I’m a Holy Knight, but I Contracted with an Evil God - Chapter 24

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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 24.
Kyle’s scream tore through the quiet forest.
Leon and Sirent wheeled around at the sound, but they were a heartbeat too late.
“Kyle!”
Sirent’s cry hadn’t yet reached him.
From the darkness erupted something vast and tentacle-like, snatching at Kyle’s ankle as he retched.
Kyle hit the ground hard and, with no time to mount even a proper struggle, was dragged into the forest’s depths.
“Ahhh! Help, help!”
The screams receded in an instant.
It hunted like a beast—swift and silent.
“After him!”
Leon’s shout came as he tore off, driving hard through the undergrowth.
There was no time for hesitation.
Kyle had been dragged toward that same ominous darkness where the blood trail ended.
Branches clawed at his face and brambles caught at his feet, but Leon did not slow.
‘A Predator? No. This speed—no Predator moves like this.’
And the way it dragged its prey toward its own territory.
That behavior deviated from a Predator’s typical patterns.
Yet the aura it gave off was far too faint to dismiss it as anything but a Predator.
Such a weak presence would be almost undetectable if he hadn’t seen Kyle being dragged with his own eyes.
Among all Corruption Entities, none emanated so little power except a Predator.
“Kyle! Answer me!”
Sirent called out until his voice cracked, but silence—a hideous, suffocating silence—was all that answered.
Then Leon, who had been running ahead, came to an abrupt halt.
His lungs burned, his breath ragged.
“Leon?”
Sirent asked, confused, but Leon raised his palm and swept the perimeter before them.
Ahead lay a vast Clearing where trees had been violently uprooted and cast aside.
And there, in that Clearing, both men found Kyle—and the rest of the search party who had vanished.
“……Ah.”
A sound between a gasp and a moan escaped Sirent’s lips.
Kyle lay motionless on the Clearing’s floor, scattered around him the tattered remnants of White Cloaks bearing the Order’s mark.
But the cloaks were not white.
The pale radiance had been erased—replaced entirely by red.
And at the center of that devastation, coiled and overwhelming, lay a presence that eclipsed even the horror surrounding it.
“That… that’s supposed to be a Predator?”
Sirent’s voice pitched upward in terror, nearly a scream.
Fear choked the words from him.
When people heard the word “Predator,” there arose a common image.
But what stood before them bore no resemblance to it whatsoever.
The creature’s overall shape mimicked a serpent.
Where a head should have been, dozens of mouths twisted and gnashed in a grotesque tangle; where eyes might sit, gaping maws opened like voids.
At the center of this abomination, a single massive nose—the only feature that seemed to function—protruded grotesquely.
Sniff.
Sniff-sniff.
The creature’s singular nose flared and quivered, and the coils it held around itself began to writhe and contract.
Within, nested in a cradle of slick mucus, two figures lay pinned—melded almost to the creature’s very body.
Cepian and Ilbar.
“Cepian! Ilbar!”
The words tore from Sirent’s throat reflexively, but Leon’s grip closed hard around his shoulder, holding him back.
Sirent turned and saw the coldness that had settled into Leon’s eyes.
“They’re gone.”
Cepian’s lower half had already been absorbed, crushed, merged into the creature’s mass.
Ilbar was no different.
His upper body was still largely intact, but across his neck gaped a wound so massive that survival was unthinkable.
Even from this distance, the dried blood and severed tissues within were clearly visible.
He could not be alive.
“……Ugh……”
Sirent’s frame buckled as he fought to contain his cry.
Only the presence of an enemy to face kept him from collapsing entirely.
Leon felt the blood drain from his face as he turned his gaze toward the creature.
The darkness made it difficult to see clearly, but thick tongues jutting from countless mouths were licking the corpses of Ilbar and Cepian with nauseating deliberation.
The way it moved—slowly savoring its stored prey—made his stomach lurch.
‘Is it using them as nourishment?’
【It seems so. Though the scope of what constitutes nourishment appears to differ from ordinary Predators.】
‘What do you mean?’
