I’m a Holy Knight, but I Contracted with an Evil God - Chapter 3

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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 3.
“Insane!”
Leon swore without thinking and hurled the sword from his grip.
The pillar of light vanished the instant the blade left his hand.
【What are you doing?!】
The sword was Ecrisae, and she issued an immediate protest, but Leon’s ears refused to hear it.
“……Really…….”
When Leon realized he had been sent back twenty years, he would have rather had his Stigma erased.
But what if the Stigma was no longer useless?
Then he could change almost everything.
Even if he returned to the Church of Light, Leon would no longer be a weakling!
No—with this power, he could make everyone who had deceived him pay the price.
‘……If it’s this…….’
Astonishment transformed into certainty in an instant.
At the same time, Leon recalled the memories of being treated as a ‘weakling’ in his past life.
Along with a surging hope that he could wash away the sorrows he had endured.
‘I can become stronger than anyone.’
The ‘pillar of light’ Leon had just witnessed was something no ordinary Holy Power could manifest.
It was the sort of light-weaving that should only be possible at the level of a high priest.
And Ecrisae herself had called her current state ‘weakened.’
Which meant that what he had just seen was not her full strength.
【Can you believe me now?】
“……Yeah.”
Ecrisae’s claims were true.
Even if the source differed, it was possible to use the Empty Vessel to wield Ecrisae’s power as if it were Arseriel’s own.
But there remained one more thing to confirm.
“It certainly looks like Holy Power. But what if other people notice that its source is your strength?”
【Impossible. For that to happen, they’d have to be a Divine Avatar.】
“You’re sure?”
【You doubt much. It seems you Holy Knights lack faith in the divine.】
“Of course I do. Any order that discovers a pact with an Evil God executes on the spot.”
Leon picked up the sword he had cast aside moments before.
Unlike before, the cold hilt fit naturally into his palm.
A Holy Knight sworn to serve the Primary God, now gripping a sword inhabited by an Evil God.
Leon made the deliberate choice to accept this sacrilege.
But this plan hinged entirely on never being discovered.
【So what will you do now?】
Leon did not answer at once.
Instead, he searched his memories for where the Elderlit Tragedy had begun.
“First, I have to stop it before it starts.”
* * *
Having confirmed his potential, Leon made his way to the Abandoned Sanctuary on the outskirts of Elderlit.
The Elderlit Tragedy had begun at the Abandoned Sanctuary, after all.
【Not a soul would notice if one person vanished.】
Leon found himself in agreement with Ecrisae’s sharp assessment.
The Abandoned Sanctuary lay in the loneliest corner of the isolated village of Elderlit.
The domed roof and most of the walls were overgrown with moss accumulated over decades and centuries, and nearly all of the once-grand structure had half-collapsed in ruin.
【What are you searching for?】
“The entrance.”
Most of Elderlit’s people paid no attention to the Abandoned Sanctuary, but Leon knew it concealed an underground chamber unknown to the village.
It was knowledge he’d only gained after entering the Church of Light, yet he remembered it clearly.
He had turned it over in his mind many times—how the Elderlit Tragedy would never have occurred if someone had discovered this underground in time.
“Found it.”
After searching the area carefully, Leon located the entrance to the underground chamber.
Concealed so cunningly that without absolute certainty of its existence, one could never find it—buried so deep beneath overgrown brush and fallen stone.
Leon laboriously cleared away the wild vegetation and the pile of rocks obscuring the passage.
“……Hah…….”
The staircase descended deeper than he expected.
Leon hesitated, then extended his left hand forward.
A tiny light pooled above his left palm.
A sphere of light, condensed Holy Power.
It was Basic Magic, executable with only the smallest amount of Holy Power.
‘This is the maximum I can manage without borrowing Ecrisae’s strength.’
Leon descended toward the basement with a wry smile playing at his lips.
The stairs were steep, but a faint light source made the descent manageable even for his small frame.
How far down had he climbed?
‘……Light?’
Deep underground, a faint luminescence appeared.
The problem was that the glow carried an aura similar to the light Leon had created.
Which meant the source of that light had to be Holy Power.
‘Holy Power here too?’
