Sinar’s gaze brushed past Ragna. It didn’t require the sharp senses of a Fairy to assess his condition.
‘He’s not dead.’
Ragna was using his half-broken sword as a cane to support himself, standing somewhat loosely with his eyes open.
‘If I approach, he might be able to swing his sword a few times.’
Even if a projectile came his way, he would probably block one or two.
Of course, if an enemy wielding an iron bar charged at him with the intent to die, things could get messy, but that was something to worry about when feeling uncertain.
The two had silently agreed that one of them would take on the enemy Commander, and the Commander had targeted Ragna first.
That was enough to divide their roles.
Since Ragna was alive, they would have to take him along.
If Ragna had died, Sinar would have stepped in next.
A Knight doesn’t double their strength just because one is added to another, so it was right to fight this way.
Ragna seemed on the brink of death, but Sinar judged he could still survive. Besides, the enemy before her wasn’t much of a threat.
Then, the Commander started plotting, eyes darting around.
“There is no surrender! We will kill them all! Our names will be enshrined in the Hall of Honor!”
Aspen had built a great hall in the heart of the Capital, and having one's name inscribed there was a great honor.
Only the names of the dead were carved there, and only those who died for the country.
If one’s name was inscribed, the family would receive an annual compensation.
Some pursued honor after death.
Others did it for their family and descendants.
Then, the armored infantry simultaneously pulled out small pouches hidden in their waistbands and brought them to their mouths.
Without gauging the amount, powder spilled around their mouths and onto the ground.
But it was clear that most of the powder made it into their mouths, mixing with saliva and heading straight to their stomachs.
Veins bulged on their foreheads and temples under their helmets. It wasn’t that they could suddenly use willpower after taking the drug.
It just allowed them to forget pain and fear for a while and unleash nearly double their usual strength.
The drug, known as ‘Fury’, could be found in black markets and was used to forcibly draw out one’s potential by stirring up emotions of rage.
“For the homeland!”
One of the soldiers, fervent with patriotism, shouted. Blood vessels burst in his eyes, and tears of blood flowed.
Some bled profusely from their noses as a side effect. In fact, five of them collapsed, their limbs convulsing.
Their bodies couldn’t handle the drug’s effects.
The others started pounding the ground, charging forward. Saliva and blood dripped as their eyes bulged with insane fury.
Anyone facing such a sight would likely feel terror, and even the bravest would feel uneasy.
Even Knights are not devoid of emotion, so Sinar should at least have felt disgust, but she didn’t.
She calculated coldly.
‘I can’t catch that one.’
She simply thought that while watching the Commander escape behind the drug-crazed soldiers.
“Uooh!”
As one of the madmen charged, spitting blood and saliva, Sinar swung her Leaf Blade.
Before the black blade, pulsating with energy, even touched him, his neck was severed. Sinar was a Knight, but that didn’t mean her bodyweight increased.
In other words, if she allowed the reckless charge too much distance, she could be knocked over or injured.
Of course, that didn’t happen. She could fight blindfolded and still avoid such a thing.
With a thump, Sinar kicked off the ground and leaped like a butterfly. Her sword, shaped like a leaf, relentlessly struck at necks and split heads.
She moved just enough when necessary, cutting only what was needed.
That was all she needed to do, and it was enough.
The soldiers on Fury charged at Ragna but none could reach him.
If she left Ragna, she could catch the fleeing Commander.
‘Should I?’
Sinar didn’t feel the need. She couldn’t leave her post either.
Ragna wouldn’t go down without a fight, but he was in critical condition.
His shoulder and knee were problems, but if the wound on his brow wasn’t treated soon, he might end up a blind fool.
So this was the more reasonable and efficient choice.
Sinar slaughtered all the drugged soldiers while the Commander fled.
* * *
‘I’m going to die.’
Corwin’s insight was like a supernatural ability he had possessed since childhood. After a few clashes, his insight had reached one conclusion.
