Chapter 149 – Saint and Holy Knights (4)

The armor worn by the skeletons blocking the knight order looked extremely worn, but it was the same as the holy knight order’s.

“O God…”

The skeletons were definitely the senior holy knights who had entered this place first.

The knights recited the sign of the cross with darkened expressions.

The shock of seeing the glorious holy knights’ bodies used as such cursed undead was beyond words.

Moreover, the skeletons all had the holy knight order’s formation and used the holy knights’ spearmanship and swordsmanship.

Because of that, it was even more shocking.

The holy knight order’s formation used by the skeletons made viewers shudder involuntarily.

However, they were definitely the Holy Kingdom’s elite knight order. Unlike their darkened faces, the holy knights steadily blocked the skeletons’ attacks.

The crow-headed man who had blocked the party simultaneously vanished, and Knight Commander Illiana, who had been wary of the crow man, looked behind when he disappeared.

Fortunately, the priest was safe.

The prince and his party were also blocking attacks well.

However, seeing the bull-headed monsters running from afar, it seemed they needed to quickly defeat the skeletons and help.

“Priest Ban, please!”

The knight commander again asked Priest Ban for the 〈Maiden’s Dance〉, but this time no opposition was heard from the knights.

They could sufficiently endure brief suffering for their seniors’ rest.

However, there were people who weren’t ready yet.

“Your Highness’s party members, please accept it with calm minds!”

“No! Wait!”

The prince and Daniel, who were dealing with mercenary skeletons, were shocked at Priest Ban’s words heard from behind and waved their hands backward, but the priest had already started dancing.

The next moment.

Sun-woo understood why the holy knights so detested the priest’s ability.

Why the prince and Daniel refused with such revulsion.

He learned the reason.

The 〈Maiden’s Dance〉 wasn’t just a problem of visual terrorism.

Priest Ban’s greasy dance was a battle divine technique method that transmitted divine power descending from above to the surroundings to amplify the party’s abilities.

The problem was that those receiving divine power felt like the priest was warmly embracing them with loving eyes!

“Urk!”

The prince and Daniel’s faces turned pale, and Sun-woo almost dry-heaved.

The internal energy in Sun-woo’s body amplified and various skills became even stronger, but Sun-woo didn’t notice that situation at all.

He just wanted to quickly eliminate this goosebump-inducing feeling.

“Damn it! Die, all of you!”

Sun-woo, who had become burning-eyed exactly like the holy knights moments before, shot toward the approaching bull-headed monsters.

***

Fortunately, the fight progressed favorably for the holy knight order.

The skeletons possessed their skills and weapons from when they were alive, but being already dead, their movements were choppy.

Moreover, they couldn’t receive support from priests, the most important thing.

The shudder-inducing Priest Ban’s 〈Maiden’s Dance〉 widened the gap between the skeleton knight order and holy knight order even more, and the continuously deployed 〈God’s Warmth〉 blocked contamination, making the skeletons’ movements dull.

The holy knight order successively blew off the skeletons’ heads to stop their movements, and shortly after, Illiana defeated the last remaining skeleton.

Seeing the lusterless holy sword and shoulder pauldron, that skeleton was the commander of the 2nd Diocese Holy Knight Order who had disappeared here before.

Illiana, who personally blew off the head with her own holy sword out of respect for the commander, turned to help the rear but stopped in place.

The other holy knights were the same.

The skeletons attacking from behind had already all fallen.

That alone was sufficiently surprising, but even more surprising was what was behind them.

The corpses of Minotaurs that had died and risen were lined up all the way to the distance.

The Minotaurs that had moved again while corpses couldn’t even reach where the party was and had all returned to death again.

Watching Sun-woo walking slowly with a pale face after defeating the last Minotaur, Illiana couldn’t help but admire.

To defeat alone in that short time the monsters that the entire holy knight order fought to defeat.

Even the monsters the holy knight order defeated were ordinary skeletons, but Sun-woo faced Minotaurs.

Even the kingdom’s famous sword masters might not be capable of this.

Seeing his pale face, he seemed quite exhausted, but even just that was enough to realize Priest Ban’s words that they should go together were right.

“Divine foresight is always right.”

Illiana made the sign of the cross on her chest and began urging her subordinates who were staring blankly to clean up the battlefield.

Sun-woo, misunderstood as having lost all strength thanks to his pale face, walked to where the party was and sat down on the floor.

They were considerably strong enemies, and being already dead corpses, there was no way to stop their movement except cutting their necks.

However, they couldn’t be Sun-woo’s match.

With martial arts already halfway past their limits and Priest Ban’s support that wasn’t support, Sun-woo felt almost no physical fatigue.

Just greater mental shock.

“Those knight members are really amazing.”

At Sun-woo’s words spoken with a blank expression while watching the knight order organizing the dead skeletons and relics, the prince and Daniel agreed vigorously.

“It’s completely different from just watching.”

“I should tell the saint not to send divine power this way again.”

However, Alda tilted her head at the three men’s words.

“Was it that bad? Seemed nothing special to me.”

Unlike Alda’s words of not understanding, both her cheeks were flushed red.

It seemed she felt something in a different meaning from the men.

The holy knights laid down the skeletons wearing holy knight armor on the floor with reverent expressions.

Priest Ban blessed those skeletons in turn.

The holy knights’ appearance right now looked very dangerous.

The laboratory where the demon king was wasn’t far, and they didn’t know when they’d be attacked again.

That’s why their appearance looked even more reverent.

“Isn’t it dangerous?”

Sun-woo expressed doubt.

No matter that they set up sentries, these were undead they had fought once.

