Tomb

“B-block him!”

Victor urgently shouted while stepping back.

Two Blue Cross Knights rushed at Pernok, and nature type magic filled the passage.

Pernok drew up Mana Reinforcement and charged forward.

Bang!

The magic Pernok struck out punched a hole in one side of the passage.

Phantoms bursting from the hole intensified the chaos in the passage.

But the Blue Cross Knights weren’t swept away by phantoms.

They opened artifacts and drew flows of fire and ice.

The passage instantly froze and sharply refined embers shot from the front.

[Cutting Lv.4]

Transforms wind into blades.

When Pernok waved his hand, wind changed into several blades and split the embers.

When momentum that wouldn’t subside pounded the knights’ artifacts, Pernok narrowed distance at once.

Clang!

He dodged sharply penetrating magic by just twisting his body, and met a knight’s slash with his fist.

[Enhancement Lv.3]

Hardens the body solidly.

Though it couldn’t raise hardness as much as Steel Body, when mixed with Pernok’s Mana Reinforcement, it was reborn as hardness that even blades couldn’t easily pierce.

Clang!

“…!?”

Seeing his skin wasn’t cut, the knight’s eyes were dyed with shock.

When Pernok stepped one foot forward, the knights immediately retreated.

Because they lost the spacing to swing swords.

They thought to distance themselves at the crossroads and straighten posture again.

Clack.

The knight’s back foot became empty.

“Right!”

Simultaneously with a fellow knight shouting from behind, the knight rolled his body left.

The foothold he was about to step on had somehow broken.

The eeriness flowing along his nape was brief.

A shadow stretched long before the knight.

“Can’t let your guard down.”

He didn’t even give leisure to lift the artifact.

Once posture crumbled, the knight had his head trampled by Pernok as is.

“Zhas!”

A fellow knight screaming while watching brain matter and blood scattered fire.

Pernok curled his body round and moved along the ground as much as possible.

Though fire pounded his body, it couldn’t make his enhanced flesh hesitate.

Thud!

He struck with his fist the left arm of a knight who swung to secure distance.

Knights excluding artifacts are no different from ordinary people.

To the arm bent in deformity, the knight responded with flames instead of screams.

Fire wrapped blade-like around the artifact rushed to burn Pernok with fierce momentum.

Since there was no need to dodge, he faced it head-on.

“Overload.”

Before even swinging halfway, the artifact shattered to pieces.

Beyond the panicking knight’s view, Pernok was coldly glaring.

“You couldn’t even measure your own weapon’s limit.”

“Aaaaah…!”

The knight screamed and tried to swing even the artifact’s hilt, but once the weapon broke, piercing Mana Reinforcement was impossible.

Wham!

At Pernok’s straight punch, the knight’s head burst.

Though mages retreated in fear at flesh scattering in all directions, the time was already late.

Already the footing had holes like missing teeth, and phantoms seethed from all sides.

Forces just performed meaningless sword dances without time to reorganize posture.

Since mages reduced output so passages wouldn’t break, the situation flowed according to Pernok’s plan.

‘I didn’t expect upper knight artifacts but they’re quite useful.’

There was no need to activate traps remaining here.

Upper knight artifacts gripped ignorantly by Blue Cross Knights emit phantoms until absorbing all life existing there.

To cut off that flow, the ground where artifacts are stuck must be destroyed.

However, those here haven’t even realized the cause of this phenomenon.

‘Until all die, artifacts will also continue drawing power.’

One regrettable thing was not being able to recycle upper knight artifacts.

Those artifacts were made for the purpose of inciting intruders’ desires and cleaning uninvited guests from the tomb.

Artifacts that squeezed power to their own limits would disappear with intruders.

“Uaaaaaaah!”

“S-save me!”

Pernok gazed beyond the chaotic battlefield.

Before he knew it, Victor led remaining Blue Cross Knights and left this place.

Tracing tracks with the Observation Eye showed a truly interesting place.

“Of all places, there. Avala and Banteras are truly a sickening ill-fated relationship.”

Pernok smirked and picked up one artifact that fell on the floor.

A supply-type artifact handling ice flow.

At most activating twice more was the limit, but Pernok who needed even one more fighting power wasn’t in a position to be choosy.

