Knight: from Apprentice to the Almighty

"Hey, Ellis..."

Holland scratched his bare skull, watching his companion patiently inscribing an array. He let out a bored yawn.

"How long are we going to stay here? I’ve already seen that little guy with the Shadow inheritance skulking around a few times, so..."

The Priest took a step forward, leaned in close to Ellis, and stared at his companion’s face, which was particularly hideous with its dried blood.

"Have you found that precious Life Box of yours or not?"

"Damn it, Holland!"

Ellis took half a step back in disgust before speaking slowly.

"If you hadn’t been constantly distracting me, I would have found it by now!"

"Fine, fine..."

Holland shrugged helplessly.

"I just wanted to remind you, if you stay rooted in one spot for too long, a cold Dagger might find its way into your chest the very next second."

"Hmph!"

Ellis snorted coldly and refocused his attention on the array before him.

"I’ve already set up a Concealing Aura spell on the perimeter. Unless there’s a Caster nearby, otherwise..."

He finished tracing the last crimson line with his fingertip. As the complete array began to glow faintly, he continued.

"Forget that half-baked Assassin, not even other Extraordinary Professionals would be able to detect any activity here."

"For real?"

Holland asked teasingly.

"After losing your Life Box, your casting skills must be too crude to even look at, right? Can an array set up in this state even be sixty percent as effective as your usual ones?"

"I suggest you do what you did when you took out that Extraordinary Professional before and set up a few overlapping ones. That way..."

Seeing that his companion was ignoring him, Holland trailed off. He leaned in to curiously examine the array on the ground, which was gathering and refining the chaotic Magic Power from the air and continuously channeling it toward the distant spire.

"So, Ellis, can you sense the location of your Life Box now?"

"That’s enough, Holland!"

Despite being Undead, Ellis felt a familiar headache coming on.

"I just restarted the core of the Magic City Jiles! It’ll take a little more time to lock onto the Life Box’s aura! Before that..."

He looked at his companion, who clearly wasn’t listening, sighed, and his tone even carried a hint of pleading.

"I need you to go guard the other Magic Power conversion array, just like Van Buren. Just in case..."

"Alright..."

Holland clicked his tongue.

"But let me be clear, I can’t beat that little guy who inherited Rudolph’s legacy."

"I already told you... Ugh, never mind..."

The Witch Demon shook his head lightly and simply gave a slight bow.

"Please, Holland."

"Tsk..."

Seeing his companion act this way, the Priest suddenly found it all rather dull.

He raised a non-existent eyebrow, picked up the Silver Shield beside him, and walked out the door.

Only after watching the reckless scoundrel finally leave did Ellis let out a long sigh of relief.

He focused his mind again and murmured in a low voice.

’Life Box... my most treasured creation... let me see just where you are hiding...’

The next moment, immense Spiritual Power erupted from him, spreading out in all directions.

Under the impact of this Power, the surrounding space even began to faintly distort.

"Found it!"

After an unknown amount of time, two points of scarlet light abruptly ignited deep within his empty eye sockets.

"Schmidt, you’re as despicable as ever, and... so cautious."

The Witch Demon pulled his hood back up to cover his face, his voice laced with cold mockery.

"What a pity. You could never have imagined that even without my Life Box, I could still return to this world. And the city you cherished, the one you treated as your very life... has now been reduced to ruins..."

Just as Ellis retracted all of his scattered Spiritual Power and was about to leave, the next moment...

BOOM!

The deafening explosion came not from outside the door, but from overhead.

The entire ceiling shattered in an instant, as if struck by a massive, invisible hammer.

Countless fragments of stone, wooden beams, and dust rained down.

Blinding sunlight, mixed with a destructive shockwave, violently flooded the small space.

In the blink of an eye, a thin gray film covered Ellis’s body, resisting the impact.

He then snapped his head up, and the scarlet Soul Fire under his hood abruptly constricted.

A burly figure, wreathed in silver-white Fighting Spirit that tore through the air, shot through the hole like a falling meteor and slammed heavily onto the ground.

THUD!

Where he landed, the hard stone floor fractured inch by inch. Spiderweb-like cracks spread wildly, instantly covering more than half the room.

A violent shockwave erupted from the point of impact, utterly pulverizing the Magic Power conversion array he had just completed.

Under the assault of the Fighting Spirit, the precious materials and refined lines of Magic Power that formed the array let out a piercing shriek before instantly turning to dust and scattered motes of light, completely destroyed.

Amidst the swirling dust, the figure slowly stood up straight.

The residual silver-white Fighting Spirit flickered and rose around his body like a tangible Flame.

"Impossible!"

A hoarse voice squeezed out from under the hood, Ellis’s tone filled with pure shock and fury.

’The Concealment Spell I set up... actually failed?’ 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

’And... it was seen through by a Knight, of all people.’

As the dust settled slightly, the newcomer’s sharp gaze swept over the wreckage before finally locking onto the two flickering points of scarlet Soul Fire under the hood. A satisfied smile crept onto his lips.

"Heh..."

Graham’s deep voice sounded.

"Looks like my luck is pretty good."

His tone was exceptionally relaxed, a stark contrast to the two furiously flickering points of Soul Fire in the Witch Demon’s eye sockets.

In the next instant, a sonic boom tore through the air.

Graham’s burly frame transformed into a silver streak of lightning, closing the distance to the Witch Demon in the blink of an eye.

His longsword, blazing with Fighting Spirit, swung down with the force of a thunderbolt.

Seeing this, Ellis instantly shot several Magic Missiles infused with Negative Energy from his fingertips, but Graham, having already tasted this kind of magic, sidestepped in time to avoid them.

Taking advantage of the gap in casting, the sword blade tore through the dim Energy Shield and sliced a glaring gash across Ellis’s ribs.

The Soul Fire within his skull flickered violently. The Witch Demon staggered backward, his casting rhythm completely broken.

In this duel between the Undead and the Knight, the initiative was now firmly in the hands of the living.

Compared to Graham’s smooth progress, the situation elsewhere had reached a stalemate.

"A human, an Elf, a Beastman, and... a Witch?"

Holland whistled playfully as he sized up the motley squad of various races before him.

"What, are you all rehearsing for a play?"

Seeing no response, Holland tightened his grip on the Shield in his hand and sighed helplessly.

"See, what did I tell you... Ellis, your casting skills right now are just laughably crude. Right, right..."

He muttered to himself for a bit, then bowed slightly, his resurrected body striking a somewhat comical pose.

"Allow me to be frank,"

he began, his voice carrying an ancient accent.

"I am a Knight, from... a distant era. Back then, we followed a noble tradition of settling disputes through one-on-one duels. The victor, naturally, wins all the say."

Holland’s gaze swept over the longsword in the leading youth’s hand, a trace of doubt flashing through his mind, but his words did not falter.

"So? To show some respect for this ’ancient relic’ before you, which one of you will accept this duel of honor?"