320
Chapter 320
Daria sensed that Abel's threat to kill her was not a bluff.
'Is this the power of a Black Knight?'
Daria had met an imperial Black Knight before.
Duke Craven di Panion the Wise King, counted as one of the five strongest knights on the continent alongside Draker's Sword King Bernas.
He was the only one in the Rom Empire allowed to wear a sword even in the Emperor's presence.
Daria felt a similar presence from Abel as she had when standing before Duke Craven.
While the Duke's energy felt like a well-forged sword, Abel was like a fierce monster forcibly bound in chains.
Looking at the motionless Daria, Abel said.
"Good, now we can talk properly."
Stroking the handle of his Red Dragon Sword, he continued.
"The one who killed Morgan Buffon and brought these monsters to attack the imperial army is none other than Zeke Draker."
Daria's eyebrows twitched when Zeke's name suddenly came from Abel's mouth.
As Abel slowly released his pressure, Daria could finally speak.
"...You mean Zeke Draker, the Knight of the Sea and Draker's direct descendant?"
"Yes, my proud little brother. He's controlling the monsters and trying to take over the Ghetto area by spreading the Hong-hwa disease among the bird people."
Daria's body trembled slightly at Abel's words.
In her heart, she had suspected that Morgan Buffon might have been the real perpetrator of these atrocities.
"Why make that face? Don't you believe me?"
Daria bit her lip hard.
With her extensive experience leading up to this moment, Daria instinctively felt that Abel was spinning sophistry and making unreasonable claims.
However, denying Abel's words would mean admitting that the empire had committed all these acts.
Abel seemed to notice Daria's thoughts as he raised the corner of his mouth in a smile and said:
"Zeke Draker is here. And he's attacking the imperial army. There's only one thing to do, isn't there?"
Glaring at Abel, Daria said:
"Are you planning to use the imperial army to eliminate Zeke Draker and check your political rival Kali Draker?"
Abel grinned at those words and said:
"Commander Daria. Think carefully. Have you forgotten who is here right now?"
The Second Prince, first in line for succession, was here.
Looking straight at Daria as if telling her to think it through, Abel continued:
"Zeke Draker killed Morgan Buffon and blamed it on monsters. Who's to say he won't do the same to the Second Prince?"
"Zeke Draker has no reason to break the treaty and kill the Second Prince."
At Daria's rebuttal, Abel grinned and said:
"If the Second Prince dies, it's clear the empire will fall into chaos again. Right now the First Prince's faction is quiet due to Julius's power, but would that still be true if the Second Prince died?"
As Abel said, if the Second Prince were to die, it was obvious the empire would enter another period of division.
Daria bit her lip hard.
'He's trying to use me to catch Zeke Draker somehow...'
With Abel being a Black Knight making unreasonable demands, in the current situation she had no choice but to follow his words.
"Kali Draker's ambitions are greater than you think. She plans to take the Ghetto using Zeke Draker and then come down to the empire. The Prince knows this and has allowed the imperial army to move."
With monsters actually attacking, it was difficult to completely deny his words.
Abel drove the final nail.
"I'll protect the Prince. In exchange, you as Commander will catch Zeke Draker."
"Are you telling me to lead the Knights of the Horse Palace to attack the autonomous district?"
Abel shook his head at her words.
"No, Zeke Draker should already be here. Right here."
* * *
SWOOSH!
Zeke slit the guard's throat with Anexi's sword and quietly disposed of the body.
He was able to understand the fortress's structure from the information gained from the guard's shadow.
'It's quite a solidly built fortress. Have to give it to those imperial bastards' fortress construction skills.'
The Rom Empire was famous for three things.
Roads that stretched everywhere, solid and efficient architecture, and disgustingly bad food.
In his previous life, there was even a joke that the empire waged wars of conquest just to take over other kingdoms' good restaurants, that's how infamous their bad food was.
This was because imperial cuisine developed focused on preservation and convenience rather than taste, leading to primarily dried and salted foods.
While this approach meant losing food flavor, it allowed the Rom Empire to expand its territory faster than any other in continental history.
Roads were laid everywhere to increase the speed of movement within the empire, fortresses were built in various places with solid fortification techniques for defense, and the imperial army's supplies were stabilized with highly preserved food.
It was nothing short of an ideal military state.
Zeke erased his presence and entered the fortress, looking for places where Abel might be.
'If I don't catch Abel here, the opportunity won't come again.'
Through William's memories, Zeke discovered that Abel had come here with only a few guard knights, leaving the Red Lion Knights behind.
As a Draker's guardian knight, he came with a small entourage, leaving the knights behind to give legitimacy to the empire's peacekeeping forces.
Of course, this decision was possible because he thought there was no need to bring the knights, since there were special units raised by the Jiemens side, as well as Abyss mages and monsters behind them.
It was a perfect opportunity for Zeke.
'Since William Jiemens has been caught, he'll know that I'll make a move.'
And it was clear that Abel would also think this was a perfect opportunity to catch him.
It was a situation where both had set traps to catch each other.
'Abel doesn't know yet that I'm a Black Knight. Though he's probably hiding his abilities too, I have the advantage in the current situation.'
The problem was that the Empire's Second Prince was here.
'Security has been tightened since Daria Calvi arrived.'
Abel would certainly be by the Second Prince's side.
It was obvious he would try to capture Zeke by manipulating the upright Daria under the pretext of protecting the Second Prince.
'I'll turn his plan against him.'
At that moment, a loud horn sound was heard from inside the fortress.
WHEEEEEEE!
With the horn sound, the knights of the Human-Horse Palace could be seen scattering throughout the fortress.
