Episode 716
Chapter 180: Each Their Own Battle (6)
“Strawberry Meat—no, Strawberry Pie! Are you okay?”
Owl immediately checked on Gilly. The reflux was severe, but not fatal—for now. He quickly pulled out antidotes and medicine from his pouch to stabilize her condition.
“Purification… the purification device. Dox’s aura…”
“Owl, she can’t die! Our Jin will be devastated. We have to kill this thing first!”
“Yona, stop. She’s still someone we can save with the purification device.”
“Can’t we just kill her?”
“Dox is the Black Knight Jin personally sent on this mission. Even if the corruption was voluntary, she must pay for her crimes while still sane.”
“Heh, what a frustrating story. Strawberry Pie, what do you want to do? You could just ignore Owl’s orders and do what you want. Killing her would be better, right? She tried to kill you.”
“No… Murakan… sir.”
Gilly squeezed out her last bit of strength to answer. Her consciousness was so faint, and the nickname “Strawberry Pie” made her mistake Yona for Murakan.
The pain and exhaustion made her miss him terribly.
“Hehe, I’m Yona.”
Yona sighed and reluctantly pulled the death embedded in Dox’s body. Dox twitched, trying to recover, but Owl deliberately let poison seep into the wound to prevent any physical transformation.
“Vizen, evacuate Gilly and the Black Knight to Ziphl’s fleet. Gilly needs urgent treatment.”
“Understood.”
At those words, Gilly lost consciousness. The last thing she saw was the sky behind the battlefield, filled with Ziphl’s fleet approaching.
Finally, the temporary allies were arriving one by one. Even just the arrival of Ziphl’s fleet instantly shifted the atmosphere on the battlefield.
“Fleets 3 and 4, prioritize capturing prisoners. Fleet 5, transport the prisoners gathered at the rally point to Cosmos’s fleet. The rest focus on exterminating the giant monsters, but no bombardment in areas with many prisoners. Use the shatter cannons only on monsters without prisoners.”
“Yes, Commander Soga!”
“Phantom Corps Unit 1 and the Contract Mages of Tower 1, coordinate with the dragons to assist Black King Commander and Yulian in rescuing the prisoners hanging from the monsters’ heads.”
Following Veradin’s orders, the fleets began to disperse. The colossal beasts had been focused solely on Heddo’s attacks, but now, with the fleet’s assault added, they panicked.
The rescue operation was finally taking the form the temporary allies had originally planned.
Across the battlefield, the tide of battle began to turn.
Swoosh!
A massive flash of light struck the battlefield like a giant spear.
Hailan’s Imperial Sword Technique: Celestial One-Slash.
It was on the side where Alisa and Kuzan were fighting. The ground trembled, shockwaves rippling out, and suddenly, Alisa and Kuzan saw Dante’s back standing before them.
“Queen Alisa, Kuzan. Are you unharmed?”
“Your timing couldn’t be better, Sir Dante. We were struggling.”
The Biment Special Forces who had been attacking them were no match for the true Empire’s finest swordsman, Dante Hailan.
He glared at the Special Forces leaders, including Latz, and the demon troops as if ready to tear them apart. The Special Forces members didn’t dare properly raise their swords against Dante.
Though the demon troops were formidable, Dante was a swordsman on a completely different level.
Numerical superiority meant nothing before the heir of the “Sword Emperor.” Already, dozens of demons rushing at Celestial One-Slash were torn to pieces.
“First, you turned a blind eye as the Empire’s people died. Second, you attempted to assassinate Queen Tikan. Third, you betrayed the Empire and humanity, choosing to become dogs of the royal family and the fiend. For these crimes, the sentence is death, and I will carry out the execution myself…”
The moment a deadly gleam appeared in Dante’s eyes, V’s head dropped to the ground. The Special Forces leaders didn’t even realize when Dante’s sword moved.
At the same time, the blue Celestial One-Slash whirled in all directions, slaughtering the demon troops. Christ’s limbs were severed in an instant, rolling on the ground.
Latz managed to dodge several sword slashes spreading from Rashid, but that was all.
Scritch, clatter! Suddenly, Latz’s right hand, gripping his curved sword, dropped to the floor.
‘I didn’t see it at all… Could it be…?’
The intangible sword, Hailan’s Sword Emperor’s Absolute Technique, symbolizing Ron.
“I’ll send your masters to hell soon enough. Go ahead and wait for them.”
Dante’s sword had already reached that realm. Along with Celestial One-Slash, the intangible sword mercilessly butchered the demons.
No matter how strong their regeneration, none could survive Dante.
Meanwhile, on the battlefield with Luton and the youngest division, a pure white chill spread.
Siris Endorma, the Mistress of the Secret Bow, led the Seven Swords of the Secret Bow, unleashing the power of the Frozen Ice.
“Sir Luton Perman.”
Siris reached out to Luton, who was kneeling, cornered.
For a moment, Luton mistook her hand for Thalaris’s.
