I’m a Holy Knight, but I Contracted with an Evil God - Chapter 34

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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 34.
Beyond the illusory veil, the narrow gorge opened wide as though the constriction had been a lie.
Roughly hewn stone walls and flat stone paving beneath their feet.
The space before them was no natural formation.
Someone had deliberately carved out this plaza.
And in its center, a massive shadow writhed within the darkness.

Grrrrrrr……

An eerie sound—part beast’s cry, part stone scraping against stone.
As darkness fell away, the shape revealed itself lay far beyond what either of them had anticipated.
It was something they had never expected to encounter in this place.

“What is that?”

Tristan’s face contorted.
At first glance, it resembled a human form of massive proportions.
But above its shoulders hung an additional pair of arms, and its skin had hardened and cracked like the ruddy sandstone of the surrounding walls.

“……A humanoid Pollutant? I’ve never heard of any incident in these parts recently.”

Since Pollutants arise from the influence of Chaos, humanoid Pollutants rarely emerge unless a catastrophe—like the tragedy of Elderith or the Acalon incident—has occurred.
Humans, being sentient, flee the moment any sign appears.
That is why humanoid Pollutant occurrences are always extreme in number.
Either none at all, or a great many.
Meeting a solitary specimen like this was remarkably rare.

……

While Tristan muttered in puzzlement, Leon furrowed his brow and studied the sight before him intently.
Like someone searching for something.
Though the darkness made it imprecise, Leon sensed a subtle wrongness in the spectacle before him.
After examining the Pollutant carefully, Tristan grasped the nature of that wrongness.

“It’s restrained.”
“……Yes, quite deliberately, it seems.”
“So where in the hells did the cart go?”
Tristan shuffled forward, grumbling.
Leon too proceeded cautiously, scanning the ground, but the wheel tracks that had been so clear had vanished without trace.
Leon’s mind drifted naturally to the Mutation he had encountered in the Silvaren Forest.
The contrived, artificial one.
And this humanoid Pollutant before him radiated that same contrived, artificial quality intensely.

