I’m a Holy Knight, but I Contracted with an Evil God - Chapter 40

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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 40.
“So what now?”
“There won’t be just one door. We need to find another way in.”
With Tristan wounded as he was, the two of them attempting to breach the heavily sealed main gate would be suicide.
Even if they managed to force their way through, the moment a commotion arose, there was no telling how many men would come pouring out from inside.
The possibility that the abducted people or evidence would be destroyed couldn’t be ruled out either.
“That said, a fortress like this always has gaps in its defenses where maintenance falls short.”
Tristan agreed, sniffing at the air.
From some time now, the wind had been carrying a faint stench, a metallic reek of blood, and an acrid smell of unknown origin.
Above all, there was an unsettling presence that assailed even his keen senses.
Leon heightened his perceptions to locate the source of the wrongness, and after a moment, pointed to a corner in the distance.
“Over there.”
The place the two men turned toward was a sewage drain at the junction of cliff and ground, where murky waste water flowed out.
A hole barely large enough for an adult man to squeeze through if he bent at the waist.
The stench pouring from it made both their faces contort before either could help it.
“This is the only way?”
Tristan clearly wasn’t pleased, but he didn’t back down.
His attitude was one of resignation—if there was no other choice, so be it.
“If we took more time, we might find another, but it doesn’t seem we have that luxury.”
“You’ll be all right?”
“It’s fine.”
Tristan didn’t ask again and without hesitation shoved himself into the sewage drain where filth flowed.
Leon followed close behind.
As the slimy sensation and the acrid stench assaulted them, the two pressed on unheedingly, moving slowly ahead.
“This is vile.”
The reek rising from the wastewater—a mixture of all manner of refuse—resembled the smell of decay itself.
As Leon waded through the nauseating filth, he suddenly grasped the true nature of the wrongness he’d been sensing all along.
‘Ecrije, this sludge…….’
【Yes. Human flesh is mixed in with it.】
‘Is that why it’s such a dark red—because of the blood mixed in?’
【That would be part of it. But that’s not all there is.】
‘Not all there is?’
At Leon’s puzzled question, Ecrije fell silent.
As if choosing the right words.
【It’s difficult to explain. You’d be better off seeing it directly.】
As Leon dwelt on his confusion, a faint light appeared ahead, accompanied by the rhythmic sound of machinery.
After walking a bit further, a red glow poured down from somewhere above their heads.
The stench was coming from precisely there—seeping down through the gaps in the iron bars fastened to the ceiling.
“Looks like it connects to the drainage system above.”
Tristan craned his neck upward, muttering to himself.
A much narrower pipe had been bored through the ceiling above them.
It was just barely narrow enough for two men of their build to squeeze through.
The one saving grace was that wastewater wasn’t actively pouring down at this moment.
“I don’t sense anyone nearby.”
Tristan nodded and reached up toward the iron bars fastened to the ceiling.
The bars blocking the passage were old and corroded, but they were quite firmly affixed to the ceiling.
The pain in his ribs flared again, but he ignored it and was about to rip the bars away when—
“Move aside. I’ll do it.”
“No, this much is enough for me—”
Tristan insisted stubbornly, but Leon shook his head with an impassive expression.
Forced back, Tristan opened his mouth as if to object, but in the end he could only swallow his curses.
He’d come to see the futility of stubborn pride.
Creak.
The iron bars covered in filth and rust gave way without difficulty under Leon’s grip.
After setting the torn bars aside, Leon pulled himself up with a composed face, moving first.
Rising silently like a cat, Leon swept his gaze across the surroundings—and froze.
“What is it?”
At Tristan’s puzzled question from below, Leon only clenched his jaw, unable to answer.
His gaze fixed ahead held not confusion, but a cold, simmering rage.
Only after clenching his trembling hands tightly, forcing reason back into place, did Leon reach down toward Tristan.
“Come up.”
Her voice carried an edge sharper than usual.
The moment Tristan stepped onto the surface again, seized by that same bewilderment Leon had felt, he was overcome by an identical sensation.
“……What in blazes…….”
Before him sprawled a vast and intricately wrought underground cavern—utterly unlike the barren gorge that lay beyond.
A space so towering and expansive it felt as though they’d stepped into the belly of some colossal beast.
Yet what overwhelmed them both before its grandeur was the metallic stench of blood that clawed at their nostrils.
From the sewage drain through which they’d crawled radiated channels in all directions, crusted with dried blood.
The network of trenches was grotesque in pattern—the entire floor was embroidered with them like veins in a living body.
Like a blood ritual circle.
“……These channels—they resemble what we saw in the Red Corridor, don’t they?”
“They do. Nearly identical.”
Revulsion churned in his throat.
The ritual circle in the Red Corridor had been immense, yet compared to the one traced in blood beneath their feet, it was child’s scrawl.
And this wasn’t drawn—it flowed.
If the blood running through those trenches like water was human, the number of the slain defied comprehension.
And Leon’s suspicion was confirmed far too easily.
“……That’s definitely human blood flowing there. Look.”
At Tristan’s words, Leon turned and spotted dozens of corpses suspended upside down from iron chains, naked and bound, near the cavern’s ceiling.
Like meat in a butcher’s shop, blood dripped slowly from their bodies and pooled in the trenches below, flowing steadily onward.
Beneath them lay mountains of corpses already drained, their purpose fulfilled.
“It seems the aim extends beyond mere blood extraction,” Leon said quietly.