No matter what, he would die. Staying here meant death. It was a predetermined outcome, an unchanging fate.
That’s how he saw his future. Just like the name of his sword, it was a fixed destiny.
In terror, his choice was to flee.
It wasn’t a thought-out action.
His tactical use of future sight had no effect on Rem. That terrified Corwin.
Why does it work on Varna but not on him?
The reason was simple, Rem didn’t think about anything before attacking.
He fought purely on instinct, always choosing the best course of action in the moment.
That was how he fought.
As the sling cut through the air with a sharp whistle, an assassin’s head exploded, whether it was in Montaire’s Swamp or Montaire’s Fools.
Even so, that movement didn’t show up on Corwin’s foresight.
‘How is this possible?’
It was. Rem wasn’t calculating. He was just swinging his sling with whatever was in front of him, whether it was a rock or a metal ball.
There was no plan in his mind.
Everything was an instant decision.
Could someone always choose the right path in urgent moments without hesitation or thought?
That’s impossible. Rem was no different.
When a red aura swirled behind him, with red eyes emerging from the mist, Rem didn’t think. He simply aimed to split Corwin’s skull.
Corwin barely blocked Rem’s intent, reading it in that brief moment. The red eyes aimed a curved dagger, a kris, at Rem’s back.
The curved blade was coated with a magical poison.
In the end, Rem wasn’t stabbed by the kris.
It was thanks to a white, legless wolf that appeared suddenly, clamping down on the blade.
“I never said I was fighting alone.”
Rem muttered.
It didn’t matter if he didn’t make the right decision. He had something to fill in the gaps.
The red eyes let go of the kris, twisting the hilt as it began to glow red. They were gathering magic to detonate it.
“Eat it, Cloud.”
At Rem’s command, the spirit wolf swallowed the glowing kris and dashed off.
A distant explosion was heard, and the wolf reformed into its original shape, only slightly smaller than before.
The wolf had no legs but moved as if flying, with cloud-like tendrils instead of paws. It had just swallowed a spell poisoned kris, and both Corwin and the red eyes were momentarily distracted.
Rem swung the sling with his left hand, planted his right foot firmly, and slammed his axe down vertically.
The sling pierced through the head of an assassin throwing nets from behind, and his foot shattered the collarbone of an enemy hiding underground.
The axe targeted the red eyes. Even though the axe swing was the slowest of his movements, by the time the sling was thrown and the kick delivered, the axe blade had already reached the red eyes' head.
All the movements were done in an instant, and they were bold.
Had Corwin, standing behind Rem, stabbed him with his sword, he might have pierced him somewhere.
That’s how daringly Rem exposed his back to Corwin. Of course, had Corwin tried to stab him, Rem would have blocked it.
Though the wolf called Cloud was far off, Rem would have retrieved the axe to defend himself.
After all, he had been fighting like this the entire time.
When one enemy was pressured, the other would help out, making it too bothersome to finish off any one of them.
But instead of stabbing, Corwin turned and fled.
"I'll take the front!"
He even added a sleazy trick at the end, pretending to charge before running away.
His innate future sight granted him the ability to transform Intimidation into a weapon. Corwin utilized that.
He pretended to charge with full force right in front. It looked real.
All the talk about mixing with ghouls or whatever had long since vanished from his mind.
However, Rem knew it was all bluster.
The tricks Corwin just pulled were something Rem had seen countless times while sparring with Encrid, so he was already familiar with it.
‘It’s a fake.’
The decision was made, and his hand didn’t stop.
The axe came crashing down toward the red eyes.
The red eyes blocked it with two kris daggers he had pulled out, but the force of the axe caused the daggers to be pushed down.
Clang! Crack!
Rem used that momentum to press the axe downward.
Ting!
One of the kris blades shattered as the axe’s trajectory shifted, cutting at an angle.
"Argh!"
