I’m a Holy Knight, but I Contracted with an Evil God - Chapter 48

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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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Chapter 48.
Hundreds of pairs of eyes filling the vast hall glittered with avarice.
A Stigma Manifestation user of Arseriel and the architect of resolution for the Eastern Region’s catastrophic tragedy.
A ‘commoner’ who had shouldered a glittering title at merely sixteen years of age—the gazes fixed upon him could hardly be described as kind.
The air in the banquet hall grew heavy with arrogant anticipation: the hope that this rustic hero of common birth would tremble pathetically under the imperial palace’s forbidding pressure.
……
In truth, that pressure was considerable.
Tristan, who had been bickering with Sion mere moments before, had stiffened visibly, and even Sion—whose background ought to have made him inured to such circumstances—had gone silent with undisguised tension.
Even Corbin, ever wearing that easy grin, had lost his smile, and Aila stood rigid, her gaze cutting straight ahead.
The only ones who remained unchanged from their usual demeanor were Leon and Raphio.
【You seem oddly at ease with this.】
‘Not my first time.’
【You’ve been here before? I’d assumed you were treated like an unwanted piece of change as a half-form.】
‘Because of the adoption ceremony. The Servallin family is a venerable house of greater repute than it appears.’
In his previous life, Leon had visited the Imperial Capital to be formally adopted into the Servallin house.
Since Servallin was both Raphio’s family and counted among the empire’s most distinguished bloodlines, the mere news that Servallin would adopt a Stigma Manifestation user had set the entire capital abuzz.
Though once it became common knowledge that Leon’s Stigma was half-formed, interest had dried up as quickly as it had kindled.
【So you won’t embarrass yourself with needless panic.】
‘What would you want me to do?’
【Nothing whatsoever. Even without you raising unnecessary commotion, this is already loud enough.】
At Eckrise’s grumbling, Leon twisted his mouth wryly.
Following Raphio ahead, Leon walked through a cacophony of hundreds of voices echoing in his ears.
Though they had lowered their tones deliberately, to Leon’s ears—which had grown extraordinarily acute since absorbing the recent shards—the whispers sounded like thunder.
The gazes they could not tear from him held curiosity; the whispers they exchanged held countless conjectures and speculations.
A familiar yet unfamiliar kind of attention.
Brazen desire and curiosity, wariness. And malice.
Through his expanded perception, the feelings radiating from others were revoltingly vivid.
‘I didn’t expect it to be this intense.’
【Didn’t you say you’d been here before?】
‘Before the regression, my senses weren’t this sharp. It was just a matter of five senses being unusually acute. Now, thanks to you, other senses have awakened entirely. This is a completely different kind of unpleasantness from merely having keen hearing.’
【Humans don’t only emit noise through their voices.】
It was not merely sound.
Not just audition, but ‘noise’ arising from other senses was muddying Leon’s mind.
Lingering gazes that pretended indifference, yet carried brazen curiosity, wariness, a hint of favor—or malice.
And simultaneously, countless unspoken thoughts that bore no name, that their very authors did not consciously recognize.
Through his sharpened perception, the naked intentions of others became revolting in their clarity.
‘Timing worked out well.’
【What did?】
‘The change in constitution. Had things shifted even slightly differently, I might be retching in a corner right now, feigning a hangover.’
【If it truly bothers you, try narrowing the scope of your perception. Even the five senses vary in how consciously you experience them depending on necessity.】
‘Is it the same principle as suppressing one’s energy?’
【Much the same.】
Fortunately, since his strength had magnified, not only had the range of his perception expanded, but he had also gained the ability to discriminate which kinds to register.
Leon adjusted his senses according to Eckrise’s counsel, pruning away unnecessary branches like a careful gardener.
As his power grew, so too did his mastery of sensation, and thanks to this, Leon could contain these acutely spilling emotions to a manageable level.
He could have blocked all sensation entirely if he wished, but he did not.
As long as it remained within bounds, this repugnant cacophony of desire and noise would prove an invaluable weapon.
The moment Leon and his group came to a halt in the center, nobility began approaching one by one, opening conversations.
The first to speak was the Marquis Kassel.
“Ah, High Priest Raphio! As it happens, we were just discussing the miracle that dispelled the Eastern Region’s darkness.”
“You are most generous. It was all accomplished by the grace of the Light’s guidance.”
While the seasoned Raphio fielded the cascading praise with practiced ease, Aila fended off unnecessary small talk with terse replies.
It was then that the Countess Pont approached Aila with an elegant flourish of her fan.
“It has been quite some time, my lady of Harben. Or should I say, Commander of the Second Knight Order now? How remarkable. Isn’t that a position even men rarely achieve?”
“It has been longer than ‘recent,’ I’m afraid.”
“Oh, is that so? Well, since you so seldom return to the Imperial Capital, news travels at such a sluggish pace.”
“From the moment I chose to follow Arseriel’s teachings rather than the Harben house, I ceased to be of the Harben family. I became Arseriel’s child. Having no reason to return, it is only natural that I do not.”
“The Marquis Harben would find such words most… lamentable. Being an only daughter, and with you having devoted yourself to the Order, his heartbreak must be considerable.”