【Look carefully. Why do you think it’s only clutching those two and no other corpses?】
At Ecridze’s observation, Leon focused his senses.
Indeed, the revolting tongue was drawing something far more special from the two bodies alongside blood and flesh.
‘Holy Power? You’re saying a Corruption Entity is absorbing Holy Power from a Holy Knight’s corpse? That’s possible?’
【Well, this one certainly seems capable of it.】
He had never heard of such a thing.
Corruption is neutralized by Holy Power.
By all reason, the moment it consumed their Holy Power, it should have crumbled to dust.
Yet the creature before his eyes was…
‘…repairing its body. Or am I seeing things wrong?’
【No. Your eyes don’t deceive you. You’re seeing clearly.】
A Predator born incomplete, destined to perish incomplete—yet here it was, mending its defective flesh with the Holy Power of Holy Knights.
Everything Leon understood about the world was being turned on its head, but he suppressed his alarm and analyzed the situation.
Sorting through the complexities could wait.
‘It doesn’t seem to hear sound.’
The creature appeared to be fundamentally a Predator.
It was composed of dozens, perhaps hundreds of maws, a single massive nose, and a pair of grotesque limbs sprouting from behind the bulk of its body that coiled around the two corpses.
The form resembled that of a human, but the thickness matched that of a tree trunk centuries old.
‘Those arms—they’re probably what seized Kyle.’
【A strong possibility. An armed serpent. Abominable.】
‘Given the speed it’s shown in getting here, it possesses tremendous strength as well.’
【No doubt. From the look of it, those two corpses are its cherished possessions it refuses to release.】
A hideous mass composed solely of misshapen jaws and mouths.
Resembling a serpent, its behavior ought to follow serpentine patterns.
The instant Leon reached that conclusion.
Shrieeeeeek!
Hundreds of the creature’s maws opened in unison, unleashing an ear-splitting shriek.
As if it had only just detected the presence of Sirent and Leon.
The intruder discovered, it unwound itself possessively, as though determined never to surrender its precious collection.
Even as it rose, it clutched the two corpses tightly to its body.
“Move!”
As the pair of arms at the creature’s rear reared up threateningly, Leon threw himself toward the unconscious Kyle.
The massive fist came crashing down an instant after Leon rolled across the ground with Kyle in tow.
Crash!
“Damn it, how are we supposed to fight something like that?”
In the grip of the descending blow, nearby trees snapped like matchsticks amid clouds of dust.
The force was staggering.
The creature slid forward in a grotesque dance, its body still cradling the corpses of Cepian and Ilbar.
‘This is supposed to be a Predator?’
He couldn’t comprehend it.
Predators were Corruption Entities with congenital defects.
There was no way something like that could possess this much power!
“Leon!”
Lost in thought for an instant, the creature’s attack struck again at the spot where Leon had been standing.
Cepian had not suffered his fate by chance.
This was no ordinary Predator—it was a creature far beyond the standard, a true aberration of the unknown.
Then Leon noticed something: the Chaos aura emanating from the creature was strangely, impossibly thin.
It made no sense.
A mass this size sustained by merely this much Chaos?
‘That can’t be right!’
【Exactly. It can’t be. This is artificial.】
‘What? You’re saying someone deliberately created this thing?’
【There’s no other explanation. Look—don’t you notice something strange about the aura around its head?】
Even as Leon dodged the Corruption Entity’s assault, he strained to locate the area Ecridze indicated.
And even through vision that wavered without cease, he could find it.
That artificial something Ecridze spoke of.
‘That thing?’
【Yes, that’s the one. That must certainly be the Catalyst.】
A Catalyst.
An artificial trace.
Only then did Leon understand why Cepian’s advance guard had been annihilated so utterly.
Bang!
Dodging the creature’s assault, Leon twisted his body by instinct and rolled across the ground.
Though it was merely an enormous hand crashing down upon the earth, the ground split with a thunderous report, and the wind pressure that followed scraped against his cheek like a blade.