The axe sliced off one of the red eyes’ ears. He immediately tried to turn into mist, but that was useless against a weapon like this.
After all, the axe Rem wielded was a weapon designed to suppress sorcery by absorbing sorcery power.
It was literally a mass of sorcery.
Introducing more sorcery would only make things worse.
“Wow, that’s the real deal.”
Even though Rem tried to track the fleeing enemy’s presence, there wasn’t much he could do.
He hadn’t expected the enemy to run away so quickly.
He regretted having been on guard.
Well, there was nothing to be done about the ones who escaped.
With that, Rem turned back to face the red eyes and spoke.
“Even if the match-up was good, the result would be the same.”
Though Rem had roughly figured out the source of the red eyes’ power and evaluated the sorcery advantage, the red eyes had only recently risen to the rank of Knight after awakening and pacifying an ancient sealed soul, so he couldn’t grasp the sorcery principles Rem was referring to.
‘Corwin, you bastard.’
Instead, as he watched Corwin flee, the red eyes reached the conclusion that the situation was as bad as a ghoul’s genitals.
A split-second decision could determine life or death.
‘Leave it to me.’
Then the voice that had been tempting him all this time spoke again.
It was the whisper of the ancient sealed soul.
Normally, he would never listen to such words.
The ancient soul was a type of vampire, and its only desire was singular.
Blood, blood, blood, and more blood.
It was a gluttonous creature.
But what if he was going to die anyway by standing still?
“I was told never to do this.”
Though Varna had forbidden it, the red eyes decided the situation left him no choice, and he pledged part of his soul to the ancient vampire.
But he didn’t plan to go down without a fight.
He tried to offer only a part of his soul while keeping the rest for himself, thinking he could make a partial contract, but that was arrogant thinking.
He had believed that one day he would conquer the vampire’s soul and find other ancient souls to become an unprecedented soul Knight.
But...
“This body is now mine.”
The ancient vampire’s will instantly seized control of his body. A moment’s opening was all it needed.
“So, this is the present world.”
The vampire spoke.
Rem scratched his ear. The language was unfamiliar. Naturally, the language had changed greatly since the vampire’s era.
Did that matter?
Not at all.
The vampire’s red eyes gleamed with a sinister, seductive glow. He gazed at Rem and said,
“Kneel before me. This is the level between you and me…”
Crack! Snap!
“What are you talking about?”
The vampire realized that his charm spell hadn’t worked.
At the same time, he also noticed that the brute’s axe had suddenly become invisible.
That axe had just split his head open.
Blood vessels and sinews tangled together as the two halves of his head began to rejoin into one.
It was a grotesque sight, nauseating to witness.
Blood and veins intertwined, visibly regenerating.
“You bastard!”
Before the head had even fully reformed, the vampire roared in anger.
“How many pieces can you split into?”
Rem casually remarked, swinging the axe again to split the vampire’s head.
Crack!
Only after the axe had passed did the vampire raise his arm. It was a reaction too slow.
Even if the ancient vampire had used all his abilities, he was still only at a Knight’s level, and now he had just taken over the body.
He needed time to adjust to his new form. He required an adaptation period.
Of course, even if he had fully adjusted, Rem would not have lost.
The gap between them was that wide.
The axe danced through the air, and the vampire could no longer speak. Rem’s next blow shattered the vampire’s tongue and fangs.
The chunks of flesh twitched briefly before releasing gray smoke and dissipating into thin air.
Rem casually shook the axe in the air and remarked,
“Something foul is sticking to it.”
At least his axe didn’t seem to mind too much, and that was a relief.
Rem’s gaze turned toward the direction of the fleeing enemy.
One had escaped, but Rem had done what he needed to do. Now it was time to either chase the runaway or rejoin the Captain.
Thanks for the Chapter Bro!!! :DD
Thanks for the Chapter.
Is it updated regularly? Also what is release schedule
Creo que he leído el manhwa, talvez lo esté confundiendo.. 🤔