The Fallen Knight (4)
Everlock gritted his teeth.
Hell was screaming right before his eyes.
Flaming vines writhed, and the acrid smell of burning filled the air as petals spewed their sap. Dozens of eyes scattered across roots and tree trunks blinked helplessly, shedding tears of blood in the thick smoke.
Whoosh!
Another fireball fell.
At first glance, it seemed like an ordinary flame. But the aura enveloping it, like a shimmering mirage, was unmistakably divine. It was the sacred power derived from the holy flame, a miracle granted only to a select few high-ranking knights.
Screeech!
A burning fruit turned to ash in an instant.
The Garden of the Abyss was a jungle teeming with the grotesque plants of an evil god. Being fundamentally plant-based, the creatures here were naturally vulnerable to fire. And when that fire was imbued with the divine power of the holy flame, raining down like a storm from the sky…
Even the shadows of hell couldn’t withstand it, burning away along with the malevolent magic that anchored them to the earth.
“Damn it! Oh, Lapilem!”
The apostate knight called out to a god. Not the one he once served, but the new evil deity he had embraced.
Where did it all go wrong?
Amidst the shadows of hell being banished by the flames, Everlock desperately racked his brain. The power he had received from the evil god Lapilem, in exchange for a deal with the Azure Scale, was potent enough to replace his waning divine strength. His limbs were as strong as a giant’s, and an endless vitality surged from deep within him, surpassing the limits of his lifespan. His regenerative abilities rivaled those of a dragon, healing severe wounds in moments, and he wielded the power to cast plagues at will.
His capabilities had been elevated to a level akin to his younger days as a fervent devotee of the god of war.
“In just two weeks, I gained such power. So where did it all go wrong?”
Leading the Azure Scale’s forces to capture the Estra Fortress had been a triumph. The fortress, a symbol of the Holy Knights’ front line, served as an altar, and the fallen knights who perished there became sacrifices to summon the shadows of hell.
The Garden of the Abyss, thus summoned, was Everlock’s formidable fortress. Not just a trap to ensnare intruders, but a stronghold that amplified his own power.
Everything seemed to be going well—until that fortress crumbled at the hands of a mere barbarian warrior.
“That wretched barbarian!”
Rage surged to the top of his head. The world before him seemed to turn red. His mind, steeped in hellish magic, refused to entertain any further thoughts.
Crash!
The massive sword embedded in the ground seemed to leap into his hand of its own accord.
“Raaaargh!”
The fallen knight roared with hatred and fury, swinging his sword alone in the clearing as the shadows of hell dissipated around him.
How much time passed, he couldn’t tell.
Thud.
A sound of footsteps made Everlock’s head snap around instinctively.
“You…!”
In his bloodshot eyes stood a barbarian warrior, clad in armor tattered by the plague’s aura. A tall figure with long, unkempt black hair and muscles rippling like stone.
The moment he saw the holy sword in the warrior’s hand and the glowing divine tattoo on his left hand, Everlock lost all semblance of reason.
“Raaaargh!”
He surrendered to the beastly hellish power, charging forward with abandon.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
In the blink of an eye, dozens of clashes erupted, sparks flying. Amidst the chaos, the barbarian warrior muttered quietly.
“Why’d you skip to phase two on your own?”
The nonchalant voice drove Everlock’s rage to consume his reason entirely.
That was the last thing he remembered.
Two swords clashed.
One was a holy sword glowing with a blue light, the other a massive two-handed sword, broad and long enough to serve as a stretcher.
Thrusts, slashes, pommel strikes, and guard parries flowed seamlessly like water.
Despite surrendering to his primal instincts, the fallen knight’s swordplay still bore the finesse of decades of mastery.
Dalen easily parried each strike, pondering.
“Why’s he already in phase two?”
The fallen knight Everlock Glastden, like many bosses, had two phases.
The first phase showcased his enhanced body, empowered by the evil god, and the swordsmanship honed over a lifetime as a holy knight.
The second phase occurred when his dragon-like regenerative body sustained significant damage, causing him to lose reason and transform into a beast driven by raw power.
“The Rain of Hegaleus’s Flame is a bit of a sloppy area attack, so it couldn’t have dealt that much damage. Which means…”
There was only one possibility.
“Raaaargh! Die… barbarian!”
“Were you always this fragile?”
Everlock had accumulated enough mental damage to skip straight to the next phase.
While Dalen wondered how that was possible, he also understood.
Everlock’s plans to corrupt the holy sword using the demon Golakap, his attempts to sow chaos within the knights through civil war—all thwarted by Dalen.
