------------------
[Translator - Kiteretsu]
[Proofreader - Kyros]
------------------
Chapter 98
A thought that made no sense.
Even if Christian was a genius, he was still only a low-grade 4-star.
In contrast, the Dark Ghost Unit had no fewer than five 4-star demonic humans. Including Mysak, that made six.
On top of that, there were over ten 3-star demonic humans—making their strength overwhelming and supposedly unbeatable.
But the sub-leader's instincts screamed a warning.
“We can't let our guard down.”
“Form the Dark Ghost Formation. Go all out.”
The sub-leader’s sword was dyed in darkness.
It was the Black Fog, a transformation of the black sword.
Like a mist, the demonic energy spread and crushed anything it touched—a fog of destruction.
The other 4-star members also activated their black sword transformations.
They too used the Black Fog.
The five 4-star demonic humans’ Black Fog fused together and changed in nature once more.
The mist turned into wind.
A swirling vortex.
A combined formation using black sword transformation.
And that wasn’t all.
Behind them, the 3-star demonic humans each cast their signature dark magic.
Curses, destruction, illusions.
The wind of darkness absorbed those dark spells and grew even more ominous.
In other words, the Dark Ghost Formation was a deadly combined technique—a vortex of demonic energy forged by black swords, infused with curses, destruction, and illusions to slaughter targets.
But Christian’s reaction was strange.
He stood there, motionless, without the slightest movement.
The sub-leader looked puzzled.
‘What is this? Did he give up?’
But that couldn’t be it.
A chilling sense of dread surged up for no reason.
It was the instinct of a warrior who had faced death countless times.
The sub-leader shouted forcefully.
“Pour all your demonic energy into it. Kill him in one strike!”
“W-Wait?! Didn’t I say to take him alive?”
“Shut up and stay out of this!”
The other members of the Dark Ghost Unit felt the same unease.
“Haaap!”
Like a raging storm, the vortex of darkness surged toward Christian.
‘Got him! He’s trapped!’
The sub-leader let out a sigh of relief.
Though the 5-star commander wasn’t present to perfect the formation, even so, a 4-star demonic human couldn’t possibly survive that vortex.
With all kinds of dark magic and the raging winds of black swords coming from every direction, he’d be killed instantly.
‘Not even a corpse will remain…’
But then, at that moment—
Something unbelievable happened.
Paaahhh!!!
From within the vortex of darkness, a white radiant light surged upward.
It was a brilliant radiance, as if purging the vile darkness.
The dark vortex began to scatter into pieces.
“Gahk?!”
The members who had formed the Dark Ghost Formation coughed up blood.
“What the?!”
The sub-leader had a look of utter disbelief.
It was shocking enough that the Dark Ghost Formation had been destroyed, but something even more unbelievable stood out.
‘Th-this feeling...? What is this? It can’t be…’
And then—
Once all remnants of darkness had completely vanished,
Everyone who saw Christian’s figure was left breathless.
“Th-that’s…?”
From Christian’s hand, a pillar of light blazed radiantly.
The realm of United 5-Star.
The hallmark of the Elder Knights class.
An Mana Blade was surging from Chris’s sword.
“……”
A heavy silence fell.
It was as if time had stopped.
Everyone froze in place, staring at the radiant energy in disbelief.
Then—
“D-don’t be fooled! It must be an illusion!”
One of the Dark Ghost Unit members shouted loudly.
“I’ll go confirm it myself!”
“Wait—!”
Paaah!
The pillar of light flashed.
And that was the end.
The charging demonic human was annihilated on the spot.
To say he was cut would be inaccurate.
His sword,
his black blade,
and the entire area caught in the strike’s path—
were all completely erased.
A terrifying power that didn’t match the beauty of its brilliant glow.
It was a real Mana Blade.
A silence like despair fell over the battlefield.
“H-how…?”
Chris shrugged his shoulders.
“Ahh, I’m a genius, so it just kind of happened. Controlling only demonic energy was boring, so I figured I’d learn the power of holy radiance too—then oops, I hit 5-star.”
“Wh-what kind of nonsense…”
“Well, that’s not really what matters right now, is it?”
Chris said quietly.
“You’re all going to die here.”
“!!”
“Now that you’ve seen this, I can’t let a single one of you live. Sorry.”
The Dark Ghost Unit instinctively stepped back.
But it was too late.
Paaah!
A fountain of blood erupted.
Slash Slash Slash
The Dark Ghost Unit resisted, but it was useless.
Starting from the 5-Star Elder class, the power is simply incomparable to the levels below.
Not a single one survived.
“Uh, uh… uhhh…”
Mysak stared up at Chris with vacant eyes.
Even to the end, Mysak looked pathetic.
He had left his back to the Dark Ghost Unit and tried to flee.
Yet, he hadn’t even gotten far.
Paralyzed by fear, he tripped, fell, flailed, and was caught.
“P-please, spare me…!”
Trembling on the ground, he eventually bowed his head in submission and begged for mercy.
“S-spare me! W-we’re brothers, right?! I-I won’t ever show myself to you again! Please spare me!! No, please, I beg you!”
But Christian’s face remained cold as ever.
Just as despair was about to swallow him—
Christian spoke something unexpected.
“You want to live? Then tell me something useful.”
“!!”
“If the information is worth your life, I might consider sparing you.”
Pathetic as he was, he was still of the main bloodline.
He might know something unexpectedly valuable.
“Th-that…!!”