Pernok was imprinted as the new owner of the supply-type artifact that lost its owner.

And absorbing all mana and spiritual power of the dead, he stood before a completely wrong wall, not the seven branching paths.

“Was it around here.”

Pernok punched a hole there.

Bottomless darkness welcomed him, but Pernok jumped in without hesitation.

The Knight King’s lingering attachment was blowing from here.

* * *

Victor was running through a long passage with survivors.

‘What the hell is this?’

He divided forces thinking there might possibly be traps.

Even that, he conveyed to examine the interior thoroughly by including experienced people in each squad.

But the result led to terrible attack.

He still didn’t understand the phantoms’ identity and suddenly activating traps.

However, this one thing was certain.

‘I even put bracelets and attached surveillance so he couldn’t think otherwise, but he intended to screw me over from the start.’

Pernok knew this place’s traps from the beginning.

And he utilized Avala’s power to find this place.

‘That damn brat! The moment I leave here, I’ll definitely kill you and that archaeologist.’

Ultimately, it was a match of who strikes the opponent first.

Victor was indignant at the fact he was played by Pernok rather than falling into a trap.

“Master! It’s light!”

Victor looked at the passage’s end with neurotic eyes.

Bright light different from fire was bursting from there.

“Lord Victor, is that place the exit?”

Avala’s collaborators.

When power holders from each stratum approached with bright expressions, Victor replied with an irritated voice.

“It might be a trap, so everyone just follow while maintaining formation.”

And he looked back at one Blue Cross Knight running alongside him.

“Reman.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Survey inside with five forces.”

“Yes!”

Immediately halting advance, Reman entered inside with forces.

“Safe…!”

The moment a tense voice echoed in the passage.

Scrape!

An eerie sound of bone and flesh splitting rolled into the passage.

Reman’s head that entered first rolled on the floor without closing eyes.

“Huhk!”

Power holders gasped empty air, and Blue Cross Knights and mages widened eyes.

“What is this again…”

Reman was a knight competing for Blue Cross Knights’ rank.

A skilled person three or more level 4 mages must rush to barely subdue.

Such a person died futilely without even screaming.

Being flustered at an unbelievable reality was brief.

Bang bang bang!

Making heavy sounds, a wall was descending from the passage.

“Magic…!”

Though mages burst elemental types, the wall didn’t budge.

Eventually, everyone jumped into the light following Victor.

“Ugh…”

And they faced terrible corpses.

Besides forces that investigated together, others were mixed in.

“Dwiong…”

Investigation teams, mages, soldiers, scholars who entered the interior first were cooling coldly in roughly torn states.

The cause could be known without pointing it out.

A huge space.

The only existing exit.

Something in shabby robes guarding before it.

A single greatsword gripped with hands remaining only bones.

“An artifact…”

The moment a faint flow spread from the greatsword, everyone here had spines go stiff.

That flow was indescribably sticky, dirty and cold.

Thud, thud.

Seeing the greatsword’s emblem revealed as robes walked, Victor’s words were blocked in shock.

Triforce.

Banteras’ three knights protecting the Knight King.

According to Avala’s records, each individual was said to rival one nation.

One of them roars before their eyes now.

[Who covets that person’s rest!]

The moment magnificent resonance echoed in the space.

“Ah, aaaah…!”

Those weak in mental strength collapsed first.

That language contained deep flow as if to drag people into a swamp.

[I feel a nostalgic scent from you.]

The robes turned to Victor.

[That cursed race trying to harm Banteras’ people. Those guys’ blood flows in your body.]

Red light flashed from inside the robes.

[Avala, how dare you set that dirty foot in that person’s tomb!]

The greatsword was slow.

Sufficient time was given to open artifacts and counter with magic.

But even knowing, they couldn’t block it.

Wind loaded on the greatsword pierced through all barriers and artifacts in one stroke.

Thud!

Where flesh and blood fell like showers, Victor’s body trembled.

Among Triforce, there was only one knight handling storms.

The most vicious knight known to have faced ten thousand troops alone.

“Yu, Yuliver El For…”

But how, how does Triforce that should have already rotted and become a handful of dust exist here.

At a phenomenon exceeding perception, Victor’s words were blocked.

All his subordinates’ terrible appearances being split by that greatsword felt like a dream.

