I Became A Thief Who Steals Overpowered Skills - Chapter 74

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 74. Their Rhythm

Crash!

Within the deafening blast that erupted inside the carriage’s compartment.

Lakcradion landed on the floor, having cleaved the soldier in two.

In that instant, a shadow blade flew at her, and as it grazed past her hair, it severed several strands.

A sharp exhale.

With that caught breath, Lakcradion immediately slashed at the Shadow Armed Princess with her extended blade.

But the Shadow Armed Princess remained unharmed despite being cut by the sword.

She would not vanish unless she sustained damage beyond a certain threshold.

Clang!

Yet unlike the Shadow Armed Princess, who could absorb Lakcradion’s attacks with her body, Lakcradion could not evade hers.

“L-Lakcradion…”
“Enough. Focus on recovering.”

Behind her stood Soldrick, the vice-commander of the Pendalore Unit, grievously wounded and on the verge of death, with the White Mage Olivia desperately working to restore him.

If Lakcradion dodged too broadly, Olivia and Soldrick would take the blow instead.

So she bore the brunt of the Shadow Armed Princess’s attacks as much as she could.

Because of this, wounds were accumulating on Lakcradion’s body.

The Shadow Armed Princess was certainly far inferior to her original form, yet she remained nearly Lakcradion’s equal in strength.

‘If this one is this strong, what of the original…’

Lakcradion swallowed hard, her thoughts drifting to Krash, who was facing the Shadow Armed Princess herself.

She was worried for him, but all she could do now was trust.

“Lakcradion! There—there!”

At that moment, another Shadow Armed Princess emerged from the door that had clattered open.

Blood stained her blade—someone had clearly fallen to her.

But the real problem was that the Shadow Armed Princess had become two.

“Leave me behind and go.”
“Vice-Commander!”

Olivia cried out in shock, but he pressed on, blood spilling from his lips as he forced the words out.

“It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t hindered you from the start, none of this would have happened.”

Soldrick clenched his teeth, bitter over the fact that his teammates were now in danger because of him.

Had they not interfered with Lakcradion and Krash, and had the two of them reached the eighth floor, the team would never have scattered like this, cut down one by one.

“Not me—save the others first. The other team. They don’t know. Only Ibleing and I were aware of it.”

Ibleing, the swordsman who had been killed first by the Shadow Armed Princess, and Soldrick, the vice-captain, had quietly conspired together to shackle Lakcradion and Krash’s progress.

The rest knew nothing of this.

Not even Pendal, their captain.

So he had hoped—at the very least—that Olivia and Lakcradion would flee and rescue one more of their comrades.

“Vice-captain, stop talking! The bleeding’s getting worse!”
“…I’m begging you. I have no face to show the captain anymore…”

Knowing the weight of that guilt, Soldrick exhaled as Lakcradion drew a breath.

“We’ll speak of this later.”

That was another way of saying she had no intention of leaving him behind.

“What? Why—”
“Do you really think Pendal wouldn’t notice what happens in his own unit?”

Soldrick’s face hardened.

“Whatever your intentions were, Pendal consented to this. For the sake of the Pendalore Unit.”

Pendal had appeared to move impulsively, but he had been methodically considering and researching his own way to bring down Nakcheon all along.

He simply hadn’t yet found the resolve to challenge Nakcheon again, not the way Lakcradion had.

But he was not standing still.

Lakcradion understood this the moment she looked upon the Pendalore Unit.

The Pendalore Unit was nothing but the proof of Pendal’s struggle to overcome Nakcheon.

“So I simply honor Pendal’s request.”

His plea to save his team.

Bang!

But misfortunes, they say, never come alone.

Along with the shattered door, another Shadow Armed Princess emerged.

Three in total now.

Even a single one had pushed Lakcradion to her limits—and now the worst had come to pass.

“L-Lakcradion!”

Olivia was on the verge of tears.

She could feel death approaching.

“It’s fine.”

But Lakcradion did not yield an inch, lifting her blade in perfect stillness.

“Because I promised.”

A promise made with Krash.

It was a promise to protect the Pendalore Unit.

Even though they were the ones who had thrust their blades at her, he wished her to forgive them and keep them safe.

Such a man had asked this of her, facing the Shadow Armed Princess directly.

She could not falter against merely three Shadow Armed Princesses.

Snap!

In that instant, all three Shadow Armed Princesses moved at once.

One wielded a sword, another an axe, the third a spear.

They did not command the same array of weapons as the Armed Princess herself, yet every blade they swung was perilous beyond measure.

Clang, clang!

With each metallic ring, wounds opened across Lakcradion’s body.

Between spurts of blood—

Thump!

In that instant, the Shadow Armed Princess gripping the spear lunged forward without hesitation.

Lakcradion couldn’t evade it.

Because the spear was aimed at Olivia behind her.

A guttural cry escaped her.

The moment Lakcradion forced herself to lock blades in a desperate test of strength, the Shadow Armed Princess wielding a sword swept it toward her throat.

Death flashed across her vision in the briefest instant.

