The leading knight slowly raised his head.
His aura was as heavy as an abyss; he was actually a Mid-tier Legendary.
He pulled back his hood, revealing the face beneath.
It was pale, stiff, and completely devoid of life.
His eye sockets were hollow, and his pupils were unfocused.
Like a... corpse suspended by invisible threads.
A walking corpse.
If Lin Gui were here, he would have recognized him at a glance.
He was one of the Four Pillars who had mysteriously vanished from the Carter Royal Capital.
The Mid-tier Legendary knight, John.
Except the man before them was no longer among the living.
And the same went for his Holy Knight order.
Now, they had become a Death Knight Order composed entirely of corpses.
The battle erupted in an instant.
The Death Knight Order's method of siege was bizarre yet highly efficient.
Corpses resembling scouts, mages, and warriors lunged at Hugh without regard for their own safety.
They used their bodies, their residual instincts, magic, and even self-destruction.
All just to hold him down for a single split second.
Meanwhile, Knight John swung his sword indifferently.
Pitch-black sword qi tore through the air, slashing down indiscriminately!
A blast of sword qi grazed Hugh's shoulder and crashed into the ruins behind him.
An entire stone wall collapsed at the impact, sending down a rain of debris.
Another slash struck one of the summoned corpse knights.
The knight's body was severed in two, spraying black blood.
Yet it still used its upper torso to tightly clamp onto Hugh's leg.
There was not a single ripple of emotion in John's eyes as his next strike arrived.
Hugh's figure shifted like a phantom.
Battle qi flowed across his body, pushing his speed to its absolute limit.
Dodging three converging blades, he spun and shattered the skull of a Transcendent mage mid-chant.
Thrusting his piercing blade backward, he precisely impaled the heart of another knight.
His movements were as fluid as flowing water, every strike aimed at a vital point.
Transcendent knights rarely lasted a single exchange before him.
They were instantly cut down.
But the true horror only began to manifest now.
The shattered flesh of the mage whose skull had been crushed began to squirm on the ground.
It rapidly gathered and reconstructed itself.
In less than ten seconds, he was wobbling back onto his feet.
The knight whose heart had been impaled had raw flesh sprouting wildly from his wound.
The black blood flowed backward, and in the blink of an eye, he was completely restored.
They lunged forward once more, their eyes hollow and tireless.
Hugh's eyes twitched slightly as a chill crept into his heart.
This was not a battle.
This was a war of attrition against a horde of immortal monsters.
I have to lose them!
His gaze turned fierce, and his battle qi suddenly withdrew inward.
His figure vanished into air, reappearing right behind John.
Black light surged from his piercing blade as he delivered a full-force blow!
John reacted with lightning speed, spinning around to block with his sword.
Clang—!!
The resulting shockwave exploded outward, shattering three nearby corpse knights into dust.
John's protective qi fluctuated violently, and cracks began to spiderweb across it.
Seizing the momentum, Hugh pressed his advantage, his piercing blade striking seven times in rapid succession like a venomous serpent.
Every single strike landed on the exact same crack.
With the seventh blow, the protective qi shattered completely!
The piercing blade plunged into John's neck with a sharp twist.
His head flew off.
The headless body froze in place.
The surrounding corpse knights stiffened in unison.
Panting heavily, Hugh grabbed Hannah.
“Go!”
The two of them blurred into afterimages, crashing through a low side wall as they fled in a flash.
Ten seconds later.
The headless body bent down and picked up the head from the ground.
It pressed it firmly back onto the neck.
Black blood squirmed, and the wound healed over.
Knight John rolled his neck, the ghostly fire in his eye sockets reigniting.
He raised his hand and waved it forward.
All the corpse knights turned at once, toward the direction Hugh had fled...
...and silently pursued.
Hannah's face was pale, her bat wings instinctively tucking in.
Drag by Hugh, she was forced to stumble and dash through the ruins.
The scenes from moments ago remained branded in her mind, impossible to shake off.
