Chapter 122

“But… Grand Duke Jupiter, your blood…”

 

Just then, Belona spoke with a stiff face, pointing at Caldeon’s shoulder.

 

Enria turned her head to look at Caldeon’s shoulder, seeing that the jacket around his shoulder was soaked with blood.

 

Drops of blood fell from his sleeve, staining the floor and the sofa.

 

“Lord Caldeon!”

 

A startled Enria quickly jumped up and reached out her hand towards Caldeon’s shoulder.

 

Caldeon gently took her hand, looked up at her, and said,

 

“It’s nothing.”

 

“It can’t be nothing if that much blood is flowing! Rahar, call a physician…”

 

Tearen interjected abruptly, sighing briefly and calling Rahar.

 

“No, I’ll…!”

 

Enria shouted, cutting off Tearen.

 

Caldeon pulled Enria’s arm, which was urgently reaching for him, and made her sit down again on his uninjured side, signaling Rahar with his eyes to fetch a physician.

 

Then he spoke to Enria in a soothing manner.

 

“It’s nothing, so you don’t need to use your recovery magic, Enria.”

 

“It is not nothing, you are bleeding this much… You got hurt because of me earlier, didn’t you?”

 

Eventually, the tears welling up in her eyes streamed down her face.

 

Only now did she realize that immediately after Hayden stopped time and collapsed, Caldeon had sacrificed his shoulder to pull Enria from the God of Evil’s grasp and shield her in his arms.

 

Enria wept large drops of tears, feeling sorry for Caldeon and guilty that she hadn’t noticed he was hurt until now.

 

Caldeon sighed briefly, seemingly pained by her tears.

 

“If it had hurt, I would have called a physician right away. I didn’t know, so it was only just discovered.”

 

“…”

 

The atmosphere around them grew heavy due to Enria, who only continued to shed tears despite Caldeon’s words.

 

Just then, the physician Rahar brought treated Caldeon, and Roseanne comforted the still-crying Enria, gradually easing the heavy atmosphere.

 

“I will use recovery magic too,” Enria said to Caldeon as soon as the physician finished the treatment and left.

 

“I’m fine.”

 

“I’m not fine. The physician said the wound was deeper than expected. With my recovery magic…”

 

“It’s better to save your holy power and not use it on unnecessary things.”

 

“How is this an unnecessary thing?”

 

Enria frowned with displeasure at Caldeon’s words.

 

“No, I didn’t mean it that way…”

 

“Lord Caldeon is hurt. You shouldn’t speak to me like that, especially since it was for me.”

 

“I’m sorry, Enria. I really didn’t mean that…”

 

Caldeon, flustered by Enria who was more upset than he expected and was shedding tears again, tried to appease her.

 

Tearen and Rahar, who had never seen Caldeon flustered by anyone, watched him with curiosity, as if observing a fire from across the river.

 

In the end, when Enria insisted and performed recovery magic on Caldeon, both of them clapped softly, as if on cue.

 

They felt a growing respect for Enria, who seemed to have Caldeon completely under her control.

 

KWA-A-AANG!!!

 

Just then.

 

Everyone looked out the window with startled eyes at the tremendous explosion heard outside the Grand Duke’s castle.

 

Caldeon, holding Enria’s hand, quickly embraced and protected Hayden, who was lying on the sofa.

 

Enria instinctively cast a barrier of holy power around the entire room, and Belona added a layer of light-attribute shield.

 

In that instant, all the windows in the wall shattered with a crashing sound.

 

And the God of Evil suddenly jumped through the window.

 

It was the second floor, yet he just lightly leaped up and entered as if taking a stride.

 

Enria momentarily wondered why he hadn’t climbed the border wall if he could move freely like this anywhere.

 

But the question was quickly answered when she saw that the God of Evil didn’t seem to notice anyone else, only attacking her and Hayden.

 

The current God of Evil’s sole objective was to kill Enria and Hayden, so everyone else was likely treated as nothing more than bothersome mayflies. Therefore, he wouldn’t have bothered to try and kill the countless knights on the border wall.

 

That chain of thought was suddenly cut short by the God of Evil’s fierce attack.

 

The God of Evil was focused on killing Enria and Hayden, whom Caldeon was holding.

 

As soon as Enria’s barrier broke, she quickly recast it, and Belona overlaid a new shield over the destroyed light barrier.

 

Roseanne attacked the God of Evil with her magic, and Tearen cast illusion magic on the God of Evil.

 

“Damn it…!”

 

But Tearen’s illusion magic didn’t work on the God of Evil at all.

 

Roseanne, who was standing beside him and continuously attacking the God of Evil, asked him worriedly what was wrong.

 

“The illusion magic isn’t working.”

 

“The illusion magic isn’t working?”

 

“Then did the illusion magic cast over the entire North not work either?”

 

Rahar, who was listening from the back, asked with a surprised expression. Belona, who was beside him, shook her head, saying that couldn’t be true.

 

“No citizens of the North died while the God of Evil was coming to the Grand Duke’s castle, so that illusion magic must have worked properly.”

 

Tearen nodded once and said, “It seems the illusion magic used then is conflicting with the current illusion magic, preventing it from working now.”

 

He explained that illusion magic is a powerful spell that confuses the opponent’s mind, but it’s also an ability that fails with the slightest error.

