Episode 734
Chapter 184. Beyond Fate (6)
It was deep.
Even the tunnels beneath the imperial city were shallow compared to this cliff.
Jin had been descending for several minutes, and as he neared the ground, two sensations overwhelmed him simultaneously.
The first was a spiritual energy piercing his body like a blade. The second was the suffocating feeling of his aura-generating organs being blocked.
It was as if he’d been exposed to the “Aura Disruptor” crafted by Quaul and Valeria.
Just before landing, Jin softened his descent by offsetting the impact with his sword energy, touching down gently.
A sudden intuition struck him: this was probably only the “first underground level.”
“No matter which floor Rosa’s on, she must be on the lowest one.”
Scanning the distance, he spotted a cluster of deep blue lights far ahead.
Estimating there were nearly twenty-two of those glowing eyes, Jin immediately recognized them as the aura of knights.
The fierce killing intent radiating from those eyes was almost visible.
“Please, this time…”
Jin’s low voice drifted through the cavern like a whisper. The energy he emitted was unlike that of any knights who had emerged from the spirit shrine before.
“I hope you’re someone worthy of being called an ancestor.”
The blue eyes drew closer. Jin stepped forward toward them.
“Eleven of them, huh.”
All twenty-two eyes were the same deep blue, meaning they were all knights who had returned from the spirit shrine.
As the distance closed, the outlines of the knights became clear.
Judging by their attire, Jin identified one as the clan head and the other ten as Black Knights.
However, unlike the Black Knights, the presumed clan head looked different from any previous ones Jin had encountered.
“His face… covered in chains?”
Black chains wrapped tightly around his face. The sword he held was a plain longsword—the kind most clan heads had traditionally wielded—so Jin couldn’t discern his identity from the weapon.
“I am Jin Runcandel of the 12th Cavalry. Knights, state your names.”
At those words, a Black Knight spoke up instead of the clan head.
[You came down alone.]
“So you’re the Black Knight captain. Can the clan head not speak?”
The chains binding the clan head’s face twitched slightly.
“In that case, I’ll hold off on taking the clan head’s life for now. Everyone, come forward.”
Jin angled his sword toward the knights.
The suffocating sensation of his aura-generating organs and blood vessels being blocked intensified.
Yet the knights from the spirit shrine showed no signs of being affected.
They were well aware of this fact.
Still, they cautiously formed their battle formation.
Even with their aura generation hindered, they recognized Jin was no opponent to underestimate.
“If it’s too much, I’ll go first.”
Bang!
The ground beneath Jin cracked sharply.
His sword’s first target was the clan head’s face—aiming to cut through the chains.
But the clan head raised his sword and parried the blow.
From all sides, the Black Knights’ blades came flying at Jin.
Spinning, Jin pushed two swords aside and slipped through the gap, driving his blade again toward the clan head’s face.
Tick!
A single chain caught on the blade’s tip, sending shards flying.
The clan head retreated behind the Black Knights and unleashed a lightning-fast thrust that grazed Jin’s ear.
A thin stream of hot blood trickled down, but instead of panic, Jin was filled with curiosity.
“The clan head’s sword is sharp, but there’s no killing intent.”
The stinging pain on his skin came entirely from the Black Knights.
In other words, the clan head had no will to kill him.
“Yet each attack is clearly lethal…”
The clan head was being controlled.
Jin considered the possibility that someone was puppeteering the clan head’s body.
That someone could only be Rosa.
A Black Knight’s blade grazed Jin’s shoulder.
Though small wounds were accumulating, Jin remained composed.
The aura disruption was undoubtedly being channeled through Rosa’s spiritual energy.
He couldn’t immediately find and destroy the device or link causing it, but it wasn’t a problem.
“Good thing I came down alone. Rosa uses aura disruption not to hinder me, but to make it easier to kill the others.”
Unless the aura organs were completely destroyed, such interference would only cause Jin temporary discomfort.
Kaaah!
Jin shouted, and a flash of light burst forth, sending shockwaves rippling outward.
Three Black Knights lunging at him were knocked back, and the clan head stumbled backward.
The blocked blood vessels began to open.
Jin had deliberately not dispelled the aura disruption from the start, driven by doubts about the clan head and Rosa’s behavior.
“Building a fortress, digging underground, silencing the old clan head, using aura disruption tricks… The fiend keeps doing things that don’t suit him.”
Bradamante’s blade pointed skyward, glowing with pure white light.
Runcandel’s Third Battle Technique: Meteor Shower.
The sword energy formed in midair rained down like a tidal wave into the depths below.
