"Baron Andrei…" Anna whispered the name under her breath, her voice trembling with uncontrollable terror.
The young man standing before the altar was none other than their future lord—Baron Andrei. He had a sharply defined face: rugged, hard-edged, and slightly sinister. Like every other member of the Vladimir family, he possessed golden hair, striking blue eyes, and an unmistakable hardy bearing. Unfortunately, at this moment, his eyes overflowed with a nameless horror—whether from the ease with which Duda and the Frost Giant Knight had been cut down, or from being caught red-handed at a demon-worship ceremony, no one could tell.
Anna, however, was not paying attention to Baron Andrei's expression. Her mind was consumed by intelligence, stories, and legends about him: a prodigal knight, the future Count of Kalkart, a scion of the Vladimir family, promoted to Great Knight at a young age, and recently singled out by an Epic Knight to become his personal disciple…
Even one of those titles would be enough to make an ordinary mercenary like Anna quake with fear. Stacked together, they made her tremble from the bottom of her heart—even though Baron Andrei had not yet made a move, even with the formidable mage Katrina and the strikingly handsome vampire floating right beside her.
"He must possess extraordinary abilities. Among fifth-rank Great Knights, he's definitely one of the very best—otherwise an Epic Knight would never have taken him on…"
"He's the future Count of Kalkart. If this fight is discovered, any Celestial Knights who arrive will silence us for good…"
"And, and—he's an Epic Knight's student. Has 'Death Storm' Ninel given him high-grade items and special powers? If Sister Katrina kills him, will the Epic Knight come hunting for us?"
A torrent of thoughts surged through Anna's mind all at once. Setting aside whether Sister Katrina and that handsome vampire could even defeat Baron Andrei, his status as an Epic Knight's disciple alone was enough to make anyone hesitate, hold back, and avoid going for the kill. If Andrei had only been his student for two or three months and was already murdered, 'Death Storm' Ninel would feel he had been slapped across the face—and who present could escape the pursuit of an Epic Knight who commanded the power of death?
Similar anxieties, dread, and fear permeated the heart of every mercenary. Yakov was no exception, but he quickly steadied himself. Baron Andrei wanted them dead—there was no escaping it. If they fought back, they might still have a chance to live. After all, compared to an Epic Knight and the Count of Kalkart, they were nothing but ants on the ground. Flee far enough, and perhaps those lofty figures wouldn't bother hunting them down personally.
The choice, then, was obvious.
"You shouldn't have come in. You forced my hand—you forced me…" Baron Andrei, standing before the altar, kept repeating the same words while the blood mist emanating from the altar grew ever thicker.
"What's wrong with him?" Count Kalerdia prided himself on being well-versed in esoteric knowledge, yet even he could not fathom Andrei's current state. He sent the question through the mental link Katrina had pre-cast.
Katrina's eyes, as impassive as a golem's, fixed on the deranged Baron Andrei. She assessed the situation calmly: "We most likely interrupted the ceremony mid-progress and allowed the demon's power to erode his mind, plunging him into a brief episode of mental aberration. We should seize the opportunity and take him down."
As she spoke, a layer of pure, radiant light bloomed across her body. Then, one dazzling beam after another shot out like fireworks, hammering into the dense blood fog, the dark statue, and the bizarre altar.
When she cast "Light of Mysteries," she looked as though she had donned a robe woven from pure radiance—glorious, holy, and awe-inspiring. In the eyes of Anna, Yakov, and the others, she appeared like an angel descending to the mortal world, slowly unfurling wings of light behind her back. Spells of this kind had all been created by the Arcane Parliament modeling after Divine Arts; apart from lacking the unique resonance of Divine Arts, their outward appearance was nearly identical.
One beam after another struck the blood fog, erupting in blinding flashes of brilliance. Yet the blood mist surrounding this altar was clearly far more resilient than the wisps in the outer hall that had dissipated at a single cast of the Wind spell. Under the relentless barrage of the Light of Mysteries, it had only thinned by a fraction.
The Light of Mysteries, however, jolted Baron Andrei back to awareness. The terror in his eyes vanished, replaced by a dark, watery grimace. "I told you—you forced my hand!"
With his words and gestures, black lines lit up across the floor, creeping in from every direction, burrowing into the altar to form a three-dimensional Magic Circle. From its center, an abyssal fog surged forth, shrouding the statue in a flickering veil while radiating a faint, bone-deep chill.
"Hurry—we have to act! The ceremony is almost complete!" Katrina urged Count Kalerdia to strike while she bombarded the altar and Baron Andrei with "Lucian's Great Fireball," "Solar Radiance," and "Thundercloud."
The instant the ceremony activated, she had sensed a surge of extreme danger. The ritual was nearly finished—merely awaiting its final trigger!
Count Kalerdia curled his lips. "And here I thought things would go smoothly…"
His cloak billowed up, transforming into a dense blanket of darkness that engulfed the altar together with him, corroding the arcane patterns etched across its surface.
Protected within the Magic Circle, Baron Andrei watched the blood fog, dark mist, and arcane patterns gradually disintegrating under their combined assault. He shook his head with vicious resolve: "You forced my hand, every last one of you!"
He drew a dagger from his storage pouch—unglimmering, ivory-white, yet stiff and lifeless, saturated with the aura of death. One glance at it and you could feel death itself beckoning.
"This is the high-grade dagger my master bestowed upon me—'Ninel's Invitation.' I shall now offer it as a sacrifice to the ceremony. Under its catalysis, it will transform into a pure, absolute Death Storm—and none of you will escape!" Baron Andrei threw his head back in a crazed laugh and hurled "Ninel's Invitation" into the center of the altar.
"You who rule over darkness, who are the embodiment of despair, you shall freeze the world when doomsday comes…" Baron Andrei raised both hands high, loudly reciting the ceremonial invocation—he looked more like a heretical priest than a knight.
"They're worshipping 'Demon Prince' Goenheim!" The deeds of the Dark Lord had been frequently discussed at the Atomic Research Institute over the past few months, so Katrina was well acquainted with the name. She warned Count Kalerdia.
Within the altar, waves of darkness poured forth, coating everything in a layer of frost. Then, suddenly, the altar—and the entire main house and manor with it—began to shake violently. A vortex emerged, darker than darkness, more desolate than cold itself. The instant Anna laid eyes on it, she felt a chill that cut straight to the bone—the same bone-deep terror she had felt once before, on the edge of death.
All the mercenaries, Yakov included, found their gazes locked onto the vortex. As it spun, they felt their souls and bodies locked in a violent tug-of-war, completely beyond their control.
With a thunderous crack, the intensifying vortex tore away the shroud of darkness enveloping the altar. Countless black bats slammed into the walls, their life force snuffed out in an instant.
"The Death Storm…" Count Kalerdia materialized before Katrina, his complexion a shade paler. He bared his teeth: "This is exactly the kind of fight I hate the most—using a ritual to forcibly catalyze a high-grade item…"
As he spoke, he drew a framed portrait from within his cloak. It showed a man with silver hair and silver eyes—Rhein. Compared to the real thing, the oil painting looked rather more dignified.