“…!?”

Pwoo!

The sound of a soldier blowing a whistle and Eurius noticing a suspicious movement happened almost simultaneously.

He didn’t know exactly when the raid would come, so he was staying near the outpost of the outer wall.

‘They’re here.’

He jumped up from his seat and spoke to Victor, who was waiting with him.

“As I told you before, I’ll take care of the defense of the inner wall by myself.”

“…”

Victor stared blankly at his back as he walked out of the outpost.

As expected, the enemy seemed to be causing a commotion on purpose, and there was a high possibility that the main force of the enemy would infiltrate the inner wall in the confusion.

“I know it’s a bit strange for me to say this, but please be careful.”

Eurius turned his head and smiled at him.

“We’re not allies anyway, right? If you’re really worried, finish your side quickly and come help me.”

“…Okay.”

Eurius had a fair amount of confidence in defending the inner wall this time.

But when he arrived and faced the enemy, he couldn’t help but be slightly flustered.

‘No matter how I look at it, he looks like a ragtag, but he’s an archbishop?’

In fact, even though it was a sudden surprise attack, the man in the mask allowed his attack too easily.

Swoosh.

But when he saw the wound on the man’s chest heal in an instant, Eurius corrected his thought.

‘He had some faith? He has a regeneration ability beyond that of a troll, and his body is as hard as steel.’

The blow he had just inflicted was enough to cut the man in half, but surprisingly, it only made a dent in his chest.

And seeing that the wound healed in an instant, he must have some other ability as well.

‘This is a bit troublesome.’

The man in the mask was also surprised. Eurius and Gladius were enemies who couldn’t kill each other, so how could he be waiting here?

He was able to observe the situation inside the war through the knight of the abyss last time. Eurius’s skill didn’t seem to be beyond his reach, but he wasn’t an easy opponent to subdue either.

‘I’ll have to modify my plan a bit.’

Swoosh.

While he was thinking that, Eurius disappeared in front of his eyes like a ghost.

“…!?”

By the time he noticed, the blade was already touching his neck.

Clang!

The previous attack was a surprise, but this time Eurius struck with almost full force.

The man staggered back as his neck was half severed and his head dangled.

Normally, even if a monster or a spirit had regeneration ability, it couldn’t recover if its head flew off or it lost more than a certain part of its body.

But this guy in the mask seemed to be different.

First of all, even though his neck was cut, there was hardly any blood flowing and he had a calm expression.

“Ja… uh…”

The man couldn’t make any sound from his mouth because his throat was torn.

Thud!

The man raised both hands and grabbed his dangling head and pressed it tightly against his torso.

“Huh?”

Eurius let out an involuntary gasp at this bizarre sight.

“Ha! That’s it. Now I can talk. Just a moment!”

“…”

Amazingly, just by holding and fixing his torn neck with both hands, the wound healed in an instant.

Click!

The man in the mask casually turned his neck a few times and then opened his mouth.

“Do you have any intention of backing off by any chance?”

The guy who killed the soldier and broke into the inner wall without warning was shameless. But surprisingly, Eurius accepted his words.

‘I might be able to get some information out of him.’

“Why should I?”

“We were enemies from the start with Gladius, right? He and I were just business partners. If you quietly back off here, I might not take any requests that would harm your side in the future!”

“What business do you have with the castle when Gladius is already dead?”

“Hmm… That’s a trade secret that’s hard to reveal.”

The man in the mask still didn’t seem very tense. But his words that he wouldn’t harm them if they backed off seemed true.

[???]

Job: Merchant, Archbishop (Heimdall Sect)

Current state: Annoyed, flustered

“Anyway, I don’t like losing money. I don’t know about later, but I don’t want to fight with a superhuman here.”

“So you helped Gladius and sent those suspicious monsters?”

“That was just a request. I don’t have any grudge against you unlike the others.”

He shook his hand playfully as if he was really wronged.

Eurius made an incredulous expression at him.

“Oh, really?”

Chop!

His sword cut through the man’s waist this time.

The upper and lower body were separated in an instant and the man fell to the ground.

But Eurius didn’t think he had knocked him down.

But the reason he bothered to answer such absurd questions was because he had another reason besides getting information.

‘I’ve bought enough time. Now I just have to catch this guy…’

“…!?”

***

Swoosh!

At that moment, more than a hundred black shadows were climbing up the wall of the outer wall.

Their goal was the outer wall!

Their mission was to destroy all the evidence related to Gladius.

“…”

They exchanged opinions with their eyes and split into groups of dozens.

They didn’t know when the raid would come, so the soldiers and knights who were on guard ran out and the castle was noisy.

“What’s going on? Is it an enemy invasion?”

“Where did Victor go at a time like this?”

