Chapter 735: Low-Altitude Flight (3)
At the end of a corridor stretching dozens of meters.
“Intruder…!!”
The moment the knight’s form slightly lowered its stance upon discovering Lennok, the steel armor leaped across the corridor and instantly slammed down in front of Lennok.
Whoosh!!
An air-rending sound slicing through the void. Acceleration beyond perception birthed a tearing scream.
Just as the knight, firmly gripping the longsword with both hands, twisted his wrist to cleave Lennok’s waist,
Mana threads clung like spiderwebs to the blade, pulling it back to a perilous stop at an almost impossible distance.
The knight’s blade stopped right before his neck.
Creeeaak…!!
“Too slow. Is that all your reaction time amounts to?”
“……?!!”
Lennok slowly stepped back, moving out of the blade’s trajectory, and spoke.
“It’s obvious if you only manage to zero in after seeing with your eyes. Especially in a cramped corridor like this—”
“Ooooh!!”
The knight, without hesitation, dropped his sword and swung his gauntleted fist with full force.
But Lennok paid no mind to the knight’s judgment and flicked his finger.
“The moment we meet, the tableau and the victor are already decided, swordsman.”
At that instant, the knight, who had been lunging at Lennok, suddenly tilted backward.
Mana threads, attached to the back of the knight’s helmet, had tautly constricted. They yanked his body, shattering his balance.
The back of the knight’s head, having rolled backward in place, slammed into the ground at tremendous speed.
Boom!!
Lennok didn’t stop there. He continued to point at the knight, sweeping his fingers a few more times.
Following his gestures, the mana threads attached to various parts of the knight’s armor repeatedly constricted and relaxed.
As if invisible hands gripped and swung the knight’s body, they played with him like a toy, ceaselessly slamming him into the corridor floor and ceiling.
Crash! Crash! Crash!!
With a final few sweeps of his hand, the mana threads stretched across the corridor flashed, and the knight’s form was slammed into the wall.
CRACK!!
Lennok stared curiously at the knight, who was unconscious with his limbs broken at grotesque angles.
“He’s much tougher than I thought. His physical durability is beyond imagination, considering the crude technique.”
The first knight he subdued was also like this; he’d swung with the intent to half-kill them, but they seemed to endure surprisingly well.
Given that he was immediately subdued by Lennok, his combat ability or sense wouldn’t be exceptional.
Considering that, the durability felt from the knight was not a product of his own effort or talent.
[Are you really just going to go in so overtly?]
Even Agneta asked again, baffled by his blatant disregard for concealing his infiltration.
Instead of responding, Lennok pressed his hand against the knight’s side.
“From the start, there was blood on the armor. Probably not his own.”
Lennok poked the armor a few times with his finger, then roughly located a spot and used mana threads to peel off the outer plate.
Lennok chuckled, confirming the identity of what was bleeding inside instead of the knight.
“Quite the sophisticated hobby. Is this the kind of treasured possession Kabahim knights carry these days?”
“Gurgle…!!”
A severed hand. Blood, still dripping from the fresh cut, seeped out onto the armor.
It was undeniable proof that someone had just now cut off someone’s hand and brought it out.
To be carrying such an item while on patrol, these knights here aren’t ordinary either.
CRUNCH!!
Realizing this, Lennok crushed the knight’s helmet without hesitation and turned his gaze.
“I intended to cause a ruckus, but there’s no reaction. Surely these knights aren’t all engrossed in the same hobby, are they?”
Since they were on patrol, it wasn’t as if the castle’s security was completely dropped.
Yet, what did it mean that no additional reinforcements had arrived while Lennok was toying with the knight?
Lennok slowly rolled his shoulders and leaped down into the waterway.
“Shall I check myself?”
Splash!!
Instead of falling into the water, he landed effortlessly on the flowing surface.
[Where are you planning to go?]
“It’s not easily visible on the surface, but there’s a very small amount of blood mixed in.”
Lennok replied, wiping his hand through the water flowing beneath his feet.
“If I go against the current of the waterway, I’ll find out.”
What did it mean for blood to be mixed in the water flowing through the castle?
Considering the severed hand inside the armor of the knight he had just faced, he had a hunch.
Whooosh!!
After walking upstream a little, he began to smell blood from a distance.
It was a wide cavern located next to the underground waterway: a torture chamber built for prisons and interrogating criminals.
The iron cages, capable of holding hundreds of people, were packed full.
People were hanging or tied to the prison bars, constantly being tortured.
“Ugh, ugh…”
“Stop, stop…!”
Faint groans flowed out, and in proportion, sticky blood dripped down.
Approximately twenty knights busily moved around the prison, torturing and extracting blood from the bound people.
