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Chapter 148: A Path of Fire
Old Ashvarn — Four Months Since the Hunters Were Trapped Inside the Legacy Prison
After Jackson recovered, the surviving Hunters returned to the deeper regions in order to cleanse them and ignite more flames.
The battles within the depths of Old Ashvarn were completely different from those in the outskirts. The monsters had become overwhelmingly powerful, to the point that dealing with them was no easy matter anymore.
Every single day, they encountered entirely different kinds of creatures.
Monsters born within the city through the power of the curse itself.
Monsters created to serve the Golden Knight, who had now become the final enemy lurking within Ashvarn.
The moment they approached the Cathedral, Ethan and the others began clashing against a group of Black Knights clad in full black armor, wielding enormous greatswords over three meters long.
They were bizarre knights.
Almost mechanical in nature, as though no flesh or bones existed beneath those dark armors.
Their bodies were unnaturally thin, yet they possessed terrifying strength that made them a force impossible to underestimate—especially due to their overwhelming numbers.
After their first collision with them, the Hunters’ progress slowed drastically.
The difference in numbers was simply too overwhelming.
There were over fifty Black Knights alongside hundreds of monsters from countless other species...
While barely fifteen Hunters remained alive to face all of that.
Had most of the Hunters not already reached Elite Rank, they would have been annihilated almost immediately.
Every single day, brutal battles erupted.
Sometimes Ethan and the others emerged victorious.
Other times, they were forced to retreat and flee once the monsters swarmed them from every direction.
The closer they drew toward the Cathedral, the more aggressive the city itself became.
As though Ashvarn had begun realizing they were no longer wandering prey trapped inside its stomach...
But rather tiny blades attempting to carve their way toward its rotten heart.
And within the middle of one of those battles—
Ethan moved between the Black Knights like a sharp shadow.
His dark Aura Armor covered his entire body, forming a dense black layer over his skin and clothes while his crimson eyes glowed amidst the darkness like cold embers.
This time, he was not carrying only the Executioner’s Sword.
He fought using two blades simultaneously.
The Executioner’s Sword remained in the grasp of his mechanical legion arm, enhancing its power even further...
While the other hand wielded a longsword more suited for practicing the Asterion Sword Style and testing it within real combat.
His feet moved across the shattered ground in short, rapid steps before he bent beneath a Black Knight’s strike that nearly split his body in half.
The massive sword passed above his head, the pressure of the wind alone powerful enough to uproot the surrounding stones.
But Ethan had already entered the dead zone of the attack.
’The gap between the chest and shoulder.’
His left blade stabbed directly into the black joint of the armor.
’Rotate.’
His body spun while the sword in his right hand rose diagonally from below, smashing against the side of the knight’s helmet.
Metal collided against metal.
Black sparks scattered everywhere.
But the knight did not fall.
’Not enough.’
Ethan clenched his teeth before releasing a burst of telekinetic force through both blades simultaneously, multiplying the cutting power.
The sound of cracking iron echoed loudly as the black armor split apart.
From within emerged thick gray smoke.
No blood.
No flesh.
No screams.
The Black Knight finally collapsed.
He had killed another one.
But Ethan had no time to celebrate.
Three more knights charged toward him in the very next moment, their colossal swords descending like giant guillotines.
Ethan retreated instantly using his grappling hook while hurling the Executioner’s Sword toward the three knights through telekinesis.
The enormous blade smashed into them violently.
That bought him several precious seconds to widen the distance and catch his breath slightly.
’I can’t compete against them head-on for long.’
’But I can kill them from the inside.’
His eyes searched for the openings.
Beneath the armpits.
Behind the knees.
Between the helmet and neck.
They were terrifying knights, yet their armor was not entirely perfect.
And no matter how great an armor was...
Every single one possessed weaknesses, as long as the person facing it could see them.
And Ethan was learning that at terrifying speed.
Nearby, phoenix flames suddenly erupted.
Moon Heart cut through the battlefield like a blazing red arrow, her glowing sword leaving behind a scorching trail of fire.
A Black Knight attempted to block her path, yet she lowered her body smoothly and passed beneath his blade before her sword rose upward from below.