While the knights were in a panic, the group that was at the forefront secretly sneaked into Gladius’s mansion in the center of the outer wall.

Since Gladius’s departure was long, the mansion was shrouded in pitch-black darkness.

His family lived elsewhere, and it was a space that only Gladius used, so there was no special security.

Creak.“…”

They opened the door and slipped into the room in an instant.

They each took out a small bottle from their pockets.

A pungent smell of oil filled the room.

The most reliable way to destroy evidence is to burn it, isn’t it?

But just as they were about to light a fire!

Clatter!

There was a dull mechanical sound from the wall.

“…!?”

Surprised, they stared at the wall.

The wall lifted slightly and slid sideways, revealing a passage.

Squeak!

The knights came out of the passage. Their merciless blades tore through the invaders.

“Gah!”

“Aaargh!”

It was the same elsewhere.

In various places of the castle, secret passages opened or stairs led up to a secluded room that was good for ambushes, and the invaders suffered damage.

The most brutal attack was on the quarters where the knights’ officers resided.

They had invested the most power there, but so did the people who were waiting for them.

Slash!

Victor’s sword mercilessly cut through the raiders’ bodies as he passed by.

Here, the ceiling of the upper floor collapsed entirely, and the knights who jumped down from above ambushed them.

Victor swung his sword and sneered inwardly.

‘Heh… I’ve been in charge of managing this castle for over thirty years, but I never imagined that I would activate the mechanism.’

Heavengard Castle was originally a fortress that was also called a defensive base.

Naturally, there were countless devices inside the main facilities that could welcome (?) intruders since its construction.

But until now, he had often complained that they were useless and costly to maintain, but they did their job well this time.

Even if the main force of the raiders was almost annihilated, the remaining elites and the support of the Scharnos Knights, along with the effect of the surprise attack, inflicted great damage on the enemies from the start.

***

The masked man lifted only the neck of his upper body lying on the ground and stared at Eurius.

He still had a smile on his lips, but his first ridiculous gesture was gone and he was frozen like a statue.

“Did you wait for this from the beginning?”

In his head, he heard the screams of his subordinates connected to him.

“The number of enemies is not as small as we expected. We need reinforcements urgently!”

“Boss! It’s a trap. We can’t take over the outer castle with our power… Ack!”

This time, Eurius shrugged his shoulders.

“That’s why I ambushed you from the beginning, but didn’t you ask me to talk first?”

“…”

The masked man fell into thought for a moment.

Who would have thought that the factions that fought fiercely against each other a few days ago would join hands?

Moreover, he never dreamed that they would dig a trap in advance and wait for him.

‘It was a mistake to bring only mediocre ones to come quickly.’

As he thought, he couldn’t bring almost any of his forces that could show his true value in order to come as fast as possible.

But wasn’t that why he came himself?

‘I have to change my plan completely, not just a little.’

Snap!

As he lightly clapped his hands, three more shadows jumped into the inner castle.

“…!?”

Eurius looked puzzled for a moment.

The four who suddenly appeared looked exactly like the masked man.

He couldn’t see their faces because they were wearing masks, but their outfits, physique, and body shape were exactly the same.

And finally, their stats were identical!

[???]

Job: Merchant, Archbishop (Heimdall Sect)

Strength: C+ Agility: C+ Intelligence: S Mental: A Dark Power: SS

Disposition: Greed, Fanaticism

[Traits]

???

‘They look suspicious at first glance. I can’t be careless just by trusting their stats.’

One of them picked up the upper body of the first man and fitted it to his lower body, and the separated wound healed immediately.

“Ha…”

“Now that it’s come to this.”

“I have to deal with you for sure.”

“I won’t let you go anymore?”

The four men opened their mouths in turn. It was like watching a puppet show.

He remembered what Grand Duke had said in his head.

‘Didn’t Grand Duke say he was a clown?’

The masked men shrugged their shoulders and drew their swords from their waists.

At the same time, their bodies began to be dyed with a faint black light.

‘From my experience, these guys are dangerous if I let them use some kind of skill.’

Eurius attacked without delay.

His intangible sword stretched out momentarily and split the first man in half.

But this time, the result was not satisfactory.

The man’s flesh split and blood splattered, but he didn’t split in half.

Slash!

“…!?”

What was surprising was that the same wounds appeared on the same parts of the other men who were not attacked by him.

And of course, thanks to their regeneration ability, they healed their split wounds in no time.

Eurius bit his lip with an astonished expression.

‘Do they share damage among themselves?’

Then it made sense why their stats were so low.

Considering their regeneration ability, they were very annoying enemies.

When their swords clashed, his thought became a certainty.

Clang!

The men’s strength and speed were nothing special.

