Chapter 49
Chapter 49
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Knights of Radiance (2)
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Midnight.
The 1st Imperial Princess's garden was utterly silent.
Only the hoot of an owl and the chirp of crickets broke the quiet.
Thick clouds blocked even the moonlight.
"..."
A sturdy outer wall encircled the serene garden.
It was so tall and seamless that no ordinary thief could hope to scale it.
That was why hardly anyone ever sneaked into the princess's chambers.
But...
A purple glow began to rise from beyond the wall.
Soon, an unpleasant vibration rumbled through the ground.
Ruuuumble—
The barrier no one thought could be breached.
A massive, grotesque shadow loomed over its top.
Only when the dense clouds parted could the shadow's true form be seen.
Enormous tree roots.
They had sprouted from the earth, stretching high enough to avoid touching the wall.
The intruders used them as makeshift stairs to barely clamber over.
The moment the two black-robed dark mages entered the princess's garden.
Had they cast some spell?
Not even a rustle sounded as they stepped on fallen leaves.
Like ghosts.
The mages pushed through the underbrush.
They came to an abrupt halt beneath a familiar syringa tree.
One extended his arm, revealing a corpse-pale palm.
Then, a faint black flame flickered to life in it.
"We must leave soon, so let's begin quickly, Elder."
"Understood, Leader."
The cult's elder turned his palm toward the ground.
Fallen leaves scattered slowly.
Then the buried soil erupted, revealing the cursed tools they had planted.
"Hm...?"
The elder tilted his head at the sight of the tools.
He carefully lifted a bone fragment buried alongside a black crystal.
"What is it?"
"This isn't the black goat bone we buried..."
The elder, who had flipped back his hood, examined it closely.
Soon his lips parted in shock.
"Looks like a bird's skeleton..."
Bits of flesh clung to the bone.
And a faint, appetizing aroma wafted from it.
"No way... chicken bone?"
"What...?"
The superior-looking Leader turned to ask.
Whoosh—
Dozens of torches flared up around them.
"Found the intruder!!"
Voices of the Knights of Radiance echoed from all sides.
The dark mages frantically scanned their surroundings.
"Looks like we've been spotted...!"
The two sprang to their feet.
They exchanged a glance.
Then they launched their second plan, prepared for just this scenario.
"Stay calm and stick to the plan."
The Leader clasped his hands together.
He thrust his palms toward the ground...
And cried out in a sinister voice.
"Answer the call."
Purple mana flowed down from his palms.
Skeletal hands burst from the earth.
"Over here! Reinforcements, hurry...!"
Two knights who had spotted them swung their swords with all their might.
The elder stumbled back, chanting a spell.
The moment he finished.
He clutched his throat with his palm.
His lips parted, spewing purple mist.
Pffft—!!
"That's the poison mist I warned about—fall back!"
Damian, joining from afar, covered his nose with his sleeve and shouted.
But the knights in front had already inhaled it.
"Urk!!"
They panicked at their first encounter with a dark mage's attack.
Without Damian's command, casualties might have occurred.
"Those who breathed the mist, withdraw! Only artifact-equipped knights, pursue!"
Armored knights moved to chase the fleeing dark mages.
But skeleton swordsmen rising from the ground blocked them.
These skeletons were the remains of veteran warriors who had fought in the empire's capital.
They clashed swords with the pursuing knights with expert skill.
"To think we'd be discovered so quickly..."
The superior dark mage, the Leader, gnashed his teeth as he slipped out of the encirclement.
Even this veteran was stunned by the speed of detection.
"Looks like the Knight Captain or the Archmage visited...!"
"No way... If elites like that came here, we'd have gotten prior intel for sure."
"Then what explains this...?"
The dark mages reached the reed beds near the outer wall unscathed.
Up to that point, they thought they could escape perfectly.
But...
"Halt!!"
The knights battling the veteran skeleton swordsmen closed in in an instant.
"Surrender now, and we'll spare your lives!"
The two dark mages turned at Damian's shout.
Seeing dozens more Knights of Radiance who had swelled their ranks, their faces drained of color.
"Up against the Imperial Knights, we're outmatched...!"
"Almost the entire order is here, minus the Captain...!"
They had known all along these knights would come.
Caught in the ironclad encirclement, the superior dark mage let out a deep sigh.
"Leader, wh-what do we do now...?"
The Leader drew a deep breath at his subordinate's desperate question.
He fixed the cult elder with a steady gaze.
"We escape."
"As expected... You have another plan ready?"
"Of course. Of course I do."
The robed dark mage drew a sharp bone fragment from his bosom.
The elder's face lit up at the sight.
"A dark mage's rib bone!"
The top-grade artifact: a dark mage's ribcage.