The flames exploded.
The upper half of the knight’s body flew into the air while the remains ignited in crimson-gold fire.
"Don’t let them surround us!" Moon shouted sharply. "Fight in small groups and stay close to each other!"
On the opposite side, Raiden stood like an iron wall against a wave of monsters.
His massive shield absorbed strike after strike while his greatsword crushed everything approaching him.
He was not as fast as Ethan.
Nor as destructive as Moon.
But he was steady.
Solid.
Like a stake hammered into the ground, prepared to die before retreating even a single step.
Behind him stood Luna with cold eyes while blue and green magic circles rotated around her.
"Winds of the north... sever them."
She raised her staff.
Sharp wind blades burst outward, slicing through the limbs of monsters and slowing the advance of the Black Knights before she followed with an earth spell that caused stones to rise from the ground like rough chains, binding their legs for several brief seconds.
Only seconds.
Yet those seconds created openings for her companions to attack through, allowing them to bring down many enemies thanks to it.
Alicia benefited the most from that magical restraint.
Thanks to her immense speed and swordsmanship, she continuously struck the openings in the knights’ armor with deadly precision, inflicting considerable damage every single time.
Her impact remained somewhat limited since those knights did not bleed, making her bleeding effects completely useless against them.
Even so, she still dealt respectable damage.
Especially with the support of Chai Heart’s arrows...
Alongside Schierke’s spells, which supported Luna as well.
The First Squad under Gustav fought at the frontline alongside Ethan too, carrying their fair share of the battle.
But the harshest battle of all...
Was the one fought by Jackson Heart.
The giant dealt with most of the powerful monsters almost entirely on his own.
Ever since they approached the Cathedral, creatures surpassing Elite Rank had begun appearing from time to time.
They were not King-ranked monsters like the Iron Demon.
But Saint-ranked creatures had begun appearing.
Armored giants possessing overwhelming physical strength, to the point that some of them were even capable of using magic.
Jackson fought every single one of them.
And killed dozens entirely on his own.
The giant Hunter’s fighting style relied heavily upon his physical blessing alongside the absurd amount of aura he poured into his fists every single time he punched, resulting in devastating damage to anything standing in his path.
Before long, every Saint-level monster that approached them had been slaughtered.
After defeating the Black Knights, Ethan joined Jackson and saw the countless corpses scattered around him.
Compared to Jackson...
Their own battlefield looked utterly insignificant.
Staring at all those bodies, Ethan turned his head toward Jackson and asked directly—
"You still haven’t broken through?"
Jackson glanced at him from the corner of his eye.
"You mean the next rank?"
"Yes."
Jackson smiled while kicking aside the corpse of one of the giants.
"Don’t dream too much."
"Killing one Iron Demon and a few Saint-level monsters isn’t enough to push me into the High King rank."
Ethan fell silent for a moment.
"How much do you need?"
"At minimum?"
Jackson raised four fingers.
"Four more Kings on the level of that bastard before I can even think about touching the next rank."
Ethan’s eyes narrowed.
’So it really is similar to the game.’
From level sixty to seventy...
Each King roughly raised the progress by one level.
To surpass the King rank entirely—
One needed to kill at least ten Kings.
It was an absurd number.
And because of the restriction placed upon [Class Change At Will], which forced Ethan to endure double the soul cost required to level up compared to ordinary Hunters...
He predicted that in his own case, he would need to kill twenty Kings just to reach that same rank.
"The road ahead is still long..."
The real world was far crueler than the game ever had been.
The fire ignited.
But this time...
It was not a small flame.
A colossal pillar of fire erupted toward Ashvarn’s artificial sky, tearing apart the crimson darkness above them. The flames rose wildly, fiercer than any bonfire they had ignited before, to the point that even the distant monsters retreated in fear from its light.
And at that exact same moment...
Far away.
Beyond Old Ashvarn.
Inside the temple that housed the Mother Flame, where the Elders and Hunters had waited silently for months...
Something finally happened.
Something that had not occurred since the very beginning of the catastrophe.
The Mother Flame trembled.
Then exploded violently.
The message...
Had finally begun to reach them.