He gestured with his chin toward another section.
There stood shelves crammed with glass vials of varying sizes, their numbers stretching hundreds, perhaps thousands, along the arched stone wall.
Within those vials, mysterious black liquids and crimson fluids that resembled blood glimmered grotesquely in the torchlight, their contents unknowable.
But that was not all.
The vast stone walls encircling them were covered so densely with inscriptions and diagrams that no gap remained untouched.
The characters, as if carved by a madman using blood and fingernails, rendered the entire laboratory as one vast altar.
And among them, one phrase stood out above all others.
Beyond False Light, For the Eternal Sun That Never Sets.
The same phrase that had been inscribed beneath the Red Corridor.
The very passage Leon had deciphered repeated across the entire wall like wallpaper.
“A slaughterhouse, plain and simple,” Tristan muttered with disgust.
His voice was hollow.
Kidnapped from across the continent, these people were materials—squeezed for blood, transformed into corrupted beings through experimentation.
For what purpose?
“Wait. There are people here.”
“What?”
Leon pointed his chin toward the darkest corner of the laboratory.
Iron-barred cells similar to those in the Red Corridor stretched along the wall in a long row.
Within them huddled figures, chained like beasts, their bodies contorted in terror—those whose turn had not yet come.
They watched the sacrifices hanging from the ceiling in real time, their breathing stilled by fear so absolute they could scarcely draw breath, crouched in corners like broken animals.
“…….”
The prisoners’ minds had already fled their bodies.
The terror of awaiting death had gnawed away even their humanity; in the eyes that met his through the bars, there remained not a spark of life, not even a glimmer of hope.
Only the steady drip-drip of fresh blood from the ceiling above broke the silence.
At the sight of a hell more hellish than hell itself, Tristan’s face twisted with rage.
“Damnable bastards.”
Tristan snarled and drew his Twin Blades.
The pain of his fractured ribs still tormented him, yet he could not simply wait for reinforcements from the Order to arrive while staring at this carnage.
As Tristan’s bloodshot eyes fixed on charging forward, Leon’s grip clamped down hard on his shoulder.
“Collect yourself, sir.”
“Let go! How can you ask me to keep calm after seeing that?”
Tristan shook off Leon’s hand roughly, but Leon did not relent.
Instead, he fixed him with a calm, steady gaze and pressed his reasoning.
“Charging in on impulse won’t save these people. We must assess the situation before reinforcements arrive.”
It was cold counsel, but right.
Tristan bit his tongue and gripped the hilt of his blade tightly, trying to swallow his rage.
It was then that regular footfalls echoed from the depths of the cavern’s darkness.
“……Damn it.”
The commotion had been excessive.
What emerged from the shadows were Patrol Soldiers clad in light armor.
But their appearance was every bit as grotesque as the others they’d seen at the entrance.
Eyes glazed over and vacant, veins bulging prominently down the sides of their necks.
Movements stiff as puppets.
“They’ve literally become puppets.”
Tristan snorted derisively and stepped forward.
This time he surged ahead before Leon could so much as open his mouth to stop him.
“Sir Baraka!”
【Well, well. The worrier’s blood is up.】
Clang!
Despite his injuries, Tristan’s Dual Swords moved with the grace of a dance.
The Patrol Soldiers, moving with rigid, puppet-like motions, proved no match for him—each swing of his blades sent them sprawling, weeping black blood.
“How is there not a single scream?”
Tristan muttered to himself between ragged breaths, trying to steady his breathing.
Each attacker who came at him was pathetically weak, yet the fact that none of them cried out so much as a whimper struck him as profoundly unsettling.
As if they knew neither pain nor fear.
“…I don’t think this is the time to worry about that.”
At Leon’s words, Tristan’s gaze snapped forward.
Dozens upon dozens of figures had begun crowding toward them from all sides.
“Damn it all, there’s no end to them!”
Tristan gritted his teeth and swung his blades again, but the situation was deteriorating.
The pain in his ribs was becoming unbearable.
No matter how weak the individual enemies were, two people could not hope to face such numbers.
And because these creatures showed no sign of feeling pain as they charged forward, they were far more troublesome to deal with than their meager skills suggested.
‘At this rate, I’ll be worn down and defeated.’
Leon watched the time anxiously.
The Power Source they’d rigged was nearly spent.
Once it detonated, their attention would turn outward.
“Curse it, where is he—”
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom!
The entire cavern shook violently, as if struck by an earthquake.
Corpses hanging from the ceiling swayed, and Glass Vials on the shelves plummeted to the floor.
“What—what is this!”
Tristan staggered, struggling to keep his footing.
The tremor was not rising from below.
A massive impact transmitted from above—from the surface itself.
And in the next moment.
Crash-boom!
With a sound that threatened to split the ceiling asunder, the massive iron gate at the cavern entrance crumpled like paper and was hurled inward.
At the same time, a brilliant white flash poured down so bright it threatened to blind them.
And beyond that curtain of dust, a man walked in wearing an arrogantly pristine white cloak.
“Such filth.”
The man looked around with visible revulsion, and from behind him there began to echo a crystalline, pure hymn.
A sacred song—miraculous—ringing out from this place of hell.
And Leon knew the voice of the singer very well indeed.
To be continued ▶
A Holy Knight who made a pact with an Evil God
Author
Ram 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, and unauthorized reproduction or duplication is prohibited. Violation of these terms may result in both criminal and civil legal 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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