Episode 124: High Class (2)
Blades came at Nadine from every direction.
She swung her sword frantically, barely managing to fend off the attacks. Each parry sent a jolt of pain through her arm, as if her bones were vibrating and her grip was tearing apart.
“Oh, she’s holding up pretty well, isn’t she?”
“Indeed. She’s fighting much better than that first-class paladin we faced last time!”
Hearing the couple’s casual banter, Nadine bit her lip. Her reputation as the strongest first-class paladin seemed laughable now, as she struggled just to defend herself.
The initial wound she had suffered was severe. A deep slash from her chest to her side left her unable to move properly.
‘No, even if I were uninjured, I can’t say for sure I could defeat them.’
The couple could have killed her easily, yet they chose to toy with her instead. Even their playful attacks were terrifyingly sharp and fierce, a testament to their formidable skills.
‘And to make matters worse, the dark knight and the black mage are working as one.’
Facing a dark knight alone was challenging enough, but the coordinated attacks with a black mage were overwhelming. The curse from the black mage was the reason Nadine had been critically injured at the start.
“Sir Nadine!”
A familiar voice called out. The paladins she had sent to scout the forest had returned. Seeing Nadine fighting and bleeding, they shouted urgently.
“We’ll help you!”
“Save Sir Nadine!”
The paladins drew their swords and charged. The couple smirked at the sight.
“Look at those moths flying into the flame.”
“Honey, leave them to me!”
The couple’s dark energy surged. Seeing this, Nadine shouted desperately.
“No… don’t come! Stay back!”
Despite her urgent cries, the paladins were too driven by their duty to listen. They were determined to save her.
“Honey! Watch closely! I’ll turn them all into rotting corpses!”
The wife spread her arms wide, and a small magic circle appeared on her open palms.
Then, suddenly, the paladins’ eyes rolled back, and they collapsed, falling to the ground as they had been running.
Nadine’s face fell into despair. This woman was no ordinary black mage. To incapacitate so many paladins in an instant…
“What… what’s happening to them?”
The wife exclaimed in confusion, and her husband looked puzzled.
“Honey, what are you talking about? You put them to sleep, didn’t you?”
“No, I was trying to cast a decay curse! I didn’t mean to knock them out!”
What on earth were they talking about?
As Nadine listened to their bewildering exchange, a wave of dizziness hit her. A heavy drowsiness settled over her eyes.
“What… is this…?”
She tried to resist, but it was no use. Her vision blurred, and she collapsed to the ground.
“What’s wrong with her now?”
The husband looked bewildered.
”…Honey.”
The wife spoke with a stiff expression.
“It’s a sleep curse.”
“Of course, it’s you. To cast a curse on so many in such a short time.”
“It’s not me!”
The wife shouted in shock.
“There’s another black mage! That black mage used a sleep curse!”
The difficulty of a curse increases with the strength and number of targets. There were over ten paladins here, most of them second-class, with a few first-class among them.
To put them all to sleep at once was impossible for an ordinary mage.
“A top-tier… no, a grand black mage? Who could it be…?”
At that moment, something flew through the air and rolled pathetically on the ground.
The couple looked down at it in shock. It was a human head, with a man’s face on one side and a woman’s on the other, identical to theirs.
“Brother!”
“Our darling!”
The couple cradled the head and cried out in anguish. Then, filled with rage, they scanned their surroundings.
“Who did this? Who killed our brother?”
“How could anyone do something so cruel to our darling?”
Footsteps echoed from afar.
The steps were slow, with long intervals, yet strangely clear.
The couple turned their heads slowly. A man was walking toward them from between the buildings.
His skin was ashen, his eyes blackened, and a red glow emanated from them.
All were signs of a dark knight. Yet the couple couldn’t believe this man was on their side.
The palpable hostility directed at them was unmistakable.
From the moment the man appeared, the air turned frigid. Each breath felt like tiny needles piercing their lungs.
Death.
They saw death in him.
”…Did you do this to my brother?”
But their pride, built over a lifetime, refused to succumb to fear.
“Answer me. Did you kill our brother…?”
“Good.”
A smile crept onto the man’s face.
It was a mix of joy and sorrow, a tangle of ecstasy and rage.
The man, with a twisted grin, spoke to the couple.
“I’m glad there are two of you. Killing you both might just make me feel a little better.”
The couple fell silent.
A dreadful aura emanated from the man. It felt like every hair on their bodies stood on end.
Suddenly, the man opened a spatial rift and put away his sword.
“Why… why did he put away his weapon?”
The husband asked, bewildered. It was an incomprehensible action.
“If I use a sword and die as easily as they did, wouldn’t that be a shame?”
The man said, glancing at the heads of their siblings. His words reignited the couple’s fury.
“Honey, did you hear what he just said?”
“Of course. He seems to think we’re easy prey.”
“Just because he killed our brother, does he think he can kill us too?”
“Not a chance! Watch, we’ll avenge our brother…”
The man’s body vanished. In the next instant, something appeared before their eyes.
Before they could even register it, it struck their eyes. The vitreous humor burst, filling the sockets with liquid. The bones of their faces shattered.
The husband’s head snapped back, and he fell backward, clutching his face in agony.