In the past, Luton and the Execution Knights had often been subdued by Thalaris when they attacked her, and each time, she had reached out to help them up, just like Siris was doing now.
“Hoo, huh… Mistress of the Secret Bow.”
“Since you joined Tikan, my mother has often been bitter. She said you never sought the Secret Bow when you were purged, but she wished she had checked on you first.”
Yeah, she knows well. You can’t blame me. If you had come to the Secret Bow for help after surviving, maybe I’d understand.
That’s right. We thought you weren’t involved, so we didn’t look for you. My comrades and I lived without close companions, so you were the closest thing we had, but that wasn’t objectively special. To you, we were just a past connection.
Luton’s conversation with Thalaris after he was defeated by Jin during the Tikan raid.
Since that day, Thalaris regretted not taking care of Luton’s group and sometimes told Siris about them.
“…I see.”
“Though we’re in the middle of an operation and must support you, Sir Luton, even if you were in personal trouble, our Secret Bow would have helped. You had a deep bond with my mother.”
Luton looked up and gazed at Siris’s profile. The friendship Thalaris once felt for Luton’s group was reflected in that face.
“So when my mother’s treatment is over, please tell her to forget about it. She keeps bringing it up whenever she drinks, and it’s quite annoying.”
“Understood, Mistress.”
With Siris’s arrival, the Black Sword Society hesitated to continue their attacks. Though still weaker than Thalaris in her prime, the chilling aura was more than enough to pressure them.
“Ryu, go help Jin’s knights over there… No, that won’t be necessary.”
Belop, Mesa, and Skut approached Luton. They had just defeated Kazin Romero and the Haas brothers and came to assist.
Behind them, a one-armed swordsman and the youngest division, who had fallen back, were returning.
The one-armed swordsman was the Black Knight Mon. While Mesa’s group fought, they had requested support from Mon, who was rescuing prisoners nearby.
The four members of the Black Sword Society, suddenly outnumbered, kept glancing around nervously. The arrival of Siris and the Seven Swords of the Secret Bow was already a heavy burden, and now with Mon’s arrival, hope was gone.
“Sir Mon should support Jin’s knights and the outer fortress.”
Siris said, and Mon immediately left with Luton and the youngest division. The Black Sword Society looked relieved, and Siris let out a small laugh.
“Why? Did you think you could handle the Seven Swords of the Secret Bow without Sir Mon? You petty fiends.”
No sooner had she finished speaking than the chill from the Frozen Ice began to intensify.
The Black Sword Society tried to shout insults at the Mistress, but quickly shut their mouths. The cold air instantly choked their throats.
“I will personally show you what it’s like to freeze to death in hellish cold…”
As the thick mist of cold completely engulfed the area, the eight swords of the Secret Bow silently pierced their very cores.
“Hehe… heh heh, heh! Hah, I’m not dead yet…!”
Near the outer fortress, the Tona brothers staggered to their feet. Mew and Anne frowned as they watched Tona, who should have fallen ten times over, rise again.
“Hoo, you really are yourselves, Mew, Anne. Even strengthened by chaos, you still can’t finish us off. Aren’t you ashamed? If it weren’t for chaos, you’d already be dead by our hands. You’re definitely beneath us.”
“I don’t even know why we were scared before, heh, heh heh!”
The Mew sisters gritted their teeth. They were deeply wounded in pride by the unexpected resilience of the Tona brothers.
But the Tona brothers were truly at their limit now. They had no strength left to counter the sisters’ next strike.
Yet, the sisters’ blow did not kill the brothers.
“Riders, we’re here!”
“Belop, Mesa… you guys.”
“Tenth and eleventh riders. You held on well.”
Thanks to the youngest division and Mon joining the fight, the Tona brothers, though staggering, showed respect to Mon.
[That one-armed bastard’s really puffing himself up, acting like some kind of Black Knight.]
[Good. Let them all come at me. I’ll send every last one of them straight to the afterlife. I was already boiling with rage anyway.]
Meanwhile, the Mu sisters unleashed a torrent of harsh words at Mon.
“The 10th and 11th generations here are the true Runcandels—those who resisted to the very end when the traitorous Black Knight rebelled. But you two, from the 8th and 9th generations, were the first to betray the Runcandel name.”
Mon leveled his sword at Mu and Anne.
Just that gesture alone brought an unexpected weight of pressure down on them. The sword of a true Black Knight was a burden far beyond what they could handle—even if he had lost an arm.
“Do you even know why your family ranks the Black Knight’s order above the generation number?”
[Clinging to outdated, meaningless traditions. Times have changed. Mother’s Runcandel no longer gives special treatment to Black Knights.]
“It’s not just about honor. It’s to give you, the weaker generations, the authority to guide others—and if they refuse to improve, to eliminate them. Therefore, from this moment on, I will kill both of you.”
Not as Rosa, but as the Black Knight serving Lord Sirron Runcandel, the family head, and Lord Jin Runcandel.
Within Mon’s black helmet, his eyes gleamed fiercely, carrying the weight of his resolve.