The Knight Who Devours Magic - Chapter 60

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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 60. A Final Death Thrash?
Flash!
BOOM!
The Holy Light that fell from the sky failed to shatter the protective barriers of the two witches—not as expected.
“Screech!”
“Damn this temple……!”
But it was enough to make the Old Witch cough blood again and disrupt the Red-Haired Witch’s Blue Flame.
Whoosh.
Thud.
‘Gasp.’
As the ground rushed closer, Munno threw out Metal Chains to steady himself mid-air and landed—and in that moment, he saw the source of that power.
– Dogs of the divine, no less……!!!
Below the mages, who were irritably drawing in Demonic Energy anew.
Twenty holy knights, standing with the corpses of their comrades across their shoulders, their forms wretched and broken.
The Holy Light pouring from their tear-stained eyes filled Munno’s entire vision.
One body for each person—as if by deliberate measure.
It was as though each holy knight had absorbed an explosion meant for another, dying in their place, and Munno’s eyes widened.
“By the blood of brotherhood……!”
“We strike down the enemy of the divine……!”
“God, protect us!!”
Uuuuuuung.
The moment they gathered in a circle and laid down their comrades’ bodies.
Flash.
A sacred radiance shot skyward and scattered into countless meteors, raining down toward the airspace where the mages dwelled.
It shattered Munno’s understanding—that Sacred Power held only healing and defensive abilities.
‘That’s…….’
An energy so vivid and potent that even an ordinary person’s eyes would surely perceive it.
And as if to prove it.
– Self-Sacrifice……!
– These maniacs……!!?
The mages’ gaze snapped upward, and multiple layers of new barriers erupted from their bodies, blocking the meteor shower.
BOOM.
Bang!
Bang!!
Stars twinkling in broad daylight from the ground—a blinding brilliance that would not fade.
The Inquisitors. Those who Munno had only ever seen as an inconvenience had just created a dramatic turning point in this battle.
‘Now!’
Whoosh.
Munno seized the opening and attempted to leap skyward again with the aid of Metal Chains.
But at that very moment.
‘What?’
He saw two knights rising from the opposite side first.
Mayer, whose armor had been reduced to something like rags, and Chloe, whose gear looked comparatively intact.
Those two Four-Star knights were ascending lightly to the sky some thirty meters above where the mages waited—all without the Metal Chains support that Munno relied upon.
‘What?’
Their trajectory was strange.
Whether it was Chloe or Mayer, they shot straight toward the mages in a direct line, even as the meteors of Holy Light rained down around them.
And sure enough.
One stray meteor of light passed beyond the mages and struck Chloe head-on.
“Oh……!?”
A cry of alarm escaped him unbidden.
Flash.
Whiiiiish.
The moment the meteor hit Chloe, rather than being knocked backward by the impact, color flushed to her face instead.
‘……What?’
Flash.
And when another meteor struck Mayer immediately after, he too seemed to recover rather than sustain injury.
‘What is……?’
His gaze shifted naturally to the ground below.
There, fallen meteors extinguished the flames that had ravaged the earth and set with all manner of spellwork—and new shoots began to sprout in their wake.
‘How could this be…….’
It was a miraculous sight, like watching a skill from a game that dealt damage only to enemies while healing allies.
And miracles are called miracles precisely because they flicker past that singular moment and fade away.
He could sense that the Paladins’ power wouldn’t last much longer.
‘End this now.’
The moment resolve crystallized within him, Munno gathered the scattered metal fragments scattered about and forged them once more into a massive Two-Handed Sword.
When the Great Sword—still reminiscent of his father’s Slayer but far larger—settled in his grip, he pushed hard off the ground and launched himself skyward.
His ascending body reached its apex and began its inevitable descent, but that mattered little.
In fact, it was precisely what he wanted.
He’d already calculated the angle, accounting for exactly this arc.
Again, the mages’ eyes fixed upon him.
Faces contorted in shock.
“That bastard……!?”
And from their hands, Yellow Lightning and Blue Flame surged forth anew.
But now, none of it posed any real threat to him.
To say a mage’s body was frail was to say their every reaction moved slowly—they were one and the same.
The reason they hovered in the air and bombarded from a fixed point likely stemmed from much the same limitation.
‘It’s over…….’
Swish.
With a grin of satisfaction, he hurled the Metal Chains forward and raised his blade—but the first strike wasn’t his to claim.
The opening belonged to another.
“By the blood of our brothers!!”
Mayer roared as though ready to vomit blood, drawing his Longsword in the same motion.
In that instant, with two pairs of luminous wings spread wide, he accelerated through the air and overtook Chloe’s ascending form, surging toward the mages.
And from the Longsword he’d drawn, blazing Holy Light crashed down upon the mages’ barrier.
Flash.
Crash!!
That meteoric slash was brilliant as an explosion, cleaving several layers of the barrier before dissipating.
But in that very moment, as though by covenant, two arrows shot through the widened crack.
Chloe’s arrows, loosed from close range behind Mayer, deep within the mages’ defenses.
They struck true—sinking into the Old Witch’s body.
Thud.
“Ahhhhh!!”
The layered barriers shattered in an instant.
Swish.
An instant later, two strands of black Metal Chains swept through and consumed what remained of her protection, and across that exposed space, the massive Two-Handed Sword came crashing down.
Rend!!
“Gurrrgh…….”
‘That connected!’
The moment he felt the blade bite true, he saw the Old Witch’s eyes roll back as a diagonal slash opened from her left shoulder.
And then—an addition.
‘What—?’
The Red-Haired Witch, using the Old Witch as a shield against Chloe’s arrows and his own blade, was whispering something urgently into the old woman’s ear.
‘His will? Fate?’