“Argh, argh!”
“Honey! Are you okay? Honey!”
The man landed lightly on the ground and dusted off his knees.
“Too much talking.”
He muttered quietly to the couple.
“Let’s get started. I don’t think I can hold back any longer.”
The couple screamed and rose to their feet.
They concentrated their dark energy on their faces to heal the wounds. The burst eyes and crushed sockets quickly returned to normal.
“You bastard!”
The pain clouded their reason. The husband spat his fury at the man.
He drew another sword from his waist. Gripping the twin blades, he unleashed his dark energy.
Before his transformation, the husband had been a master of dual blades.
He could move both hands independently, using the twin blades to pressure his enemies and deliver the final blow.
“I’ll slice your guts to pieces until you die!”
The husband began to press the man with his twin blades, moving in unpredictable patterns.
Then, the man sprang forward, like a released spring.
His fist shot straight out, striking the husband’s jaw before he could react.
The jaw shattered, and the husband’s head spun. A wave of dizziness engulfed his brain.
“Argh!”
The husband screamed and staggered back, hastily using dark energy to heal his jaw.
“This bastard again!”
The pain turned into rage. The husband swung his twin blades, generating an aura. The slash flew toward the man.
The man didn’t retreat. He charged forward. The aura slash cut into him.
“Why didn’t he dodge…?”
The question was quickly answered. The aura slash couldn’t cut through the man. A protective barrier surrounded his body.
”…A defensive aura?”
At the high-class level, one could envelop their body in aura to enhance defense.
But even a defensive aura couldn’t withstand a direct aura slash.
The density of aura focused on a blade and aura spread across the body were fundamentally different.
It was a series of incomprehensible moments.
“That’s impossible!”
The husband raised his arms to swing the twin blades. At that moment, the man struck his forearm with a fist.
The light punch landed on the forearm. In the next instant, the lower arm vanished.
It wasn’t a rupture of muscles or a break of bones. The arm was torn off entirely.
The pain was incomparable to the shattered jaw. The husband screamed and retreated.
“You crazy bastard!”
He tried to swing the other sword. But the man struck his chest with an elbow before he could.
The impact left a deep indentation in his chest, shattering ribs and rupturing his heart. Blood gushed from the couple’s mouths.
“Honey!” the wife cried out desperately. Before his body could completely shut down, he focused his dark magic to regenerate his heart.
“We… we have to stop him!” he gasped, though his chest wound was far from healed and his arm was still missing. They needed to buy time for his injuries to mend.
“Okay, I understand!” she replied, unleashing a barrage of dark bullets that flew toward their attacker.
The bullets struck the man, but didn’t even leave a scratch.
“What kind of monstrous defense is that…?” she muttered in disbelief.
The man closed the distance and delivered a brutal kick to the husband’s abdomen, tearing it open. The pain was beyond anything he had ever experienced, forcing him to his knees, his head bowing low.
“Ugh!” he choked, vomiting blood mixed with bits of his insides onto the ground.
It was then he realized the truth: the threat they faced was no exaggeration.
But the couple wasn’t about to give up. While the husband bore the brunt of the pain, the wife began weaving a complex spell with her dark magic.
Unlike the simple dark bullets, this spell was intricate and sophisticated, a sign she was preparing a high-level dark magic.
“Honey!” she called, spreading her hands wide as the spell completed and the magic surged forth.
“Now!” she shouted, casting a curse that summoned a blinding ‘Veil’ and a disorienting ‘Confusion’ simultaneously.
The target was close, and the aim was clear. There was no room for failure.
“Raaagh!” the husband roared, mustering every ounce of strength to grip his sword with his remaining arm.
He channeled his aura into the blade, igniting it with a black flame.
A high-class warrior, not quite a master, but capable of mimicking their prowess.
He focused all his power into a single technique.
“Scattered Shadows!”
As he swung the sword, the aura split into countless slashes, enveloping the man.
Dozens of strikes cut through the air, but not a single one penetrated the man’s defense.
Blocking the aura was one thing. Resisting dark magic was somehow understandable.
But to deflect a high-class technique without a scratch was beyond belief. It shouldn’t be possible.
“This can’t be happening…” the husband murmured in shock.
In that moment, the man vanished, reappearing above the couple’s heads.
He stomped down hard, driving their heads into the ground with a heavy thud. The impact was so severe they couldn’t regain their senses.
The man grabbed their heads, pulling them from the earth.
“Gah! Ugh!” they gasped, struggling for breath.
Then, he slammed their heads down again, shattering the ground and shaking the surrounding trees.
“Ugh!” the husband groaned, as the man continued to pound their heads into the ground, crushing his face with each blow.
“Stop… please, stop…” the husband finally begged.
“I’ll do anything… just stop… please…”
The man slammed their heads down once more, intensifying their agony.
How many times did he repeat this?
By the time the husband’s face was unrecognizable, the man finally paused.
He exhaled a long sigh, his expression now calm.
“Now I feel a bit better,” he said, looking down at the couple.
They were desperately trying to heal their wounds with dark magic, but the damage was so severe that their regeneration had slowed to a crawl.
“Now, let’s get to the point,” the man said, addressing the battered couple.
“Tell me everything you know about Dorgo.”