——Taking a quick leave of absence. The air conditioner broke and my lease is up, so I'm moving tonight. Tomorrow morning's chapter will be made up over the weekend. Sorry about that.
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Inside a seemingly ordinary commoner's house in Altor's
With more than half of the right side of his body gone, Clown couldn't even breathe — he had survived this far solely on the formidable vitality of a Great Knight. Now, having dragged himself to this secret hideout, he had finally exhausted every last ounce of strength. He lacked even the power to take one more step toward the hidden chamber, and could do nothing but collapse against the wardrobe, praying the healing potion would stabilize his wounds.
The pure, sanctified liquid poured down his throat. Clown's exposed organs and flesh began to squirm and regenerate, but no matter how much new tissue surged forth, it crumbled the moment it reached the severed edge — as though an invisible rift at that boundary blocked every attempt at recovery, letting life slip away with steady, irreversible speed.
"Am I going to die here?" Clown murmured in a daze, experiencing for the first time the true terror of a supreme bloodline ability.
Thud, thud, thud — several sets of footsteps drew near. Clown opened his eyes, weak and helpless, able only to watch as the Night Watch caught up.
The door was pushed open — but it was
Seeing it was them, a glimmer of hope for survival sparked within Clown. He struggled to force out the words from the depths of his heart, one agonizing syllable at a time: "It wasn't… me… who killed… it's… the Professor's… scheme."
He had never imagined that despite all his caution, he would still fall into the Professor's trap. But what tormented him most — what he could not accept even in death — was that he could never understand the Professor's purpose. It was precisely because he had misread the objective that he had ended up in this state!
What on earth had driven the Professor to orchestrate all of this with such deranged, reckless abandon?!
Juliana saw Clown's wretched state, and though she was long accustomed to death and slaughter, her eyes reddened involuntarily. "Captain, I believe you. It must be that damned Professor. No matter how unhinged you might be, you would never kill Lucian Evans right in front of Natasha! Hold on — I'll heal you!"
Clown had indeed once declared he would personally capture or kill Lucian Evans right in front of Natasha — but that was under the condition of having irrefutable evidence. Now the promise appeared fulfilled, yet the premise was entirely wrong. An irony that could only be described as cruel.
Lund, standing nearby, heard Juliana's words, and a hint of pain crossed his solemn, rigid face — as though he had foreseen what was coming. But he did not stop her. Instead, he watched Juliana cast her Divine Arts as if hoping for a miracle.
A battle priest was still a priest. Juliana was no worse than anyone else when it came to healing Divine Arts, yet whether triggered through her own power or activated via a Divine Art artifact, after flash after flash of light at varying intensities flared and faded, not one bit of improvement came to the massive, grotesque wound. That "invisible rift" devoured and cleaved everything apart.
"Captain Lund…" Juliana looked at Lund, her eyes brimming with tears. Only his rank approached the senior tier. If even he could do nothing, then Clown's death was all but certain.
Lund took a deep breath, suppressing every trace of weakness and grief. Raising his longsword with icy composure, he ignited a layer of calm, profound radiance across his body. The light then merged with the eerie darkness emanating from the Black Gloves and seeped into the blade.
With a shout, he stepped forward and swung the longsword at Clown's wound — as if trying to cleave apart that invisible, twisted rift.
Eliminate Bloodline — the power to dispel all supernatural forces, save those of true gods!
The longsword struck the invisible rift partitioning Clown's wound, sending out wave after wave of eerie fluctuations. Juliana immediately sensed something vanishing.
But the rift remained stubbornly intact, showing no sign of weakening — as though the sensation of disappearance had been nothing more than an illusion.
Lund refused to give up. He hacked down stroke after stroke, each one stirring up violent gusts of wind, but nothing changed. Clown's squirming flesh still could not close.
"Stop… trying…" Clown seemed to have recovered slightly. Behind his exaggerated, comical mask of a face burned a pair of deep, dark eyes. The madness, fury, hatred, and defiance of the past seemed to have fermented into a final, solemn calm. "Unless… you… become a Sky Knight… otherwise… even when I die… it still won't be fully eliminated…"
"Captain, you…" Juliana let out a mournful cry.
As a member who had followed Clown for seven or eight years, she had been saved by him countless times in moments of danger. When facing terrifying evils, Captain Clown had always been the unwavering pillar of their entire squad. So even though many in the Night Watch condemned Clown as insane and erratic, violent and twisted in temperament, she had still trusted and revered her captain. She never imagined that two encounters with the Professor would bring the deaths of her comrades — all the way up to her captain — one after another, tragic and without exception.
Clown spoke as though driven by an obsession: "It wasn't me… who killed… it's the Professor's… scheme."
"I know, Captain. I know." Juliana's voice trembled with fury. "If it weren't for several Tribunal officials dragging their feet, we would have arrived in time — and you wouldn't have been framed by the Professor and attacked in Natasha's rage!" Her words revealed intense resentment toward the Church and the Tribunal. Despite her repeated demands to depart immediately and not let the Professor escape, they had kept debating whether this was the Professor's scheme to lure the Night Watch away and eliminate a traitor — wasting a great deal of time before reaching a decision. And if the Church and the Tribunal had not previously yielded and shown weakness under the nobles' pressure, how could things ever have reached this irreversible point?!
Lund had not been included in the Night Watch team sent to pursue the Professor. He had only rushed to search for possible hiding places after hearing that Clown was in danger, then met up with Juliana nearby.
Now, he relayed the latest intelligence: "Morning Star is dead. Killed by the Professor. He left behind: 'The End of a Traitor.'" His tone was icy, yet brimming with boundless fury. If the Professor appeared before him at this moment, he would surely tear the man to shreds without hesitation.