I’m a Holy Knight, but I Contracted with an Evil God - Chapter 18

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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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Episode 18.
【I thought it strange—him agreeing to wait so obediently. It didn’t suit him at all.】
“I’ll need to send Sirent if I’m to handle this on my own terms.”
With that, Leon stepped toward the Contaminated Entity.
Ten minutes at most before Sirent returned with Aila.
Five minutes would be safer, given their pace.
【This one’s substantial. An old one.】
“Will the same approach work as in Elderit?”
【Hard to say. I don’t recall actually recommending anything back then.】
“…True.”
Leon recalled the memory of absorbing fragments of Chaos and the Chaos within the ‘half-corpse’ through his Stigma Mark in Elderit.
“The core… where is it?”
When facing plant-based Contaminated Entities, the greatest difficulty lay in locating the core.
For a Holy Knight with keen senses, it would be simple enough—but Leon, despite bearing the title of Stigma Manifestation user, possessed only heightened five senses; his Holy Power-based perception was as dull as his meager Holy Power itself.
To make matters worse, the Contaminated Entity before him was nothing but a gnarled ancient tree with fleshy masses clinging to it, pulsing rhythmically.
Those pulsing flesh masses were disrupting his crude perception so thoroughly that every part of it looked like a core to Leon.
The Phantom Tree that had covered Barcelo was smaller, making it relatively manageable—but if he tried to locate this Contaminated Entity’s core directly, he’d never finish before Sirent and Aila returned.
“Ecrise, help.”
【Now you’re giving orders?】
“It benefits me, but not you. Hurry.”
【Stubborn one…】
He had to move quickly before the two arrived.
If it were merely a matter of destruction, that would be one thing—but Leon’s goal was to absorb the Chaos contained within that core.
He couldn’t let the two of them see that.
【Pick me up first. I’ll lend you my senses.】
“Your senses?”
【What, did you plan to ask me each time? I’d rather avoid having tedious tasks repeated.】
Leon asked no further and immediately unsheathed the Sword with Ecrise from his back.
The old blade was wrapped tightly in cloth, but the handle was intact enough to grip.
【Focus. I won’t teach you this twice.】
“…What exactly—”
The moment Leon spoke, a sensation like every nerve awakening at once spread through his entire body.
“…!”
The senses Ecrise shared were fundamentally different from the keen five senses unique to Stigma Manifestation users.
Where Leon’s senses were merely several times sharper than an ordinary person’s, this felt like an entirely new sense blooming into existence.
This newly born perception stretched outward like long, delicate threads of a web, radiating from where Leon stood.
And simultaneously, those threads conveyed information about everything they touched to him.
Truly, everything in this place. Everything.
“…This… this is…?”
Through this ‘sharing,’ Leon finally became consciously aware of powers he had only ever used intuitively.
The faint Holy Power dwelling within him, the Chaos remaining in Ecrise, and countless unknowable forces scattered through the air.
This was the sense some called Sixth Sense or Intuition—a perception Leon, bearing the hollow title of Stigma Manifestation user despite his meager Holy Power, had never possessed until now.
【Grow accustomed to it. If you’re to strengthen yourself by absorbing Chaos, you’ll need to command all of this freely.】
Knowledge mattered.
One could only use properly what one first understood existed.
And.
“…That’s the core?”
【Indeed. Now you can sense it.】
A span above Leon’s height, a location that gave the impression of Chaos gathered densely.
That was the core of the Contaminated Entity before him.
Intoxicated by the newly felt perception, Leon extended his left hand toward the core and slowly approached the Contaminated Entity.
‘Like last time…’
Whoosh!
“…!”
【There it is.】
Its resemblance to an ancient tree meant this Contaminated Entity too was a variant of the Phantom Tree.
The moment Leon closed the distance, it thrashed forth all the wooden tendrils buried within its pulsing flesh masses.
The tendrils coiled around Leon’s arms, legs, and neck in an instant, constricting with force.
This was no mere restraint.
He had merely tried to draw close, yet sensing threat, the Contaminated Entity squeezed him with a force that seemed ready to shatter bone.
His toes left the ground and breath caught in his throat, but Leon chewed through the pain and thrust his left hand—the one bearing the Stigma Mark—desperately toward the creature’s core.
Other tendrils coiled around Leon’s left hand with enough force to shatter bone, but his hand was faster.
