The Knight Who Devours Magic - Chapter 58

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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 58. The Fierce Battle of Rubel (2)
The plan to dispose of forty-four men silently had succeeded only twice.
At first, the targets had been nothing more than First Circle or Second Circle Mages and their enthralled servants.
“Who goes there!”
Bang!
From the third attempt onward, proper Demon Knights began to appear, and the Holy Knights were forced into combat.
“Enemy!”
“Kill them!”
Fortunately, by then the party had already drawn close to the Magistrate’s Residence in the market where massive quantities of Demonic Energy gathered, so there was no longer any need for stealth.
However, the sight of forty-four Holy Knights charging forward after swiftly dispatching a Third Circle Demon Knight was naturally quite threatening.
And so a direct confrontation erupted between the forces defending the Magistrate’s Residence and the party.
More precisely, a full-scale battle began between the party and the Mages and Demon Knights who were beginning to reveal their true forms.
“Enemy!”
A knight who closed the distance in an instant and appeared before his eyes.
At first glance, he appeared to be a speed-type Demon Knight of Third Circle rank, but Munno scoffed.
‘Clumsy.’
Just as it proved that even among those of equal rank and the same type, there were differences in skill, this one was visibly inferior to Karina, whom he had faced before.
And Munno had once even managed to press Karina back, however briefly, when he was still First Circle.
“Ha!”
The enemy even kindly shouted a kiai as he honestly drove his blade toward his throat.
Likely because he had underestimated his opponent.
And that was his undoing.
‘Mm…….’
At this level, there was no need to use Acceleration.
The opponents who gave him pressure at his current level of strength were those of Fourth Circle rank or higher—not mere Third Circle fighters.
“Hmph!”
Munno lowered his torso, slipped past the blade, and took a long step forward.
Thud.
In a single moment, he dropped low and burst into the enemy’s range, and seeing the widening in the man’s eyes, he drew the enormous sword from his back and swung it with all his weight behind it.
Crack!
“Hack!?”
The enemy, who had nearly been cleaved in two, was launched sideways, leaving only one arm behind.
But it made no difference.
Thud.
“Ha!”
He took another wide stride toward where his opponent stood and charged, swinging his blade in a wide arc.
— Always with perfect commitment, always boldly.
The direction pursued by the Dracen Greatsword Technique matched his temperament perfectly.
Whoooosh!
The sword, driven with full force, tore through the air and bore down on his opponent with terrifying momentum.
But at that moment.
Even as his arm hung severed, the enemy seized the opening and charged, stepping back with the Hundred Step, putting ‘just’ a little distance between them.
Exactly where his blade could not reach.
A calm response that belied the blazing intensity in his eyes—the agile reaction befitting a speed-type Third Circle knight.
‘Hm. Decent.’
In times past, this was a situation where he would have helplessly given openings or needed to resort to his house’s secret techniques to maintain his assault.
But not now.
Whoooosh…….
An exchange of blows that pushed concentration to its extreme.
In that slowed time, as wrathful yet composed blue eyes crossed with pupils even colder and darker still.
The Demon Knight’s eyes began to narrow, as if sensing something amiss.
But.
‘Too late.’
By exactly the distance the Demon Knight had retreated, Munno’s blade lengthened in a fluid extension, passing straight through where his opponent’s throat had been.
Slice.
Whirrrr.
“Ugh!?”
“Martha!?”
“A monster!”
The moment he saw the soldiers charging in behind the Demon Knight suddenly falter.
Munno let out a violent roar.
“By the Will of the Holy Temple! Those not aligned with mages—lay down your arms!!”
As his shout cut through the air, casually severing the neck of a 3-Star knight, the soldiers froze.
Munno’s eyes locked onto his next target, his body already launching forward when he suddenly stiffened.
“Aaaahhh!”
“Evil to the abyss!”
“Servants of demons!”
Screams erupted from all sides at once.
