Noblesse-Class

The golden scale pierced his skin, and red blood began to flow.

But that lasted only a moment. The golden scale, which had been a foreign object, soon settled into his palm, and golden light poured out from within it.

The light spread wide from his hand like a guiding light, illuminating the surroundings.

No, it would be more accurate to say that it pierced through, for the light grew even more intense.

At the moment that brilliant light illuminated the path ahead, something astonishing happened.

The corridor connected to the endless darkness began to shake.

The excessively long tiled corridor compressed, the darkness gradually faded, and the castle returned to its original size.

“So this is the power of a dragon.”

King Hudret chuckled and asked the mage,

“How is it now? Have we entered another space?”

“No, Your Majesty. The true form of this castle has appeared!”

The exploration mage’s face brightened.

“And…… I’m certain. I can also clearly sense where the magic distorting space was manifested!”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. If we attack that place, the castle will return to normal.”

King Hudret stroked his chin.

Then he said,

“What if we leave that place alone?”

“What do you mean, Your Majesty?”

“I mean we should go somewhere else first, leaving aside the place sustaining the magic.”

“Then the others will remain trapped in that space.”

“How dense can you be? You should understand when I spell it out.”

“Ah.”

This was a joint operation, but it was also a competition to seize the initiative.

When they held the advantage, was there any reason to release their opponents?

“Let’s move. While we have the time, we can slit King Heinkel’s throat.”

“Yes, Your Majesty!”

King Hudret took the lead once more and advanced.

* * *

Meanwhile, Ferda, who had left the bedroom, was also wandering through Heinkel’s domain.

He had once risen to the position of Archmage, but now he was nothing more than a fifth-circle mage.

His abilities alone were not enough to escape this place.

Of course, that did not mean it was impossible.

The space had been made extremely vast, but it was not infinite, so there had to be an endpoint.

‘To escape…… would it take at least a week?’

After finishing his calculations, Ferda reached a conclusion.

‘It would be better to hope someone else destroys this place.’

Ferda could not be the only one trapped here, and troops from countless kingdoms would be deployed sooner or later.

The problem was what to do if there were many others thinking the same way he was.

It was like a poker table full of beginners.

As if they were bluffing by putting on an impressive show while hoping no one would actually follow.

Ferda continued walking down the silent corridor.

Fanatics, demons, ghoul-type monsters, beast-type monsters…….

Various groups tried to attack Ferda, but all of them were eliminated.

Fighting alone was something he was far too accustomed to.

‘My strength is steadily draining away.’

When he finally stood before King Heinkel, would he be able to pour out everything he had?

That question stirred Ferda’s anxiety.

Just then, something entered Ferda’s field of vision.

Unlike the reckless monsters, it was moving extremely slowly.

Something was laboriously crawling toward him.

It was the middle-aged man he had seen during the meeting on the Allied side.

He was the king of some kingdom.

“S-save me…… me…… quickly…….”

Though he wore splendid armor, bright-red blood filled his mouth, and he desperately clung to the tiniest remnant of hope.

Even so, he could not let go of his authority as king.

“Don’t just stand there staring…… do something…… I said……! I can’t feel my legs……!”

It seemed he did not know that his entire lower body had been blown away.

The only mercy Ferda could offer him was death.

But there was no time even for that.

A sword flew through the air, pierced his upper body, and ended his life on the spot.

The sword was extremely fine and bore a pattern resembling the one on the dead king’s back.

‘Surely not…….’

Ferda raised his head and looked toward the corridor.

Fortunately, it was not a tragedy in which a knight had killed the king.

Instead, what he saw was the aftermath of a one-sided massacre carried out by some entity.

Roughly twenty knights lay dead.

They had been chosen to guard the king, so they were undoubtedly the finest in the kingdom.

Whatever had wiped out the kingdom’s elite was truly a monster.

The aura it gave off made it clear that it was at least a Noblesse-class demon.

With that thought, Ferda immediately began preparing magic.

He needed to bring it down in a single blow with overwhelming firepower, which meant he had to prepare in advance.

An eye capable of seeing through the darkness examined its form.

The moment specific information lodged itself in Ferda’s mind, he could not hide his astonishment.

“The Second Prince?”

The Second Prince, Ureas Arken.

Even as he called him that, Ferda wondered whether it was truly Ureas himself.

Horns had sprouted haphazardly across his face, covering it like roots that had broken through the skin, leaving only a quarter of his facial features intact.