Normally, if the caster smeared their blood on it, hellhorses would be summoned from the earth.
The more blood spilled, the more horses appeared.
"Indeed. Shame, but no choice."
The elder, aware of this, admired the Leader's strategy to break the encirclement with the horses.
But he didn't know.
"I'll make sure to spread word of your noble sacrifice to the faithful."
That the blood to stain the bone wouldn't be the Leader's—but his own.
"Guhk...!"
The rib bone plunged deep into the elder's side.
Overwhelmed by agony, the subordinate couldn't even groan.
"Cult Leader Sloph, you...!"
He could only gaze up at the Leader he had trusted until now.
"What can be done? Elders can be replaced easily enough, but a Leader? Irreplaceable."
The Leader callously dropped the blood-soaked rib to the ground.
It liquefied into a writhing black puddle.
Soon...
Black-skinned horses began surging from the pool.
Neigh!!
Hellhorses summoned with thunderous cries.
Thanks to the thick blood, dozens appeared.
The Leader summoned black robe scraps onto each horse's back.
As if riders were mounted.
The summons then scattered in all directions at their master's command.
"They're fleeing on horseback!!"
"Don't panic—hold formation as Sir Veil ordered!"
The Knights of Radiance subdued the horses with skilled prowess.
But the sudden overwhelming numbers.
And speeds rivaling racehorses led them to miss a few through the encirclement.
"Chase them! One of them hides the real dark mage!"
Even tactician Damian faltered.
He chased with sword raised high, but out of eighty horses, in the end...
"Damn...!"
They let a single one slip away.
The hellhorse vaulted the outer wall with labored breaths.
The moment it landed outside.
The spell's duration ended, and it reverted to filth.
"Argh!!"
The Leader tumbled to the ground.
He staggered to his feet with a sharp cry.
"Hah... Damn Knights of Radiance..."
The mage glared back at the wall he'd crossed, panting raggedly.
Horse neighs echoed from beyond.
Along with blazing torchlight and the clash of mana-infused sword auras.
To escape that hellish place, he had sacrificed a top-grade artifact and the cult's precious elder.
"Damn it... That's why I said I didn't want the 1st Imperial Princess...!"
The Leader limped into the dense forest, exhaustion weighing him down.
Yet even as he left the princess's estate, one doubt lingered in his mind.
The Knights of Radiance were among the empire's strongest orders, so they had contingencies.
That allowed him to escape using hellhorses and skeleton knights.
But the process had been far too grueling.
As if the knights had anticipated his every strategy.
It felt like being toyed with by some divine being.
"No way..."
The Leader shook his head, trying to dispel the suspicion.
His cult's dark magic originated in the northern frontier, after all.
Few in the empire's heartland even knew of it.
"First things first, get out of here..."
The dark mage scanned his surroundings and hurried to the forest entrance.
Once inside, pursuit would slacken.
But...
He had to stop again.
An intense mana unlike any he'd felt before.
Its chilling aura sent shivers down his spine.
"You're here?"
At the forest entrance, where I'd been waiting, I stood up.
I patted my stiff waist.
"Didn't want the 1st Imperial Princess, huh..."
I drew the sword at my hip.
I raised the blade, honed sharp with deep blue mana.
"So that means you've sent scum like you to the other princesses too?"
That confirmed it.
The arsonist, Ekina, and now this dark sorcerer.
All pawns of one mastermind.
Catch this one, and I could round up the arsonist too.
"So it was you..."
The dark mage I'd locked eyes with froze like he'd seen a ghost.
He muttered in a trembling voice.
"The one who saw through our grand plan...!"
A subtle sense only captain-level experts could detect.
He'd noticed it, even pinpointed my escape route.
He'd assumed the knights were oblivious to them.
My appearance, piercing through everything like a specter, set his eyes darting wildly.
"Grand? Burying bones in a lone woman's garden— that's your big plan?"
I approached leisurely, sword raised.
Gazing at the pale face peeking from his robe, I said.
"From that skin, you're with the northern Nemesis Cult."
The heretical group from the northern frontier: Nemesis.
They traded their life force for dark magic, the epitome of evil.
That's why their skin was notoriously pallid, even among dark mages.
"How do you know that...?!"
The Leader gulped as his cult's name was exposed.
"How?"
I smirked at his panic.
I pointed to the scar on my forehead from the north.
"I'm the one who wiped out your cult."
The already pale Nemesis Leader turned ashen.
Recognizing me, he stumbled back.
Memories flooded his mind: the cult's northern base crumbling, faithful slaughtered.
He collapsed, legs giving out.
One of the subjugators standing amid the dying, trampling them—that was me.
"Brings back old memories. Nice, right?"