By the slimmest margin, Leon’s fingers made contact with the core.
“Gah!”
Perhaps it was the severity of the contamination.
The Chaos dwelling within this Contaminated Entity felt far more repugnant than the fragment of Chaos he’d encountered in Elderit, far more sickening than the pittance of Chaos that had clung to the half-corpse.
A wave of nausea that threatened to make him retch tore through Leon’s stomach.
But Leon ignored it and focused on his left hand, gripping the core of the Contaminated Entity.
‘Slowly…….’
As if cradling it.
More delicately.
【Ah.】
In the same moment as Ecrise’s admiration, Leon felt the sensation of a hard shell crumbling within his grasp around the core.
The useless husk burst apart, and the Chaos nestled within it was drawn into Leon’s Stigma Mark nearly simultaneously with the shell’s disintegration, releasing a cascade of light like Holy Power itself.
Brilliant light swept across the space.
In its wake, the tendrils that had bound Leon went limp and fell to the ground all at once, as if their life had simply ceased.
It was then that Leon noticed the two figures standing at the chapel entrance.
“Leon?”
“……What did you just do?”
At the question brimming with astonishment, Leon found himself unable to open his mouth readily.
From where had she been watching?
What unfolded before Aila’s eyes was the massive Contaminated Entity she’d been briefed on through Sirent already crumbling to dust.
That archetypal response to Contaminated Entity elimination made Aila’s brow furrow, and she strode toward Leon with unrelenting purpose.
“Did you neutralize the Contaminated Entity alone? I distinctly told you to avoid engagement and prioritize situational reporting. What is this? Insubordination?”
In just a few steps, Aila closed the distance to Leon, her bearing suggesting she might seize him by the collar at any moment.
The oppressive weight of authority befitting the captain of the 2nd Knight Order bore down upon him, yet Leon held his ground and replied quietly.
“I miscalculated the spacing during the waiting period and was attacked.”
“And I merely counterattacked.”
“Yes.”
Her crimson eyes narrowed with the sharpness of an interrogator.
“Your hand.”
“……Pardon?”
“Your left hand. You said you were a Stigma Manifestation user? Show me the hand bearing the Stigma Mark.”
At Aila’s peremptory tone, Leon complied and extended his left hand.
The Stigma Mark inscribed on that hand still faintly glowed after absorbing the Chaos.
“……So the Stigma Mark did react. Is yours specialized in Purification?”
Even for Aila, the notion that Leon had deliberately channeled the Chaos dwelling in the Contaminated Entity’s core through his Stigma Mark was beyond her reach.
Thus, Aila had constructed an assumption: the Stigma Mark had simply reacted of its own accord and ‘purified’ the Contaminated Entity.
It was a remarkable misconception, yet entirely rational reasoning.
That the Stigma Mark absorbed rather than purified Chaos was a phenomenon Leon himself found difficult to believe, having experienced it firsthand.
All the more impossible, then, for anyone else who couldn’t know that Leon’s Stigma Mark was ’empty.’
For Leon, it was a supremely convenient misunderstanding, and he gladly played along with Aila’s presumptuous confusion.
“I’m not entirely certain myself……, but wouldn’t you say so?”
“……The result is satisfactory. However, insubordination is a fact, so I will impose discipline accordingly. But.”
At Leon’s dubious affirmation, one corner of Aila’s expression, which had hardened menacingly, curved into a smile.
“The fact that a single Trainee Candidate purified contamination of this magnitude is also true. This is merit deserving of commendation, not punishment. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Aila deliberately stressed the word purification.
Whether she truly believed Leon’s explanation remained unclear, but at least she was accurately assessing the results before her.
‘Obsessed with performance’—a conclusion perfectly suited to Aila.
“Training in Acalon is concluded. Sirent, relay the return order to the other Trainee Candidates.”
The moment Aila’s command fell, Sirent bolted from the chapel.
Aila gazed briefly at the water source where the contamination had vanished, then gestured for Leon to remain in the now-empty chapel.
“You come with me. There’s something you need to report to me directly.”
* * *
While Leon was summoned to Aila, the Baekya Corridor grew considerably more turbulent.
Sirent, returning first, poured out an account of what he’d witnessed, still trembling with unabated excitement.
“I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true! That massive Contaminated Entity……, it shattered in an instant from the light that burst out of Leon’s hands!”