They were merely scarecrows already dead and moving according to the demon king’s orders.

“Since the Holy Kingdom was established. No, since their church was created, this is a ritual that has continued. Holy Kingdom people believe they must receive final blessing after death to return to God, so if you interfere with that ritual, you’ll receive attacks from the entire Holy Kingdom and church.”

Daniel’s answer continued.

“Since one in four people living on this continent believes in the Frig church, no one thinks to interfere.”

“Hmm, similar to the concept of sparing the Red Cross mark…”

Sun-woo decided to understand the situation by roughly fitting it with common sense he knew.

Sun-woo, who hadn’t detected the enemy’s attack ahead of time while relaxing, meticulously detected the surroundings with sorcery.

However, nothing was caught by sorcery until Priest Ban’s blessing ended.

‘Don’t tell me the demon king and god also agreed not to fight at this time.’

While Sun-woo had absurd thoughts for a moment, the blessing ended.

Illiana ordered the knight order to form up, then approached the summoner party.

“You’re far more excellent than expected. I apologize for the many discourtesies in not recognizing you. It seems I’m not in a position to command separately. However, please consider our formation fighting in front and take care to protect Priest Ban.”

Illiana, standing before the party, looked at Sun-woo and apologized.

At the unexpected apology, Sun-woo was bewildered, but Illiana returned to where the knight order was after finishing her apology.

Seeing Sun-woo’s expression, Daniel opened his mouth with a smiling face.

“I’ve been watching from the beginning, but seeing your current skill, any knight would have said the same thing. With just sword skill alone at the great sword master level that exists only one or two per country, there’s no one who can ignore you.”

“Well, if you weren’t from another world, I would’ve tried to capture you starting by talking to Father and giving you a count title.”

At Daniel and the prince’s words, Sun-woo made an awkward expression.

Though he had built up skill until now, since he hadn’t recognized what position that skill was at, the sudden praise didn’t feel real.

Moreover, Alda, who heard the prince’s words, was looking at him from one side with sparkling eyes, making him even more uncomfortable.

Fortunately, Alda’s gaze disappeared when the party moved, and the party switched back to combat readiness, stopping the small talk.

Fortunately, there were no attacks until the passage ended.

The end of the dungeon consisting of a total of 7 basement floors was a fairly large hall with broken experimental equipment scattered in one corner.

In the center of the giant hall with a diameter and height exceeding several dozen meters, traces of a magic circle that seemed drawn long ago remained.

And in that center, the crow-headed man stood looking at the party.

However, he wasn’t the only one in this hall.

One skeleton and one woman stood on either side of the crow-headed man.

The skeleton standing on the left wore an old black robe and held a long magic staff.

That skeleton felt alive, with blue light flickering in its eye sockets, unlike other skeletons seen in the passage.

And the woman standing on the opposite side was a gray-haired woman with an expressionless blank face wearing clothes similar to Priest Ban’s.

“Saint Sedesti!”

Priest Ban, who entered the hall following the knight order, saw the woman standing next to the crow-headed man and cried out in an anguished voice.

“What have you done! To put demonic energy on a saint!”

As he said, the woman’s body and the skeleton’s bones were stained with the murky light flowing from the crow-headed man.

“Then, was it 10 years ago that the holy knight order was annihilated here? Since it was 10 years ago that the saint stopped appearing. Seems she entered with the holy knight order then.”

The female priest who showed no movement at all at Priest Ban’s cry was a woman who had raised her name as the Holy Kingdom’s saint 10 years ago.

The prince, who had memories of seeing her when young, clicked his tongue at her contaminated appearance, and the holy knight order who knew her was full of anger.

And Priest Ban, who learned divine techniques that male priests following her supposedly didn’t learn, shed tears at the sight of his spiritual master fallen to become the demon king’s subordinate.

[Human reunions are always interesting. Creating such scenes requires quite some effort, but it’s definitely rewarding.]

At the crow-headed man’s words watching people frowning, angering, and grieving with an interested expression, the hall’s atmosphere changed sharply.

The crow-headed man’s words meant he intentionally summoned them to this place to make them encounter the saint and holy knight order.

[I had to forcibly inject demonic energy into God’s trash and she went quite mad, but thanks to that I got to see interesting scenes without dying, so it’s decent side income.]

While the crow-headed man, Demon King Murmur’s words continued, the angry holy knights and saint could rather calm their excitement.

They loaded their anger and sorrow into swords, spears, and faith.

Along with that, their momentum rose endlessly.

[Tsk, already over? Those without demonic energy have such extreme emotional control that the fun doesn’t last long. Well, since there isn’t much time left to wait, I’ll end the enjoyment here…]

The demon king tried to finish speaking, but there was no reason to hear him to the end.

“Attack!”

At the knight commander’s shout, the knights charged forward in formation, and soon after, Priest Ban’s heavy voice was heard.

“God’s Warmth!”

The divine power bursting from the priest strongly pushed back the contamination spreading from the demon king in sync with the knight order’s charge.

[As expected, they don’t know the fun of directing.]

However, the demon king only clicked his tongue as if regretful.

Instead, the saint’s hand that had been standing blankly beside him rose up.

“God’s. Malice.”

Gray light burst from the saint’s hand and that light collided with Priest Ban’s divine power.

Priest Ban spewed blood from his mouth and sat down, and all the divine power he was emitting disappeared.

[Those predictable guys will come again, so there’s no way I wouldn’t prepare. Directing is dessert, this side is originally the main dish.]

With the demon king’s mocking voice, the demon king’s energy filled the entire hall.