Old Man Drops Gold?
A Path to Death?
Each word crashed like thunder in the minds of the young knights below.
No one dared speak to Lord Lanette this way—
Not even the Archbishop showed him such disrespect.
Yet this demon squad insulted the Judgment Knight so brazenly...
Did they not know who they faced?
A path to death?
Death would claim only them.
Lanette’s face darkened like storm clouds gathering. Golden fury ignited in his eyes—lightning tearing through the gloom.
“You seek death!”
In an instant, Lanette moved.
Wind erupted without warning. His golden-winged beast blurred into afterimages.
Power bordering on Seventh Tier exploded outward, crushing down on the masked Abyssal Demons!
They froze, hearts trembling to their core.
Pale-faced, the demons cursed Luyi inwardly.
*Why be so reckless?!*
*See? This is exactly why we’re doomed!*
“Ignore him. Keep moving forward.”
Luyi’s command remained calm, detached.
*Don’t kill me! This scheming "Virtuous Maiden" is the real mastermind!*
The demons longed to betray her.
But they had no choice.
They pressed on—straight toward Lanette’s blinding golden radiance!
The holy pressure deepened their despair.
The beast spread its massive wings. Golden light spilled across the earth, dimming the moon, flooding the night sky.
Lanette charged. His colossal lance gathered ambient light, swirling with sacred, terrifying energy.
They plummeted from the heights. Brilliant light bathed ancient buildings, casting their shadows huge and imposing—monumental.
Knight and demons closed in.
“The farce ends here, demons.”
Lanette gripped his lance, voice solemn as final judgment.
“Not quite.”
—A scornful voice came from the demon girl holding Luyi.
Half-laughing. Half-sobbing.
***BOOM—***
Stone shattered behind Lanette!
“What?!”
He whirled. His breath caught.
His shadow had changed.
No longer mere darkness—it had silently twisted into an ancient gate. Endless abyssal energy poured forth...
A darkness purer than any demon or dark mage he’d ever faced!
It coalesced into a colossal demon whale. Jaws gaping wide—it lunged to devour Lanette!
Its speed. Its unnatural emergence. Lanette couldn’t react!
He vanished into the whale’s maw.
Darkness erased searing light.
“Lord Judgment Knight!”
A knight’s shout rang out, disbelief raw on his face.
“The Judgment Knight’s senses... disappoint.”
The demons didn’t pause. They swept past the whale.
But the darkness didn’t last—
Cracks spiderwebbed across the whale’s form within seconds. Light bled through the fractures.
***BOOM—***
Countless golden feathers exploded outward. Light shattered the dark once more.
Lanette raised his lance again, gaze icy with fury fixed on the demon girl.
Yet that technique had shaken him.
That shadow-born horror... too unnatural.
Within that darkness, his body and mind had faltered.
Only the shadow’s pressure—merely Fifth Tier—had saved him. Had it been stronger...
*What clan do these Abyssal Demons belong to?!*
He knew one thing: these were Highblood demons.
“Whatever your purpose tonight—you stay.”
Lanette’s battle spirit blazed. His beast became a shooting star, overtaking Luyi’s group in a heartbeat.
He leaped down, cloak snapping in the wind. Golden runes flared, forming phantom wings.
His lance thrust toward the demon girl’s side!
“Waaah!”
*We’re dead!*
The demon girl panicked, instinct screaming to flee.
“Forward.”
“I said—keep moving. Ignore that lance.”
Luyi’s voice cut through the chaos.
Simultaneously, pitch-black Origin Force rippled from her core.
A terrifying pressure descended—not of rank, but of *transcendent rank*—enveloping her and the demon girl. It warped the converging light around them!
“What—”
This was the second time Luyi had left Lanette speechless.
His shock tonight surpassed his entire career as Judgment Knight.
He felt his technique’s power wither by over thirty percent under that pressure.
A dim meteor tore through the light.
Trails of black and cerulean—sword paths.
***CLANG—***
A shortsword met the lance’s tip.
The disassembled fragment of the Stellar Dragon Seat: **Stellar Dragon Scales**.
The lance’s trajectory shifted.
“!”
Disassembled weapons retained fragments of their original power.
Shattersteel hadn’t activated yet—but Lanette paled. A slight angle change, and his lance would shatter!
And...
“This level of control... near-perfect mastery—”
His words died. The shortsword twisted mid-air.
Near-perfect?
No. Within *Dusk*, Luyi’s weapon mastery had long surpassed perfection.
***SLICE—***
The blade pierced Lanette’s holy barrier effortlessly. It grazed his cheek, vanishing back into darkness.
Blood traced a silent path down his face.
The Judgment Knight—wounded.
His defenses? Useless. Like paper.
He felt the mythic weapon’s edge. Cold seeped into the wound, pain and frost etching into bone, into soul.
Worse—he realized with dread—the cold was forming invisible shackles within him. His power froze. Sealed.
*Shackles of the Dim Star.*
He strained to break the cerulean ice. The backlash struck—not his body, but his soul.
“This... this is...”
In that recoil, he sensed primordial eras. A dying starfield. The gaze of an Endbringer!
Lanette stood frozen mid-air.
His beast halted beside him, sensing its master’s soul-shaking terror through their bond.
“Farewell, weak human knight.”
The demon girl’s voice faded as they vanished into the night.
“He... they escaped... right before Lord Lanette...”
“Poison! They must have poisoned the Judgment Knight!”
“We can’t let them get away!”
Chaos erupted among the knights below.
It looked like defeat.
They couldn’t accept it.
“ENOUGH!”
A roar finally split the air seconds later.
Lanette landed, eyes regaining focus. “Knights who lose discipline disgrace their vows!”
His presence returned—but blood still stained his cheek, his face pale.
“My lord, shall we pursue?” a High Knight asked.
“No.”
Lanette’s refusal stunned them. This wasn’t his way.
“I’ve never seen demons like these.”
He gazed at the calm sky, turmoil churning within.
He was afraid... afraid of a demon girl far weaker than him.
“Summon all Knights Commander and above to the Azurewind Round Table—in ten minutes.”
“And you, Lord Lanette?”
“I will wake the Archbishop.”
“!”
Everyone knew the Archbishop had entered closed-door meditation to break through a bottleneck.
Lanette had handled affairs in his absence.
Waking him now meant catastrophe.
The moon shone bright as ever. Yet the young knights felt it—a storm was coming.
