The Saint’s Manual for Redemption - Chapter 87

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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 87
I hoisted Wilson Junior onto my shoulder and turned to face the Duke.
“Found it.”
Kroen, the Duke, blinked his eyes several times, clearly caught off guard—he hadn’t expected something like this to exist beneath the actual waterway.
The composure had drained from the face of the man who, moments before, had merely shrugged at the blueprints and remarked that the waterway was nothing more than a canal connected to the Duke’s Castle.
“What is this?”
“What else would it be?”
I gazed down at the circular seal carved into the center of the Stone Gate—the crest of Caritas.
Despite the centuries that had passed, the seal remained pristine. Sediment, earth, and moss covered its surface, yet the carved lines beneath showed not the slightest decay.
I recognized the method. I recognized this Sealing Spell. And more than anything, the emblem of Caritas etched into the Stone Gate pulsed with a faint light, as if responding to my Holy Power.
“It’s the mark left by the third Saint sealing the entrance to Raum’s lair.”
I’d almost misspoken, and the mere fact that Arden’s gaze was fixed on me now sent cold sweat down my spine.
Damn it, I needed to watch my tongue. Watch it carefully. If I went around now saying I was the third Saint, I’d be marched straight to trial for heresy.
Kroen approached the Stone Gate and attempted to open it, straining with such force that his face flushed crimson, yet it would not budge.
That was only natural. This Stone Gate led to the lair of the Archdemon Raum himself, and it was rigged to prevent heretics from tampering with it. No amount of physical force or destruction could pry it open.
There was only one way to open this door.
I pressed my palm against the crest at the center of the Stone Gate and unleashed my Holy Power with brutal force. Only a Saint possessed of Holy Power as abundant as mine could open this seal.
When I installed this, I’d believed a future Saint would eventually succeed at the Raum Raid that I had failed. I never imagined it would be me—reincarnated.
A moment later, the hawk emblem carved in relief at the center of the Stone Gate blazed with light.
From deep within the ancient gate came the sound of long-dormant mechanisms awakening. Stone ground against stone—a low, heavy grinding. The door, sealed for centuries, began to open with agonizing slowness.
And through the widening gap in the Stone Gate, a black rift was revealed.
A Demon Realm Rift.
The Demonic Energy that oozed from that fissure fouled the air within the Greenhouse at once.
It had a texture unlike ordinary Demonic Energy—stickier, deeper, heavier. Breathing it in felt like black mud clinging to the insides of my lungs.
A passage connected to the lair of an Archdemon, indeed.
I unfurled my Holy Power before the Demonic Energy seeping from the rift could reach the Duke or Arden. A barrier of Holy Power enveloped both of them and cleansed the Greenhouse air. Even with my purification, exposure to Archdemon-level Demonic Energy was never harmless.
“We enter.”
Before my words had fully left my lips, Kroen threw himself into the rift. I raised my eyebrows briefly.
More courage than I’d given him credit for.
Or perhaps he’d calculated that retreating now would mean surrendering all initiative to me. Either way, it didn’t work against my interests. I followed without hesitation.
The world inverted.
The sensation beneath my feet was wrong. It felt as though I were treading on empty air, forced to stand upright through sheer will alone. I felt a familiar, sickening revulsion as I slowly took in my surroundings.
This was the Demon Realm.
Raum’s lair, specifically.
Kroen stood frozen a step ahead of me. It was inevitable. The moment any normal human realized that what they were standing on was not earth but a crimson sky, their mind could do nothing but stall.
Beneath our feet stretched a red sky. Through it, a red moon cast its pale glow.
It was not one moon. In the distance, farther still, multiple red moons overlapped one another, then merged back into one.
At one moment, the moon felt like an eye gazing down upon us; at the next, it resembled a pool of pooled blood. The landscape was dizzying merely to observe.
A dark-red flow like clouds drifted slowly beneath our feet. Yet our feet did not sink.
The laws of the Demon Realm differ from those of the human world. The sky lies below; the earth above. Weight is twisted; direction loses all meaning.
With each breath, I felt a damp, acrid sensation clinging to the interior of my respiratory passages. The air reeked of long-rotted blood, rain-soaked earth, and the stench of flesh still warm with decay.
I heard Kroen swallow hard.
Lifting one’s gaze revealed not sky but black earth instead. An endless expanse of dark land. Inverted cliffs and mountains hanging upside-down, devoid of a single tree.
Inverted Heaven.
A world where sky and earth are reversed.
Holy Power is the force of Heaven. Thus, for humans dwelling beneath the sky, Holy Power is a blessing. But for demons treading upon the sky, Holy Power is poison.
That was why, five hundred years ago, I did not spare my Holy Power when I ventured into this place. Here, Holy Power itself was a weapon.
Of course, that also meant that even slight entanglement with the Demon Realm’s laws could destroy the human side first.
The Demonic Energy here does not merely foul the body. It warps your sense of direction, clouds your memory, and draws forth fear and regret like sticky hands.
A red dampness rose from beneath my feet, wrapping around my ankles. The slightest moment of carelessness, and this world would whisper that I had always belonged here. Just as it had five hundred years ago.
I spread my Holy Power wide. Pure, luminous light enveloped us like a thin membrane. Where it touched the black Demonic Energy creeping up from below, it shattered and dissipated.
“Duke. Don’t stray from me.”
Kroen slowly turned to look at me. I thickened the barrier of Holy Power another layer and offered him a smile befitting a Saint.
“The air here is not kind to humans.”
Kroen did not answer.
He continued to gaze at the crimson sky, the black earth, and the warped space. Yet despite his shock, he seemed oddly composed.
No—unsettlingly so.
That was when Kroen suddenly began to clap.
Clap, clap. The sound rang strangely in the desolate air of the Demon Realm.
In the next instant, as if tearing through space itself, a black shadow lunged toward Arden. A blade flashed.
Yet Arden showed no sign of alarm, raising his blade to parry the assault. Steel sang out sharply through the Demon Realm’s air.
Huh, what’s this. I channeled Holy Power thinking he was just a Duke’s escort, but it was wasted effort.
Arden and the unknown assailant separated in an instant, then collided again. The clash of their blades rang out in rapid succession.
The opponent was swift and vicious, yet Arden countered each stroke with unflappable composure. It seemed he had already sensed the intruder’s presence. As a guard, he was undeniably competent.
With Arden—my only escort knight—occupied in defense, my own protection now lay vacant.
“Then shall we have a private conversation, Saint?”
At the Duke’s mocking tone, I slowly turned my gaze toward him. A dagger had appeared in his hand.
I laughed outright at the sight of it. Then I hoisted Wilson Junior onto my shoulder. A Mace against a dagger? Isn’t that rather overconfident?
“What are you doing, Duke?”
“I wonder.”
One corner of Kroen’s mouth twisted upward.
“That’s what I’d like to ask you.”
Until moments before, he had been courteous, sardonic, calculated—but now he was something else entirely. He no longer regarded me as a guest. His eyes gleamed with naked wariness and hostility.
“Answer me honestly, and I’ll let you keep your life.”
His words cut short. The Duke’s voice, stripped of its formality, was colder and lower than I’d expected.
I regarded him calmly.
Interesting. This man never meant to trust me from the start. Kroen raised the tip of his dagger ever so slightly, his tone turning blade-sharp. “Why did you bring the Imperial Secret Knight Order to this domain and lure me here?”

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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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