Rip!!
A knight, who had torn open the side of a bound person with a hook, asked in an emotionless voice.
“Is today’s quota done with this?”
“Not yet. One more team remains.”
“Let’s finish quickly. I’ll prepare the water from the canal.”
Lennok, concealing his presence, watched the scene, then realized something and his eyes glinted.
‘No conversation or remarks during the torture process. This isn’t torture for interrogation.’
While interrogating prisoners during wartime wasn’t unusual, there was something strange about the knights’ behavior in torturing these prisoners.
Far from pressuring or coaxing, their movements were so cruel, tearing into muscles and organs, that it was difficult for the victims to even open their mouths.
Such actions were hard to comprehend unless the torture itself was the sole purpose.
As he looked around, mapping out the prison’s structure, one of the knights walked towards the waterway.
Was he planning to clean the prison using the water from the canal? It must have been built for this purpose, given its location next to the torture chamber.
The moment Lennok drew out mana threads towards the knight approaching with a bucket as large as his torso.
Slam!
The door on the other side of the prison suddenly burst open, and a bright light spread out.
The knights, who had been deeply engrossed in their work, all stopped and immediately stood at attention towards it.
The knight who was about to draw water immediately put his bucket down.
“You’ve worked hard.”
Along with a quiet voice, a figure wrapped from head to toe in scarlet cloth appeared.
When he, completely contrasting with Lennok’s attire, appeared, the knights immediately bowed their heads.
“Sixth Prince.”
“The Observers have arrived, so finish your work quickly and clean up the traces.”
The man called the Sixth Prince calmly glanced around and said.
“They are sensitive to the smell of blood. They are sensitive to death in a different way. There’s no need to cause unnecessary trouble.”
“Understood.”
“Extracting body parts for serum production is permitted only here. Keep in mind, anyone who shows traces within the castle will be immediately beheaded.”
After saying that, the Sixth Prince disappeared without waiting for a reply.
The silent knights soon returned to their work and began talking quietly among themselves.
“He’s changed a lot since he joined the Order Alliance.”
“Still, will he really join hands with the Alliance?”
“Isn’t that why we’re doing this? It’s already decided.”
“All that’s left is the Archduke’s decision. When does he plan to step in and sort out the situation…?”
“Well, this isn’t bad either, in its own way.”
Another knight replied, turning his blood-soaked helmet.
Slowly tearing at a prisoner’s shoulder with the blade in his hand, he muttered as if possessed.
“It turns out, doing this stuff can feel pretty good after a while…”
“Don’t say such disturbing things.”
“Oh, come on.”
The other knights also feigned disapproval, but didn’t strongly deny or object.
Each focused on tormenting their assigned victim, making them bleed and suffer.
Just as the knight holding the bucket finally bent down to scoop water.
Lennok appeared behind him and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Huh?!”
The knight reacted like lightning, spinning around and throwing a punch, but the mana threads wrapped around his neck dragged him down into the waterway.
Splash!!
“……!!!”
As the knight thrashed wildly, Lennok choked him with mana threads and suffocated him underwater.
The other knights, too, turned their gazes, sensing something amiss from the sound.
“Damian?”
“Who draws water from the canal and falls in these days—”
Their words cut off abruptly as they saw the pitch-black robe standing by the canal instead of Damian.
“……”
Silence enveloped the torture chamber.
Only the occasional groans of the tortured echoed through the underground prison.
The knights exchanged glances without a word, then slowly picked up their torture tools, one by one, and stood up.
“Unnecessarily good synergy.”
Lennok chuckled, watching the knights.
“When you do dirty work together, even vermin seem to build camaraderie, huh?”
“Having done this work for a long time, I’ve simply grown more accustomed to these tools.”
The knight at the front replied in a flat tone.
In his hand was a long, curved, blood-stained saw.
“There’s nothing better than this to open the mouth of an ill-mannered intruder.”
FLASH!!
As one of the knights leaped with all his might, gripping a hammer with both hands and striking down forcefully,
Something surged from beneath the waterway behind Lennok and slammed into the knight.
BANG!!
A sound like an explosion, and forms tangled together, sent flying.
The knights groaned as they realized two bodies lay tangled and grotesquely dead.
“Damian…”
One shot, the suffocated knight’s body launched like a cannonball. Without even being able to resist the speed and impact, the knight who had stepped forward instantly died.
Lennok muttered as he walked towards the knights.
“I’ve faced a few on the way here, and their bodies are surprisingly tough.”
“This bastard… Damian’s corpse…!!”
A knight, provoked, gripped a long hook and swung it.
From the opposite side, a twisted saw blade aimed for an opening, and a fire-heated skewer lunged at his side.