His skin had turned black, and stark white light like that in the eyes of a midnight beast reflected in his pupils, creating a horrifying sight.

Ureas had always been a large man, but he had swollen even further, becoming a towering giant two and a half meters tall.

His golden armor had been reduced to tatters.

‘Demonification?’

But he did not have the red eyes possessed by other demons.

‘Then is it a curse?’

What kind of curse could cause someone to take on such a form?

Ferda tried to think, but he had no time to spare.

-Ferda…….

Ureas’s eyes pierced the darkness and fixed themselves directly on Ferda.

The emotions boiling up from within him poured out.

-Ferdaaaaa!!

With a beastlike howl, he lunged toward Ferda.

He shot out like an arrow loosed from a taut bowstring and slashed precisely at Ferda’s waist.

Half of Ferda’s body was blown away.

Splat!

What reached his ears was the sound of a glob of paint being thrown against a wall.

The wall, which should have been spattered with blood and flesh, was instead smeared as though with black paint.

Then the black stain moved swiftly, heading somewhere.

As though being unable to defy gravity were humanity’s fate, the shadow sought out its master.

Ferda did not miss the opportunity.

“Lightning Spear.”

A fourth-tier evocation spell.

Red lightning flew in a straight line toward Ureas.

Crack!

The red lightning tore through the demon’s skin and blew off Ureas’s shoulder.

Ureas clutched his wound and howled.

-Aaaah!! Ferda! You damned bastard!! How dare you attack me!!

He raised his eyes, revealing the sharp teeth of a beast.

He had not lost his reason and gone berserk.

He was simply as unintelligent as ever.

“Second Prince, are you still in your right mind?”

For now, Ferda tried to talk to him.

Ureas shouted at the top of his lungs.

-You will wash away the insolence of attacking me with your blood!

“Calm down, Second Prince. We still have a common enemy.

-Shut up! Do you think I’ll listen to anything you say? You fiendish bastard who will take everything from me!!

It was a hate-filled scream hurled out without restraint.

Ferda no longer wanted to endure that hatred, so he recited a calming spell and fired it at Ureas’s head.

‘Strange.’

The magic Ferda had used was meant to calm his agitation and restore a narrowed field of vision to normal.

He felt it burrow into Ureas’s head and was certain that it had worked.

Yet there was no rationality in Ureas’s eyes.

Why?

The surprises did not end there.

While Ureas was panting, the left arm that had been blown away was regenerating.

‘Even ordinary demons can’t recover from something like that…….’

Had Ureas become a demon beyond the Noblesse class?

Using that black blood?

The last thing Ferda had seen through a sample from Director Linne had been the unstable Bouncer.

It was hard to believe that Ureas had evolved that much in the time since Ferda had last seen him.

“Second Prince, come to your senses. You are the Second Prince of the Arken Empire, a man who can rule as the next Emperor. You must not let a demon take your mind—.”

-Shut up, you inferior piece of trash!

Ureas’s roar drowned out Ferda’s words.

-I should have killed you the first time I saw you. From the moment my sister looked at you! I should have smashed you to pieces! I lament my own stupidity for failing to do so!

His rage did not stop.

Ferda also quickly assessed the situation.

Conversation was useless. All that remained was force.

He could cut off Ureas’s limbs to incapacitate him, or crush his heart and leave him half-dead.

Ferda prepared a magic circle.

Ureas had no intention of letting such a devastating attack go unanswered.

Naturally, he charged toward Ferda.

But his body tipped forward, and he fell flat on the floor.

-What is this?! What’s stopping me?!

Beneath his feet was a shadow darker than darkness itself.

The dense shadow possessed immense power, and even the enhanced Ureas could not easily shake it off.

Ferda’s shadow grew even denser and swallowed Ureas in the form of a slime.

-Damn it! Damn it!! Ferdaaaaa!!!

The magic Ferda was preparing was Lightning Cluster.

It was a firepower-focused spell that fired a cluster of powerful lightning bolts, shredding the entire body.

Even a seasoned mage would find it difficult to counter, and Ureas might not survive it.

That did not matter.

If Ferda held back, he would be putting himself in danger.

Then it happened.

As he prepared the spell, Ferda sensed something strange.

The masses of shadow surrounding Ureas were connected to every sensation in his body, as though they were part of it.

Through that sense, he felt an intense heat he had rarely sensed from Ureas’s body.

Before he could even finish wondering whether it was an illusion, a scorching heat that felt capable of melting him engulfed Ferda.