Clang!

With the clash of impact, the Shadow Armed Princess’s blade was stopped by a jade-colored sword.

The moment Lakcradion realized who wielded it, her eyes widened—and there stood Pendal.

“Too slow,” he said.

Pendal, bearing a scar on his neck from the forced healing of a Potion, stood beside Lakcradion with the Okcheon gripped in his hand.

“Captain!” Olivia cried out.

As she called to Pendal, he steadied his breathing and leveled the Okcheon.

“…Pendal. Two of them?”

The Shadow Armed Princess wasn’t just three—there were two more.

At her question, Pendal drew upon his Aura through the Lionner.

“One was handled by me and the others. The other one’s nowhere to be seen—we’re still hunting it. But Jorsia is dead.”

Pendal muttered with a bitter edge in his voice at the death of Jorsia, who had been their scout.

“Then it’s simple.”
“Right. Deal with these two, take down the other one, and only that monster remains.”

Their eyes met—Lakcradion and Pendal.

In that moment, both of them leaped toward the Shadow Armed Princesses without hesitation.

The two Shadow Armed Princesses immediately responded, wielding spear and sword as their attackers closed in.

Clash!

The carriage filled at once with the ringing of steel and the cutting air of weapons in motion.

The Shadow Armed Princess was formidable.

After all, they were Doppelgangers born from the same person.

Their actions and thoughts aligned perfectly, and because of this, the Shadow Armed Princesses’ rhythm was nearly flawless.

Pendal and Lakcradion, by contrast, were two different people.

They had been comrades once, but for the past several years they had never synchronized their rhythms, never fought alongside each other.

Yet why was it?

The Shadow Armed Princess was being driven back.

Pendal and Lakcradion’s movements were clearly out of sync.

Yet that very discord kept spawning unforeseen variables.

As Lakcradion drove her blade forward to parry the Shadow Armed Princess’s attack, Pendal’s burst of lightning happened to land a direct hit on the princess in that same instant.

Damage accumulated on the Shadow Armed Princess in this subtle, layered way, variable after variable.

It was absurd, but this was always how the two of them fought.

Precisely because they were the worst-matched pair, they created the most unpredictable combinations—that was what everyone at Maseonggung had always said.

“Pendal!”
“I got it!”

Lakcradion’s shout snapped out as she sensed the Shadow Armed Princess’s defenses crumbling under the accumulated damage.

Pendal, pressing himself flat against the ground, began drawing the Lionner up over the Okcheon.

The Shadow Armed Princess, recognizing his killing technique taking form, immediately turned to assault him.

But Lakcradion surged forward with blazing Aura, her spear and blade moving in flawless unity to intercept both attacks at once.

Attack and defense as one.

It was a realm only Lakcradion could reach—one who honored fundamentals above all else, achieving perfect unity in both her offense and defense.

It was in that moment, as Olivia gasped in admiration.

Lightning erupted violently from Pendal’s body.

Crack!

When the spark rushed past with a sharp, brief whistle.

As Pendal’s shadow-form scattered and electricity danced around him, the blade of the Okcheon thrust forward.

The Thunder Wolf Sword Draw.

A lightning wolf tore through both of the Shadow Armed Princess’s heads simultaneously.

Though that strike had been stopped by the main body.

This decisive blow had landed cleanly on the Doppelgänger, and the Shadow Armed Princess began to collapse.

In that instant, Lakcradion and Pendal both tasted certain victory.

But the Shadow Armed Princess’s arms, even as she crumbled, coiled around Lakcradion’s limbs like serpents binding their prey.

“Ugh?!”

Lakcradion let out a startled cry, never having anticipated an ambush even in the midst of collapse.

In her vision, the door swung open with a dull thud.

Standing before that doorway was the Shadow Armed Princess—the one Pendal said had vanished.

The Shadow Armed Princess, gripping what looked like an enormous hollow column, pulled something.

Click! A whoosh of flame!

From within came the grinding sound of metal interlocking, followed by the roar of ignition.

Lakcradion tried to wrench herself free, but the Shadow Armed Princesses clung to her all the more fiercely even as the structure collapsed around them.

With her strength nearly exhausted, they rushed at her with suicidal fury—she had no chance to escape.

Meanwhile, the flames were already converging toward the column held by another Shadow Armed Princess.

Lakcradion’s eyes trembled violently.

I’m dying.

Am I really going to die here?

Without even challenging Nakcheon. Without ever saying those words to Krash.

Dying like this?

To say she had no regrets would be a lie.

In fact, the realization that regret had only just seized her was itself maddening.

If she was to die so pathetically, she should have at least crossed blades with Nakcheon.

It was as bitterness darkened her eyes.

That a figure suddenly thrust itself before her.

A man’s back, wisps of ashen hair scattering around it.

Lakcradion’s eyes snapped wide as she saw his silhouette cast in shadow by the roaring flames.

“Pendal?!”
“Hell, shouldn’t have done that.”

With those words, Pendal let out the briefest, most resigned laugh as the inferno swallowed the carriage.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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