Chapter 60

While Lord Helmut single-handedly held back the main force of hardline elders pouring through the main gate, several elders took advantage of the opening to scatter and successfully infiltrate the upper floors of Saxony Castle.

And blocking their path were the Saxon family’s guardians.

“The Black Proxy…!”

It was a woman in a suit, her monocle gleaming. One of the elders of the Black Tower saw her and shouted.

Eris, the Black Duke’s secretary, the Black Proxy.

Moreover, being the secretary to the Lord of the Black Magic Tower was by no means a position of mere ‘secretary’.

“I never imagined there would be so many foolish ones daring to oppose the Tower Lord.”

Before the elder, unable to hide his dismay, Eris murmured bitterly.

“And you dare utter such words after seeing the Black Magic Tower as it stands now!”

The Black Magic Tower’s elder shot back, as if refusing to be outdone by that display.

“O dark proxy, do you not see the Black Magic Tower, its ideology dead after its decline, and the weakened figure of its master?”

“Did you say the Black Magic Tower is dead, and its master weakened?”

“Yes. Drawn by the warmth and affection of family, they forgot the spirit of the Black Demon Tower──.”

It was at that very moment.

“Ha!”

Eris burst out laughing, as if she couldn’t hold it in any longer.

“What’s so funny?”

“A mere Sixth Circle elder, daring to measure the vessel of the Dark Tower Lord.”

Eris spoke, her monocle gleaming coldly.

“Just because a wolf wears a sheep’s clothing doesn’t mean its heart becomes that of a sheep.”

“What on earth…”

“It means that no matter how much a demon hides its true form beneath an angel’s disguise, even its wings cannot become angel feathers.”

Black magic swirled around her feet, and Eris let out a scoffing laugh, as if she found it utterly ridiculous.

“High-Ranking Annihilation: Event Horizon.”

Eris opened her mouth. Before long, the ‘Death Stars’ began spinning around her like satellites. A celestial body said to suck in everything through gravity, not even light able to escape. A black hole.

“Uh, Princess of Darkness!”

Even she herself found it embarrassing to admit, rarely revealing it herself…

Before she was the Black Envoy, before she was the secretary to the Black Mage Tower Lord, she was once known by the alias ‘Princess of Darkness’—a Seventh Circle Black Mage.

“…Be swallowed by the darkness.”

Dark Princess.

A self-proclaimed pseudonym born of a foolish, childish infatuation—and a naming sense so wild it would jolt her awake in the middle of the night—it remained a dark chapter haunting her to this day.

“Damn it, damn it…!”

There was a man whose blood boiled like Walter the Bloodthirsty. Standing before a 6th-circle elf mage.

“I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you!”

The elder of the Black Tower, his veins bulging as if his blood would boil dry, shouted.

“I’ll torment you, torment you until you beg for death to end your suffering…!”

Amidst the resounding Blue Dissonance echoing from all directions, amidst truly desperate, agonizing struggles.

“I simply cannot understand why a wizard who should maintain composure is so heated.”

Watching this, Sepia tilted her head in confusion.

As a 6th Circle Water Mage, she precisely intercepted every spell fired at her, nullifying each one. Through her prideful disabling magic, she sealed off, sealed off, and sealed off every single one of her opponent’s movements.

Contrary to popular belief, Ray Yuris was not merely a bastard son of the Crimson King.

The one who inherits the blood legacy built by the great clan. The one who carries on the legacy of the Crimson Magic Tower.

《Young Blood》.

Ray Yuris, of the Yuris clan, was there.

“No… Could your true identity be…!”

Seeing that figure, the elder of the Black Magic Tower muttered in disbelief. Ignoring the blood flowing down his body.

“I do not dislike the blood of the wicked.”

Ray Yuris smiled softly. Licking the blood smeared around his lips, he exposed his sharply protruding fangs as if to show them off.

Flowing through Ray Yuris’s veins was the bloody history built by the Yuris clan and the power of bloodline inheritance—a bond that could never be compared to that between mere parent and child.

“I cannot disappoint my father.”

Ray Yuris thrust off the ground and charged forward, displaying physical prowess that utterly surpassed that of an Oru Knight. Not by borrowing the power of Oru magic, but purely based on the overwhelming physical capabilities inherent to his species.

In this world, the fate of a mage who gives ground before a knight goes without saying.

Moreover, a mage who gave ground before a vampire was no exception either.

Crunch!

Ray Yuris’ fangs plunged straight into the Black Tower Elder’s neck. Simultaneously, the blood within his body began to flow back into Ray’s mouth all at once.

“Guhk, Guhk!”

The vampire’s molars, and beyond them, the bio-fused artifact ‘Dragon’s Jawbone’, dripped with the blood of the 6th Circle Black Mage. The true purpose behind Ray Yuris seeking out Saxony’s frozen wasteland for the ‘Black Exchange’.

“This is the magic power of a 6th-circle dark mage…”

After murmuring this, he spun the two circles within his heart.

Magma-like, searing red magic power, and black magic power as dark and deep as gazing into the bottomless night.

Fire and darkness.

