Episode 64
Dodging every incoming attack just a step ahead, Chris anticipated the masked woman’s trajectory and countered.
“This won’t do.”
It was impossible to subdue her while hiding his true strength like this.
He had to unleash his full power.
“At this point, there’s no other choice. I have to kill them all and silence them.”
The masked woman’s eyes darkened with a fierce intensity.
Fwoosh!
A pillar of deep destructive energy erupted from her dagger.
Black Energy.
A holy sword without the radiance of mana couldn’t withstand such destructive force.
“Die.”
In this desperate moment, Jupien, who had been watching the battle between Marisa and Chris, shouted without thinking.
“Watch out…!!”
But Chris did something unexpected.
He charged straight at the masked woman.
A suicidal move.
“Foolish.”
The masked woman slashed her dagger.
The line of destruction roared with a fierce momentum.
Then, something utterly incomprehensible happened.
Whoosh.
As if a flame had been snuffed out by the wind, the black energy faded away!
“?!”
The masked woman was visibly shaken.
“Why?”
It wasn’t what she intended.
Chris smiled calmly and leapt into her embrace.
“It’s because your energy level is low.”
Energy is the manifestation of willpower.
The strength and stability of one’s energy depend on how strong their will is.
Even among the five-star ranks, energy is divided into upper, middle, and lower tiers.
The masked woman’s energy was at the lower five-star level.
She had only just begun to establish her will.
At this stage, it’s difficult to maintain energy by willpower alone, so various complex techniques are used alongside it.
Chris had already tampered with those techniques.
How?
“By exploiting the dominance of dark magic.”
During their earlier exchanges, Chris hadn’t just pushed the masked woman back with his holy sword.
He had secretly implanted dominance over her dagger.
The moment her energy manifested, he disrupted its core circuits.
It was a one-time trick, only possible because she let her guard down, and couldn’t be repeated—but it was enough.
Chris seized the opportunity.
Slash!
The masked woman’s shoulder was cut.
It wasn’t a deep wound.
A negligible injury.
But the problem was that Chris’s sword was a holy sword.
The power of the constellation within the holy sword clashed with her body’s energy, causing secondary damage—like a burn from a flame that wouldn’t go out.
Her core wavered.
And there was something even more important.
“Bingo.”
Chris glanced at his holy sword and grinned.
He had drawn blood.
He quickly put distance between them and cast a curse.
Using the opponent’s blood as a medium made the curse far more potent.
Exhaustion, pain, weakness, fear—every kind of curse seeped into the masked woman’s body, making her stagger.
“Hah. What kind of low-level curse could have this much power?”
The masked woman was incredulous.
All the curses Chris had cast were below second-tier.
Normally, such weak curses wouldn’t even penetrate her body.
But somehow, like a masterful high-level sorcerer’s curse, they pierced through her magical defenses and dragged her body into ruin like a sinking swamp.
Chris pressed the attack again.
A flash of steel grazed her nape, chilling her to the bone.
The masked woman gritted her teeth.
“How dare you.”
Still, she wasn’t in real danger.
A tiger doesn’t fall just because a cat scratches it a few times.
But her pride was wounded.
“I’ll end this quickly.”
The masked woman unleashed her secret poison.
Whoosh!
Black smoke enveloped Chris.
It wasn’t just a physical poison harmful to the body.
It was a magical poison, infused with destructive dark magic, breaking down the body both inside and out.
“Christian!”
Marisa cried out in alarm as Chris was swallowed by the black smoke.
She knew the poison’s power.
Even with the antidote from the Uiseon family, it was impossible to survive.
But inside the smoke, Chris thought:
“My plan is working.”
It was an unfathomable thought.
Even he couldn’t withstand this magical poison.
The antidote he prepared from the Uiseon family wouldn’t work against magical poison.
Defensive magical tools were useless—they would corrode quickly and fail.
At best, he had five seconds.
After that, he would die.
Yet he smiled.
“A chance has finally come.”
Chris was actually nervous.
What if the masked woman didn’t act as he expected?
Yes.
He had been waiting for her to use the magical poison all along.
“Not bad for a kid, but you don’t understand your place. Die in agony.”
Her voice was calm, as if certain of Chris’s death.
But did she know?
This was the moment Chris had been waiting for most eagerly.
From the start of the fight until now.
Chris had been waiting for this moment.
The moment the magical poison clouded the vision.
The poison didn’t just obscure sight.
It was filled with energy and magical power.
Meaning?
The energy within the poison disrupted perception, making it nearly impossible to sense what was happening inside.
Visually or sensorially.
So.
Even if Chris used the power of the alliance, no one outside could detect it.
Chris moved his holy sword.
His hand trembled.
The masked woman sneered.
She hadn’t even planned to dodge.
She watched him leisurely, like a cat playing with a mouse, intending to dodge lightly at the last moment—but suddenly, her body froze.