A crushed heart would regenerate.
A severed head could be reattached.
This was not a battle at all.
“The Church of the Final Reincarnation...”
Hannah's voice was dry.
“Are they... all monsters like this?”
Hugh did not look back, his voice freezing cold.
“Otherwise...”
He coughed, blood foam spilling from the corner of his mouth.
“...how else could they be the organization the Demon God fears most?”
No sooner had the words left his mouth than dark shadows abruptly appeared at the mouth of the alley ahead.
Three corpse knights stood there in absolute silence.
Blocking their path.
Hugh's eyes turned fierce, and he sharply dragged Hannah in another direction.
They crashed into a half-collapsed shop on their side.
Amidst the flying shards of old, rotten wood, he leapt out of the back window.
But as his feet hit the ground, his body swayed almost imperceptibly.
Hannah immediately noticed the trembling in his arm.
“Your wound...”
“Shut up.”
Hugh cut her off, continuing his frantic escape.
Yet the Death Knight Order always seemed to anticipate their movements.
No matter how they looped or where they hid.
There would always be new corpse knights emerging from the shadows.
It was like a net that was steadily tightening.
Hugh's breathing grew heavier and heavier.
The grayish-black wound on his chest was constantly oozing dark blood.
The edges of his flesh looked as if they were being slowly eaten away by invisible acid, refusing to heal.
His speed was visibly slowing down.
“At this rate...”
Hannah gritted her teeth.
“...neither of us will get away.”
Hugh suddenly came to a halt.
He pushed Hannah behind a section of a broken wall.
“Listen to me.”
His voice was hoarse, but resolute.
“I'll hold them off.”
“Head north, get out of the city, and don't look back.”
Hannah's pupils contracted.
“Are you insane?! We can go together—”
“Going together means dying together!”
Hugh growled, his crimson eyes suppressing a desperate, resolute fury.
He gripped Hannah's shoulders so tightly his fingers almost dug into her flesh.
“You have to live.”
“Just like you said.”
“Once you ascend to become the Demon King... come back and avenge me.”
Before his words could fade, the surrounding shadows began to squirm.
One, two, three...
More and more dark figures materialized from all directions.
Surrounding them completely.
Knight John slowly walked out from the corner of the street.
On his neck, there was only a faint black scar.
He raised his hand, and all the corpse knights took a step forward in unison.
The ground trembled slightly.
Hugh took a deep breath, reversing his grip on his piercing blade.
His battle qi flowed once more, but it was no longer as solid as before.
He turned back and gave Hannah one last look.
There was no farewell in his eyes.
Only an unquestionable command.
“Go—!”
With a thunderous roar, Hugh's figure exploded into motion!
Not forward, but in all directions.
Countless afterimages lunged simultaneously at the knights in different directions.
The black glow of his piercing blade lit up the gloom, like a grand display of lethal fireworks.
The corpse knights' formation was thrown into disarray by this sudden explosion of power.
Knight John indifferently swung his sword, sweeping a wave of dark sword qi across the area.
Yet it only shattered several afterimages.
The real Hugh had already sliced into the center of the knight order like a specter.
His piercing blade danced, and with every flash of light, a head flew into the air.
Or a body was shredded to pieces.
He was tearing open an escape route in the most frantic, desperate manner possible.
Hannah bit her lip so hard that the metallic taste of blood spread through her mouth.
She cast one final glance at Hugh.
Her bat wings snapped open, and her demon energy erupted.
She transformed into a crimson beam of light, hurtling toward the north at high speed!
The ghostly fire in Knight John's eyes flickered.
He raised his hand, pointing in the direction of Hannah's escape.
More than a dozen corpse knights immediately turned, attempting to give chase.
But they were relentlessly pinned down by even more afterimages.
Hugh was drenched in blood, though it was impossible to tell if it was his own or his enemies'.
He split his lips, revealing a blood-stained grin.
“Come on! I can kill you a hundred more times!”
On his piercing blade, the black light burned fiercer than ever before.
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