The crimson and black magic swirled together, churning like a whirlpool beneath his feet.

Like the piercing cold and darkness magic Dale had once shown him… like that black-blue magic.

“Mother, Riese!”

When Dale crossed the castle corridor and arrived at the Saxon Duke and Duchess’s bedroom.

“You’ve come, young master!”

The area in front of that gate had become a fortress boasting ironclad defenses, guarded by the Night Raven Knights within the castle walls.

These were the vassal knights who normally resided at the Saxon ducal castle, guarding their lord. Among them were the most skilled of the Night Crow Knights, the elite who succeeded Sir Helmut.

Knights of Silence who knew their weight, never revealing themselves carelessly in ordinary times, nor joining the knights’ usual gatherings. Furthermore, knights who had sworn the ‘Oath of Silence,’ vowing to be shadows of the Saxon ducal house for life.

The Saxon Duke’s direct elite guard.

The Grave Guards knelt before Dale in unison, thrusting their swords vertically into the ground.

Even if the Elder of the Black Magic Tower were to unleash the realm of thought… a master of the Thought Sword possessing the prowess to shatter that barrier.

Each one an Avatar user—knights who had surpassed even the Oru Knights to reach the realm of ‘Oru Masters’. Masters of the ultimate knightly combat form, capable of unleashing the pinnacle of knightly prowess.

Just as the casting of mass destruction spells and the involvement of mages above the fourth circle are prohibited in disputes among lesser lords, the participation of ‘avatar users’ possessing the realm of an aura master is also impossible.

The cost would be too great.

That was why the highest combat power participating in the Black-White Rotation there was limited to Aura Knights like Lord Veil and Lord Milbas.

And it is precisely those knights of the Aura Master, the Tomb Guardians, who stand guard before the Saxon Duke and Duchess’s bedchamber. As the Black Duke stated, Saxony’s fortress was not so weak as to collapse before a mere handful of elders from the Tower of Magic.

“Waaah, Oppa!”

Amid the sudden commotion, Rize burst into tears, overcome with fear. Even she, too young to fully understand the world, sensed the ominous foreboding permeating the Saxon ducal castle.

“Riza, come here.”

“Oppa, I’m scared!”

“Don’t be afraid. There’s nothing to be scared of.”

Dale’s younger sister trembled violently, overcome with fear. Dale hurried over and embraced her. Rize, unable to contain her sorrow any longer, cried out louder.

“I’ll protect you.”

“Really?”

“Of course.”

Seeing that small, fragile life trembling, I bit my lip softly.

“Dale…”

“There’s no need to worry, Mother.”

Dale smiled at Elena, who was swallowing hard. An indescribable emotion tightened around Dale’s heart.

“They will never reach you or Rize.”

Dale spoke calmly, pushing aside the ‘jet-black tentacles’ constricting his heart.

“Lord Helmut is tying up the enemy’s main force. Meanwhile, the castle’s high mages are holding back the elders who are infiltrating through the upper chambers.”

Beside Dale, Lord Baskerville of the Veil delivered his report.

The castle’s high-ranking mages. Including Eris and Sepia, those loyal not to the Black Tower but solely to the House of Saxony.

Realistically speaking, the odds of anyone daring to reach this place were slim. Yet, considering that one-in-a-thousand possibility, Saxon knights guarded this location, and the skill of the aura masters stationed here was beyond doubt.

It was precisely those strongest knights who were protecting the Duke of Saxony’s people.

But Dale had no intention of being held captive by them. Moreover, guarding this place was not Dale’s role.

That role would fall to them, the Grave Guards.

“I entrust my mother and Rize to you.”

“Dale!”

“Your Highness!”

“Please trust me.”

Leaving the flustered Elena behind, Dale issued orders to the Saxon knights. He strode straight through the darkness within the castle.

He had become a hunter seeking his ‘prey,’ determined to make them pay for their foolishness in daring to oppose the Black Mage Tower regime.

Velok, commander of the Black Legion and a 6th Circle black mage, strode through the castle’s corridors.

During the war, the Black Legion’s biological laboratory. An ideal realm equipped with everything necessary for the pursuit of truth. A demon’s paradise. He recalled the 6th Circle’s realm and enlightenment, built there without a care for morality.

It was then. In the castle corridor, beyond the ominously flickering shadows, a presence was sensed.

‘Night Crow Knight……?’

No. The presence was singular.

‘To think you’d walk right into it!’

Seeing that sight, Belok let out a triumphant cry. His target, his prey, was right there.

“Ah, well now. If it isn’t the Black Prince himself.”

The son of the Black Prince. Belok smiled softly.

“……”

But the ‘Black Prince’ did not respond immediately. He merely sensed the presence of tentacles writhing along his heart, enveloped in an indescribably ominous darkness and silence.

“Still don’t understand your situation?”

The hunter who had found his prey spoke.

“Does the title ‘Heir to the Black Mage Tower’ strike you as so laughable?”

That dark mage believed himself to be a monster without a shred of doubt. Therefore, Dale had nothing to hold back.

It was finally time to hunt the monster.