Chapter 98
Chapter 98
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 98
Chapter Title: Monsters of the Fight Club
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* * *
“Victory! Sachsen's ‘Black Prince’ is victorious!”
“Does this mean he couldn't win, even after breaking the Fight Club's rules and using an Avatar?!”
“It seems the title of the Empire's greatest genius was no empty boast!”
The crowd’s ecstatic voices echoed through the arena. Behind them stood the high-ranking assassins of the Shadow Court.
“...Has he already reached the stage where he can consciously manifest a World of Ideation?”
A man in a beak-like mask and a black coat spoke. It was the voice of the Killing Sword, Master Baro.
“He wouldn't survive the Fight Club without at least that much power.”
“Heh, son of a bitch. That's no ordinary brat,” Dale replied calmly, and Master Baro swore in amazement. The assassins in their beak-like masks vanished in unison. They were the proud enforcers of Guild City.
And now, they were the greatest assassin organization on the continent, remade to serve as Dale's limbs.
As the assassins withdrew, Dale turned his back. A victory in the Round of 32. Moreover, he had defeated the proxy of the Holy Sword Master, eliminating one competitor for the Black Market.
Dale walked over calmly and reached for the knight's waist. A golden skull ornament—in other words, the invitation to the Black Market that the Holy Sword Master had given his proxy.
*Crack!*
He crushed it with all his might.
This was the biggest reason why the proxies of high nobles risked their lives to participate in the Fight Club. The fewer competitors, the better. Even if it wasn't strictly necessary to kill them, it was preferable.
Having an opponent beg for their life and scream for surrender wasn't a bad outcome either. After all, there was hardly a more pathetic conclusion than watching the proxy of a high noble desperately beg for their life.
Dale turned and left the arena. It would be some time before his next match, and there was no harm in observing his future opponents.
* * *
Even though Dale had only deployed his World of Ideation in a clear act of self-defense after his opponent broke the rules by using an Avatar, it was an extremely unusual case.
The moment the rules were broken, the Shadow Court, who were on standby, would make their move, and the Killing Sword himself was leading his assassins.
One of the Seven Swords of the Continent. He was not an opponent a mere proxy could handle unless a powerful high noble intervened directly.
The participants of the Fight Club were surely aware of this fact.
But in the face of a life-or-death crisis, reason is less useful than one might think. A knight's pride would not allow him to kneel and surrender, yet he could not simply accept death either. For a knight, surrender was a shame worse than death.
Following Dale's match was another duel in the Round of 32.
And so, another proxy of a high noble lost his reason and deployed an Avatar, a taboo in the Fight Club…
“Heh, look at this clueless son of a bitch.”
And against that powerful foe, the Killing Sword, Master Baro, made his move.
Clad in a beak-like mask and a black coat, he gripped the hilts of two swords. Dual swords, the two-sword style.
Facing the knight who had deployed an Avatar, crimson Aura Blades coiled around his twin swords.
He was joined by the ‘high-ranking assassins’ of the Shadow Court under his command.
Perhaps he didn't even think the Avatar was worthy of being countered with another Avatar.
The assassins' blades, aimed at vital points, descended upon their target. A few steps ahead of them, a volley of hidden weapons carrying a crimson aura rained down from all directions. Each and every assassin wielded the same crimson Aura Blade that Master Baro prided himself on.
Before such an overwhelming number of skilled fighters, even a knight using an Avatar stood no chance.
“Gack, cough…!”
Crimson weapons pierced him from all sides. Blood gushed from his vital points, and the metallic scent of it filled the air.
‘…!’
Watching the scene, I realized something.
These men, the ‘high-ranking assassins’ of the Shadow Court under Master Baro… were by no means mere back-alley thugs. They were the official successors to the sword and style of the Killing Sword, one of the Seven Swords of the Continent.
They were in no way inferior to the knightly forces cultivated by the high nobles, and at the same time, they lacked any knightly code of honor. They were not knights who fought with honor, but assassins who reaped their opponents' lives with despicable thoroughness.
They were devout worshippers of the Goddess of Shadow and hailed Dale as the ‘Apostle of Black.’
There are many ways to earn a person's trust. Gold is better than camaraderie, loyalty is better than gold, and fanaticism is better than loyalty. In that respect, the trust of the Shadow Court was beyond question.
‘This is the power of the Shadow Court that I will command…’
The sight made Dale's heart beat even faster.
Along with the Night Raven Knights, the pride of the Mad Sword Lord Helmut, he would now have the assassins of the Shadow Court, trained by the Killing Sword Master Baro. An unbelievable amount of power had fallen into his hands.
“Clean out your ears and listen up.”
Looking down at the knight kneeling with blades stuck in his vitals, the man in the beak-like mask, Master Baro, spoke.
“Before you run your mouth and get a one-way ticket to the afterlife, you'd be wise to bow your damn heads and surrender.”
He issued a blatant warning to the participants of the Fight Club. A crimson sword flashed—the final blow.
Blood spurted forth, and the severed head rolled limply across the ground.
Silence fell over the arena as a breeze swept through. Master Baro and his shadow assassins were already gone.
* * *
Just as the World of Ideation deployed by a mage was not an omnipotent power, the same was true for the Avatar deployed by a knight.