An Abandoned Sanctuary meant a place that was once sacred but had been abandoned.
In a sense, an Abandoned Sanctuary should be the place furthest from the gods. And yet Holy Power could be felt here?
It made no sense.
But Ecrisae’s next words lent credibility to the impossibility.
【This is the Primary God’s power.】
“As I thought?”
【Yes. Though I can’t say whose it is.】
Was it because of their opposed natures?
Ecrisae showed no doubt that the aura of power emanating from ahead belonged to the Primary God.
Leon furrowed his brow and moved forward with measured steps.
‘The Primary God’s power remains here. Then before it was abandoned, this was one of the sanctuaries that served the three Primary Gods……. But why was it left to decay like this?’
As Leon’s mind churned with complexity, Ecrisae’s tense voice pierced through.
【Wait. Someone is here.】
‘……A person, right?’
【Yes. One person……, but you needn’t worry. They’re dying.】
‘Not some creature?’
【At minimum, a sentient being. No beast could emanate thoughts like these.】
‘Thoughts? You can read other people’s minds too?’
【Only their aura. It’s comparable to how you sense someone’s presence nearby.】
Leon narrowed his eyes at Ecrisae’s explanation and moved forward with caution.
The light grew stronger as he approached.
And something else joined that sensation.
‘Blood? The smell of……’
And it was quite fresh.
The raw, vivid scent of spilled blood.
Now Leon understood what Ecrisae meant by ‘dying, so don’t worry.’
If that much blood had poured from a single person, it would be a miracle they were still alive.
【This way ahead.】
At last the end of the stairs came into view.
And Leon felt a wave of revulsion rise unbidden at the sight that greeted him.
“……What……is this…….”
The space was vast.
In the center of a chamber wide enough to hold some thirty adults stood something resembling an altar, and radiating from it, the floor was densely covered with incomprehensible symbols arranged in a perfect circle.
And at the center of it all lay the source of the blood that saturated the air.
At first, Leon mistook it for a corpse.
Limbs lay strewn about at grotesque angles, and the entire belly was split open lengthwise, the flesh peeled back wide.
Yet the man was still alive.
His eyes were closed as if in sleep, but beneath the gaping skin, his heart pulsed visibly, his organs still functioning with horrible clarity.
“……How is he still……breathing…….”
As Leon unconsciously whispered the words, realization struck him.
The true nature of the Holy Power that Leon and Ecrisae had sensed.
That ‘Holy Power’ was holding the man’s breath in place.
“…….”
Understanding this, a wave of revulsion surged through him once more, unstoppable.
How——
The man’s state was that of a lump of meat that should have been dead long ago.
It would have been mercy to end his breathing with Leon’s own hands.
And yet the Primary God’s power was being twisted to this end——this grotesque, unnatural prolongation.
It was nothing short of a desecration of life itself.
Those who would do such a thing are worshippers of the Primary God? Not servants of the Evil God?
【Despicable.】
“Yes. Death would be a mercy at this point.”
Leon nodded at Ecrisae’s words and began examining the half-corpse and its surroundings carefully.
The sight of the man lying in the center of a blood pool, organs spilled open, breathing evenly as if asleep, was utterly repulsive—but there was no time to indulge in disgust.
Leon was searching for something else.
【What are you looking for?】
“A source of Corruption.”
【You mean something carrying the power of chaos?】
“It’s the root of everything. The Corruption of Elderlit began there.”
So it had to be somewhere in this place.
But it wasn’t easy.
He knew that a Corruption source lay beneath the Abandoned Sanctuary, yet even Leon didn’t know precisely what form such a thing would take.
【Its appearance?】
“I don’t know either. All I know is that it’s something with an alien aura. So help me look.”
At first, he’d wondered if the half-corpse lying on the floor might be it, but after close inspection, the only power dwelling in the half-corpse was Holy Power.
He couldn’t discern why the man lay here in such a wretched state.
But unless it was the Corruption source itself, it ranked lower on Leon’s priorities.
His foremost task now was to locate and eliminate the Corruption source.
【What will you do if you find it?】
“Normally I’d need to purify it, but… I don’t know how.”
【Then?】
“I’ll destroy it.”
