I’m a Holy Knight, but I Contracted with an Evil God - Chapter 33

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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 33.
“Gasp!”
The man’s hand came hooked like a claw toward Leon’s throat, but Leon did not panic and swatted it away with ease.
It was only natural.
A scrawny commoner could never hope to stand against a knight trained in the professional art of arms.
But the force had been excessive—after taking the blow, the man crumpled and did not rise again.
He could only emit a pitiful whimper.
“Uhhhhh…….”
“…….”
Perhaps too much.
Not that he regretted it, but the problem was that he stood in the unfamiliar Eastern Lands.
They needed intelligence, after all.
As Leon swallowed a sigh, Tristan’s voice reached him from a distance.
“Why are you there?”
Tristan returned to his side in moments, his eyes darting between the crumpled man on the ground and Leon as if to gauge the situation.
Then, with a look of disdain, he narrowed his eyes and spoke.
“Now you’re even sparring with madmen?”
“What this man said seemed unusual.”
“All the mad ones in this area talk nonsense. If he’d been speaking sense, he wouldn’t be left abandoned in the middle of the village like this.”
Tristan said this while glancing about.
Though his words held merit, Leon found himself unable to shake the feeling that something the man had said stuck in his mind.
‘It may be worth remembering.’
【There is truly no such thing as completely useless. One need only possess the discernment to distinguish its use.】
Leon was in agreement.
From experience, there were often times when clues emerged from what seemed like dead ends.
As Ecridje had said, it fell to Leon himself to distinguish such things.
“Did you learn anything of value?”
“Enough.”
Tristan replied and turned toward the direction the horse had gone.
He spared one glance at the fallen man, but showed little further interest.
“We head for the Red Corridor. I’ll tell you the details on the way.”

* * *
The Red Corridor at night wore an utterly different face than it did by day.
The sandstone cliffs that burned crimson under the scorching sun now received the moonlight and transformed into a dark, dried blood-red, exhaling an ominous chill.
The sound of wind passing through the gorge echoed strange and bestial, like the cry of some creature.

At the mouth of that gorge, two figures held their breath in the shadow of a massive boulder.

“Damn, the night wind in the Eastern Lands cuts right through to the bone.”

Tristan drew his collar closed and muttered under his breath.
Beneath the grumbling lay not sharp tension, but rather the unmistakable air of boredom that had grown unbearable.
Yet despite the apathetic demeanor, his eyes burned with an almost fierce light.
His fingers, resting on the sword hilt, tapped out a steady rhythm, while his gaze mechanically traced back and forth between the gorge entrance and the moon’s position.

“Are you certain this is the place?”
“It has to be. The carriage has been spotted multiple times, and this is the only terrain in the area large enough to hide something of that size.”

Tristan suppressed a yawn as he spoke.
It was the expressionless face of one who had repeated a tedious task dozens of times.
The surprise lay elsewhere—in Leon.
Though Tristan, an elite knight accustomed to such situations, was calm enough, Leon’s face as he watched ahead was serene, almost listless.
Tristan glanced sideways at Leon.

‘This is ridiculous.’

At that age, combined with extensive field experience—it made no sense. Unless it was simply his nature?
In any case, he was a remarkable man.
A convenient misunderstanding, certainly, but Tristan had no idea what thoughts were passing through Leon’s mind.

【How much longer are you planning to waste time? There’s definitely something beyond that darkness.】
‘We can’t just charge in blindly. Wait.’
【Why not?】
‘How am I supposed to find the entrance?’
【I don’t know. But with your instincts as they are now, you’d find it well enough without a guide.】
‘That’s true, but… I can’t just abandon Barca. Besides, it’d be a hassle to explain how I found the entrance.’
【There you have it. Your superior is nothing but dead weight.】

Leon could only manage a bitter laugh at Ecridje’s blunt assessment.
There was truth to it, but Tristan wasn’t quite the burden Ecridje made him out to be.
He couldn’t deny that Tristan’s experience and skill had proven useful in countless ways across this foreign land.

“What are you brooding about? Can’t focus, or are you thinking of something else?”

…Though his personality left much to be desired.

【When will that bastard stop needling him?】
‘Leave it. Compared to what others have done, his jabs are practically endearing.’
【That’s fair enough, but…】

Tristan griped frequently enough, yet he’d never actually left Leon in genuine trouble.
And for all his sharp tongue, he didn’t fabricate grievances out of thin air to torment him.
Beside the countless cruelties Leon had endured before, Tristan’s complaints were almost cute.
It was at that very moment Leon’s thoughts had reached this point.

Whoosh—

From somewhere came a sound distinctly different from the wind.
Like wet cloth dragging faintly across stone.
Both their gazes snapped forward simultaneously.

“Here it comes.”

Tristan’s voice dropped low.
At the precise moment the moon reached its zenith, a shape materialized from the darkness of the canyon as if a shadow itself had taken form.
A black carriage.
But it was unlike any ordinary conveyance.
Tristan’s eyes swept rapidly over the carriage’s underside as he spoke.

“Cloth wrapped around the hooves, leather on the wheels. Impressive effort to muffle sound, yet here we are listening to its footfalls.”

Tristan’s eyes turned sharp as flint.
Common bandits would never go to such lengths with a carriage.
Those accustomed to moving in shadow—in other words, the eyes before them now—were far from ordinary brigands.
But there was something wrong with the carriage’s trajectory.