And now, even the shadows of hell, his last hope, had been destroyed by the same person.
How would it feel to see all your life’s work thwarted, only for the perpetrator to casually stroll away as if it were nothing?
“Given all that, it’s no wonder his mind’s shattered.”
Dalen shook off his thoughts, sharpening his senses.
Understanding didn’t mean he would go easy.
Everlock was a villain responsible for countless deaths. And he had sold his soul to an evil god.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The guard of the holy sword caught the blade of the massive sword with precision.
In the gap between breaths, the relentless assault came to a halt.
“Ugh!”
Dalen seized the opportunity.
With his left hand, he grabbed the neck of the fallen knight’s armor.
“Ignel Rot.”
Whoosh!
With the incantation, flames erupted from his hand, gripping the armor. The divine tattoo on his hand glowed, and a strange sensation of connection to the heavens imbued the flames with powerful divine energy.
“The Spark of the Holy Flame.”
A C-rank skill of the holy knight character, a miracle of the god of war that could only manifest through the divine tattoo.
The fallen knight flinched, paralyzed by the flames that were anathema to the evil god’s power.
Boom!
The knee, clad in a fiery armor of divine flames, struck Everlock’s solar plexus, sending him crashing into the ruins at the edge of the clearing.
Crash! Rumble!
The building collapsed on Everlock as if hit by a bomb.
Even with his demonic body, he couldn’t possibly survive a five-story fortress crumbling on top of him.
Dalen dispelled the fiery armor from his leg and looked up at the sky.
Screech! Hiss! Caw!
The vines and flowers screamed unpleasantly, dissipating like smoke as the shadows of hell were banished.
Beyond the scene, like wiping away frost from a winter window, the sky full of dark clouds rained fire.
Rumble. Crash…
“More impressive than I imagined.”
Even though he had created the scene himself, the rain of holy fire from the sky was a chilling sight.
In truth, the Spark of the Holy Flame wasn’t a particularly powerful skill on its own.
Its essence lay in transforming any controlled fire into a holy flame.
Typically, it was used to scare monsters with a torch imbued with holy flame or to shoot holy flame arrows.
But for Dalen, who had combined skills that couldn’t normally be learned together through the inheritor’s option, it was different.
By imbuing the Rain of Hegaleus’s Flame with the Spark of the Holy Flame, it became an insane skill that poured a deluge of holy fire over a vast area.
The fiery armor crafted through Dehaman’s martial arts was also a suit of armor imbued with divine power, deadly to monsters.
Of course, there were limits.
Not so much the limits of the skills or the domain, but the limits of the body that bore them.
“Cough.”
A metallic taste of blood rose from his throat.
Dalen spat out the blood pooling in his mouth, thinking.
“I need a solution.”
It was a problem he had noticed some time ago.
The side effects of having power that was difficult to reach in a lifetime, all mixed within one person’s domain, were greater than expected.
While the various powers synergized to create results more potent than their original forms, the immense power itself placed a tremendous burden on a body that hadn’t completely transcended human limits.
“Some heroes wield the power of their lineage, master swordsmanship, and even study magic as holy knights.”
These feats were possible because they possessed bodies and minds honed to a level beyond ordinary humans through relentless effort and years of training.
Moreover, their prolonged discipline had synchronized their bodies and powers, allowing them to handle immense strength without strain.
“But we don’t have the luxury of a hundred years to train leisurely.”
Dalen shook his head.
In the past few months, he had grown stronger at an unprecedented pace in the continent’s history.
He had absorbed so much power from the corpses he collected that it was causing side effects.
Yet, he had no intention of turning back or stopping.
The impending apocalypse was a disaster that even the reclusive transcendents of the world couldn’t prevent.
If that was the case, he needed to grow at least as fast as he was now, if not faster, to surpass those transcendents and stop the end.
Rumble.
As he wiped the blood from his mouth with his sleeve, a grotesquely twisted figure emerged from the ruins of a collapsed building.
It was Everlock.
”…Still not dead, huh.”
“Grk. Grrr.”
The half-human, half-demon groaned.
Three arms. Four legs.
A long horn protruded from one side of its forehead, dotted with eyes, a sight of utter revulsion.
Its body bubbled with blisters, and it pointed a sticky finger at Dalen.
“You… heretic barbarian. Die…”
“Who are you calling a heretic?”
Dalen shook off his thoughts and raised his sword.
Building a sturdy body could wait until after this fight.
“Graaaah!”
The corrupted knight, now more demon than human, charged, yellow foam dripping from its mouth.
Boom―!
Dalen flew through the air, his holy sword gleaming as he brought it down.