There were typically two methods of dealing with a Corruption source.
Purify it or destroy it.
Purification was ideal, but whether the power of Ecrisae—an Evil God—could produce the same effect as genuine Holy Power remained uncertain.
So as his second choice, Leon planned to borrow Ecrisae’s power to destroy the Corruption source.
【So I just need to find something with an alien aura?】
“Right.”
【In that case, that direction seems most suspicious.】
“That direction?”
【The top of the altar.】
At those words, Leon’s gaze shot toward the altar’s summit.
The peak of the altar was high enough that fourteen-year-old Leon could barely see it even on tiptoes, and at first glance it appeared empty.
But because Ecrisae had stated it so firmly, Leon reached up and swept his hand across the altar’s top.
Too high for him to see properly, yet his fingertips brushed against something small and solid.
Hard as stone, with sharp edges where something appeared to have fractured.
As if something that had once been whole had shattered.
【Now that I’m closer, I understand. That’s a fragment with a Seal bound into it.】
“A Seal?”
He couldn’t make sense of it.
If Leon’s memory was accurate, the Elderlit Tragedy was imminent.
If this thing on the altar was truly the Corruption source, it shouldn’t be in such a stable state…
“The altar, the blood… a Sacrifice?”
A chilling thought flashed through his mind, and Leon recalled the countless scenes of Evil God worshippers he’d witnessed in his previous life as a Holy Knight.
Living blood and overflowing gore were always the chaos’s favorite offerings.
Evil God worshippers used such chaos to perform rituals summoning the Evil God.
“Is this half-corpse… a Sacrifice meant to break the Seal on this altar?”
The half-corpse at Leon’s feet satisfied both contradictions simultaneously—the living breath that should be dead, and the overflow of blood.
Holy Power was clinging to a life that ought to have ended.
The moment that Holy Power sustaining the breath was exhausted, the half-corpse would become truly dead, fulfilling the conditions of the Sacrifice.
Then the Seal would break at the time intended by whoever had orchestrated this.
【A plausible theory.】
It felt as though blood were flowing backward through his veins.
Until now, Leon had believed Corruption sources arose from accidents—misguided power left abandoned in remote places.
But if someone had deliberately arranged this, then the Elderlit Tragedy wasn’t a mere accident—it was an event staged by human hands.
His entire homeland being obliterated… not an accident?
“…Whoever these bastards are…”
Leon bit down hard, deciding not to lose sight of his priorities.
The identities of those who orchestrated this abomination could be revealed later.
The most pressing concern now is preventing the Elderlit Tragedy from occurring again.
Ecrisae posed a question to Leon, who was gathering his thoughts.
【What’s your plan, then? I wouldn’t recommend killing him.】
“If this man’s life ends, that seal will break, won’t it?”
【Most likely, yes.】
This was something Leon agreed with as well.
Then what other option remained……
“What if we destroyed the fragment while he’s in that state? Would it be possible?”
【It’s possible, but I wouldn’t recommend it.】
“Why not?”
【The sealed power could scatter anywhere. There’s no way to predict where it will go.】
At Ecrisae’s response, Leon bit his tongue once more in frustration.
Purification was impossible, and destruction would yield unpredictable results.
As Leon racked his brain for alternatives, a new idea suddenly occurred to him.
“……My Stigma. You said it’s genuine, but empty, didn’t you?”
【That’s right.】
“And you said it was like an empty vessel.”
【As an analogy, yes.】
A Stigma is the Primary God’s way of lending their power to those they have chosen.
In other words, it is a vessel that holds the borrowed divine power of a god.
Yet Leon’s Stigma was genuine and yet hollow.
Then.
“Could I transfer that into my Stigma instead?”
To be continued ▶
A Holy Knight Who Made a Contract with an Evil God
Author
Ram Dat
Publisher
Kim Seok-hwan, Choi Se-ra
Published by
Grae Publishing
Contact
[email protected]
Publication Date
March 27, 2026
UCI
G720:N+A327-20260227066
※ This e-book is protected by copyright law. Unauthorized reproduction and distribution are prohibited, and violation of these terms may result in both criminal and civil penalties.
※ 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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