Chapter 27 Pursuit (1)

Editor: BaeBae

Needing to assess his current predicament, Juan gathered up all of his strength.

He didn’t feel any strange energy emanating from Sina and the blue rose knights.

However, it was different for the man in front of him.

To be more exact, Juan felt a familiar scent from the glass box that the man held in his hands.

Juan realised something inside this glass box had taken control of his body.

“Keu-uk!”

The mana inside him showed no sign of calming down. Juan tried suppressing his mana from consuming anymore of Taltere’s blood.

Whatever weapon the enemy possessed, it was able to control Taltere’s mana.

He knew this as his own mana inside him was calm.

“Looks quite painful. Know this. The only thing waiting for anyone who doesn’t obey authority is pain.”

With a distorted face the man smiled. Juan could do nothing but listen to the man’s taunting words.

Unable to see more of this, Sina stepped forwards.

“Thats enough Kato nim. Your assignment is to help me capture Juan, not anything else.”

“Capture? Ah, yes. I did all the capturing, while your group of knights were practically useless.”

Kato sneered at Sina. Sina wanted to argue that he only captured Juan by using the emperor’s power. But thought twice after remembering he was an inquisitor, someone that even ranked higher than a paladin.

Juan continued to struggle, trying to force his body to stand.

“It looks like we can’t afford to be careless with him.”

Kato smiled foully, and lifted the glass box higher. Something from inside the glass shined even brighter and suppressed Juan’s body.

Juan finally recognised the glass box.

‘The sheath of Taltere’s sacrificial dagger.’

At the time when Juan killed Taltere, he wasn’t able to find the sacrificial dagger. The dagger was a good medium that could lead to Taltere’s revival, so Juan had put a spell on the sheath as a countermeasure.

If Taltere revived, the sheath could be used to suppress Taltere’s power.

Juan had never imagined his own measure would be used against him like this.

Juan felt as if his body was rupturing into pieces. The uncontrollable mana inside his body had nowhere to go. Here and there, Juan’s skin was splitting apart as beads of bloods started to form.

Juan glared at Kato with bloodshot eyes.

Seeing his eyes, Kato flinched and stepped back. As if he’d finally decided it had to be done, Kato grabbed his dagger on his waist. As he advanced towards Juan, Sina quickly grabbed him.

“What are you doing?”

“……Exterminating a cultist.”

“Our orders are to capture him, not to execute.”

Kato sighed. He recalled Sina’s profile. A demoted child. Her frequent arguments with priests during her time at the capital made them question her faith. If she’d acted more responsibly, she would have already been appointed as a Paladin.

“Look. This sheath only reacts to Taltere’s mana. Not yours. Not mine. Not anyone else’s for that matter. The sheath uses our powerful emperor’s magic to suppress Taltere’s mana, but it does not affect anything else. A clever method designed by the emperor, I can tell you with confidence, this bastard would not be in submission like he is now if he wasn’t Taltere’s follower.”

“But it’s not a justification to conduct an execution….”

“Sina kyung[1], Bishop Rieto nim gave you this valuable chance. People higher up are examining your actions closely. You would do well to pick your words more carefully from now on.”

Kato looked at Sina with a livid expression. Sina knew from the beginning Kato was intent on killing Juan.

And that he was ordered to do so from someone higher than even Bishop Rieto.

Someone pulled at her arm. It was Ausrey. Ausrey shook her head as if to say don’t.

Ausrey respected Sina. He couldn’t bear himself to watch her disobey the inquisitor in order to save an apostate boy.

Sina weakly backed off. With a satisfied expression, Kato turned around to look at Juan once again.

“…….A little exhausting.”Kato’s pupils suddenly widened.

Juan was slowly pulling himself up to stand.

*****

While Kato and Sina were arguing, Juan closely listened to Kato’s words. The principle behind Taltere’s sheath, that it was able to suppress his mana.

He had forgotten about it as it had been a very long time ago. At the time he had only just started using magic so the method he had thought of was a little sloppy.

But the principle behind was quite simple. Even now, he would be able to use that spell..

And plus, Juan’s body was in the same state as the sheath.

While Taltere’s mana was running wild, it was still contained within Juan’s mana heart.

As Juan tightened his grip around it, Taltere’s mana continued to struggle.

“Kueek……”

Blood flowed out from Juan’s mouth. His body was rupturing internally.

Juan’s plan had succeeded. Juan’s mana slowly wrapped around Taltere’s and tightened. And this resonated to the sheath as well.

‘Weakened.’

Taltere’s dagger sheath shuddered, but Kato didn’t notice.

Juan felt the power holding him down slowly weaken. Juan redirected the power back to the sheath.

Cracks started forming on the sheath.

Kato turned around to finish off Juan. But by then, Juan had already managed to stand up.

“…….A little exhausting.”

And right after, the sheath in Kato’s hand exploded.

With a strange screech, the glass box broke into a million pieces. Shards flew into Kato’s body, cutting apart and digging into his body.

His hand that was holding the glass box disappeared without a trace.

“Aughh ahhhhk”

A deathly shriek screamed out. The face that was smiling foully, was replaced with a bloodied red face in tatters.

The blue rose knights quickly drew out their swords. All around, swords were being drawn out but Juan had another thing to worry about. His body spastically convulsed.