What mattered was not the Avatar or the World of Ideation itself, but the strength of the ideology projected into it.
For instance, the Avatar of the Knight of Saint Magdalena who fought Dale was made of pure white, symbolizing their order. While its form could be called the organization's ideology, it could never be called the individual knight's ideology. And as a sword's ideology grew stronger, the Avatar would gradually acquire its own unique character and power.
Not the ‘ideology of an organization,’ but a unique ideology built with his own sword.
Paradoxically, the utterly grotesque form of a pig that the Holy Sword Master possessed spoke to the level he had reached.
* * *
A short while later, another highly anticipated match in the Fight Club began.
Lord Crimson's adopted son, Ray Yuriseu.
While his position was absolute and unchallenged within the Imperial Capital and the Red Magic Tower, unlike Sachsen's ‘Black Prince,’ he was a monster who had remained unknown to the outside world, biding his time in complete silence.
And now, Ray Yuriseu himself had put an end to that silence. The act of terror using black magic against the master of the Kalimala Guild was merely a prelude.
“My, what a rare and curious sight this is!”
“To think that another child so young would enter the Fight Club, aside from the eldest son of House Sachsen!”
“He is the adopted son of the infamous ‘Lord Crimson,’ after all! He wouldn't have been taken in for no reason.”
The commentators' excited voices continued as his opponent readjusted his grip on his sword. The Fight Club was typically the domain of knights. If a fight between a mage and a knight proceeded in the ‘usual’ way, especially in a duel held within an arena, the mage would be at an overwhelming disadvantage.
But Ray Yuriseu paid it no mind.
Crimson-black mana swirled at his feet. It was the power of black, said to have been obtained through the bond between Black and Red. He added his own formidable red power to it, accelerating the Circle in his heart.
As the Circle's RPM rose sharply, a vortex of black and red began to pour out.
‘A Third-Circle…!’
Dale sensed it instantly. Ray Yuriseu flicked his finger. A wall of fire erupted between him and the knight.
‘A jab to keep him from closing the distance.’
So Dale thought, but his prediction was completely wrong.
*Fwoosh!*
The roaring flames began to form a silhouette.
—It was a Death Knight of flame.
To dismiss it as a mere creation of fire, the ‘power of black’ dwelling within it was too strong.
He had literally fused the esoteric arts of the Black Magic Tower with his own red magic to construct it.
The armor of roaring flames, the fiery skull within—it was the very image of a ‘black mage's Death Knight.’ Moreover, the greatsword of flame in the knight's hand…
‘A Death Knight from red magic…!’
Most importantly, there wasn't just one. The flames blazed endlessly, generating more knights of death. The intense heat they radiated made it difficult to even breathe when near them. They were not made of flesh and bone, but of roaring flames.
It was a sight that left even Dale speechless with astonishment.
Furthermore, the weapon held by the flame Death Knight was no mere greatsword of fire.
It was projecting… an aura. And it wasn't a single color.
Crimson-black. An Aura Blade of intermingled darkness and blood. Those very crimson-black Death Knights began to charge.
Immediately after, having exchanged only a few blows with the flame Death Knights, the knight quickly fell to his knees and shouted his surrender.
“I surrender, I surrender! I surrender!”
No matter how shameful and agonizing it felt, it was better than dying. Better than the worst possible outcome of dying a dog's death and not even getting to participate in the Black Market.
He at least had the sense to make that calculation.
“I accept your surrender.”
Ray Yuriseu flicked his finger. Attacking an opponent who had surrendered was a forbidden act. The flame Death Knights surrounded the knight and halted their movements.
At the same time.
“Gack, cough, keugh!”
Suddenly, the knight began to clutch his throat and groan.
“...!”
Seeing this, Dale knew instantly. Ray Yuriseu was intentionally dispersing a ‘poisonous gas.’
—The toxic gas that results from a fire.
Through the flame Death Knights, he was ‘intentionally’ manipulating the flow of toxic gas generated by the burning surroundings. By utilizing the mechanism of carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning to interfere with hemoglobin's ability to bond with oxygen.
The knight's body collapsed limply, suffocated.
A colorless, odorless, tasteless assassin.
“Oh, my.”
Ray Yuriseu gave an awkward smile.
“I seem to have killed him by mistake.”
He played innocent with blatant transparency.
“In an arena where lives are on the line, such things are sometimes unavoidable.”
The Fight Club sought the ecstasy of blood, a festival of madness. Even if there was a rule against attacking a surrendering opponent, in the face of an ‘unavoidable accident,’ it was, quite literally, unavoidable.
Besides, this was what everyone had wanted, and so the crowd erupted in cheers at the sight of Ray Yuriseu. But Dale could not smile.
The precision of the ideology projected into each Death Knight. The skill required to manifest it in the form of flames.
Furthermore, the Aura Blade he projected was impossible without a certain aptitude for the sword.
Most of all, this was not a level that a ‘mere Third-Circle mage’ could display. Just as it had been with Dale in the past.
‘It'll be worth a proper fight.’
Watching the scene, Dale thought as if it were someone else's affair.
* * *
Immediately after.
With the conclusion of the Round of 32, Dale left the Fight Club at once. He headed for the heart of the city where the club was built.
‘Arte della Lana.’
To the headquarters of the master of the Lana Guild, one of the seven great guilds.