Chapter 66
Chapter 66
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 66
Chapter Title: Traitor (1)
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“Senior Gamal!”
Dionysio cried out urgently.
“Sir Sanus! What is the meaning of this!”
“Dionysio~ Calm down~.”
Sanus replied in his usual laid-back tone.
“It was Gamal who attacked me first~. We were resting after meeting with the Holy Knights of our order~, and then Gamal ambushed us~.”
“Don’t spout such nonsense! Why would Senior Gamal do something like that!”
“Who knows? Only Gamal does, I suppose?”
Dionysio looked at Gamal with trembling eyes. Gamal bellowed at Sanus.
“Dionysio! Don’t believe him. Sanus… Gahk!”
Sanus tightened his grip on Gamal’s throat. Gamal spat up blood.
“Senior!”
Dionysio cried out desperately and tried to rush forward.
But the Holy Knights of Radiant Agony blocked his path.
“Don’t come any closer. You might be in league with Gamal.”
“There has to be some misunderstanding. Why would Senior Gamal ambush Sir Sanus!”
“Misunderstanding? We nearly lost several Holy Knights from our order. Can you really call that a misunderstanding?”
Dionysio bit his lip at Sanus’s words.
“…Then please restrain me and Senior Gamal. We’ll stand trial fairly at headquarters!”
“That won’t do~. We’re in a dangerous place right now~. We can’t leave any loose ends~.”
Sanus lifted his axe while holding Gamal. Dionysio was just about to leap forward in shock.
“Did you say Sir Gamal ambushed you?”
Demian, who had been quietly observing, asked Sanus.
“Yes~. That’s right~.”
“And you subdued him?”
“Exactly~.”
“You seem far too unharmed for that.”
An ambush normally gives the attacker an overwhelming advantage over the victim.
Moreover, Gamal was a Grade 2 Holy Knight, just like Sanus. If Gamal had attacked, Sanus should have sustained considerable damage.
Even if not, the surroundings should have been a mess.
“Or is it the other way around?”
At Demian’s question, Sanus flashed a sly smile.
“Oh dear, you’re not fooled~.”
* * *
“…Sir Sanus, what do you mean by that?”
Dionysio asked in a trembling voice. Sanus replied innocently.
“What else? I ambushed Sir Gamal first~. I was planning to catch you two off guard and take you down too~, but that didn’t work~.”
Dionysio’s eyes hardened.
“Why would you do something like…!”
“Oh, it’s not personal with Gamal~. It’s all to enact the will of the gods~.”
Dionysio furrowed his brow at the cryptic words.
“Headquarters has grown too soft. Take the recent jousting tournament incident. They just questioned the noble participants and let them go. It’s utterly deplorable.”
“That’s only natural once the questioning was done…”
“That’s exactly what’s deplorable.”
Sanus sighed and shook his head.
“In the old days, headquarters would have started by cutting off the participants’ fingers one by one. Anyone even slightly suspicious would’ve been burned at the stake. People only spit out the truth after enduring pain.”
The church was infamous for its fanaticism, but surprisingly, it had mellowed in recent times.
There had even been a time when they burned an entire village to death just for failing to root out hidden heretics.
“We of Radiant Agony have always lamented that. So we plan to restore headquarters to its former glory.”
“What does that have to do with attacking Senior Gamal!”
“It does. To achieve our plan, Radiant Agony must become the core of headquarters. We need to stand above the other orders.”
The best way to weaken an order’s power is to kill off its promising Holy Knights who will lead its future.
Conveniently, this subjugation force included not only the Holy Knights of the Mixed Blizzard but also Gamal and Dionysio, disciples of Black Snow.
“…You’re trying to kill Senior for such a petty reason!”
“Can’t you understand? No matter. I can’t understand you either, after all.”
Sanus released Gamal. Gamal fell limply to the ground.
“That’s why we do this. If we can’t understand each other, all that’s left is to shed blood, right?”
Sanus raised his axe high.
“Senior Gamal!”
Unable to contain his emotions, Dionysio charged at Sanus.
The Holy Knights of Radiant Agony blocked Dionysio’s path.
“Get out of my way!”
Dionysio swung his spear, but a Holy Knight of Radiant Agony blocked it with his shield.
In that instant, light burst from the shield.
“Guhk!”
Dionysio’s body was flung backward. He spat up blood and tumbled across the ground.
“Don’t resist needlessly. For today, we of Radiant Agony have opened our armory.”
What had just sent Dionysio flying wasn’t a Holy Knight’s technique.
The shield had emitted a shockwave on its own, blasting Dionysio away.
“De… Demian Haksen… Run…”
Dionysio said while vomiting blood.
“They’re armed with high-grade holy relics…! Even you can’t win…!”
Dionysio used his spear as a crutch to painfully rise to his feet.
“I’ll hold them here! You go join the Incinerators… Argh!”
Demian lightly kicked Dionysio’s foot. Dionysio lost his balance and collapsed.
“Wh-what are you doing!”