The Black Knights lowered their stances, spreading their sword energy to intercept the meteor shower.
In that brief opening, Jin pierced their formation once more.
Screech!
A Black Knight’s right arm was severed, and the chaotic melee began in earnest.
One sword clashed with eleven, leaving a tangled trail of afterimages in the darkness.
Through it all, the meteor shower continued relentlessly pounding the battlefield.
Each falling sword energy reshaped the terrain, and the Black Knights were always one step behind Jin’s movements.
Only the clan head read the battlefield’s chaotic shifts at nearly the same speed as Jin.
Still, no killing intent shone in his blue eyes.
Instead, they seemed to hold a desperate plea.
Clearly, he did not want this fight.
“This swordsmanship isn’t yours.”
Aside from Runcandel’s battle techniques and secret arts, their sword style had no distinct form.
Yet Jin recognized a familiar flow in the clan head’s swordplay.
The flow of someone who, despite lacking Runcandel’s body, wielded the sword more ferociously than anyone else.
“Are you nostalgic for your human days, fiend?”
The clan head’s swordsmanship matched Rosa’s exactly.
Rosa was controlling him.
There was only one reason Rosa would “control” him.
“The old clan head is resisting you, the fiend.”
Jin saw both bitterness and a glimmer of hope for the Runcandel clan in the man’s stance.
“Not all knights who returned from the spirit shrine fully obey Rosa. Some, like this clan head, defy the fiend’s will.”
The clan head hadn’t spoken a word, yet he had swung his sword relentlessly to kill Jin.
Still, Jin read the one thing the clan head never let go of: the Runcandel spirit.
The will to fight, unbroken even against the will of the gods.
In the long, thousand-year history of Runcandel.
There was no way only one such person remained.
If there were those like Lionel or Senga who had succumbed to evil, there had to be those who never broke—like this old clan head, burning with desperate will more fiercely than ever.
Only then did Jin understand Rosa’s true intent.
“She wants to show that even the ancestors who resist in the end are powerless, and that I should kill them all.”
Not only Rosa, but even the clan head fighting Jin wished for his own death.
Because death was the only escape from this humiliating state of being a puppet.
Even if his soul remained trapped after death, enduring eternal torment, it was better than being a puppet fighting for the fiend.
Even if he eventually succumbed to the torture and vanished from this world, it was better than fighting for those who defile his clan.
Jin had no intention of playing along with Rosa’s vile plan.
“I’ll free you soon, ancestor.”
His attitude toward the clan head shifted.
His sword strikes grew fiercer, but only to break the chains binding him as quickly as possible.
Still, the Black Knights relentlessly harried Jin.
Using the Sovereign’s Reign Sword Technique or similar secret arts would risk damaging the clan head’s body.
Of course, even if Jin freed the clan head, there was no guarantee Rosa wouldn’t take his soul or life.
But Jin wanted to break the chains and speak with him, even if only briefly.
He wanted to tell the ancestor that he had fought honorably to the end.
And if possible, to save him and escape this hell together.
Clack!
A chain wrapped around the clan head’s face was severed.
His eyes became clearer.
At the same time, blood splattered from Jin’s shoulder.
It was the Black Knight captain’s blade.
Though the wound wasn’t deep, the accumulating blood loss would slow Jin’s movements eventually.
But allies were descending from above.
“Jin!”
Hedo’s voice rang out.
Alongside him, Bianca and Octavia were descending toward the battlefield.
Ten minutes had passed.
Even without them, the tide had been turning in Jin’s favor, so the knights from the spirit shrine now faced an even tougher battle.
Hedo’s sword dance and Octavia’s light magic crashed down on the Black Knights.
Once comrades, they now fought in perfect sync.
As the Black Knights flinched, Bianca took position behind Jin.
The Black Knight captain had to block Bianca’s greatsword with the blade he’d meant to stab Jin with.
For a moment, Jin could focus entirely on the clan head.
Since Rosa was directly controlling him, Jin expected the fight to drag on.
And so it began.
But the moment Jin swung his sword toward the chains, Gaju suddenly broke free from Rosa’s control.
The blade, which had been moving to strike Bradamante, froze in place for an instant.
‘Is this thanks to the few chains I managed to cut?’
That was the best and greatest outcome Gaju could achieve by resisting the control, and Jin didn’t miss the opportunity.
Shing, clang—!
At last, with a single strike, Jin severed the chains covering Gaju’s face.
With his face now revealed, Jin recognized him as a figure he had heard about many times while studying the history of Runcandel in his past life.
Alfen Runcandel.
He was the 20th Gaju of Runcandel and was once known as the “Knight of Light.”