A fraction of a second.
Had he been even slightly slower, that blow would have pulped him flat.
“Damn!”
The curse had barely left his lips when an impossible sight flashed across Leon’s vision.
The creature was cradling two corpses in its embrace, licking them clean as it regenerated its wounds.
This was an altogether different pattern from the normal characteristics of a Predator.
Before he could even register his shock, the creature’s massive hand drove through the dust and debris toward him.
Boom!
“Hk!”
Leon barely evaded the attack by launching himself upward off the creature’s body.
In that fraction of an instant, suspended in midair, his gaze caught the creature’s hollow lower abdomen.
Unlike the other wounds that sealed in an instant, a grotesquely gaping hole that someone had already torn through remained, stubborn and hideous.
‘That spot is usually the core…’
It was certainly the advance guard’s doing.
Very likely—with considerable probability—a sword wound from Cepian himself.
The fact that it moved unimpeded despite that glaring injury meant only one thing.
A second core.
Something like the Catalyst Ecridze had pointed out, for instance.
‘Is it taking the place of a core?’
【That certainly appears to be the case.】
The conclusion came swiftly.
Leon changed direction in that moment—the moment he was no longer merely fleeing from the creature’s relentless assault.
“Leon!”
“Get Kyle out of here, now!”
“But—”
“Now!”
Leon did not wait for Sirent’s reply.
Instead of retreating, he charged straight forward, gripping his blade firmly in both hands.
Through the Holy Mark on his left hand, Ecridze’s essence flowed into the sword.
At the same moment, the blade began to shine with brilliant white light.
Screeeeee!
The creature’s tongues lashed out like whips, but Leon slipped past the assault with a sliding dodge and drove his blade deep into its body.
Holy Power is fatal to Corruption Entities.
He had already confirmed that Ecridze’s strength, borrowed through Arseriel’s Holy Mark, carried the same effect.
As if proving this truth, the creature twisted its body with each touch of Leon’s blade.
Crack! Shrieeeek!
Swinging his sword across the creature’s writhing form, Leon climbed upward until at last he reached its head.
And without hesitation, he plunged his blade into that exact spot—where the Catalyst was embedded.
Shrieeeeeeeeeeek!!
A single, brutal stroke that split the creature’s grotesquely twisted skull clean in two.
Its body collapsed as it released a scream more terrible than any before, a sound no living thing should make.
“……Hhh……”
The serpentine form crumbled to dust and black smoke.
Leon leaped down from the corpse, breathing heavily.
Sirent approached, his face ashen.
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.”
“Thank the heavens.”
After confirming Leon’s safety, Sirent’s gaze turned toward the two corpses within the Corruption Entity’s remains.
“……I’m truly grateful for that.”
This time, the relief was for the other two—not Leon.
Leon shared the sentiment.
It was a mercy.
That they could at least recover their comrade’s body.
“How is Kyle?”
“He’s fine. Just unconscious.”
As Sirent spoke, his gaze remained fixed on the two corpses left behind in the center of the melted Corruption Entity’s remains, unable to look away.
Leon moved toward the bodies with heavy steps.
“Is it really over? Looks like headquarters won’t have anything left to do.”
“We’ll need to clean up the area.”
Cleanup.
That single word contained multitudes.
Leon swallowed down another rising sigh and approached the two corpses.
He needed to collect his fallen comrade’s body, left carelessly on the ground.
But as Leon examined the remains, his eyes narrowed sharply.
Carved into the two bodies, visible through the viscous slime, were symbols he could not comprehend.
They bore the same markings he’d seen in Eldrit’s Abandoned Sanctuary—the traces of those creatures.
Continued in the next episode ▶
Holy Knight who made a contract with an evil god
Author
Lam Dat
Publisher
Kim Seok-hwan, Choi Se-ra
Published by
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 or copying is prohibited, and violation of these restrictions may result in criminal and civil liability.
※ Pentagram is waiting for 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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