Chapter 194

(194)

Tenitia charged at the Infiltrator Boy as if to slice him in half, and the boy leapt towards the narrow alley.

“Not a chance!”

The Constables who sprang from the shadows tore the lightning enchanted scrolls and enveloped their axes and swords with electric blades, standing in their way.

The boy hesitated, but he did not stop.

With Master-level lightning mages brought in, he could not melt into Spirit Form.

As it was a narrow alley, Transparency faded with the light.

“Yah!”

Swoosh!

Just before the green flames burst from the boy’s grip, Tenitia, who rushed in like the wind, kicked the boy’s side with her steel boots.

Thud!

With a heavy sound, the boy was pushed back several steps like a tossed sack of barley, and Tenitia shuddered at the unexpected weight.

‘200kg, no, it felt like it was over 300kg. Is that just leather?’

Tenitia raised her sword above her head.

With every swing of her burning ice, Hwanhan traced red lines in the air, pressing in on the boy.

Boom!

The blade that grazed the pavement slashed through the hard ground and bricks like tofu.

The terrified boy pulled out the sword handle that was left in his possession.

“Hehe!”

“You?”

Just for a moment, Tenitia was taken aback as the boy wrapped a translucent green blade around his weapon.

With a swift motion, the boy lowered his stance and charged toward Tenitia’s left.

Swish!

The boy’s sword grazed Tenitia’s left arm gauntlet.

Not only did it not pierce the armor, but it also left no scratches, yet Tenitia strangely felt a cold yet hot energy seeping into her arm.

It meant the blade contained some sort of curse or magical energy.

‘Could it penetrate this armor?’

Before she could react, the boy turned and shot flames.

Whoosh!

It was a chilly yet scorching green flame.

Tenitia raised her cloak to block it while thinking:

‘This is no mere opponent.’

The moment she adjusted her grip on her sword, the boy lunged out from within the flames.

It seemed the flames were originally unleashed to obscure Tenitia’s line of sight.

Swish, swoosh!

The boy’s blade targeted his neck, armpit, behind the elbow, and back of the knees.

These were points that needed to be aimed at when facing a knight, and the boy’s swordsmanship was no ordinary skill.

‘This isn’t just talent. He’s been trained well. An impressive mercenary, indeed.’

The boy threw himself forward and spun around, aiming at the back of Tenitia’s thigh.

Instinctively increasing his weight, the rotation accelerated several times over.

Swish!

Tenitia pulled her front leg back and swung her sword wide to cut off his head.

“Tch!”

The boy jumped into the air, laying his sword flat to receive her attack.

CRACK!

Tenitia’s sword strike lightly shattered the boy’s translucent sword and sent him flying, but she did not achieve her goal of decapitating him, and the boy stood without a scratch, drawing the blade from the handle.

“Hehehe!”

With a chilling laugh, the boy charged forward, releasing green flames from his left hand.

“Ha!”

However, Tenitia welcomed him with an even more chilling smile from inside her helmet.

Though somewhat taken aback by his unexpected sword skill, it was still just a surprising level.

She faced opponents who wielded both flames and swords every day by choice.

Moreover, the swordsmanship of this Infiltrator Boy was far more vicious and sinister than that of his opponents.

The Infiltrator Boy leaped into the air and raised his sword.

His rapidly spinning sword technique, changing his weight, was incredibly sharp.

Tenitia waited for a beat before unleashing the Empire’s second tier sword technique, Eternal Memory, to block the boy’s sword.

Clang, swoosh!

The sword aimed at her neck recoiled, and Tenitia struck at the boy’s neck.

The sword aimed at his side recoiled, and she pierced the boy’s side.

The sword aimed at his shoulder recoiled, and Tenitia’s sword pricked the boy’s shoulder.

At the last moment, she slightly twisted her wrist, focusing on delivering just the shock instead of piercing through.

The boy coughed violently, as though his breath were caught, and staggered back like a drunkard.

At the same time, translucent green energy seeped from his entire body.