[I won’t leave a single drop of Avala’s blood on this land.]

The greatsword descends.

And Victor.

Thud!

Falls into death he cannot resist.

[Something familiar…]

Yuliver threw aside Victor split in half and became a gust of wind, beginning to search for something.

* * *

A path to the real tomb is hidden even in the fake passage.

Pernok headed to the true tomb, recalling the Knight King’s memories.

He broke through numerous walls, and when even someone’s screams couldn’t be heard, he faced a uniquely high wall.

Pernok breathed deeply and gathered mana and stuck it into the wall.

Bang!

Brilliant light pours from the collapsed wall with intense shock.

Pernok tore down the last wall and entered inside.

“As expected, it was here.”

A huge space with only pillars erected.

Jewels of various colors embedded in the ceiling emit light, and there’s a stone coffin on the central altar.

Pernok gazed at the stone coffin with the Observation Eye.

The special flow the Knight King mentioned in the Netherworld was trapped inside the coffin.

‘The First.’

The Knight King’s unique equipment called the pinnacle of all artifacts.

Surely The First sleeps together with the Knight King’s remains inside the stone coffin.

Pernok smiled and tried to walk to the altar just then.

Bang!

A skeleton in shabby robes fell from the ceiling.

Pernok stopped walking at the appearance trying to guard before the altar.

‘Couldn’t even buy time.’

What had to come came.

The most dangerous existence like a mountain that must be overcome in this tomb.

Triforce’s three knights.

‘Couldn’t catch even the specter’s footsteps. Avala was guys full of only bluster.’

But rather than displeasure, nostalgic and pitiful feelings surge.

Because of the Knight King’s lingering attachment bringing fragments of memory.

[I witnessed my own death. I watched my appearance being buried in a stone coffin as a soul. And before it was wounded Yuliver. He… tried to guard my coffin even in death.]

Two of Triforce’s three knights scattered together with calamity.

And the remaining one, Yuliver also suffered serious wounds.

He who couldn’t even obtain treatment methods when Banteras was extinguished was resolved to die together while finally moving the Knight King’s remains here.

[Yuliver was tormented by guilt of not protecting me. After that, My Lord will also guess.]

Yuliver’s body also rotted away, but his soul became a grudge containing lingering attachment to the mortal world.

Artifacts are weapons imprinting owners’ flows.

Especially artifacts at Yuliver’s level are called ‘unique’ and boast sticky bonds binding even souls.

[The grudge fused with the artifact and is wandering my tomb even now.]

The dead one’s terrible grudge raised a corpse that should rightfully become a handful of dust.

Though that weathered through long years can’t produce even one-tenth of prime power.

The appearance lifting the greatsword was firm like the Knight King’s memory.

[Please look after my last connection.]

Pernok opened his eyes.

[I feel the same scent as that person from you.]

After recovering The First, he thought to face Yuliver with mana and spiritual power of those who died here.

Though order got tangled by one, Pernok wasn’t suppressed by Yuliver’s momentum.

[Who are you.]

To language flowing on wind, Pernok smirked.

“Seeing you stare at me straight and flow trashy momentum, you’ve truly fallen far.”

Though he entered a half-living body, his soul is that of a transcendent who dominated the Netherworld.

Normally ordinary souls shouldn’t even dare make eye contact.

But Yuliver fell to a state unable to properly grasp Pernok’s soul.

It means the grudge reached the final stage of crumbling without ascending to the Netherworld.

“Your master’s message, Yuliver.”

At the word master, Yuliver flashed keen light.

[Don’t carelessly mention that person…]

“You don’t need to embrace it.”

Yuliver’s steps stopped.

“I always wished you would live like wind.”

But that was brief.

Black currents different from wind rose from Yuliver.

A phenomenon where grudges collide with lingering attachment while recalling most precious things.

To save grudges unable to ascend to the Netherworld, a process of shaking off everything is absolutely necessary.

“The price for taking The First.”

Before he knew it, grudge filled the space and swallowed even brilliant light.

In that darkness, Pernok drew up all magic and mana stolen from Avala’s forces.

Mana of several hundred people.

Magic of several dozen people.

The ice artifact’s cold flow gripped in one hand bursts noble light in the darkness.

“I’ll save you from this hell as your master wished.”