadn’t noticed, probably from his counterattack while being kicked.

I licked my lips in excitement and filled Durandal with the power of heroic deeds.

“Where are you lying down already! It’s too early to sleep!”

The blue-silver blade cut through the air repeatedly. Five vacuum blades rose in the air, slicing through the floating debris as they shot toward the fallen monster.

“Hagalaz-!”

The Knight of Ruin shouted the activation word of the seal and thrust his sword of destruction toward the sky.

The surrounding mana was all sucked into the blade, then burst out again, scattering destructive power. My vacuum blades were caught in the mana and dispersed. The shockwave shook the air.

The next moment, he and I were crossing swords again. Our blades met with a screech, scattering streaks of light like fireworks.

It was a fight that felt like a breath of fresh air after being stifled for so long.

======[ Knight of Ruin ]======

Even while swinging his sword relentlessly, the undead was immersed in bewilderment, perhaps for the first time in thousands of years.

The successor who had destroyed the temple of the Twilight Rune and stolen the Fire Rune, the culprit who had destroyed the Warrior Rune and God Rune, ending the Twilight Plan—she was an entity that the undead, who had walked all this way to meet her, simply could not comprehend.

Her mixed blood with Eastern people wasn’t particularly unusual. Even in his lifetime, warriors from the East had been fairly common. Pen■■ himself had been of mixed Eastern blood.

Judging by her somehow familiar aura and extraordinary physical abilities, she might even be a descendant of Pen■■. Whether a demigod who had turned into a monster could leave descendants was unknown.

What bewildered the undead was not her bloodline but the woman herself.

‘At least three blessings from unknown gods. Are they newly ascended deities?’

Moreover, one of the blessings was so intense that she could almost be considered a divine proxy.

That wasn’t all. Though faint and hazy like a winter sigh, he could clearly sense divine power emanating from the thief before him. Divinity—the mark of those who had begun to transcend mortal limitations and step onto the path of demigods.

It was a power not easily obtained, virtually proof of the absolute. Those who reached divinity through their own enlightenment were truly one in hundreds of millions.

Most demigods were those who had stolen divinity from other beings and made it their own. Either by fortunately obtaining masterless divinity or by killing demigod-level beings and taking it by force.

Either way, it was nearly impossible without reaching the limits of mortality.

And it was difficult to believe that the woman before him had reached that level. This thought gradually became a conviction as he fought to confirm her abilities.

She was certainly strong. All the humans he had met since leaving the ruins were no better than mere farmers, and there had been only one who could be called a knight….

This woman possessed skills that would have qualified her as an imperial guard knight even in his era. In terms of skill alone, she was superior to him, even though he had grown stronger through his contract.

However, no matter how highly he regarded her, she was not a being that could be called a demigod. Judging by how she couldn’t properly utilize divine power, she seemed unaware that divinity dwelled within her.

If communication were possible, he would have asked about her identity, but the language she used consisted of vocabulary the undead had never heard before, making even that impossible.

In the end, the Knight of Ruin gave up trying to identify her. Regardless, there was no doubt that she was a suitable being to inherit the Fire Rune.