The green energy spread out like dense fog, preparing to ignite.

She wasn’t someone who couldn’t read such signals; Sererassie was not that oblivious.

* * *

“Isn’t it getting tedious now?”

She scoffed at the mist spreading through the streets from her position atop a building.

‘Did you think you could handle power acquired overnight?’

Even she required meticulous tuning and conscious control when manipulating the energy of Incantation.

Her inherited talent was like this, so to embody a force created through offerings and rituals required a level of effort and practice that was grueling.

At least Sererassie thought so.

Thunder rumbled in agreement, as if the dark clouds nodded approvingly.

Sererassie lightly grasped the brim of her conical hat to block the wind, and with a smile, she stomped her heel on the ground.

“Field of Nails.”

Thousands of metal nails, standing about 5-10cm high, surged up from the street below all at once.

Though Tenitia, with iron plates in her soles, could advance while crushing them easily, it posed an awkward and troublesome situation for the Infiltrator Boy.

“Damn it!”

The boy screamed as nails pierced through his feet.

Sererassie intended to turn the boy’s awkward situation into a disastrous one.

“Strike.”

Zap, lightning fell from the sky, coursing along the field of nails.

Sizzle!

The nails trembled with a sound like rattling scales.

Sererassie shuddered with delight at the scene she had conjured.

“I knew it would work.”

Instead of flowing through the ground, the lightning sped endlessly along the path between the nails under her guidance.

Thousands of blue electrical lines connected and extended.

The electrical current and green mist met and ignited.

The green energy that seemed ready to burst into flames shimmered and clumped together, eventually scattering like powdered sugar.

“Yah!”

The Infiltrator Boy stared up at the sky with wide eyes.

* * *

Valenciaunos, who was leaving the inn to join Tenitia, noticed that moment.

“Got it.”

He had pushed them far enough.

The indication that he intended to use a psychic wave meant that now there was nowhere for them to retreat.

He fired three flaming arrows into the air to signal.

The Chief of Police prepared to set up the sound absorption barrier, and the Constables below him withdrew to the rear.

“Rudi.”

“Yes, Valencia-nim.”

Rudi became a translucent shadow and followed behind Valenciaunos, holding the dual-barreled mage rifle, Caspar.

With his glasses and perfect vision combined with honed experience, he locked his eyes on the boy’s nape.

Boom!

Crack-!

A large mana arrow embedded itself within the Infiltrator Boy’s hood as he fell onto the electrically charged nail bed.

The rising green flames pushed the current aside and melted the spikes, but he couldn’t block the successive mana arrows coming his way.

Whoosh!

In the middle of the street, the green flames blazed.

Tenitia defended with her cloak and armor, while Valenciaunos ignited the flames of Incantation to block.

In that fleeting moment, the Infiltrator Boy attempted to shout a psychic wave.

“!”

“!!”

“!!!”

Yet, not a sound of wind escaped from beneath the boy’s hood.

Crack, crack!

After receiving several psychic waves, the sound absorption barrier finally began to crack.

‘Did you think we would just watch that?’

With resolute determination, the Chief of Police chewed his teeth.

Constables prepared a second sound absorption barrier in the alley, Sererassie cast a lightning spell, and Rudi ascended beside Sererassie clutching his mage rifle.

Tenitia and Valenciaunos stood side by side, weapons drawn.

Valenciaunos, clad in a white uniform adorned with red accents, and Tenitia, draped in a white armor with a red cloak, harmonized beautifully.

They looked like a doppelganger or perhaps like agents.

After being barely pushed back by just Tenitia alone, the odds were no longer in the boy’s favor with Valenciaunos joining in.

The boy opened the sewer lid and leaped into the underground waterway.

Thus, he did not witness the smirk forming on Valenciaunos’s face.

* * *

‘I still don’t have enough time. I need more chaos. Why are these city folks just sitting still when I’ve caused multiple explosions? Shouldn’t they all be out in the streets causing a ruckus?’

The boy thought while swiftly running through the underground waterway.

