‘Who the hell is this guy? I don’t recall meeting someone like him before, but….’

Knight of Night managed to dodge the blade coming towards him, and proceeded to counter attack.

But his opponent was prepared; he managed to parry his strike with minimal movement.

‘…He seems to be familiar with me; it is as if he knows me, personally. Or at the very least, he knows my fighting style’

Knight of Night could not help but wonder how his opponent was keeping up with him, even when weakened, Knight of Night’s swordsmanship style is not easy to predict.

Like the darkness that results from combining all colors into one, Knight of Night’s swordsmanship style blended in many different styles into it, making it extremely hard to predict, much less counter.

Yet, this man, he was fighting the Knight of Night, countering every move he made by making just the minimum necessary movement and making just the right type of counter.

Knight of Night would never have guessed that this man had challenged him to futile duels in countless loops, to the point that he ended up memorizing Larat’s fighting pattern and even developed counters for nearly every single one of his attacks.

‘Not good….It seems like he did something to drain me of my mana’

Knight of Night was a magic swordsman, relying equally on magic and swordsmanship; taking away one effectively reduced his fighting prowess.

‘No matter how many times he swings that dagger, he does not seem to be out of breath, but I on the other hand…’

The more their blades clashed against each other, the more Knight of Night realized that he was facing a terrifying foe.

One that was bent on killing him, right here, right now.

Using his willpower, Larat channeled his chi through his blade.

While mana was useful for magicians, chi was of equal importance to skilled swordsmen.

If he could not rely on mana, he would just have to rely on channeling chi instead.

However, while chi, unlike mana was unlimited as long as the user has enough willpower to channel it through their body, it puts a lot of pressure and quickly exhausts the body.

If mana is a fire that generates power and dies out after the wood burns out, chi was more like a body of water, endless, and the human body was a windmill upon which the water is putting extreme pressure.

If channeled wrongly, usage of chi could be fatal upon one’s body, which is why channeling chi requires an unbending willpower.

But as their duel was going now, the more and more exhausted Larat became, his willpower slowly waning.

“Not yet, I can still…”

Knight of Night pulled out a scroll out of his clothing.

As soon as the scroll was opened, majestic bursts of flames emanated from it, burning through everything that was in front of it.

The scroll contained a level 7 spell inside of it, and as soon as it was opened, it would spew out flames that would do a great damage even to those with fire element immunity.

Larat never thought he would have to resort to using such a valuable tool, but now he needed to beat his opponent no matter what.

His foe was too dangerous to be left alive.

At such a close range, there was no way for his opponent to dodge, and even if he attempted to shield himself, he would still be damaged and most likely drained of mana.

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With a large area in front of him turned into a smoldering inferno, Knight of Night leaned on his sword as he gazed upon what must have been his opponent’s final resting place.

“Oya, I never would have dreamed you of all people carried such handy magic item. A high level magic sealed within a scroll, huh, but if my sources are correct, once the magic is activated, the scroll is now just a useless piece of paper, no?”

His opponent was standing behind him, about ten meters away, completely unharmed.

Knight of Night’s eyes opened wide in horror.

‘He can teleport?! This guy, I thought he was a human, but could it be… is he one of the Demon Lords?’

“You! Are you one of the Demon Lords?”

“Hmm, I wonder about that…”

“Answer me! Are you a Demon Lord, a servant of Demon King Draco?”

“Well, it is not like I was not offered the position, but sadly, no”

“I see. Someone as weak as you could not possibly be one of the Demon Lords!”

“Hmm, I wonder if you should be saying that, considering you are the one who is currently at disadvantage, Larat Lemuri”

“I will make you regret those words!”

Larat’s right eye momentarily glowed bright blue as he proceeded to rush forward, delivering a mighty blow that sent his opponent, who managed to block it, crashing into the ground.

“Well done, even with your mana drained, you still have this much strength”

The villain managed to dodge Larat’s blade just by a few millimeters, yet, he seemed to not fear Larat, not even a little.

It was almost as if, he was someone who knew Larat for a long time. None else could have predicted all of his moves and countered them in such a manner.

“As long as there are fiends like you, demons, witches, and monsters that threaten humanity, I will not hesitate to use every ounce of my strength to defeat you! Evil shall not prevail!”

“How interesting. You would condemn the witches as the evil ones, despite being one yourself?”

At his statement, Larat’s eyes grew wide for a moment in astonishment.

“What? What did you just say?”

“Need I repeat myself once more? You may have managed to hide this from nearly everyone, a man who became a hero without having a blessing….what a load of bull. I should have probably suspected something was amiss when you, out of all people could counter her powers, but back then I was not too sure, until our last meeting, when I saw the proof for myself.”

As the Knight of Night’s face was filled with dread, the villain chuckled.

“I can only imagine what would happen if your dirty little secret got out, witch boy”

“Nothing shall get out, for I shall end you”

“We shall see about that”

Once again, the villain and the hero clashed.

Even when weakened, the hero was stronger, but the villain was far more cunning.

He dodged Larat’s attacks as if they were little more than nuisances coming his way.

If Larat was at his full power, the battle would have been over in an instant, but now, in his weakened state, his strength was below that of a Holy Knight.

‘Not good, I can’t keep activating my Supremacy any more, without my mana to suppress it and keep it under control, if I activate it once more, it will go out of control…’

‘…and if it goes out of control, not only will I be exposed as Her Eminence’s Champion, but all of the kingdom will consider me a traitor…I can’t let that happen, not until I am strong enough to fulfill my promise to free her!’

But as he was right now, with no mana in his body, unwilling to use his Supremacy in fear of it getting out of control, and relying on his severely weakened body alone, he was fighting a losing battle.

Using chi put a lot of pressure on one’s body and if used for too long it would exhaust the user further and further.

In his weakened state, using chi upon his sword used up even more stamina than usual, resulting in Knight of Night gradually becoming slower and slower.

As he prepared to strike the villain down, his opponent teleported right in front of him, grabbing hold of Larat’s wrists with his own hands.

The longer the villain’s hands made contact, the weaker Larat felt, but he managed to get his right hand break free from villain’s left hand, grabbing hold of it.

With both of their weapons on the ground, they pushed against each other, one unable to overwhelm the other.

But slowly, the villain drained more and more of Larat’s stamina, making him falter, his strength steadily waning.

“In a contest of outlasting your foe, never underestimate your enemy”

The villain’s words rang true.

“You underestimated me, Larat Lemuri, and this is the price you shall pay for your arrogance…”

The villain’s right hand was upon his neck, slowly clenching tighter as Larat felt his vision grow dark.

Before the villain’s right hand could choke the life out of his severely weakened body, they heard a voice behind them.

Suddenly, a single sword came flying in the villain’s direction, forcing him to let go of the Knight of Night, but he still ended up being scratched by the blade.

Another ten swords shot at the villain, but he proceeded to dodge them while rolling forward. He grabbed the crystal dagger on the ground and proceeded to strike down the floating swords coming at him. Now there was a large distance between the Knight of Night and the villain.

Villain stood up, and Larat could see that his mask was cut off, exposing the right side of his face. But instead of a face, there was a partial skull with a glowing white demon eye staring at him.

“Well, well, just when I was getting to the fun part, how inconvenient”

As the Knight of Night looked up to see the face of his savior, he saw a young woman clad in dress-like silver armor, her hair was light violet, while her eyes were of pure golden color. There was no mistaking who this person was.

“Your Highness! Why are you here?!” This young woman was the First Princess of Kizilalem, Calicia Hela Kizilalem, of the royal family.