“The direction’s off.”

The carriage was hurtling straight toward the cliff face where the path ended.
It showed no sign of slowing.
At this rate, it would collide head-on with the massive sandstone wall and be dashed to pieces.

“It’ll crash—”
“No, it won’t.”

Leon’s gaze remained fixed on the cliff the carriage approached, a rebuttal cutting through Tristan’s words.
His ash-grey eyes caught something beyond the cliff face itself—a subtle wrongness in the space beyond.

“It’s a passage.”

The moment Leon finished speaking, the carriage passed straight through the cliff face.
Instead of a thunderous crash, something impossible unfolded.

A ripple.

Like a stone dropped into still water, the stone cliff that should have been solid undulated in waves.
As the horse’s head vanished into the rock as if being drawn inward, the rippling cliff-face returned to its true surface—hard, rough sandstone.
Perfect silence settled where, a moment before, solid stone had stood.

“Well.”

Tristan stared at the sight, his mouth falling open.
Even he, born and raised in the Eastern Lands, had never seen anything like it.

“Illusion Magic? High-level sorcery in this barren corner of the world?”
“It’s not mere sleight of hand. It’s more like a barrier that warps space itself.”

Leon rose to his feet as he spoke.
He brushed sand from his clothes before continuing.

“We should go. Before the gate closes completely.”
“This is ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous.”

Tristan let out a hollow laugh despite his bewilderment, following Leon’s lead toward the red cliff face.
Knowing the wall before him was false did nothing to ease the discomfort of walking into it.

* * *

The landscape beyond the illusion was breathtakingly grotesque.
The sky was split narrow and long, and on both sides, sheer red sandstone cliffs stretched endlessly.
The problem was that the landscape looked identical from every direction.
As if hundreds of mirrors had been arranged, a red labyrinth where front and back could not be distinguished.
A perfect structure for losing all sense of direction.

“The wheel ruts fork into three paths here. And the depth is identical on all of them. It means they manipulated the weight distribution too.”

Tristan knelt on one knee, examining the marks left by the carriage.
His gaze traced the wheel ruts impressed into the ground.

“This path fades away, that one climbs the wall. They’ve gone to great lengths to confuse us. The scents and sounds are all mixed together too.”

Tristan rose, clicking his tongue against his teeth.
For all his considerable field experience, Tristan had rarely encountered concealment arts of this caliber.
This was far beyond the crude work of bandits or smugglers.
It wasn’t merely evasion—it was a trap designed to guide the pursuer down the wrong path.
Unraveling it piece by piece would be simple enough, but finding the correct route would only come after the Black Carriage had vanished.

“This is troublesome. Not enough time to probe every passage.”

Tristan furrowed his brow and rubbed his temples.
Even his seasoned instinct found the way forward elusive.

“It’s this way.”

In that moment, Leon, who had remained silent until now, stepped forward without hesitation.
It was a direction entirely unrelated to the wheel ruts Tristan had examined.

“Wait—that path has nothing on it, does it?”
“This is the right way. What’s left there are false traces.”
“Fake? What’s your evidence?”

Leon pointed ahead instead of answering.

“What is it?”

Tristan moved forward with a puzzled expression, following the direction Leon indicated.
After taking about ten steps, Tristan understood what Leon was pointing at.

“The wind?”
“No matter how intricate a maze is, it cannot completely seal off air currents. The dampest, most salt-laden breeze — that’s where the entrance lies.”

It sounded plausible enough, but to Tristan’s ear it bordered on sophistry.
The wind howling through the canyon now came from all directions, swirling so chaotically that there was no way to tell where it started.

‘He’s not sensing anything. He’s guessing.’

Before Tristan could dwell on his doubts, Leon, who had been leading, suddenly stopped.
A massive cliff face loomed ahead, blocking the way forward.
By any measure, it was a dead end.

“We’re blocked.”

Leon made no reply to Tristan’s jab.
He stared for a long moment, then carefully brushed away debris from various spots on the wall.
The next instant, before Tristan could stop him, Leon charged straight ahead.

“Wait, wait!”

Tristan cried out in alarm, but Leon’s body did not collide with the stone.
Instead, something identical to what had happened at the cliff entrance occurred.

Whoosh.

As if walking into water, Leon’s shoulders slipped smoothly through the rock face.
It operated on the same principle as the Illusion Magic at the entrance, but without any signs of a carriage having passed before, this passage remained utterly imperceptible.

“This way.”

With those words, Leon vanished into the wall, and Tristan followed with a dumbfounded expression.
It was beyond belief.
This went far beyond having sharp instincts or quick wit.
No matter how naturally gifted someone was, could they move with such unhesitating confidence through an enemy stronghold they were visiting for the first time?

‘This bastard’s instinct isn’t just sharp — it’s something else entirely.’

Tristan licked his lips and stepped toward the wall where Leon had disappeared.
The young man before him was beginning to feel like something far stranger than common sense allowed.
Continued in the next episode ▶
A Holy Knight Who Made a Contract with a Demon God
Author
Ram Dat
Publisher
Kim Seok-hwan, Choi Se-ra
Publishing House
Grae Publications
Contact Email
[email protected]
Publication Date
March 27, 2026
UCI
G720:N+A327-20260227066
※ This e-book is protected under copyright law. Unauthorized reproduction and duplication are prohibited, and violations may result in criminal and civil 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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