Chapter 144
Chapter 144
Translator: True Detective
Chapter 144: Lan Qi Said Eat, Then Eat
From the mountain forests outside Lichtenstein Castle, black smoke rose skyward like a great dark dragon, coiling in the heavens and roaring its presence.
Sparks raced along the canopy, spreading fast, as though determined to paint the entire forest a red deeper than the sunset itself.
Behind the cathedral’s floor-to-ceiling stained-glass windows, conversation instantly ceased. Every face froze with shock, eyes fixed on the strange eruption in the distance, trying in vain to make sense of it.
The waning sunlight filtered through colored panes, scattering fractured beams across their faces, throwing their bewildered expressions into shadow and haze.
Their gazes flickered ceaselessly between the smoke and the woods, questions and dread surging in their chests—yet not a single word was spoken. In the end, all eyes turned toward Lan Qi.
Could it be…
That this too had been foreseen by the Lawyer?
“…Honestly, you two are something else.”
At last, Huperion caught on.
That sly old fox Frey had never left at all. He’d been lying in wait among the trees the entire day!
On that terrain, the wounded Saintess of Destruction stood exposed, while Frey, hidden and prepared, lay in ambush. What awaited her was torment, not triumph.
The challengers, realizing this, felt a spark of hope reignite in their hearts.
But under the rose window in the far corner—
The priestess of the Resurrection Church froze, her expression stiffening.
This turn of events was incomprehensible, and yet her heart pounded violently in dread.
“H-how… how is this possible…”
She frantically counted the people inside the cathedral. No one missing.
Confusion crashed against panic in her mind—until suddenly, her eyes widened in horror.
Yes—there was one absent.
The one who had disrupted her plans from the very beginning. The one who had vanished from the map entirely.
If this had all been a scheme—then what had been the meaning of her shaken mind and the humiliations she had endured all day long?!
But before she could steady her collapsing thoughts, the priestess’s eyes filled with despair.
“…Ah… ahhh…”
The Shadow World interface updated with chilling words—
[Betrayer Adelice is dead. In approximately six hours, Blood Count Palocas will arrive at the Horning Empire border. Coordinates: Lichtenstein Castle.]
In an instant—
“Do you idiots have any idea what you’ve done?!! She was the Saintess of Destruction!”
The priestess’s scream tore through the hall.
“Now it’s over! You’ll all die together!!!”
She had once held onto a sliver of confidence. According to Shadow World’s rules, the death of a betrayer summoned a Blood Count—and she had at least believed she could return alive.
But now?
When the Blood Count descended, it would be indiscriminate slaughter.
For she and Adelice, as blood-servants, were already scripted as traitors against their master. There would be no mercy.
Not far away—
The noble mage girl, still bound, felt the last glimmer fade from her eyes. Only despair, tinged with a bitter release, remained.
“The blood clan… so we can’t escape them after all…”
Her lips trembled, as though submitting to an irresistible fate, even as her heart seethed with hatred against it.
…
Around the hall, the others felt their hopes plunge into ice.
Even the Executioner, so fierce before, now collapsed heavily onto the floor, spirit broken.
Moments ago their hearts had soared like a roller coaster’s peak.
So this was why Lan Qi had been so calm earlier—because he had already expected Frey to ambush in the woods.
But the joy of that realization was instantly shattered by a thunderbolt of despair.
Good news: the Saintess of Destruction was gone.
Bad news: tonight, they themselves were doomed.
Those two—Frey and Lan Qi—were ruthless beyond belief, toying with the Saintess like a monkey. And in her final frenzy, even if she couldn’t beat her ambusher, she had chosen self-destruction, dragging everyone else into the grave.
Defeat was no surprise.
But because they had been given hope first, the despair hit harder now.
With that last hope extinguished, the air grew thick with dejection.
“So be it.”
“We’ve done all we could.”
“Win or lose, no regrets.”
“None of us ever cowered before the cult anyway.”
The cathedral fell silent.
Weapons lowered at last, heavy with exhaustion.
The tragic sunset bled across their eyes like a funeral pyre before crashing into night.
Their mutual words of encouragement felt like final farewells, a dignity for the day’s struggle, as if they were already resolved to die.
Against a seventh-tier Blood Count… and five entire nights ahead…
There truly was no way forward.
This time, it was the end.
…
…
Wait.
That expression on Lan Qi’s face?
By habit, every challenger turned to him again.
There he was—still sipping leisurely from his wine glass, unruffled.
“Why are you all staring at me? Let’s eat first.”
Lan Qi’s tone was one of mild puzzlement, as he gestured at the banquet table, as if he’d been waiting ages for them to join him.
The Shadow World’s very title was Cathedral Banquet.
Obviously, this was a tourism-and-dining themed scenario. Why weren’t they eating yet?
“…Could it be…?”
Everyone stared in disbelief.
Sunset spilled through the towering windows, cloaking Lan Qi’s lounging figure in a radiance that seemed brighter than the sun itself.
“There’s six hours left. Hunting a Count in that time? Easy.”
The corner of Lan Qi’s mouth lifted into a confident grin.
The same certainty he’d once shown at the Purgatory Academy, when lightning itself was under his command.
…
At that very moment, in Ikerite Academy’s Jela Memorial Plaza, every student wore the same expression as the challengers onscreen—
Shock, disbelief, and yet… a desperate wish to believe.
A seventh-tier Blood Count.
And five nights.
Even if they could just barely fight the Saintess of Destruction—a top-tier sixth-tier foe—no mere mortals could hope to withstand a Count.
The gulf between each tier grew wider the higher one climbed.
“I heard Lan Qi’s masterpiece in the Registered Cardmaster Exam… was a little sun.”
“That was just a fake sun. It didn’t even have the true power of the sun!”
Radiant Virtue’s sealing-vision effect was indeed versatile and useful—but its indiscriminate nature and heavy mana cost made it far too weak as an orange-grade epic card.
“I can’t watch anymore…”
The plaza’s rowdy atmosphere sank into deathly silence.
Many students turned away, unable to bear the suffocating despair of the scene, choosing instead to leave the square.
This felt like a tragedy carved into fate, waiting only to arrive six hours hence.
And in the faculty conference room, the mood must surely have been just as heavy—
For tonight, Ikerite Academy stood on the brink of losing its three most outstanding freshmen.