They quickly closed the distance from all directions, linking their bodies to allow no time for a response.
The torture tools, extended front and back, interlocked in mid-air, but instead of piercing Lennok’s body, they bounced off.
Clang-clang-clang-clang!!
“……!!”
“Cough!!”
The weapons, swung with different breaths, precisely collided with each other, losing their targets and breaking or falling to the ground.
A recoil so great it momentarily knocked them off balance. Between the uselessly swaying tools, mana threads flashed.
Realizing it belatedly, the knights hurriedly checked their bodies.
“This…!!”
“Threads? Fishing line?!”
Mana threads clung like spiderwebs to their arms and legs, backs and waists, linking their movements.
The threads tied between the tools interfered with and canceled out each other’s force, creating a brief void in the narrow space.
As Lennok gestured as if tapping the air, the mana threads spread in all directions tautly constricted in response to his movements.
Creeaak!!
Along with that, the limbs of the knights bound by the mana threads moved in directions contrary to their will.
“My, my body!!”
“No, stop!!”
“Aaaargh!!”
The knights also desperately tried to stop using magic, but their balance and center of gravity were twisted by each other’s movements.
The torture tools they gripped relentlessly stabbed into each other’s bodies, tearing through their skin and muscles.
Riiiiip!”
“Kuaaaargh!!”
“Damn it, damn it!!”
“Ugh-ugh-ugh-ugh…!!”
The knights, hanging from invisible threads like dancing puppets, swung their weapons at each other, screaming.
Attacks imbued with magic shattered comrades’ armor and lodged deep into the flesh inside.
Lennok, who had disappeared and reappeared in the midst of the knights’ mutual slaughter, raised his hand.
WHUMP!!
He launched the dead knight’s corpse, flung with mana threads using elasticity to their limit.
The knight’s corpse, spinning madly in place, slammed into the chest of another knight right beside it.
As the bodies of the knights, wielded like flails, collided, blood and flesh burst forth as if exploding.
KABOOM!!
“Waaaargh!!”
“Dodge, you must dodge!!”
“Inform the prince. A monster has invaded the fortress…!!”
The dead bodies piled up, increasing in size and weight, and with that inflated impact, they crashed down upon the living knights again.
Each time the flail of corpses swung at the living knights, there was a deafening roar, and their bodies were flung around the prison.
BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG!!!!!!
A grotesque spectacle of a single sorcerer toying with dozens of knights, kicking, swinging, and flinging them to their deaths.
The people tied up in the prison, dying, looked up with blank expressions at the massacre unfolding in the middle of the torture chamber.
“Ugh, ugh…”
“Gasp…!!”
Lennok passed the half-dead, half-alive bodies of the knights and stood before the people tied up in the prison.
The prisoners quietly held their breath at the ominous purple glow of his eyes beyond the pitch-black mask.
“H-heeek…”
“……”
Lennok ignored the prisoners and turned his gaze towards the serum the knights had collected. There was something more important than deciding their fate right now.
An enormous volume of blood, extracted to the brink of death from the prisoners.
An considerable quantity of blood, taken from prisoners of varying genders, races, ages, and blood types, all indiscriminately poured together without separation.
What could the knights have intended to do with blood extracted in such a crude manner?
Lennok found the answer when he traced the direction the knights had been transporting the serum and discovered a hidden space.
“…An arm?”
A gigantic right arm occupied one side of the vast prison cavern wall.
Its skin was withered and skeletal, but its size easily dwarfed that of a normal human.
It was a bizarre sight, as if a giant’s arm had been cleanly severed and stored in the castle’s basement.
From the arm’s skin, dozens of thin IV lines were stuck in, continuously supplying blood.
[Looks like they were collecting blood, probably for blood packs.]
Agneta whispered, puzzled.
[But can a severed arm really move if you supply it with blood?]
“……”
The Giant’s Fortress. The ruins of the Colossus Brigade.
Could this giant arm here also be a ruin of the fortress, the source of those rumors?
But instead of racking his brain to solve such questions, Lennok abruptly drew out a mana thread and plunged it into the severed end of the arm.
Rustle!!
Lennok, who had been concentrating for a long time with his mouth shut, eventually nodded as if he had found the desired connection.
“Because the arm is so large, finding the nervous system isn’t so difficult.”
[What?]
The moment Agneta understood the meaning of his words and retorted.
Thump!
The giant’s fingers slowly began to twitch in place.
Each time Lennok wiggled his right hand, the giant’s forearm slowly followed his gesture.
Lennok chuckled, having gained control of the arm by connecting to its nervous system with mana threads.
“It seems I’ve acquired something more interesting than I anticipated.”