Chapter 734: Beyond Destiny (6)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 734: Beyond Destiny (6)
It was deep. The tunnels beneath the Imperial Palace seemed shallow compared to this precipice.
Jin had been descending for several minutes. As the ground drew closer, he felt two sensations at once. The first was Spirit Energy stabbing at his body like needles; the second was a stifling pressure, as if his aura-generating organs were being clogged.
It felt just like being exposed to the ‘Aura Disruptor’ that Quaul and Valeria had created.
Just before impact, Jin neutralized the force with his sword energy and landed softly on the ground. A sudden intuition struck him: this was likely only the ‘first basement floor.’
Rosa is probably at the very bottom, no matter how many floors down that is.
Scanning his surroundings, he spotted indigo lights in the distance. Jin immediately recognized the twenty-odd lights for what they were: glowing eyes.
The ferocious killing intent radiating from those pupils was so vivid it was almost palpable.
"Please, let it be different this time," Jin murmured, his low voice drifting through the cavern like a breeze. The energy emanating from these figures was entirely different from that of the knights who had emerged from the Mausoleum until now.
"I hope it’s someone I can actually call an ancestor."
The glowing eyes drew closer, and Jin began walking toward them.
Eleven of them.
The fact that all twenty-two eyes were indigo meant they were all knights who had returned from the Mausoleum.
As the distance closed, the silhouettes of the knights sharpened. Observing their attire, Jin identified them as one Patriarch and ten Black Knights.
However, this Patriarch looked different from the ones he had faced before.
His face is covered in chains?
Black chains were wound tightly around his head, obscuring it completely. The sword he held was a common longsword—the type most favored by past Patriarchs—so Jin couldn't identify him by his weapon alone.
"I am the 12th Flagbearer, Jin Runcandel. Knights, state your names."
At his words, it was not the Patriarch but one of the Black Knights who spoke.
[You came down alone.]
"So you must be the Black Knight Captain. Can the Patriarch not speak?"
The chains binding the Patriarch’s face seemed to twitch.
"In that case, I will spare the Patriarch’s life for now. Come at me, all of you."
Jin leveled his sword toward the knights.
The stifling pressure on his aura organs and pressure points intensified. In contrast, the knights of the Mausoleum were completely unaffected.
The knights were well aware of this advantage, yet they still spread out cautiously into a formation. They knew that even with his aura suppressed, Jin was not an opponent to be underestimated.
"If you're going to hesitate, I'll make the first move."
Boom—!
The ground beneath Jin’s feet erupted with a sharp sonic boom.
His sword shot toward the Patriarch’s face. He intended to cut away the chains that masked it.
The Patriarch raised his sword to parry, and the Black Knights’ blades lunged at Jin from all sides. Spinning to deflect two of the blades, Jin slipped through the gap and thrust his sword toward the Patriarch’s face once more.
Clink—!
The tip of his sword caught a single link of the chain, sending sparks flying. Immediately after, the Patriarch retreated behind the Black Knights and unleashed a Light Speed Thrust that grazed Jin’s ear.
A streak of hot blood trickled down his ear, but Jin felt a sense of confusion rather than crisis.
The Patriarch’s sword is sharp, but I feel no killing intent from him.
The killing intent pricking his skin belonged entirely to the Black Knights. In other words, the Patriarch himself had no will to kill Jin.
And yet, every single one of his attacks is undeniably lethal…
The Patriarch was being controlled. Jin considered the possibility that someone was moving the Patriarch’s body like a puppet.
That someone could only be Rosa.
This time, a Black Knight’s sword grazed Jin’s shoulder. Minor wounds were beginning to accumulate, but Jin remained composed.
The aura suppression was undoubtedly being facilitated by Rosa’s Spirit Energy. He couldn't immediately find and destroy whatever device or link was causing it, but it didn't matter to Jin.
It’s a good thing I came down alone. Rosa is using this aura suppression to make it easier to kill others, not me.
Fundamentally, unless his aura organs were completely destroyed, this kind of interference was merely a temporary inconvenience for Jin.
"Haaaah—!"
As Jin let out a battle cry, a shockwave erupted with a flash of light. The three Black Knights rushing him were thrown back by the force, and the Patriarch at their center stumbled backward.
The pressure points that had been blocked were instantly forced open.
The only reason Jin hadn't broken the aura suppression from the start was to probe the behavior of the Patriarch and Rosa.
"Building a castle, digging out the earth, gagging a former Patriarch with chains, and using petty tricks like aura suppression… The Evil God keeps doing things that don't suit her."
Bradamante’s blade pointed toward the ceiling, bathed in pure white light.
Runcandel 3rd Decisive Technique: Meteor Shower.
Sword energy coalesced in the air and began to rain down into the cavern like a tidal wave.
The Black Knights lowered their stances, unleashing their own sword energy to intercept the Meteor Shower. In that split-second opening, Jin dove into their formation once more.