In the sensation of time slowing, with focus raised to its peak, he tried to read her lips, but couldn’t make out her meaning with certainty.
Yet one thing was crystal clear.
From the witch’s outstretched hand, Blue Flame shot forward toward him.
‘Damn——!’
It was far too close to dodge.
Swish.
Munno unleashed two Metal Chains from his legs toward the witches.
The remaining two he stretched toward the incoming Blue Flame.
And.
Crack.
‘Hell.’
Watching the chains from his legs coil around only the old witch contrary to his intent, Munno crossed his arms, sheltering his chest against the approaching Blue Flame.
But.
Boom———!
The instant the Blue Flame consumed the Metal Chains and struck his Armor dead-center, violent agony raced through his entire body.
“Gwaaahhhhh!!”
He’d anticipated as much, but even the reinforced Metal Chains and Armor, enhanced after his third Evolution, couldn’t withstand the Blue Flame.
Instead, a single strand of the chains melted away in an instant, and his left arm and Armor began to dissolve almost without lag, while the Armor on his right arm and chest continued to burn slowly, and the scalding agony across his face unleashed a torrent of unbearable pain.
In that moment, he could feel death itself, the Reaper, drawing so close he could almost touch it.
But.
‘I won’t die like this!!’
Crack-crack-crack.
Gritting his teeth through the dizzying agony, Munno concentrated his mind on the Metal Chains wrapped around both legs.
The two chains binding the Old Witch converted an enormous quantity of Demonic Energy into vast reserves of Primal Mana.
In that instant.
Snap-crack-crack.
His left arm, which had been stripped down to bone and on the verge of severing, suddenly regenerated whole, and the melted Armor began to reconstruct at a furious pace.
Yet the Blue Flame enveloping his entire body didn’t vanish in the process.
As his flesh and Armor were destroyed and rebuilt in cycles, the pain only intensified, growing fiercer than before.
“Nngh—gh—gh…….”
Trapped in an agony so complete that coherent thought was impossible, he could only focus on absorbing energy to survive.
Then, abruptly, the Blue Flame wrapping his entire body vanished.
“Ngh……?”
A shrill whistle cut through the air.
Only then did cool wind return to his skin, and his vision, which had seemed to be melting away, snapped back into focus.
And.
Crack-snap-crack.
His ruined body mended itself completely.
Click.
Metallic scrape.
Once his Armor had restored itself perfectly, his senses finally cleared enough to perceive his surroundings.
And the first thing that registered was.
“Agh?”
The shriveled corpse of the elderly Witch plummeting down like a mummy, and Mayer, who had somehow leaped back up and was now swinging a Longsword wreathed in Holy Light, and Chloe, who was loosing arrows. And…….
The Red-Haired Witch, transformed into a crimson meteor once more, blazing skyward.
Crack.
‘I can’t let her slip away…….’
He tried to force his barely-recovered body into motion.
Then.
Bang!
“Hack!”
A jarring impact slammed through his entire frame, snapping his mind back to full awareness.
And only then did he realize he was plummeting helplessly toward the ground.
“Munno!”
“It’s not over yet……!”
He caught sight of Chloe, shifting direction mid-fall toward him, and Mayer behind her, shouting urgently.
‘Damn it, I lost her again…….’
Frustration surging through him, he struggled to push himself upright.
Then Mayer’s urgent expression caught his eye once more.
And he understood what lay in the direction Mayer was frantically pointing.
‘A corpse?’
It was the body of the Old Witch, who had sacrificed herself to restore Munno.
Thump.
Thud.
The mummified corpse fell to the ground almost soundlessly upon impact.
‘Why is……?’
As confusion seized him.
Whoosh.
Centered on where the corpse had fallen, an enormous black circle inscribed with strange patterns materialized.
Simultaneously, an overwhelming surge of Demonic Energy erupted.
“Damn it……!”
At that moment, Mayer landed and broke into a cold sweat, then roared at the order of Holy Knights still slouched about him.
“A high-ranking Witch has offered herself as a sacrifice!”
His eyes, usually half-lidded, snapped so wide that his pupils were fully visible, and his voice carried a seething, visceral hatred.
At that shout, the Holy Knights, who had seemed ready to collapse at any moment, flinched.
And.
“Brothers! Even if we all perish, we must deal with the Demon fragments spilling out from there! Everyone, take your positions!!”
In the moment Mayer cried out again with desperate fervor.
Even the exhausted holy knights rose to their feet with grim determination etched across their faces.
And then.
A soft, hissing sound.
The black smoke that had consumed the Old Witch’s corpse entirely vanished.
A low, thrumming hum.
A black Portal opened in the center of a Magic Circle spanning some ten meters in diameter.
But then.
“Everyone, turn back—wait?”
Mayer’s expression wavered so visibly that it betrayed his shock.
The Portal’s opening was far too small.
And.
“Shrieeeek!”
What erupted from that tiny Portal was a human-shaped creature no larger than the small folk of legend—a thing spoken of only in stories.
A tiny monster bearing blade-like protrusions where hands should have been.
Seeing it, Mayer snapped back to awareness and bellowed a warning.
“This Magic Circle was born from a high Mage as sacrifice! It may possess power far beyond what it appears—!”
As if.
A sharp metallic snap.

Munno, who could sense the magnitude of Demonic Energy, paid no heed to those words and fired his Metal Chains.
And then.
“Shriek!”
A sharp ping.
A violent crack.
The small creature deflected the chain’s weight with its blade-like hand, only to have its skull shattered in the recoil.
It crumpled.
A worthless Demon, not worth consuming.
Exactly as Munno had anticipated.
“What… is this?”
As Munno’s bewildered gaze and the holy knights’ deflated stares turned toward Mayer.
“No, this… this shouldn’t be possible…?”
Mayer could only alternate his confused stare between the creature’s corpse and Munno.

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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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