I’m a Holy Knight, but I Contracted with an Evil God - Chapter 2

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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 2.
His entire body ached as though it had been beaten senseless.
Leon’s eyes snapped open, wincing against the pain.
……
What greeted him first was a landscape both unfamiliar and oddly recognizable.
Darkness hemmed him in, and trees crowded thickly all around.
Trees? A forest?
None of it made sense.
His last memory was unmistakably……
……Ecrizé.
【That’s right. It’s here.】
So it wasn’t a dream.
Leon bit his tongue and pushed himself upright from where he lay.
But then.
……?
The darkness made it hard to be certain, but the hand that steadied him on the ground was unmistakably smaller and more delicate than his memory of his own.
The calluses and scars that had accumulated across both palms from relentless training since childhood were nowhere to be found.
This isn’t my hand.
A strange unease seized Leon, and he lurched to his feet.
Then he noticed something else amiss.
His line of sight was far too low—as though he’d somehow shrunk in stature.
……A child?
【Exactly twenty years ago.】
Madness. Time reversed itself?
So that’s why the landscape felt familiar.
Twenty years prior meant before Leon ever entered the Church of Light.
No wonder his body felt so small.
Twenty years back would make him fourteen.
And if this was before he joined the Church of Light, then this place was……
Understanding crystallized in an instant. Leon swept his gaze across the shadows and made out small leaves gleaming with a familiar luminescence.
The Silverleaf Forest of Elderit.
The silverleaf was a species of conifer native to the Northern Continent.
And a substantial forest of them bordered Elderit.
Elderit—the village where Leon had been born and raised, which twenty years hence would vanish into ash in what became known as the Tragedy of Elderit, just before he entered the Church of Light. Yet now it sprawled before him, whole and undamaged.
A Church scholar would later assert that had the Tragedy of Elderit been properly prevented, the catastrophe that consumed the entire Western Region might have been averted.
Because all calamity began in Elderit.
If Leon could stop that beginning, he might change the terrible future that was to come.
The conviction seized him with sudden clarity.
Yet before that grand resolve to reshape the future, an immediate question demanded answering.
Leon turned to the presence that had brought him to this place.
Does that mean this was a contract?
Leon had learned through bitter experience that there was no such thing as a gesture of goodwill without a price.
Least of all a Regression that reversed the flow of time itself—there had to be a cost.
And as expected, Ecrizé’s voice confirmed his suspicion.
【It’s similar.】
“Similar? Either it’s a contract or it isn’t. What do you mean ‘similar’?”
【It means what you imagine as a one-sided contract is not what we’ve made. What you and I have formed borders on Coexistence rather than an ordinary agreement.】
Coexistence?
【Do you remember the sword you saw before you died? That was me.】
“A sword? That sword?”
【Yes. Your desperate final stand broke the seal that had kept me slumbering. But from being trapped so long, my existence became unstable.】
How unstable?
【Enough that I had to bind your soul with mine.】
Wait. Then……
【Yes. If you die, I perish with you. If I vanish, your life ends as well. You and I are now one existence. So what binds us is not a contract but Coexistence.】
Coexistence? Between a Demon Sword and a human?
The word settled oddly in Leon’s ears, and his expression twisted into something wry.
For a holy knight who had spent his entire life fighting demons, no pairing could have been more unfit.
Yet at the same time, this binding of his own life to another’s existence was an ironclad guarantee that Ecrizé would not betray him—for their fates were sealed together.
Still, Leon couldn’t suppress the instinctive revulsion that furrowed his brow.
“That’s sophistry. In the end, you’re just saying you’ll use me however you please to stay alive.”
【I won’t deny it. But thanks to me, you’ve kept your life and been given another chance at existence—hardly an unfavorable bargain for you. If anything, by human standards, you’ve received more than your due.】
A holy knight and a demon god, sharing a soul.
Leon, at a loss for words and biting his tongue, suddenly shifted his gaze to the back of his left hand.
Then he let out a bitter laugh and asked in return.
“And you’re telling me it’s not such a bad thing to share my soul with a demon god when I have this?”
As if to prove his point, Leon raised his left hand, and there, unmistakably carved into the back of it, was Arseriel’s Stigma.
If he truly had returned twenty years into the past, this mark should have vanished—and yet it remained.
“Why didn’t you erase this while you were at it?”
A chill crept into Leon’s voice.
Returning to twenty years ago and starting anew had its appeal.
But what good was a second chance if the Stigma that had made his previous life so miserable still clung to him?
“If you really are Ecrizé, one of the Three Great Demon Gods, then you’re equal in power to Arseriel, who bears this Stigma, aren’t you? Then you should have been able to neutralize the Stigma while turning back time. So why deliberately leave it behind?”
He couldn’t understand it.
No matter how urgent the situation, the actions of a demon god sharing a soul with a holy god’s Stigma-bearer made no logical sense.
No—before logic, was this even possible?
【I’m afraid this is the best I could manage. My power has weakened, and with what I have now, turning back your time is all I can accomplish. Neutralizing an already-manifested Stigma consumes far more energy than you might think.】
Leon kept his suspicious gaze fixed on the sword harboring Ecrizé.
And in the darkness, he clearly perceived what had eluded him before—the blade, which had been whole moments ago, was now catastrophically damaged.
Rust-eaten. Notched beyond repair.
As though it had poured out every last ounce of its strength.
Seeing this, Leon had no choice but to accept Ecrizé’s claim.
After all, Ecrizé himself would know the power dynamics between holy gods and demon gods far better than Leon ever could.