Slash—!
A Black Knight’s right arm flew off, and the true melee began. One sword clashed against eleven blades, leaving a constant, complex trail of afterimages in the darkness.
Even amidst the chaos, the Meteor Shower continued, relentlessly battering the battlefield. The terrain shifted with every impact, and the Black Knights were always a step slower than Jin in their footwork.
Only the Patriarch could read the frantic flow of the battlefield at a speed nearly equal to Jin’s.
Still, no killing intent could be seen in his indigo eyes. If anything, they seemed to hold a desperate plea.
Clearly, he did not want this fight.
"This swordsmanship isn't yours."
Outside of the Decisive and Secret Techniques, Runcandel swordsmanship had no fixed form. However, Jin recognized a familiar flow in the style the Patriarch was using.
It was the flow of someone who, despite not possessing a Runcandel body, swung a sword more brutally than any Runcandel.
"Feeling nostalgic for your time as a human, Evil God?"
The Patriarch’s swordsmanship was an exact match for Rosa’s.
Rosa was puppeteering him.
And there was only one reason Rosa would need to ‘control’ him.
The former Patriarch is resisting the Evil God.
Jin saw in him both a sense of bitterness and a ray of hope for the Runcandel clan.
Not all the knights who came from the Mausoleum are completely submissive to Rosa. There are those, like this Patriarch, who are defying the will of the Evil God.
The Patriarch had not uttered a single word, and every swing of his sword had been a killing blow. Yet, Jin could read the one Runcandel trait that he had refused to let go of, even in death: struggle. An unyielding spirit that would not break, even against the will of a god.
In the long, thousand-year history of Runcandel, there was no way only one such person existed. If there were those like Lionel or the Sen family who succumbed to great evil, there had to be those who remained unbroken until the end—like this former Patriarch, who was burning his will more desperately now than he ever did in life.
Only then did Jin realize Rosa’s true intention.
She wants to show me that even the ancestors who resist are ultimately helpless, and she wants me to be the one to kill them.
It wasn't just Rosa; the Patriarch crossing blades with Jin also desired his own death. Death was his only escape from being a shameful puppet.
Even if his soul wasn't liberated and he faced eternal torment, it was better than being a puppet fighting for the Evil God. Even if his mind eventually broke under the torture and he vanished completely from this world, it was better than fighting for the one who was defiling his family.
Jin had no intention of playing along with Rosa’s foul scheme.
"I will release you soon, Ancestor."
Jin’s approach toward the Patriarch changed. The sword he thrust at him grew even more ferocious, but its sole purpose was to break the chains binding him as quickly as possible.
However, the Black Knights were tenaciously snapping at his heels. He couldn't use the Pluto's Sovereign Sword or any equivalent Secret Techniques without destroying the Patriarch’s physical body in the process.
Of course, there was no guarantee that Rosa wouldn't simply reclaim the Patriarch's soul or life force once the chains were broken. But Jin wanted to break them and speak with him properly, even if only for a moment.
He wanted to tell him that he had fought honorably until the very end.
And if possible, he wanted to save him so they could navigate this hell together.
Clang!
A single strand of the chain wound around the Patriarch’s face snapped. His eyes seemed to clear slightly.
At the same time, blood sprayed from Jin’s shoulder.
It was the blade of the Black Knight Captain.
The cut wasn't deep, but if he continued to accumulate wounds like this, the blood loss would eventually slow him down.
But comrades were already leaping from the floors above into the cavern below.
"Jin!" Hedo’s voice rang out.
Along with him, Bianca and Octavia descended toward the battlefield.
Ten minutes had passed.
The tide of battle had already been leaning in Jin’s favor; with their arrival, the knights of the Mausoleum were forced into an even more difficult position.
Hedo’s sword path and Octavia’s light magic descended upon the Black Knights. Having been on the same side until recently, the two displayed excellent coordination.
As the Black Knights flinched, Bianca took her position behind Jin. The Black Knight Captain was forced to use the sword he’d intended for Jin to block Bianca’s greatsword instead.
For a moment, Jin had the opening he needed to focus solely on the Patriarch. He had expected the fight to drag on, given that Rosa was directly controlling him.
However, the moment Jin thrust his sword toward the chains, the Patriarch momentarily broke free of Rosa’s control.
The sword that had been moving to parry Bradamante froze for an instant.
Is it because I cut a few strands of the chain?
It was the most the Patriarch could achieve while defying her control, and Jin did not miss the opening.
Slash, Clatter—!
Finally, with a single strike, Jin severed the chains covering the Patriarch’s face.
The face revealed belonged to a Patriarch Jin had heard of many times while studying Runcandel history in his previous life: Alphen Runcandel.
He was the 20th Patriarch of Runcandel, the man once known as the ‘Knight of Light.’