The Holy Knights and Inquisitors who had chosen the direct assault were conducting an outright slaughter.
‘Damn it, I warned them about this…….’
He’d told them that ordinary soldiers had nothing to do with Demonic Energy.
But these fanatics seemed intent on showing no mercy whatsoever.
Because of that, even innocent soldiers were now lashing out at his companions, resisting with curses.
‘Still, they’ve managed to follow my orders this long, which is something.’
It was a miracle that a scene of slaughter hadn’t unfolded from the castle gates themselves.
“By the Will of the Holy Temple! Those not aligned with mages—lay down your arms!!”
Munno gritted his teeth and roared again, voice cracking with urgency.
He hoped that even one more soldier would hear his words and abandon their resistance.
And fortunately, it seemed not all fanatics were mad with bloodlust.
“This is a mage purge! Those who resist will be deemed servants of demons!”
Slice.
“By the will of the Divine!”
Crack.
“Those who follow the Divine! Surrender your weapons!”
Bang.
“Aaaahhh!”
Crash-crash-crash.
Though they still attacked soldiers indiscriminately, Munno noticed several Holy Knights at least offering surrender first, as he did.
A significant number of soldiers who had been actively resisting quickly cast down their weapons and threw themselves to the ground.
But of course, not everyone did.
“Bullshit! They’re enemies! Fight!”
Another knight—or rather, one of Mayer’s creations—burst from behind those soldiers, shouting to shatter the fragile atmosphere he’d worked to build.
But that dying struggle was futile.
“Shut your mouth!”
In a heartbeat, he activated Acceleration and swung his blade.
Cleave.
At the sight of the enemy corpse split cleanly in two, the soldiers preparing to rush forward froze as one.
Yes, my methods are rather… graphic.
The terror of the brutal Dracen Greatsword Technique reached its peak in that single moment.
“Those with no connection to mages—surrender now!!”
Munno’s roar rang out once more.
“W-we surrender!”
“P-please, spare us!”
“I have nothing to do with any mage…….”
Finally, far more soldiers cast their weapons aside and threw themselves down, and the momentum began to shift.
But then—
‘What the—!?’
In the distance, a soldier who appeared to have surrendered, lying prone on the ground, suddenly rose to ambush a Holy Knight who had turned away from him.
Reflex.
Before conscious thought could form, his arm swung of its own accord.
Whoosh!
His massive Two-Handed Sword launched through the air like a javelin.
As it flew, the enormous blade became a true spear—sharp, elongated—and crashed down upon the soldier attempting to ambush the knight.
Bang.
The soldier’s chest was pierced without ceremony; a moment later, the Holy Knight spun around, eyes wide with shock.
When their gazes met across that brief span—
“Damn you all! Even surrender means death! Fight back!!”
Cough.
The soldier impaled on Munno’s thrown blade coughed blood and screamed.
‘Who the hell is trying to pull that shit—!?’
Munno could see the Demonic Energy lodged in the soldier’s mind, but there was no way the others would notice it.
The soldiers who had dropped their weapons and lay prostrate turned their eyes and ears toward the one now screaming.
And then.
“Fight!”
“They’re butchers!”
“If we don’t fight, we all die!”
Among the soldiers were more who had fallen under the spell’s thrall.
The shouts of those inciting their own comrades reversed the atmosphere once more.
“Fight!!”
“Uwaaaaah!”
Damn it! Where? Where is…!?
There are too many carrying Demonic Energy….
‘Found them!’
Munno’s spinning gaze finally locked onto those casting magic over the soldiers.
Crack-snap.
The fallen soldier’s weapon became a javelin according to the ‘Spell,’ and it seized itself in his hand.
Whoooosh!
The javelin, hurled without hesitation, passed over the soldiers’ heads and struck the second-floor window of the Magistrate’s Residence directly.
Crash!
The javelin that shattered the window was blocked by a transparent barrier and fell harmlessly, but—
As if it were a signal.