‘This is not good.’

Juan’s body had already used Taltere’s blood twice. Juan once again tried to gather some semblance of calmness within his body.

Suddenly, Sina and Juan’s body simultaneously were pulled together.

Kwa-Jjack! An eerie sound of metal crashing into each other echoed. Sina felt like she’d slammed into a giant cliff.

Before, she’d even realised, her body was flung back into the group of knights behind her.

“Kughhk…..!”

Sina couldn’t even breathe. The collision felt like she’d been trampled by a stampede.

Her blue rose knights quickly came to help her up. Sina looked at Juan. He was also in a sorry state.

Juan’s bloodshot eyes turned towards Kato frighteningly. Even his exhaling breath was red.

From the power shown in the collision just now, Sina knew Juan could break through the knights ranks and kill Kato.

Juan stood still, hesitating. Kato was still screaming while looking at the spot where his hand was.

While the Blue rose knights were also hesitating, Juan wearily turned his body towards Kato.

“Stop him!”

With Sina’s shout, the knights hurried to stop Juan’s advancement.

Blunt sounds echoed. The Blue rose knights didn’t fly off like Sina did just a moment ago.

To their surprise, they handily met Juan’s strikes with their swords.

The nervous knights found themselves startled. It looked like Juan was in great pain each time he moved. Sina soon realised, Juan was devoting most of his power to suppress his own strength.Juan never relinquished his consciousness. Even as his body jolted, his blade never jittered. Using every ounce of his strength, he kept Taltere’s mana in bay to stay in control of his body.

‘It would be easy if I could just kill them all.’

Killing one of two people was an easy task, but once that happens, Taltere’s madness would start to take over his body. He had to look long term.

While he fended off the Blue rose knights, he thought what course of actions to take next.

‘Well at the very least, that guy needs to die.’

Kato.

Juan felt something unpleasant about him. Not because he was strong, but he radiated something foul like madness.

Juan felt if he didn’t take care of him now, he would come to regret it later on. He slowly gathered his strength.

“Just kill him! Someone Kill him!”

At Kato barking orders, the knights nervously crept forwards. But once they saw Juan back off, they found courage to begin their attacks.

Juan dodged and stayed on the defensive. A few of the strikes from the knights nearly missed which boosted their conscience making them become more aggressive.

Sina felt something was wrong.

Juan was an opponent that usually went for the kill right away, or disengaged to look for an immediate counter. Stubbornly holding out defensively wasn’t like him at all.

Her nervousness won her over. She grabbed her sword and stood up, ready to jump into the battle.

But she instantly fell back down finding no strength left in her legs. Ausrey quickly supported her.

“Sina nim, you don’t need to participate. It looks like the knights will take care of this one.”

“…….Fog.”

“What?”

Sina looked at the thin layer of fog slowly covering her hand and mumbled.

She recalled the strange story about the Gray tower. That the tower interior was not filled with stone walls but with fog.

Upon approaching, Sina found it strange she wasn’t able to see the Gray tower anywhere. Something clicked in her head.

“Protect inquisitor Kato!”

The knights had a perplexed look at the sudden cry of order from Sina.

Juan grinned. He flapped his Grey cloak and all the fog that was drifting close to the ground ascended.

“What….What is this?!”

The knights all backed off in panic. While the fog wasn’t dense, it was enough to deter vision.

Amongst the panic, Juan used ‘blink’ to swiftly move through. After slithering past everyone like a snake, Juan flew straight towards Kato.

Kato simply looked on as Juan dagger became bigger and bigger. Like an arrow, Juan’s dagger was headed straight for Kato’s forehead.

Kwa-Jjjiick! The attack was blocked with a heavy thud. Juan’s expression scrunched. Ausrey had just gotten in between to protect Kato with his shield.

Juan pulled and swung his dagger again but rather than breaking, the shield outer layer peeled off revealing a crest.

A white crow with red eyes.

“Paladin…..A shield from the White crow order?”

One of the Blue rose knights murmured in disbelief.

Juan found a gap where the shield wasn’t covering to attack once more. However, an eerie energy was covering Kato and Ausrey.

Frustrated, Juan used blink once more to get out of the encirclement.

Luckily for him, as quite a bit of Taltere’s mana had been consumed, he didn’t have to worry about losing his mind.

Especially, when he’d struck Ausrey’s shield, his breathing got easier as some strength left him.

It seemed that magic had been put on Ausrey’s shield to allow incompatible energy absorption.

‘I felt my mana.’

Juan felt the shield that Ausrey was holding onto was blessed with the emperor’s grace’.

“What are you doing! He’s getting away! Kill him now!”

Kato screamed out an order. The knights unconfidently made incremental steps to surround Juan once more.

Juan gave up on killing Kato for now. So he had no reason to stick around any further.

“Nice toy you had there. Kiddo.”

Juan spoke at Kato. The surrounding Blue rose knights faces had a confused expression that said, you’re the only kid here.

Juan ignored their questionable facial expressions, turned his body around and fled.

A few Blue rose knights tried to stop him but in a flash Juan used ‘blink’ and disappeared into the fog.

[1] kyung – another Korean term used after someone’s name. (Kinda hard to explain but its associated with ‘honor’)