He had no idea how obsessively Valenciaunos was controlling information.

Valenciaunos silenced any intellectuals who could become focal points, focused the Street of Learning on stories of new housing, and had subtly cultivated chaos in the red-light district and slums since a year ago, where it should be the most chaotic.

After running for a while, the boy awakened a few of the subordinates he had set up.

“Show yourselves. We can’t go out directly; we’re just low-ranking, but we have no choice.”

The significant task of disrupting the oath of loyalty was ultimately entrusted to just one boy.

Their goal was to plant the seeds of internal conflict, not to turn the capital into hell.

Emperor Jeilliris was far too powerful to confront directly.

He couldn’t prepare strong forces to face her.

She was simply stronger.

So he had to strike with powers unknown to her, powers she couldn’t counter even if she knew.

In fact, considering the messengers running to gather the Great Lords from places the boy was unaware of, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say the boy’s creator had already achieved the goals he had hoped for.

So now…

“All I need to do is survive.”

The green energy flowed from the boy’s grasp and seeped into the ‘subordinates’ that had been stiff like corpses.

These subordinates reached a height of 2.5m, with slightly decayed, contorted muscles that were pale, shining with a green light from within their cracked ribcages and eyes and mouths.

“Screeech…”

“Shiiick!”

They were ghouls, high-level undead referred to as flesh-eating fiends.

While they might be overpowered in brute strength by ‘monstrous’ Abominations or ‘headless knights’ Dullahans, or ‘death knights’ Death Knights, the advantage of ghouls was their ability to use psychic waves.

Thirty ghouls rose and bowed their heads to the boy.

Bang!

In the next moment, a ghoul’s head burst like a rotten pumpkin.

It was Tenitia in white armor, slamming the ghoul’s head against the wall of the underground waterway.

“Huh?”

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The mage rifle loaded with shotgun shells erupted in consecutive gunfire, and ghouls began to topple backward one by one.

“Kill, kill them!”

Three ghouls lunged with their mouths wide open.

At a speed that most people couldn’t even react to, there were hardly any ordinary folks in this underground where the eyes of the gods couldn’t reach.

Crackle!

Sererassie’s chain lightning flashed in a brilliant blue.

Thud! Crash!

The ghouls that had jumped up stiffened and fell to the ground.

“You didn’t know I could handle ghouls? Explosions, psychic waves, resurrection, domination… just from talking, you’d sound nearly like a bishop. How about joining me? Don’t worry. I won’t kill you. You’ll live a very long time.”

A dark shadow cast over her haughty face created by the electric power.

“Yeah. I can promise you that too.”

The last to reveal himself was Valenciaunos.

He was flanked by ten black iron knights and the general, Barbatos.

“You’re a ridiculous little brat. Did you really think you could hide well enough that I wouldn’t know this place better than you?”

That handsome bandit stepped closer, crushing the heads of the felled ghouls under his white boot.

“Slay all these ugly ghouls!”

Backgrounded by Barbatos’s shout and the brawl of the black iron knights.

The stillness that ignited lengthwise through the devastated pupils no longer appeared precarious.

From the ever-elegant attire of Valenciaunos, an even more powerful presence radiated.

It was desperation.

The bandit who had spent the last month filled with tension and anxiety now displayed unrestrained skill before his goal which was right in front of him.

The boy inadvertently took a step back.

“Don’t, don’t come closer.”

“I’ll chop off your arms and peel your tongue and vocal cords.”

“Don’t come any closer!”

“I don’t need any of your information. I’ll extract it directly from your brain.”

“If you come closer, I’ll blow it up!”

The Great Lord’s steps hesitated for a moment.

The boy spoke in a voice that felt desperate even from behind his hood.

“Here in this underground waterway, I’ve prepared my flames all over. At my signal, I can blow it up at any time. When the hotel binding the high nobles collapses, it’ll be quite the sight…”

Valenciaunos, who had momentarily paused, stepped forth once more.

“Give it a shot, brat.”

He spat out expletives.