Strictly speaking, Leon knew almost nothing of Ecrizé—demons in general. Arseriel was a different matter.
Since holy and demon gods stood at opposite poles, Leon could only speculate based on his knowledge of the holy god Arseriel.
And what came next from Ecrizé was even more startling.
【Besides, your Stigma doesn’t seem likely to be an impediment.】
“Why not?”
【You called it Arseriel’s Stigma? But I sense no power from Arseriel within it.】
“What do you mean? Are you saying my Stigma is fake?”
Leon shook his head as if the very notion were absurd and added,
“The Stigma is a critical matter for the Church. It’s genuine. Do you know how many times it’s been verified?”
Had it been counterfeit, at least there would have been no hope to begin with.
To bear the mark of divinity and yet possess no true power to show for it.
What a glorious ornament that made him.
But Ecrizé’s answer was different.
【I didn’t say it was false. The form is certainly Arseriel’s. Only that the vessel contains nothing—no contents to fill it.】
“So you’re saying that I—!”
Leon’s face, about to snap something bitter, went deathly pale.
He felt something twist inside him, and his voice came low and strained.
“An empty vessel? You’re telling me that the blessing the god I’ve served my entire life bestowed upon me is nothing but a hollow shell?”
He wanted to deny it, but he couldn’t.
The Stigma was empty.
The moment he accepted that truth, Leon suddenly understood why his entire past life had been so wretched.
“An empty vessel, you said……”
The world seemed to invert entirely beneath a weight of burning betrayal.
Leon gazed down at his left hand, where the mark still gleamed with perfect clarity, and his eyes filled with contempt. Then, abruptly, a new realization struck him.
He changed his question.
“Ecrizé. What exactly is a Stigma?”
【You don’t know? It shouldn’t be unfamiliar to humans.】
“You said holy gods and demon gods are the same kind of being. So your definition should match a holy god’s, shouldn’t it? I want to hear the definition from you—not a human’s understanding.”
【Every supernatural ability your kind wields is borrowed from us. Because your nature differs from ours, you mortals have limits in wielding power borrowed from us. The Stigma is a vessel created by those you call holy gods to grant greater strength. Usually, they select a mortal they wish to empower, fill the vessel with force, and bestow the Stigma.】
“So my Stigma was……—I received the Stigma, the vessel, from Arseriel, but nothing inside it?”
【Likely so. Which is why it’s empty.】
At Ecrizé’s answer, Leon bit his lip.
For someone who had spent his entire life as a holy knight in service to a god—to Arseriel—even raising such a question felt profane. Yet the doubt that kept surfacing was impossible to suppress.
Why?
Why had Arseriel given Leon nothing but an empty vessel instead of a true Stigma?
“If what you’re saying is true, then why did Arseriel do such a thing? Why, exactly?”
【That, I cannot tell you. I am not Arseriel.】
“A mistake? God’s mistake?”
Leon asked, but Ecrizé’s answer was cold.
【We whom you call gods are merely beings of a different dimension. Superior to you humans, perhaps, but far from perfect.】
“The priests would have you burned as a heretic for speaking such blasphemy.”
【Unfortunately, it is truth. If you wish to know more, you’ll have to ask Arseriel directly.】
“That’s possible?”
【You keep forgetting — I stand before you now, the same manner of being as Arseriel. I speak with you thus; why should Arseriel be any different?】
Each of Ecrizé’s words shattered another piece of Leon’s understanding.
And through that confusion, a new thought struck him.
“……Wait. You said the Stigma was a vessel for god’s power, right?”
【Yes. A similar concept.】
“And you said you and the Lord God are essentially the same being.”
【That’s correct. Are you beginning to believe now?】
“Then — Arseriel’s power and yours are of the same nature, aren’t they?”
【Nearly so.】
“Answer precisely. Is your essence identical? Could my Stigma hold your power instead of Arseriel’s?”
At Leon’s question, Ecrizé fell silent, as if considering.
The silence did not last long.
Ecrizé spoke.
【It is not an impossible notion.】
“So it’s possible?”
【Try it. Your Stigma is on your left hand, yes? Grip me with your left hand.】
Leon extended his hand toward the blade that housed Ecrizé, his face tense.
The Stigma of the Lord God and the Demon Sword sealing the evil deity.
By all reason, the two forces should have rejected each other the instant his hand touched the blade — their natures were fundamentally opposed — and yet they did not.
“Nothing happens.”
【Peculiar. Keep hold of me and channel your power.】
“My power?”
【Holy Power, that is. Even a worthless knight like you should be able to muster some of it.】
Worthless.
Sometimes the truth wounds more than any lie.
Leon gritted his teeth and drew up the sensation from deep within himself.
Then.
A brilliant pillar of light burst forth.
“?!”
From his left hand gripping the blade, light erupted in a dazzling shaft that seared the eyes.
It was undoubtedly Holy Power.
And it was far more potent than the meager scraps he had been deemed worthy of before.
It was the true Holy Power — the real thing he had yearned for his entire life yet never once held in his grasp, the power that the name Stigma truly deserved.
Even if that power came from the evil deity, Ecrizé.
Continued in next chapter ▶
A Holy Knight Contracts with an Evil God
Author
Ram Dah
Publisher
Kim Seok-hwan, Choi Se-ra
Publishing House
Grae Publishing
Inquiry Email
[email protected]
Publication Date
March 27, 2026
UCI
G720:N+A327-20260227066
※ This e-book is protected under copyright law. Unauthorized reproduction and distribution are prohibited, and violators may face civil and criminal penalties.
※ Pentagram welcomes precious manuscripts from authors.

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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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