If it was one person, he could easily handle them at his level, but their swordsmanship itself was threatening enough, and they used various bizarre means to hinder him.

‘Is it their head?’Thud!

Eurius pierced one’s head in an instant, but the one who was pierced rather smiled.

Crack!

“What?”

The one whose head was pierced rather grabbed his sword and wouldn’t let go.

Crash!

But the force he gripped was not strong, so Eurius exploded his force and turned his hand and head into rags.

But thanks to that, his blood splashed on him for the first time.

Squeak!

“…!?”

As soon as his blood touched him, the clothes and flesh that touched him burned. The sticky blood was as hot as lava.

“My blood can get hotter than magma when it leaves my body.”

“You’d better be careful.”

“Take this!”

They kindly explained to him.

As if to prove it, one of them suddenly grabbed his own arm and pulled it out, then threw it at Eurius.

Whoosh!

Eurius had to quickly back away.

The man’s arm turned into a firestorm with a diameter of several meters and engulfed him.

“Ugh!”

Even though he avoided it, he felt the hot heat enveloping him.

Eurius realized then why the man had entered the inner castle alone.

‘He intends to burn the whole inner castle with this method?’

And now the target has moved from the inner castle to Eurius.

As if they had read his mind, the men laughed and attacked him again.

“Correct!”

“Then what do you think I’m going to do now?”

Ding!

[You have been cursed by the swamp. Your agility rank decreases.]

[You have been cursed by bondage. Your movement is temporarily restricted.]

“…!?”

One of the masked men cast curses on Eurius one after another, and three of them attacked him at the same time with his feet tied.

Whoosh!

Boom!

Suddenly!

A firestorm of incomparable scale to before burned everything in front of the inner castle.

It was so hot that the walls of the inner castle, which were tens of meters away, melted like cheese.

Especially in the center of the fire where Eurius was, the ground was burned black, so it seemed that there would be no ashes left if there was a person there. No matter how superhuman he was, he couldn’t survive in lava.

“Chew… Was three too much for catching one superhuman? I think I lost too much this time.”

The man tried to walk into the inner castle as if he had nothing more to see. But at that moment!

“Huh?”

A blue line sprang up from the center of the fire that was supposed to have turned into ashes.

Whoosh!

The line of blue light sliced through the last remaining masked man in a straight line and passed by.

A voice came from the center of the storm, where the heat and steam had not yet subsided.

“You really seem to love this kind of method. But this is the third time you’ve tried it. Do you think I’ll fall for it again?”

The masked man showed a bewildered expression for the first time.

“Huh? You’re still alive?”

He had just seen the blue light cut him precisely in half vertically.

His opponent still had enough strength to counterattack.

‘But it’s useless to split me in half when I can regenerate… Huh?’

Crack!

The mask cracked first vertically.

The man was too shocked to speak.

“My regeneration… isn’t working?”

The man’s body was split in half along with his mask, and quickly turned into ashes by the heat.

At the same time, the voices of the knights who rushed into the inner wall were heard.

“Your Highness! Are you all right?”

“Your Highness…!?”

The first ones to arrive from outside were Jo and his elite knights from the Scharnos Order, who had followed Victor closely.

They saw the horrific state of the inner wall and lost their words.

The surroundings were covered with such intense heat that even they, as knights, could not approach without raising their force.

They looked at the scene with a helpless expression.

The heat left by the storm was so intense that they wondered if Eurius was still alive.

Someone from the ranks of the knights tried to jump into the center of the heat. Victor quickly blocked him.

“It’s dangerous. Even a superhuman can’t last long in there.”

“We have to go.”

The one who tried to jump into the heat was Beatrice.

She had a rare pale face and looked ready to clash with Victor.

But before their confrontation could end, someone emerged from the flames.

“I know, I know. So please shut up. Cough!”

Eurius coughed incessantly and grumbled.

“Your Highness?”

“Huh? You guys are here too. Did you take care of the outside?”

“…”

There was a strange silence in the hall for a moment.

He had just jumped out of such a terrible heat, but surprisingly, Eurius only had some ash on his clothes and no other injuries.

“Why are you all looking like that?”

“Huh…”

Victor, who was the first to grasp the situation, turned his gaze away from the heat.

He looked at where the blue light had passed by.

He looked at Eurius and groaned.

“Don’t tell me… You really completed it?”

Eurius answered with a slightly dumbfounded expression.

“It’s a 30-point one.”

“What?”

“Anyway… There’s something like that. As you can see, I’ve achieved some success.”

Victor looked at the inner wall.

The wall, which was melted in some places by the heat, was split vertically on one side.

The blue light had cut through the wall, which was made of solid stone that was more than two meters thick, as if it were nothing.