“Stop this meaningless resistance.”

Sched warned as he steadied his sword.

Though the darkness made it hard to see surroundings, he could keenly sense the presence.

“…Even if I stop, you won’t let me live anyway, right?”

The heretic chuckled.

“This is a fight you can’t win.”

Sched remembered the battle from that day.

The heretic lost even while holding Riana hostage.

Somehow the heretic’s power seemed to have grown stronger since then, but Sched was determined to be victorious.

Because he had things to do when he returned.

“Don’t be so arrogant, Swordmaster. I haven’t just been taking naps either.”

“The same goes for me.”

No sooner had Sched finished speaking than the heretic charged with a black aura.

Sched countered the fierce onslaught of dark power.

The heretic’s movements were certainly much faster than before, and his strength had also become more powerful.

But it wasn’t enough to corner Sched.

Bang!

When Sched swung his sword, an endless echo reverberated through the cave.

Unable to withstand the impact, parts of the cave shook and collapsed.

Bits of soil and moisture fell.

If one wasn’t careful, the cave itself could become the most fearsome enemy.

More delicate and precise control of power was needed.

Sched used his aura to track the opponent’s movements in the pitch-black darkness.

Even after several attacks, the heretic dodged like a rat, burying himself in the crevices of darkness.

It was quite impressive considering the limited mobility in such a confined space.

But he was merely struggling to avoid attacks.

As Sched pressed with force, the heretic retreated to a distance.

‘Is he trying to run away?’

He couldn’t let the heretic escape again.

Just as Sched was about to take a step to follow, a smile spread across the heretic’s face.

“I told you. I wasn’t just taking naps.”

At that moment, Sched’s foot, which was about to move, stuck firmly to the ground and wouldn’t budge.

When Sched looked down, he saw a pale white hand emerging from the ground, gripping his ankle.

“Have you studied a bit about black magic?”

As the heretic waved his arm towards the air, decaying corpses crawled out from the piles of dirt in the cave.

“This is…!”

Those rising endlessly from the floor had flesh rotting away and bones exposed, a revolting sight.

“Necromancy…!”

One of the many forbidden arts that can be done with black magic, known as necromancy.

A spell that brings the dead back to life as beings under one’s control.

However, those revived by this power are not the same as they were before.

Moving grotesquely with empty, hollow eyes, they were nothing more than horrifying marionettes without any self-awareness or memories.

Moreover…

Slash!

Sched cut off the wrist of the undead gripping his ankle, but it seemed to feel no pain as it kept crawling towards him, making bestial noises.

The undead were beings that could not be called ‘human’, unable to feel pain, pleasure, sadness, or joy.

“Now I’m not alone.”

The heretic laughed beneath his long robe.

Sched heard a strange sound coming from deep inside the cave.

Behind the heretic stood an army of undead filling the cave, their bodies slouched.

Dozens, no, perhaps hundreds of undead.

‘So this is what he was aiming for…’

Sched had to admit the heretic wasn’t entirely foolish.

The heretic had been waiting for this moment from the beginning.

Even the timing and location of getting caught in the barrier were part of the heretic’s calculations.

It was a trap using another trap.

But what did that matter?

Sched didn’t worry whether this was a trap or not.

He only thought about how to succeed in the hunt.

He never wasted energy planning for defeat when entering a battle.

“Now, tear him apart, my friends.”

The heretic laughed, spreading his arms wide.

At that, the grotesquely twisted corpses charged with eerie noises.

Indifferent to pain, they rushed at him like a great tide, pushing, crushing, and trampling over each other.

In the dark cave, the sound of bones clattering and breaking, the bubbling from rotting lungs, and the snapping of tendons all mixed together.

“What meaning is there… in a life where the dead are your friends?”

Sched asked the heretic who called the undead his friends as he swung his sword.

The undead rushing from all directions fell away in droves.

But even with their limbs severed, even with their bodies split in half, the undead crawled along the ground.

“Kaaak!”

Without weapons, the undead bit and clawed at him with their teeth and nails.

“You disgustingly demonstrate… why heresy is forbidden.”

Even Dietrich hadn’t warned that the heretic could control the undead.

Because they hadn’t found any traces of necromancy before.

‘He must have gathered the undead down here underground.’

All Sched knew about necromancy was what Dietrich had told him when explaining the various types of black magic.

Since it involved controlling external entities with one’s own black magic, it required incantations like the priests’ prayers or barriers.

Whether inscribed somewhere, attached, or recited orally.

If so, there must be a way to break it.

He carefully observed the undead as he cut them down in the darkness.

And finally, he found traces of ancient language illuminated by the blue aura.