Originally, Everlock had enhanced his exceptional swordsmanship with demonic power in Phase 1.
In Phase 2, he abandoned his technique, surrendering to his primal instincts.
Now, in this state, where he was barely recognizable as human, what should one call Everlock?
”…Phase 3?”
Observing the corrupted knight’s unprecedented form through the monitor, Dalen met the swinging long arm with his holy sword.
“Graaaah!”
Pus and blood sprayed from the half-severed arm.
The wound healed instantly, covered by a tough, scab-like tissue.
His regeneration and mutation abilities had surpassed even those of lesser dragons.
But in exchange, he had lost his masterful swordsmanship and keen judgment, his heavy limbs now fast but lacking precision.
Everlock was no longer a holy knight preserving high martial arts.
He was a beast-like monster that had crawled up from hell.
“Graaaah!”
Crash―
In the time it took to take a breath, dozens of sword strikes sliced through a building like butter.
Dalen didn’t bother to clash head-on.
Instead, he lightly stepped through the air, circling halfway around Everlock, and lunged at the corrupted knight as his flurry ended.
Slice―
A clean cut through the waist.
Squelch!
The sticky pus immediately sealed the wound.
Boom―
But the storm of destruction following the sword’s path tore the corrupted knight’s body apart from within.
“Graaaah!”
Like a bomb exploding in his guts, Everlock’s skin rippled from the inside.
With a scream that seemed to tear the air, the corrupted knight clutched his belly and chest with his free arms, writhing in agony.
His body couldn’t withstand the shock, bursting open and spilling flesh and entrails.
But only for a moment.
Crack!
From each wound, new limbs began to sprout.
“Graah! Graaaah!”
More than a dozen arms and legs dangled grotesquely from his body.
Before Dalen could even frown at the grotesqueness, the limbs formed seals.
Crash!
The empty air shattered like glass, and from the shards of the hell gate opened by the seals, poisonous thorns poured out.
Dalen immediately enveloped himself in the armor of sacred fire.
The thorns of hell couldn’t withstand the searing holy flames and crumbled.
Even the plague’s aura that penetrated the armor was blocked by a thin barrier covering Dalen’s skin and dissipated.
A divine tattoo, one of the holy marks given by the commander, was revealed over the tattered shoulder guard of his armor.
It was the tattoo of plague resistance.
“How! How did you hide your holy power!”
Had he regained a sliver of sanity?
Dalen chuckled at Everlock, who howled like a beast.
“I didn’t hide it. I just got it.”
“That’s… impossible, grk, nonsense!”
Believe it or not. Dalen looked at the half-human, half-demon with nearly twenty limbs with indifferent eyes.
“Grk. Grrrk.”
The corrupted knight began to writhe in pain.
He was at his limit.
With each regeneration, his control over his body waned.
Even the power granted by the evil god wasn’t infinite.
Moreover, the shadows of hell that amplified his strength had almost been entirely banished by the sacred rain.
“Graaaah!”
The corrupted knight charged.
Despite flailing his many limbs, he managed to keep his balance and lunged at Dalen with teeth and claws.
Sensing it was his last chance, he poured all his strength into a final blow.
“Hoo.”
Dalen calmly steadied his breath, raising his sword horizontally over his shoulder.
“Ignel Rot.”
Fwoosh!
He ignited the holy sword with the power of the cursed blade.
The blazing sacred fire engulfed the blade in an instant.
No need for advanced swordsmanship or technique.
Ignoring the corrupted knight’s claws tearing at his skin, he simply thrust his sword into its chest.
Thud!
The holy sword pierced through the chest.
The moment the thick blade split the corrupted knight’s heart in two.
“Grk! Gah! Graaaah…”
Boom!
The demon’s blood, already at its limit, couldn’t withstand the holy power and exploded.
Thud, thud, thud.
A rain of red flesh fell.
The lower half of the corrupted knight, now missing its upper body, slumped to the ground.
Sizzle…
As the wounds from the claws healed instantly, Dalen surveyed the devastation left by the banished shadows of hell.
Like the common fate of traitors, the fierce battle had ended with an anticlimactic conclusion.
How long had he stood there?
“Dalen! Dalen! Are you alive?”
From the ruins cleared of hell’s shadows, an elder wizard from the Elgakia Tower, supported by his apprentice, came searching for him.
Seeing Dalen standing in the middle of the clearing, Felber’s worried face broke into a wide smile as he approached.
“Dalen! You’re alive… cough! You’re alive! Cough! Hack!”
…Old man, now’s not the time to be worrying about me, is it?