“Up!”
Mayer and Cloy, who had been driving the Demon Knights cleverly hidden behind the soldiers, leaped past their opponents toward that window.
Soon.
—Aaaagh!
The moment a scream tore from inside.
Munno confirmed the expressions of the agitating soldiers shifting, then roared:
“Will of the Holy Temple! Those who will not cooperate with mages—lay down your arms!”
At the same moment, without waiting to see what came next, he drew Metal Chains from his limbs.
Whoosh-whirrrr.
Two strands of Metal Chains erupting from his feet launched his body skyward in an instant, while the chains extending from both hands coiled around the ankles of two Demon Knights attempting to pursue Mayer and Cloy.
Whoosh.
‘Even if I consume them, they won’t amount to much.’
Bang!
The moment the Third Circle Demon Knights, whose Demonic Energy fell short of a 2-Circle Mage, lost all strength and tumbled pathetically to the ground.
The Holy Knights following behind tore into these helpless foes.
“Upward!!”
Sensing the enormous Demonic Energy radiating from the Magistrate’s Residence’s second through fourth floors, Munno understood that witches and mages had gathered there and cried out.
The other Holy Knights who heard his voice also threw themselves skyward, abandoning the neutralized soldiers of the first floor.
And then.
Massive crash!
“Gah!?”
As Munno ducked his head against the fragments bursting forth with the explosion.
Most of the Holy Knights who had entered the Magistrate’s Residence were swept up in the blast and rebounded back out again.
‘What the—!?’
But his concern proved needless.
“Urrgh!?”
“For the flame!”
“Rise!”
“In God’s name!”
Before Munno’s eyes, radiant Light Wings and sacred radiance settled upon the bodies of the Holy Knights scattered across the ground.
“Forward!”
In a heartbeat, the Holy Knights—eighty, ninety percent of their wounds healed—surged upward toward the second floor.
‘These aren’t even cockroaches….’
Munno himself marveled (?) inwardly as he followed in their wake.
And then.
“This can’t be…!”
He sighed, realizing he’d missed the harvest.
In the path the Holy Knights had passed, there lay five corpses radiating Demonic Energy so appetizing it was almost cruel to witness.
The corpse of a mage who in life must have reached 4-Circle rank.
‘Tsk. What a waste.’
But the Demonic Energy of a mage already dead and beginning to rot was the same as Demonic Energy once consumed by a spell.
In other words, it was useless to him now.
Yet he couldn’t afford to stand here regretting it.
If this was truly a faction that had completely infested such a large city, then there was no way their forces ended here.
“Upstairs!”
This time, I’ll lead.
Forcing the Demon Devourer raging in his mind back into submission, Munno was about to follow the Holy Knights when—
Bang!
Crash-crash-crash-bang.
He watched as part of the marble ceiling collapsed with a tremendous roar.
At the same moment—
‘What?’
He felt a fairly powerful Demonic Energy moving directly above.
A mass of Demonic Energy that didn’t hold still in one place but moved urgently, as if engaged in combat with multiple opponents.
‘Just shy of 4-Circle tier Demonic Energy. But at that speed of movement… A Demon Knight! 5-Star Rank!?’
The moment he registered that this was a Demon Knight of the same caliber as Collide—
Metal Chains shot from Munno’s hand, driving into the edge of the ceiling that had just collapsed and left a gaping hole.
And they caught the moving mass of Demonic Energy by the ankle.
Uuuuuung.
‘Got it!’
A vast tide of energy rushed toward him all at once.
‘This will do it.’
Uuuuuung.
Crack-crack-crack-crunch.
In that instant when euphoria surged through him and certainty bloomed that he could break through the barrier once more—
– You wretched dogs of the Holy Temple dare—!!!
A sharp, metallic roar accompanied it.
Kwaaaaaaang!
Another blast erupted from above.
It was the loudest explosion since the battle had begun.

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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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