[Binding of the Giant]
A fourth-tier curse dark magic.
A curse beyond Chris’s current level.
But Chris had modified this dark magic in advance for this decisive moment.
He made the activation conditions stricter so it could be used at the third-tier level.
The additional condition Chris set was the opponent’s “blood.”
That’s right.
The earlier curses were just a distraction.
The real reason he drew blood with the holy sword was to use this dark magic.
To bind the woman’s movements in an instant.
Of course, it wouldn’t last long.
At most, two to three seconds.
She would break the curse within that time.
But even that brief moment was enough.
For the sword to reach her heart.
Still, the masked woman didn’t panic.
“You’ve used your head well, but it’s a pity.”
Deep blue energy shielded her body.
Like a shield.
No matter how holy the sword, it wouldn’t pierce through.
Then something unbelievable happened.
Fwoosh!
Light burst forth from the holy sword.
The masked woman’s eyes widened in shock.
“Sh-Shining Blade?”
Faint, but unmistakable.
The power of light wielded by heroes.
Chris smiled bitterly.
“…Because I’m a genius.”
The masked woman tried to dodge, but it was useless.
The Binding of the Giant, not yet fully broken, held her fast.
The broken holy sword pierced her heart.
The incident shook both families to their core.
They had broken the pact and tried to annihilate the dark magic exploration team.
Tensions between the two families reached a boiling point, and the extremist dark magic family found themselves in a difficult position.
“Honestly, it’s unfair to the extremist dark magic family.”
The real mastermind was Marquis Langham.
Though there were internal collaborators, it was likely Langham who first extended his dark hand.
Everyone had been pawns in Langham’s game.
“But it’s still better than last time.”
Back then, the situation was dire.
The entire dark magic faction’s forces were wiped out, and it was revealed that Marisa, the extremist dark magic family’s heir candidate, was responsible.
The two families nearly went to war.
In the end, the extremist dark magic family admitted guilt and had no choice but to hand over the “Twilight Emulet” demanded by Marquis Langham.
“But this time, things are different.”
The damage was minor.
Even those with serious injuries survived thanks to the antidotes Chris had provided.
So the extremist dark magic family’s responsibility was much lighter.
Compensation.
That was all.
“They never revealed who the masked woman was, but that probably doesn’t matter.”
The moment her heart was pierced, the masked woman’s body melted away in poison.
She had taken measures to hide her identity—a common tactic among the extremist dark magic family’s members.
“Still, Marisa seems to have a rough idea of who she was. But that’s an internal matter for the extremist dark magic family to handle.”
In any case, it was a good outcome for everyone—except Marquis Langham.
And the biggest beneficiary was, of course, Chris.
“This should be enough to become a duke.”
If not for Chris, the exploration team would have been wiped out.
His promotion was guaranteed.
And the gains from this incident weren’t limited to the title.
“I’ve obtained the Constellation’s Emblem.”
Chris secretly caressed the relic hidden in his pocket.
In truth, the Constellation’s Emblem was a mysterious artifact.
No one knew what it was for.
Even in his previous life, Marquis Langham had the emblem for two years without discovering its use.
But Chris knew exactly what powers the emblem held.
It would be an enormous help to him.
In fact, only Chris could properly wield the Constellation’s Emblem in this world.
Along with some smaller benefits.
The surviving members of the exploration team bowed their heads to Chris.
For the first time, he was recognized by the household’s retainers.
Though his influence was still small.
At that moment, the banshee ghost maid, Mari, floated over with a gentle sway.
[Oh ho ho… Are you feeling alright?]
“Painful.”
[“The young master is ill? That breaks my heart. But, my dear girl, seeing you care for him so tenderly makes my own heart race with joy. Here, have some soup—try it.”]
“…I can feed myself, you know.”
[Oh ho ho… There’s no need to be shy about the girl’s touch. Though, I must admit, this adorable side of yours is quite endearing. Now, drink up. Yes, do.]
Chris frowned sharply.
‘No feeding me because of some poltergeist phenomenon?!’
Marie was a ghost, after all.
So even if it looked like she was holding the spoon, it was all just a supernatural trick.
[Ah… To have the young master all to myself like this. If only this moment could last forever.]
“…Could you not say such awful things?”
Just then, a knock came from outside.
Marie’s expression darkened.
[Oh no… It seems another bothersome visitor has arrived.]
“……”
Though it was just a knock, Chris already knew who it was.
This person had come several times before.
[Why do they keep coming to interrupt the young master’s quiet time? I don’t like it one bit.]
Marie chuckled softly and opened the door.
A small girl with a cold expression stepped inside.
It was Jupien.
“…You’re here.”
“Yeah.”
“…Why again?”
“…Because you’re one of my operatives. I came to check if everything’s alright, as the person in charge.”
For the record, their mission wasn’t over yet. The case hadn’t been resolved.
They had come to the meeting place of the extreme mage and the dark mage to testify as witnesses.