Sword gripped firmly, Tristan slowly traced a semicircle around the Pollutant.
It was not merely bound—black stakes had been driven through each joint of its limbs, and strange characters were carved into the ground.
As Tristan’s eyes moved across these markings, his gaze narrowed progressively.
To one raised in the East, the method was chillingly familiar.
Tristan finally spat the words as though casting them out.
“These bastards are truly insane.”
“Do you know what it is?”
“It’s Soul Binding. A taboo that even sorcerers don’t use lightly, and yet……”
Seeing Leon’s questioning look, Tristan clicked his tongue and elaborated.
“It’s a sorcery that forcibly tethers the soul even as the flesh rots and decays. Typically used as torture.”
“Torture?”
“Yes. Torture. The problem is why they’d apply this to a Pollutant at all. What could you possibly extract through torturing something with no self?”
It was a fair question.
Pollutants had lost their intellect, so torture served no purpose.
For Tristan, the situation made no sense.
But Leon, who had witnessed the half-corpse in Elderith and experienced the Mutation in the Silvaren Forest, thought differently.
‘……Something tells me the order of things is reversed here.’
【What nonsense is this?】
‘If humans were used as material to create a Mutation, and if the ones who did this are the same breed as those creatures from Silvaren Forest and Elderith, then it makes more sense to assume they tortured someone to produce a Pollutant.’
【Quite right. That grumbler failed to consider it only because he’s never witnessed what they call a Mutation firsthand, I suppose?】
‘Probably. The Church of Light likely didn’t truly understand what these creatures were doing until the Silvaren Forest incident.’
Leon bit at his tongue.
He was uncertain how much of his thinking he should reveal to Tristan.
As Leon pondered this, his eye caught another inconsistency.
A chain gripping the Pollutant firmly, its surface etched with intricate patterns.
No—those were not mere patterns, but some form of script.
“…I don’t believe it’s simply that alone, sir.”
“What?”
“This, sir.”
The chain Leon pointed to bore characters carved in relief, though faint—dense and crowded along its length.
Unlike the characters inscribed on the Sorcery Circle below, these were ones Leon could read easily enough.
More than that: they were characters the two Holy Knights knew better than anyone.
“This is… a Sacred Curse.”
When Tristan realized what had been carved into the chain, a sound escaped him—something between a groan and lamentation.
Tristan, too, understood.
Whoever had done this was one of those who served the same god as he and Leon did.
And in that same moment, observing Leon’s composure where he himself was thrown into confusion, Tristan grasped yet another truth.
“Wait—why aren’t you surprised?”
“Because it’s not the first time I’ve seen it.”
“Not the first time?”
His face, which had been twisted in shock, now grew thoughtful.
And it shifted gradually, as though understanding something.
“Don’t tell me Cepian died to…”
“Your suspicion is likely correct. Only Cepian and Ilbar’s remains were left intact among all the bodies.”
“To use him like this?”
As Tristan spat out those words, he jabbed a finger roughly at the Pollutant pinned within the Sorcery Circle.
The low rumble in his voice made his rage abundantly clear.
His jaw clenched and trembled with fury.
“Yes, most likely.”
“Does Captain Aila know? Have you told her?”
“She must know. I didn’t include my own interpretations, but I recorded everything I witnessed without omission in my report. She would have reached the same conclusion.”
Even at Leon’s matter-of-fact recitation, Tristan’s rage could only intensify.
Yet it was not an excessive reaction.
Leon himself had burned with fury when he first grasped the truth.
For Tristan, who had been close with Cepian, that rage would cut deeper still.
“I was told a Holy Knight had fallen, but never that it would be… like this.”
Indeed, Tristan spat the words as if chewing glass.
A terrible silence settled between them.
It was Leon who broke it first.
“…What do you intend to do now?”
“We kill it.”
Tristan spoke in a flat tone and drew his sword.
His Dual Swords, their lines flowing with grace, were aimed at the Pollutant’s heart.
It would be the logical location of its core, so Leon watched without objection as his superior moved to strike.
That is, if Ecrisje had not spoken.
【Ah. Leon, you should stop that grumbler.】
‘What?’
【Don’t you sense it? That warped thing’s aura is the same as that vile presence we witnessed in the forest.】
That vile presence.
Leon cried out in understanding of Ecrisje’s words, but Tristan’s blade was faster.
“Tristan!”
His sword plunged into the Pollutant’s throat.
The blade sank deep.
It was surely a killing blow.
Yet what unfolded in the next instant was beyond belief.
Sizzzzle!
With a sound like flesh burning, the severed tissue of the Pollutant knitted itself back together in an instant.
Tristan went rigid.
“……Its wounds are healing?”
Even if the creature before him were someone other than Tristan, the reaction would have been identical.
For Leon, this was only the second time witnessing such a thing.
For Tristan, a Pollutant regenerating its wounds on its own was something he’d never heard of, much less seen.
Screeeech!
Crack! Whoosh!
While Tristan was still reeling, the Pollutant tore the Chain binding it—along with chunks of its own flesh—and hurled the whole mass straight at him.
Black blood sprayed in all directions before even hitting the ground.
“Ugh!”
Tristan, uncharacteristically caught off guard, raised his Dual Swords in a cross too late; he was already off-balance and forced back.
And the creature didn’t miss that brief opening.
Boom!
A massive Chain rocketed through the air, aimed straight for Tristan’s abdomen.
In mid-air, there was nowhere to dodge.
In that fraction of a moment, Tristan twisted his body and crossed his blades to absorb the impact.
Crash!
Though he managed to block it by a hair’s breadth, the overwhelming difference in mass was unavoidable.
With a deafening boom, Tristan’s body flew back like a cannonball, crashing hard to the ground in the distance.
“Cough!”
Tristan spat out the blood pooling in his mouth and swallowed a groan.
Damn it—felt like he’d lost a rib or two.
“Tristan!”