At those words, plainly barbed with intent, Aila’s crimson eyes flared with light as she fixed her gaze upon the Countess Pont.
And without so much as changing her complexion, she spoke in a tone dry as kindling.
“Heartbroken, you say? A daughter unfit to be heir—her departure hardly merits discussion.”
“Ah. I’ve also heard the Duke took your cousin Cedric as an adopted son. Aren’t you disappointed?”
“It was fortunate for him. And thanks to it, I was spared from wearing these tedious gowns and given a uniform instead. Surely we both gained, wouldn’t you say?”
The Countess Pont’s face drained of color at Aila’s blunt—almost glacial—reply.
The nobles who had witnessed the exchange withdrew quietly, their tongues clicking against their teeth in grudging admiration of Aila’s steel.
A few aristocrats who had family ties with hers ventured to approach Sion, but she too parried each advance with practiced, subtle deflection.
As pleasantries laced with veiled hostility continued to flow, someone turned a thick, lingering gaze toward Leon and opened his mouth.
“So this is the celebrated figure? A commoner playing such a pivotal role in so great an affair… How gracious of Arseriel’s light to shine without distinction of rank.”
The words, delivered with a thin smile, ostensibly addressed Leon, yet both gaze and speech were aimed at Raphio.
It was such a familiar gesture—speaking as though Leon weren’t there at all.
‘Always the same tired schemes.’
Leon swallowed a sigh at the shallow ploy, but Raphio wrapped an arm around his shoulders and replied with measured grace.
“Of course. The light may shine equally, but the miracle this child bears is dignified enough to surpass any lowliness.”
His tone remained courteous, yet beneath Raphio’s customarily gentle voice ran an edge sharp as steel.
A warning against discourtesy.
It was precisely as that frigid silence pressed down upon one corner of the hall—
“High Envoy Eckhardt Eisen of the Vaniser Church! Priest Matthias Falk! Deputy Commander Wolfram Hagen of the Inquisition Knights! Holy Knight Gerick Stein and Holy Knight Caius Bernhardt!”
The frozen air shattered at the usher’s sharp announcement.
Simultaneously, the great doors of the hall opened with a ponderous grinding sound.
Every eye in the chamber fixed upon the newcomers.
“……Ohhh……”
These were figures from whom even the warm glow of the grand chandeliers seemed to recoil.
Five in number, yet they possessed a gravity and chill that eclipsed the brilliance of every aristocrat in the hall.
Their tunics fell in simple, unadorned lines of deep, dull black-blue, while their streamlined ceremonial plate gleamed silver.
The Vaniser delegation proceeded slowly until they came to rest at the center, where Arseriel’s contingent stood.
The priest among them, who appeared to hold the highest rank, bowed first toward Raphio and spoke.
“May the scales of balance ever remain true.”
“May light guide all.”
Raphio returned the blessing with a bow of his own.
Though the formal rites had been exchanged, a palpable tension thrummed between the two groups.
Arseriel, draped in pure white reverence, and Vaniser, shrouded in absolute solemnity.
The starkly opposed and alien presences emanating from both churches intertwined silently at the center of the hall, pressing the air of the chamber down still further.
【So these are Vaniser?】
‘Yes. These are Vaniser.’
Leon answered Eckrise thus, regarding the Vaniser envoy with a cool gaze as he spoke with Raphio.
Then he studied the figures standing behind the high envoy with equal deliberation.
‘Two priests and three holy knights.’
【There seem to be similar types outside the doors as well.】
‘They can’t pack the hall with every runt in sight. The five before us will be the highest-ranking; the ones outside are foot soldiers.’
【And yet your side did not arrive with such a trailing entourage, did it?】
‘We have only one priest-ranked member, and that’s the high envoy himself.’
Arseriel had chosen quality over quantity; Vaniser had chosen the reverse.
Partly because those who received the essentially mandatory invitation were the order’s commander and three elite knights.
【Do you recognize any of them?】
‘Not particularly. Our spheres of activity don’t overlap with Vaniser.’
Had it been Elionel in the south, perhaps—but Vaniser, headquartered in the north, rarely intersected with Leon’s path.
Even Elionel itself had only begun to cooperate with Leon after the Western Region was devastated by the massive Corruption outbreak, leaving him with no familiar faces there either.
Leon had become the Church’s errand boy, wandering the continent to slay Corruption Entities, only after he turned past twenty.
At sixteen as he was now, he should have no acquaintance with Vaniser priests or holy knights.
As it should be.
‘……Wait.’
A man standing at the rear of the line caught Leon’s attention in an odd way.
He appeared to be roughly the same age as Tristan or Sion.
Dark brown hair swept back neatly, plain features unmarred by any distinctive scar.
Eyes turned forward without expression, the same color as his hair—a face whose origins were difficult to discern from appearance alone.
Yet the moment their gazes met, Leon felt a shock as though his blood had turned to ice.
And simultaneously, a voice he could never forget pierced his ear.
May the Blessing of Chaos accompany your death.
It was him.
The damned heretic bastard who had killed Leon and sent him back.
Continued in the next episode ▶
A holy knight who made a contract with an evil god
Author
Lam 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 copying are prohibited. Violations may result in criminal and civil legal liability.
※ Pentagram welcomes submissions from writers.

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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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