“So smashing their heads will do the trick?”

Traces of spells inscribed on rotting foreheads or skulls.

When Sched thrust his sword into the skull of an undead crawling on the ground and shattered it, the undead finally fell into eternal rest.

Once he found the answer, the fight became much easier.

However, the tide hadn’t completely turned.

The number of undead kept multiplying, and there seemed to be no end to the battle.

‘In the end, I’ll have to kill that heretic to finish this…’

It was the heretic using black magic who was moving the undead.

So if the heretic died, the undead would lose their power.

Sched took a slight risk of the cave collapsing and swung his sword widely at the undead surrounding him.

The undead fell away like reeds swept up in a typhoon by the sword strike.

At the end of the path cleared by the fallen undead stood the heretic.

Sched kicked off the ground covered in bones and rotting flesh and charged towards him.

At the heretic’s command, the undead rose again and rushed at him like a swarm of piranhas.

But they were easily cut down like leaves before his sword.

Seeing Sched charging like an arrow, the heretic shook his head.

“It can’t be. Lucifer said so. That I’ve become close to perfection!”

The heretic gritted his teeth and emitted black power from his entire body.

That power swept like a storm, pushing Sched back.

“Kuh…!”

Sched withstood the massive force by thrusting his sword into the ground.

Crunch, the rock scraped as he was pushed back by the force.

‘Who on earth is Lucifer?’

Sched pondered the unfamiliar name the heretic had mentioned.

Was there someone else behind the heretic?

He wanted to think deeply about it, but there was no time.

The heretic unleashed sharp, blade-like forces at him while controlling the undead.

Sched leapt into the air using an undead’s back as a foothold, then kicked off the cave wall to suspend himself in midair.

As his body, propelled in the air, fell to the ground, the blue blade strongly struck the earth.

Then, blue aura following the sword’s trajectory flew towards the heretic.

Boom!

With a massive explosion that shook the cave, the ceiling above the heretic collapsed.

Sched stared at the rocky tomb blocking the cave in the pitch-black darkness.

The lingering echoes of the thunderous sound shook the empty space, dropping bits of soil.

After a moment of silence, the undead fell to the floor like puppets with cut strings.

The heretic’s power had disappeared.

‘Is he dead…?’

Sched used his aura to check the heretic’s location.

He wasn’t someone who would die so easily. He was certainly…

‘Still alive.’

The heretic’s power could be felt inside the pile of rocks.

In an instant, the rocks crumbled and settled.

“!”

At the same time, a jet-black blade flew through the gaps of the crumbling stones.

Sched twisted his body to avoid the blade flying at him and stepped back.

But the heretic’s sword pursued closely through the darkness.

Clang! A sharp sound rang out again as the two metals clashed.

The heretic, who had retreated once more, cracked his bones back into place and his eyes gleamed.

“If I die here, how upset would those bastards who died for me be? Huh?”

The heretic tilted his head as he twirled his sword once.

The smile spreading across his blood-dripping face was bizarre.

The undead, thought to be finished, rose again.

It was a persistent, irritating death.

Those who rose again poured all the strength they could muster onto him, heedless of pain and sensation.

The dead pressed Sched with strength several times that of an ordinary knight.

But Sched no longer intended to prolong the fight.

Sched needed to end this long battle.

He had a reason to restore peace to Paradel.

His eyes, filled with determination, shone in the darkness.

The heretic realized Sched would thrust his sword at him.

The blue-glowing sword was approaching him.

But even knowing, he couldn’t dodge.

Sched’s sword pierced the heretic’s heart before he could evade.

“Cough!”

The heretic’s body shook in the darkness and collapsed to the floor.

Sched stepped on him as he fell, pinning him down, and thrust the sword deeper.

“Kuhak!”

Droplets of blood the heretic spat out splattered onto the blue aura.

And for the first time, Sched properly faced the heretic.

The contours of the face, hidden in darkness, were revealed in the light of the aura.

At that moment, strength drained from Sched’s hand holding the sword.

The purple eyes of Lupus, shining on a face where veins showed through the skin.

The familiar features with thick lines, though gaunt, and the scar crossing above the dark eyebrows.

That scar, gained while saving young Sched when they once went to the battlefield together.

“…Elder brother Parmen?”

Sched had never forgotten him.

The person who had been a pillar of support since he became a mercenary slave at the age of ten and was first thrown into danger.

The person who had been a strong support for all the Lupus.

And… the person believed to have died by Ideana’s hand.

The source of anger and desire for revenge against Ideana.

“How are you…”

Parmen Lupus, his brother whom he thought he had lost forever, was alive as a heretic.