Zeke noticed that Abel had officially unleashed the Horse Palace knights through Daria.
However, Zeke was already inside the fortress.
'Perfect. I'll use this chance to go inside.'
Zeke tried to find where Abel might be while moving deeper into the fortress, being extra careful to conceal his presence.
But then arrows flew quickly toward Zeke.
SWOOSH SWOOSH SWOOSH!
Zeke deflected the arrows with his dagger.
BOOM!
The aura embedded in the arrows caused an explosion.
Zeke, who blocked the explosion with Hersion, looked in the direction the arrows came from.
Daria Calvi was aiming at Zeke with a longbow.
'So they didn't send the knights to chase me, but to block my escape route.'
Abel had already known that Zeke was inside the fortress.
Though he wasn't sure how she was tracking him, Daria accurately located Zeke's position despite his stealth concealment and shot another arrow.
BOOM BOOM!
Another explosion occurred where Zeke had been.
'Has she seen through my stealth?'
For her who uses a bow as her main weapon, 'eye force' was the most important thing.
Daria had put much effort into eye force and ki sense training, and as a result, she was specialized in sensing invisible enemies.
Realizing stealth was useless, Zeke drew Bahamut and rushed toward Daria Calvi.
WHOOSH!
He charged in at once and swung his sword imbued with aura blade at Daria.
Daria immediately rolled to the side to dodge and shot arrows at Zeke.
The aura blade sword and Daria's arrows collided, causing an explosion.
BOOM! BOOM!
Taking advantage of the explosion blocking visibility, Daria rolled again and fired consecutive arrows while holding her longbow.
SWOOSH! SWOOSH! SWOOSH! SWOOSH!
Six arrows flew targeting Zeke's vital points, but he deflected all of Daria's arrows with his sword.
Then Zeke rushed toward Daria using Shadowless steps.
Daria kept shooting without rest, and Zeke avoided the incoming arrows while twisting his body to deliver sword strikes at Daria.
WHOOSH!
Zeke's sword flew toward Daria's side.
But at that moment, the longbow Daria was holding transformed into a spear.
CLANG!
Daria swung the spear to deflect Zeke's sword.
Then she stepped forward and thrust her spear at Zeke with rotational force.
The secret technique she learned directly from Duke Craven, who had reached the realm of Black Knight as a Lancer, unfolded in her hands.
Fanion Style Spearmanship
Wise King Spear
Twilight Flash
A thrust that pierces even twilight poured onto Zeke.
BOOM! BOOM!
Zeke raised his sword against the Twilight Flash aimed at his heart.
His sword technique, Black Sword technique , activated.
Dragon Slaying Technique Application
Black Sword technique
Black Wind
Zeke's dark aura enveloped Daria's attack, neutralizing it and reversing its force back at her.
Daria's spear bent as Zeke's sword strike hit her side.
BOOM!
Thanks to the Horse Palace's Hersion, she wasn't cut, but the powerful sword strike shook her body internally.
"Ugh!"
Zeke's Black Sword technique contained the principle of Strong wave resonance.
It was a lethal attack against knights because the waves penetrated their bodies and disrupted their internal aura.
Nevertheless, Daria gritted her teeth, stepped back, and transformed her spear back into a bow to shoot arrows.
TWANG!
Unlike before, these were ordinary arrows without aura.
Zeke walked slowly toward her.
The arrows deflected off his Hersion.
Daria glared at Zeke while clenching her teeth and said,
"Zeke Draker. You are currently in violation of the treaty and have illegally entered imperial territory."
Zeke replied in an incredulous tone.
"How ironic for the Empire to speak of treaties. Wasn't it the Empire that attacked the ghetto areas by unleashing monsters?"
To this, Daria responded,
"...Put aside such sophistry. The current situation is that you, Zeke Draker, have violated the treaty and attacked imperial forces. Throw down your weapon and surrender immediately."
Zeke understood the situation from Daria's words.
'As expected, Abel set a trap to catch me using Daria.'
The Knight of Madness Abel was skilled at pinning his own evil deeds on others.
In his previous life too, he often manipulated public opinion, such as massacring an entire city and then publishing articles claiming the Liberation Army had killed innocent citizens.
It seemed he planned to use Daria to capture him and then pin all of this ghetto incident on him.
'It won't go as you planned.'
Daria seemed to have recovered some strength as she stepped back again and shot arrows.
SWOOSH! SWOOSH!
Aura-imbued arrows flew toward Zeke.
Zeke quickly twisted his body to avoid the arrows and used Black Sword technique m.
WHOOSH!
Black wind-like aura emerged and enveloped Daria's arrows, then shot back at her.
BOOM! BOOM!
Daria launched herself to avoid her own arrows.
However, when she raised her head, Zeke was waiting for her in her blind spot.
BOOM!
Zeke delivered a kick imbued with wave resonance power to Daria's back.
WOONG!
The powerful wave penetrated her Hersion and churned through her body.
"KUHAK!"
She fell, coughing up blood.
Zeke placed his sword against Daria's neck and said coldly,
"Knight of the Horse Palace, Daria Calvi. Surrender honorably as a knight."
Daria bit down on her molars and glared at Zeke with frustration.
Zeke looked down at Daria while harboring internal doubts.
'For someone who directly learned the Wise King Spear from Duke Craven and reached a level approaching Black Knight, she was caught too easily...'
It was at that moment when Zeke had such suspicions.
WOONG!
Daria's Hersion was suddenly enveloped in light.
Simultaneously, small holes appeared in her Hersion, and thousands of arrowheads burst forth.
ZING!
Along with a powerful flash, countless arrowheads poured toward Zeke.