“Don’t come! I’m not dead!”
Tristan pushed off the ground and bounced up like a spring.
Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, but his amber eyes glittered not with pain but with something far more sinister—killing intent.
“A dead man with no manners. Regeneration? A Mutation, then.”
Tristan muttered with bravado, though worry crept in beneath the words.
Caught off guard by the senseless turn of events, he’d let his guard slip.
Could he dispatch the creature in this state?
Not some ordinary Pollutant, but clearly a Mutated one?
‘The kid alone…….’
Tristan bit his lip, seized by dismay.
A regenerating Mutation.
No matter how brilliant a newcomer was, facing a monster outside all reason left them frozen in terror—that was simply how it went.
And that would be the end.
“Get clear! That’s not something you can block——!”
Tristan shouted urgently, but what unfolded in the next instant shattered his expectations entirely.
Clang!
Clang!
Leon didn’t dodge.
Rather, as if he didn’t need to, he deftly guided the surging Chain along the flat of his Greatsword.
An impact that would have shattered his arm if taken head-on—he dispersed it with nothing more than a subtle shift in his center of gravity.
“……What…….”
Tristan’s worry proved unfounded. Leon gracefully evaded the relentless barrage of Chain whips with economical precision.
Amid the onslaught—rocks shattering, earth gouging—Leon’s face remained serene.
Not a single wasted motion.
Facing a Mutated Pollutant that should have been utterly unfamiliar, he showed no sign of panic. Instead, his slate-gray eyes tracked the creature’s attacks with methodical calm.
‘That’s the footwork of someone fresh off a promotion?’
Tristan stifled a bitter laugh and adjusted his grip on his swords.
His worry had been pointless—yet the situation was far from optimistic.
Leon was certainly handling the Pollutant with remarkable technique, but the creature’s Chain was so long and heavy that he couldn’t close the distance for a decisive strike.
‘Once is all we need.’
Tristan’s amber eyes flashed.
Leon had the creature’s full attention locked completely on him.
Then…….
Tristan lowered his stance, ignoring the throbbing pain.
His broken ribs felt like they were piercing his lungs, but oddly, that pain sharpened his mind.
And at the moment their eyes met—
‘Now!’
Tristan pushed off from the ground and drove in behind the Pollutant’s back.
His Dual Swords crossed in an X, aiming for the creature’s joints.
And just as he’d anticipated, Leon didn’t miss the opening.
Crack! Crackle!
The sound that followed was like scraping sand and stone rather than tearing flesh.
Leon’s relentless assault faltered at the incomprehensible metallic cry that spilled from the Pollutant’s mouth.
“……Burr…….”
Unclear as it was, it was unmistakably speech.
It still had consciousness?
“Leon! Wait!”
Tristan called out, but Leon’s blade didn’t stop.
Instead, at the sword’s tip gathered light so searing it burned to look at.
A beam of such intensity and clarity that even Tristan was startled.
Crack!
“Didn’t you hear me? I said wait.”
At Tristan’s flat response, Leon simply sheathed his sword without a word.
He swallowed a sigh before continuing.
“It seemed like there was still intellect left. We can’t be too careful.”
“No. There’s no reversing it.”
Was it an illusion?
The ash-grey eyes that met his own as Leon spoke seemed somehow hollow.
Tristan clicked his tongue and examined the fallen Pollutant’s corpse.
Near the nape of the creature’s neck, half-melted into the dead flesh, he found a pendant.
“A swan crest?”
A family crest is the mark of that house.
Many families claimed the swan as their emblem, but each bore its own distinctive form.
And Leon knew exactly which house this swan belonged to.
“……That’s the Ilseran Family crest.”
“The Ilseran Family?”
“In the vicinity of the Arsera Mountain Range.”
“Ah.”
Tristan nodded as if the explanation had jogged his memory, then his brow furrowed once more.
It seemed he’d arrived at the same question as Leon.
“The Arsera range is in the heart of the continent, isn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
“If they’re carrying a pendant engraved with a family crest, that means they belong to that house.”
“Yes. It must be Ilseran Youngsik, the one they said went missing.”
Leon clenched his jaw, caught between bitter comprehension and dismay.
Yes, he should have suspected it.
‘They said no body was found in that forest, but it was here all along.’
【Are you talking about that forest where you went hunting for Mutations?】
‘Right. I heard the corpses were in such poor condition that many couldn’t be identified. So I naturally assumed he was mixed in with one of them.’
While Leon lost himself in thought, Tristan scrutinized the Pollutant’s corpse carefully.
Checking whether there might be any other traces.
Leon let Tristan work while keeping his senses sharp, alert for any unexpected complications.
And just as before, Leon was able to locate the Fragment.
‘……That’s one of your Fragments, isn’t it?’
【Hmm, it appears so. Though this one also seems hollow.】
At the center of the Sorcery Circle where the Pollutant had been pinned.
A small shard lay embedded there, only detectable if one honed their senses to their limit.
The Fragment was so minute, and the earth so torn up from the creature’s thrashing, that even Tristan had failed to notice it.
Leon carefully positioned himself at the center of the Sorcery Circle, taking pains not to draw Tristan’s attention.
“Let me examine the Sorcery Circle? Wait. I’ll do better than you would.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
Perhaps because the Sorcery Circle was inscribed with Eastern characters, Tristan had made that remark, but he didn’t seem to be watching Leon’s movements closely.
Leon moved naturally and, slipping the Fragment between the glove on his left hand, pocketed it smoothly.
To be continued ▶
A Holy Knight in Contract with a Demon God
Author
Ram Dat
Publisher
Kim Seok-hwan, Choi Se-ra
Published by
Grae Publishing
Inquiries
[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. Violations may result in criminal and civil liability.
※ Pentagram welcomes your precious manuscripts.

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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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