“A guy who can’t even stand is going to hold them off…? Sit there and treat your wounds.”
Demian stepped forward. Sanus asked him with a surprised look.
“You plan to face us?”
“You weren’t going to let us go anyway. If I escaped and told the other Holy Knights about your betrayal, it’d be trouble for you.”
Demian replied curtly. Sanus burst into laughter.
“The more I see you, the more of a waste it is. Sir Demian, why not pledge yourself to Radiant Agony even now? We’ll spare you.”
Instead of answering, Demian drew his holy sword.
Sanus sighed regretfully at the clear refusal.
“Kill him. He’s quite skilled, so don’t get careless.”
The Holy Knight who had just blasted Dionysio charged.
Demian swung his sword down at the Holy Knight. The Holy Knight smirked and raised his shield.
The holy sword clashed with the shield. In the next moment, the holy sword’s blade dug into the shield.
The shield split open without resistance. It was like slicing cheese with a red-hot knife.
The Holy Knight holding the shield was cleaved the same way. Crimson blood poured onto the ground.
“…….”
“…….”
Everyone present wore expressions of utter disbelief.
When a knight uses Aura, they can slice through steel plate in one stroke.
But that wasn’t an ordinary shield—it was a holy relic. Not even an ogre’s blows could scratch it.
“You were too careless. You shouldn’t underestimate Aura.”
Careless?
Who could predict a holy relic shield would be cleaved?
Could failing to prepare for that really be called carelessness?
“Aren’t you going to join in, or are you just going to watch?”
Demian asked the remaining two. The two Holy Knights gritted their teeth and shouted.
“O God! We dedicate this battle to You!”
“We are the executors of God’s wrath!”
The two Holy Knights of Radiant Agony swung their weapons at Demian.
Just before their weapons reached him, Demian vanished from their sight. He was already behind them.
“Huh…?”
“Huhh…?”
Blood lines appeared on their necks.
Their heads fell to the ground. Their headless bodies staggered before collapsing.
Grade 3 Holy Knights of the order had fallen in a single stroke. They hadn’t even realized they were attacked.
“You…”
Watching this impossible scene, Sanus reached one conclusion.
“You’re no low-class.”
“As you can see.”
Demian replied nonchalantly to Sanus’s question.
“You said you betrayed for the will of the gods?”
“It’s not betrayal, it’s merely…”
“No matter how you dress it up, it’s betrayal.”
Demian cut Sanus off.
“Either way, I can’t help but thank the gods. Thanks to them, I spotted the traitor early.”
Radiant Agony had surely betrayed in his previous life as well.
They must have thought they could handle the corpse play among themselves.
They had dispatched a Grade 2 Holy Knight and opened their armory, arming themselves with high-grade holy relics.
But as the results showed, that was a grave miscalculation.
“How unpleasant. Don’t belittle our resolve with words like ‘betrayer.’”
“If you can’t accept it, don’t. I have no intention of convincing you.”
Demian gathered his mana. Aura enveloped the surface of his holy sword.
“You really plan to fight me for real?”
“I’m a bit of a coward, you see. Leaving a traitor alive would make the back of my head itch constantly.”
Sanus scoffed in response.
“I agree.”
A massive holy power erupted from Sanus’s body.
* * *
“How much do you know about Radiant Agony?”
The holy power emanating from Sanus was like the sun. It was so bright and hot that even standing nearby was burdensome.
“Radiant Agony can reinforce anything. Simply put, physical abilities like strength, agility, stamina… Deeper in, it can reinforce the durability of armor or the sharpness of weapons.”
There was no way he didn’t know.
Demian recalled fighting Luminary, one of the Five Saints, during his Death Knight days.
Luminary had ‘reinforced’ gravity to crush and kill tens of thousands of undead in a mad feat.
“The authority of Radiant Agony can be stacked. The higher the realm, the more stacks you can apply.”
Sanus lightly placed his axe blade on the ground. With a roar, the floor cracked open.
He had produced that power just by ‘reinforcing’ the weapon’s sharpness and weight.
“How many stacks do you think I can do?”
“About ten?”
“Thirty.”
Sanus vanished. There was a sound like the air exploding, and in an instant, he was right in front.
Sanus swung his axe down. Demian leaped backward.
The moment the axe struck the ground, thousands of cracks formed. The ground and surrounding walls shattered entirely.
Demian stuck out his tongue at the brute force.
‘Universal Flow Insight can’t deflect that.’
The Sword Saint realm of Universal Flow Insight could twist the trajectory of attacks.
But the stronger the enemy’s attack, the more mana it consumed. Demian didn’t have enough mana to deflect Sanus’s strikes.
“Oh? You reacted~?”
Sanus said with a surprised face. Even as he spoke, he swung his axe repeatedly at Demian.
Demian dodged without blocking. Blocking such attacks would be suicide.
“You must’ve just entered mid-class~?”
Sanus was currently reinforcing his physical abilities dozens of times over.
Thus, every attack was eerily fast and powerful.