However, the reactions of the other Trainee Candidates were largely tepid.
They all thought Sirent was exaggerating severely, and surely it couldn’t have been that dramatic.
It was Kyle who spoke first, his expression unimpressed.
“It’s impossible. To purify a Contaminated Entity of that magnitude in one stroke would require a high-ranking priest—that’s the only domain where it’s possible. Leon, at best he’s on equal footing with Ilbar, right? Even Ilbar would struggle with that. Wouldn’t you say?”
Kyle turned his head toward Ilbar as he spoke.
When their gazes met, Ilbar’s face remained lost in thought, but he did not contradict Kyle’s question.
His response was calm, as though he fully understood the limits of his own abilities.
Emboldened by Ilbar’s tacit agreement, Barcelo stepped forward and added his opinion.
“Right. If the Contaminated Entity had been that large, even with Ilbar… Sirent, aren’t you mistaken about this? It’s strange enough that the Church wouldn’t have known about such a large Contaminated Entity lingering in Acalon all this time.”
“Exactly. Acalon is one of the facilities the Church manages for our training, so there’s no way we wouldn’t have noticed it.”
“Right. It must have been something small, which is why it went undetected until now.”
Logically speaking, the other Trainee Candidates’ argument had merit.
However, their doubts differed subtly from the question Leon had formed the moment he saw the Phantom Tree that had engulfed Barcelo.
Leon’s question was ‘Why does the Contaminated Entity still exist?’, while the other candidates’ question was ‘How could such a Contaminated Entity possibly be here?’
The two questions were fundamentally different.
Yet despite this, since his account was truthful, Sirent had no choice but to bristle.
“So you’re saying I’m lying?”
“That’s not what we’re saying…”
“You’re saying it was exaggerated, right?”
“That’s exactly what I mean!”
Sirent protested again with raised voice, but the others gave lukewarm responses.
Wounded, Sirent directed his question toward Ilbar—the only one among them who had offered no negative opinion.
True, Ilbar seemed absorbed in thought and hadn’t explicitly doubted Sirent’s account, making him the sole person who hadn’t questioned it.
“Ilbar, do you think the same? That I’m exaggerating?”
At the direct question, Ilbar’s gaze—which had been downcast until then—lifted toward Sirent.
After meeting Sirent’s steady eyes for a long moment, Ilbar shook his head.
“No. You’re not someone who tends to exaggerate. I believe you.”
With Ilbar’s firm assertion, everyone else fell silent.
He was the only one who had sparred directly with Leon, the only one who had felt even a fraction of the Holy Power Leon possessed.
Sirent’s face visibly brightened.
The next day, Leon’s official judgment regarding the Acalon incident was announced.
“Leon.”
At Aila’s summons, Leon stepped forward.
Leon felt her crimson eyes—shining more vividly than usual—piercing through him.
Yet he did not avert his gaze.
“You violated the principle of combat prohibition and immediate reporting. This constitutes clear disobedience of orders. As punishment, you are sentenced to three days of solitary confinement and restriction of privileges.”
At news of Leon’s punishment, undisguised smiles played at the corners of Barcelo’s and Kyle’s mouths.
But Aila’s words were not yet finished.
“However.”
The deliberate pause carried added weight.
Leon found himself thinking that Aila’s eyes seemed to sparkle slightly more than before.
Like a predator regarding him with dangerous interest.
“Given that you, as a Trainee Candidate, have demonstrated the clear accomplishment of independently purifying a 4th Grade Contamination Source, this interim evaluation recognizes your contribution and concludes with victory for Leon’s team.”
Punishment followed by clear acknowledgment of merit.
At Aila’s simultaneous declaration, all the Trainee Candidates save Leon gasped.
Leon, by contrast, felt a surge of elation.
‘This works out perfectly.’
Solitary confinement?
It was a golden opportunity to escape tedious group training and devote time to personal training alone.
To be continued ▶
A Holy Knight Bound by Contract to an Evil God
Author
Lam Dath
Publisher
Kim Seok-hwan, Choi Se-ra
Publisher
Grae Publishing
Contact Email
[email protected]
Publication Date
March 27, 2026
UCI
G720:N+A327-20260227066
※ This e-book is protected under copyright law, and unauthorized reproduction or copying is strictly prohibited. Violations may result in both criminal and civil legal liability.
※ Pentagram awaits your precious manuscript.

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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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