“Nothing? Then I’ll just kill you.”
“N-no! Um… Father is planning a rebellion!”
He meant Marquis Langham.
Chris silently stared down at Mysak.
“Father wants to kill the House Head! I saw him secretly contacting the Four Demon Stars too! S-so…!”
It was shocking information, but to Chris, it wasn’t new.
‘I already know all of that.’
Instead, Chris asked something else.
“What about Princess Yulian?”
“Uh, huh?”
“Do you know anything about Princess Yulian?”
She was the most dangerous rival in the succession race.
Mysak’s eyes darted wildly in panic.
“P-Princess Yulian is…”
“You must not know much.”
“No, wait! Then…!! Not about Sister Yulian, I’ll tell you about Brother Ashid!”
Mysak shouted desperately.
“Brother Ashid is plotting something terrible to kill you!!”
“Hm?”
Now that was an interesting story.
“That guy should still be bedridden after what I did to him.”
The internal injuries he’d suffered would take at least a year to heal, by any calculation. He should still have a long way to go.
“He’s already almost fully recovered.”
“No way.”
“…He used the forbidden human sacrifice technique.”
“!!”
Chris frowned.
“Human sacrifice is forbidden by the Dark Demonic House. No—more than that, wasn’t it banned by His Majesty the Demon Emperor?”
The Demon Emperor.
The highest-ranked, most powerful demon king who had lived since the founding of the Magus Empire.
But the Demon Emperor ruled with a strict hands-off approach.
Even when the Magus Empire was shaken to its core, he never showed himself.
‘At most, he sends his will through the third-ranked Demon King, the Prime Minister of Magic.’
Because of this policy of non-intervention, horrific things were often committed in secret.
“The House of Libere helped. Count Libere’s family is firmly on Brother Ashid’s side.”
They were a vassal family of the Dark Demonic House.
A family that had pledged loyalty for generations—considered the most central of all the Dark Demonic House’s retainers.
They were also the family from which Ashid’s mother came.
‘So Ashid will return sooner than expected.’
And it was clear that the returned Ashid would be even stronger than before.
Because he had committed human sacrifice.
‘That bastard.’
Chris clenched his fist tightly.
He utterly despised human sacrifice.
He had seen far too much of it during the Age of Ruins.
‘I’ll never let it go. Neither him nor the House of Libere.’
If he wanted to bring Ashid down, he’d have to deal with the retainers behind him as well.
It wouldn’t be easy, but that was fine.
He already had something in mind.
“I-I told you what I know, so please, spare me….”
Thunk.
A cold blade pierced through Mysak’s throat.
Chris had only asked in case there was any useful information to be gained—he’d never intended to let Mysak live.
“Phew.”
Chris let out a sigh.
The Dark Ghost Unit hadn’t been an easy opponent, and fatigue washed over him.
‘Let’s clean up the aftermath.’
It was cleanup to avoid suspicion.
Chris manipulated the scene here and there exactly as he intended.
‘I wonder if that Evan guy got away okay. It’s done, so I should get going too.’
Flash!
But it was after Chris disappeared into the forest.
As a single drop of blood fell, a figure appeared.
“Hmm. This, this.”
Radiant silver hair.
Blood-red eyes.
A delicate face paired with a chilling madness.
It was First Prince Sherard.
He had been secretly hiding, watching Chris’s fight!
“This is getting more interesting by the minute. What now?”
Sherard looked toward the direction Chris had vanished.
A bright smile spread across his lips.
“I feel like killing him.”
* * *
Mysak’s death!
The Dark Demonic House was thrown into chaos.
“What happened?”
Marquis Langham summoned Chris and interrogated him.
“I apologize. While I was separated from the slave, trouble broke out.”
“What trouble?”
“The Dark Ghost Unit and Prince Mysak first attacked my slave, and my slave retaliated, killing them all.”
Chris blamed Evan for the incident.
‘That’s why I deliberately used the swordsmanship of the famous school.’
“Since traces of the Mana Blade were confirmed, it seems the slave was hiding his martial prowess. When I arrived at the scene, both sides had wiped each other out. I’m sorry I couldn’t stop it.”
He had already manipulated the scene to fit his story, so there was no worry about being found out.
‘Evan will have to lie low, avoiding the eyes of the sword school for a while, so there’s no chance of him being discovered alive.’
By the time it became known that Evan was alive, this incident would be completely irrelevant.
“…I see. Understood.”
Marquis Langham frowned but said nothing.
Since Mysak and the Dark Ghost Unit had initiated the attack, it wasn’t Chris’s fault.
More importantly, from the demon’s perspective, it was simply the loser’s fault for dying in a fight.
That was their way of thinking.
But not everyone saw it that way.
“Ahhhhhhh!!!”
It was Marchioness Presia.
“No! This can’t be!! Ah…!!”
Her grief quickly turned into rage.
“I’ll kill you! Chris-tian! Right now…!! I’ll cut off every one of your fingers…!!”
But then—
“Stop.”
“!!”
A cold voice rang out.
Turning swiftly, Presia saw a woman glaring at her with an icy expression.
It was Merian.
She wore the uniform of the Black Shadow Knights, the family’s inspection force.
“Step aside!”
But—
Clang!
Merian’s sword was pointed at Presia.
Presia’s face stiffened.
“Did you really think our Black Shadow Knights wouldn’t know about your mistakes all this time, Presia?”
------------------
[Translator - Kiteretsu]
[Proofreader - Kyros]
------------------