At the low end of mid-class, he wouldn’t have dodged even a single blow and would’ve died.
“Impressive! Excellent! Let me ask again! Will you pledge to Radiant Agony…?”
Demian’s hand moved. He swung his holy sword, slashing at various parts of Sanus’s body.
Sanus’s attacks were frighteningly fast and strong, but his large motions left many openings.
Unlike the other Holy Knights, he wore white cloth robes, making vitals easy to target.
Yet despite slashing him several times, Sanus’s body was unscathed. Only his clothes were torn; his flesh was fine.
“Oh my~. Interrupting me like that is quite rude~.”
Sanus said with an intact face. Demian clicked his tongue inwardly.
“Damn tough.”
He had ‘reinforced’ his skin to block Demian’s attacks. Even with Aura, it was impenetrably hard.
“If you won’t become a Holy Knight… I guess I’ll just have to kill you!”
Sanus swung his axe again. It was a fighting style that ignored defense for pure offense.
‘Arrogant. He trusts Radiant Agony’s authority too much.’
Despite such an amazing authority, Luminary wasn’t the strongest among the Five Saints.
There was good reason for that. Radiant Agony’s authority excelled in versatility but had fatal flaws for supremacy.
The authority of Mixed Blizzard, blended with Incinerators, allowed infinite techniques through diverse applications.
But Radiant Agony only reinforced existing things, making it predictable.
Sanus was a prime example.
He reinforced his physical prowess and defense, then unleashed attacks, but hadn’t landed a single effective hit on Demian.
Demian’s skill played a part, but ultimately, Sanus’s attacks were just axe swings.
‘Moreover, reinforcement consumes a ton of holy power. The more stacks, the greater the consumption.’
Above all, reinforcement didn’t end after one use. It continuously drained holy power.
That’s why Sanus aimed for a quick finish.
If Demian dragged it out, he’d win. But Demian had no intention of investing that much time in Sanus.
‘I have corpse play. I can’t get tied down by this guy.’
Demian’s movements changed. He dodged the axe and closed in.
At the same time, he thrust his sword. The long blade grazed Sanus’s neck.
“It’s usele…….”
The blade severed Sanus’s neck. It cut deep into the artery, blood spraying like a fountain.
Sanus recoiled in shock. He hurriedly used holy power to regenerate the wound.
“How…?”
Sanus stared at Demian in horror.
Among the masters Demian had fought was one called the Murder Ghost.
The Murder Ghost had reached master realm through assassination arts.
He studied where to cut to easily sever muscles, how to slice to break bones entirely.
Through such gruesome methods, the Murder Ghost attained the realm of ‘Robbery Killing Sword’ and became a master.
After mastering ‘Robbery Killing Sword’, he could hack human bodies to pieces even with mere twigs.
No matter how much Sanus stacked his defensive authority, it was useless. Robbery Killing Sword ignored ‘reinforcement’ and sliced flesh.
“I don’t know what trick you pulled, but one thing’s clear. You’re too dangerous to let live long.”
Sanus drew out his holy power. It all gathered into the axe.
“So I’ll end it with this.”
Demian immediately recognized the technique Sanus was preparing.
It was a signature move favored by Radiant Agony Holy Knights.
Simply put, it was a basic overhead chop.
But Radiant Agony reinforced every aspect of that simple motion to produce immense destructive power.
They ‘reinforced’ raising the axe, stepping forward, powering the arms, and bringing it down.
At the moment of descent, they ‘reinforced’ the axe’s weight, durability, and cutting power.
Finally, they ‘reinforced’ the destructive and explosive force of the compressed holy power.
A brutally simple attack, and thus one with no easy counter.
Even dodging left you vulnerable to the aftermath.
Dodging was the worst option. He needed a matching technique to counter.
“I’ll end it with this attack too.”
Demian gripped his holy sword with both hands. He bent his arms, positioning it beside his head. Finally, he aimed the tip at Sanus.
A simple thrusting stance.
Sanus couldn’t help but sneer at the motion.
“Arrogant. You think that’ll block me?”
“The truly arrogant one is you. You nearly got your head chopped off just now.”
Demian’s mockery twisted Sanus’s face.
“Let’s see who’s truly arrogant…!”
Sanus kicked off the ground and lunged. A long afterimage stretched to Demian.
The axe, compressed with holy power to its limit, fell from above.
Demian thrust his holy sword at the axe.
The holy sword met the axe. In the next instant, the axe’s holy power scattered entirely.
Not just that—the axe blade shattered into fragments and turned to powder.
“Huh…?”
Disbelief spread across Sanus’s face.
With her knowledge, she couldn’t comprehend what happened.
‘Annihilation Strike’
The realm attained by Azure Flame, one of the church’s Five Saints.
A realm that focused all power on one point to utterly dismantle structure.
It spared nothing—not objects, Aura, magic circles, or even holy power.
“Th-this can’t….”
Sanus cried out in terror.
But before she could finish, Demian closed the distance.
The holy sword pierced Sanus’s chest.