 

He added that this might be why the new illusion magic wasn’t working on the God of Evil, who was already under the influence of the illusion magic he had previously cast.

 

In the end, Tearen’s ability was relegated to uselessness in this critical situation.

 

But Tearen smiled bitterly, saying that the absence of illusion magic wouldn’t be too big of a problem since Rahar and Caldeon’s spirits had joined the fight.

 

“Undy! Behind you!”

 

Rahar suddenly shouted at Undy.

 

He had spotted an opening behind the God of Evil and immediately told Undy to aim for it.

 

But as Undy, who had transformed into a blue seahorse, flew toward the God of Evil’s back, the God of Evil snapped his finger and attacked Undy. Undy was hit in the stomach by the jet-black smoke mass the God of Evil generated and was thrown backward.

 

[Ugh!]

 

“Undy!”

 

[Don’t let your guard down. That one sees everywhere, as if he has eyes all around him.]

 

Silri, who had likewise transformed into a white cat for combat, created a swirling vortex above her head and spoke.

 

Undy, who was getting back up, groaned and muttered that he knew, breathing heavily as if in pain.

 

Silri threw the vortex she created above her head toward the God of Evil, and Undy shot a stream of water in front of that vortex.

 

Undy’s water stream whipped fiercely due to Silri’s vortex and flew toward the God of Evil.

 

Blizzan and Windel also transformed into a firebird and a white tiger, respectively, and attacked the God of Evil.

 

Graum and Lonn, as discussed earlier, moved Caldeon and Hayden (Graum) and Enria (Lonn) using earth-attribute magic every time the God of Evil launched an attack toward Enria and Hayden.

 

The God of Evil became increasingly irritated by this and began to obsess even more over Enria and Hayden. This obsession reached a point where it was difficult to counter with just Caldeon’s black magic, Enria’s holy power, and the earth spirits’ movement.

 

However, thanks to Belona’s quick thinking in deploying light shields wherever Enria, Hayden, and Caldeon moved, fortunately, no dangerous incidents occurred.

 

Belona was doing her best to ensure that the God of Evil, possessing her enemy the black wizard, could not inflict even the slightest scratch on Enria and Hayden.

 

Since the black wizard had sacrificed himself to become the God of Evil’s offering, direct revenge was out of the question, and she gritted her teeth, thinking that all she could do now was prevent the black wizard’s desire from being realized.

 

Because of this, Belona’s light-attribute shields became an annoyance to the instinct-driven God of Evil.

 

This wasn’t because the light-attribute magic was powerful, but because it was blindingly bothersome to the God of Evil, a product of evil.

 

The God of Evil moved to kill Belona, who kept obstructing his vision with light-attribute magic.

 

The God of Evil hurled a mass of jet-black smoke toward Belona, which Rahar, borrowing Lonn’s power, blocked with an earth-attribute shield.

 

As Lonn’s earth-attribute shield blocked Belona, the God of Evil changed position and began attacking Belona.

 

Just then, Hayden woke up.

 

Cradled in Caldeon’s arms, Hayden quickly assessed the situation.

 

“Belona!”

 

Roseanne, who was attacking the God of Evil, called out to Belona while destroying one of the multiple jet-black smoke masses the God of Evil had generated with her magic attack.

 

Belona blocked the jet-black smoke mass flying toward her with a light-attribute shield and generated a shield in front of Roseanne as well.

 

When all of his attacks were individually blocked by several people, the God of Evil opened his mouth and took a huge breath, beginning to create a giant mass of jet-black smoke in front of his mouth.

 

The smoke mass swirled like a vortex and steadily grew in size, while the God of Evil’s hands moved busily to block the attacks flying at him from all directions.

 

No matter how many attacks were launched, the God of Evil blocked them all with ease.

 

As the jet-black smoke mass he created grew darker and larger, Roseanne, Rahar, Caldeon, and the spirits incessantly launched attacks to stop the God of Evil.

 

Hayden, who was fully conscious, commanded Panz, whose contract with Rahar had been broken due to his demise and resurrection, to join the attack.

 

Panz, using the new power of light he received from Hayden, joined the fight against the God of Evil.

 

It was at that moment.

 

As Belona moved to cast a shield on Roseanne’s side, the God of Evil, who had been constantly targeting Belona, caught her movement and hurled the massive mass he had been gathering.

 

The colossal mass flew toward Belona and split into numerous fragments, attacking Enria and Hayden behind her as well.

 

Enria, startled by the tens of thousands of jet-black smoke fragments splitting in mid-air, quickly cast a barrier, and Caldeon and Hayden also protected their family with black magic.

 

But the jet-black smoke masses thrown by the God of Evil broke Enria’s barrier, passed through Belona’s shield and even the black magic, and flew toward Enria and Hayden.

 

In the desperate moment when evil was about to consume the two, Panz, who was summoned above Hayden’s head, saw the countless smoke masses flying toward him and created a golden wall, surrounding the area.

 

However, based on Hayden’s will, Panz only protected Enria, Belona, and Caldeon, but failed to protect Hayden himself.

 

Rahar, seeing five or six jet-black smoke masses flying over Hayden’s head, instinctively threw his body to protect him.

 

He was hit by the jet-black smoke masses instead of Hayden and collapsed on the spot.

 

“Rahar!”

 

“Brother!”

 

Belona and Roseanne’s desperate screams echoed.