“Ugh……!”

Ferda swiftly severed his consciousness.

But the spell’s incantation continued, and at last a magic circle condensed in Ferda’s hand and took shape.

“Lightning Cluster.”

At first, it flew forward like the Lightning Spears he had used before.

But the moment it neared its target, its outer surface began to open like a flower before spreading into dozens of lightning bolts.

The cluster of lightning tore the mass of shadows apart and ravaged everything inside it.

It was an indiscriminate attack that spared neither head nor heart.

It was an attack that left the target’s life entirely in the hands of heaven.

But even that now seemed arrogant.

The scorching heat Ferda had felt from the shadow was telling him so.

The Ureas within that shadow had become something beyond Ferda’s imagination.

At that moment, a vivid red light leaked from the mass of shadows.

The light gradually heated the mass of shadows, and once it had become completely red-hot, it tore the shadows apart and burst out from within.

-Aaaah!!!

A roar that seemed to tear the air apart.

Ferda could not hide his astonishment at the sight of that form.

Ureas had always been a pure physical fighter, using mana only in the form of a knight’s aura.

And when his form had changed completely, the aura had disappeared.

Yet now he was using magic.

His formerly empty eyes were blazing fiercely, while flames also surged from every joint in his body.

The light was so intense that all the shadows Ferda had cast lost their strength.

-Shadow……! It was shadow, Ferda! You were a dark mage! A filthy dark mage! K-hahahahaha!!

Ureas let out an exaggerated laugh, as though he had caught Ferda in the act.

-You acted all noble and impressive, but in the end, you’re nothing more than one of those fallen humans!

“I don’t know what you’re so proud of. You fell prey to a demon’s temptation.”

Ferda spoke with undisguised disgust.

But Ureas wore a shameless expression.

-A demon’s temptation? Do you think I would fall for some lowly illusion?

“Can you say that after looking at your own face?”

-My face?

Ureas touched his own face.

From his chin up to his grotesque horns.

He seemed to know what he looked like.

-Isn’t it supremely noble?

Joy blossomed across the quarter of his face that remained.

“Are you proud of that hideous appearance?”

-You think it’s hideous? No, this is the natural appearance of one who rules!

He brazenly spouted this nonsense.

-Thinking about it now, it’s truly strange. It was strange that I looked like the other humans. How can we, who look down upon tens of millions, call ourselves humans beneath the heavens?!

His voice was filled with excitement.

He shouted in a voice that was impossible to tell whether it expressed rapture or grief.

-The Arken bloodline is golden blood! Gold flows through our bodies! Behold!

He finally began mutilating himself.

He tore open his own chest and spilled out what was inside.

If he had possessed a human body, blood would have flowed, but what came from his body was vivid red lava.

The lava did not cool, instead radiating an intense heat.

-I have the right to rule! The right to conquer! The right to love Olivia!! You, a human intoxicated by dark magic, have no right to be loved by that girl!

Bang, bang!

He stomped his feet, producing a threatening sound.

Olivia’s words came to mind.

Ureas was seeing Olivia through the image of his mother.

Now that Ferda saw it, it was far beyond mere projection.

The madness Ureas displayed was so extreme that even Ferda, who had been indifferent to Olivia, felt pity for her.

But if it stemmed from such a misconception, perhaps it could be resolved.

Ferda cautiously reached toward a possible breakthrough.

“You’re suffering from severe delusions, Second Prince. I have never once wanted to take the princess for myself. If you wish, I can swear to it here and now.”

Ferda could give up on Olivia.

They had never been lovers in the first place, and she likely had no feelings for him either.

-Even if that’s true for you, do you think Olivia feels the same?

“What do you mean?”

-How can you not know? That Olivia loves you!

By now, Ferda wondered what kind of absurd nonsense Ureas was spouting.

“Second Prince, come to your senses. What you saw was nothing.”

-No! It wasn’t an illusion! That was the undeniable truth!

“It was a hallucination created by the creature called Trauma. It merely forced things you would not normally think about into that form. Open your eyes.”

-You call it a delusion? Then why does my sister have your handkerchief?!

“That makes no sense……”

Ferda could not continue.

A memory suddenly surfaced in his mind.

He remembered that when he had been alone with Olivia, she had spilled her tea, and he had given her his handkerchief.

While Ferda struggled to continue speaking, Ureas convulsed and shouted.

-Why! Why does she smile when she looks at your lowly handkerchief?!