The Adventures of an Overpowered Knight in Another World

Chapter 596: Chapter 596- A Knight Till The End (4)

"I was hoping... to find your ceiling. To see just how powerful the so-called chosen champion of the Goddess was."

He lifted his eyes and stared at Reinhardt. There was satisfaction and amusement flickering within those dim eyes.

"But it seems... My strength wasn’t enough."

There was no bitterness in his words, only acceptance.

Just like Reinhardt had guessed, Giacomo was trying to find a way to die. So when he saw Reinhardt appearing, he couldn’t help but issue a duel.

For him, it was a disgrace to become a demon. He wanted to fight and die like a knight until the end.

Reinhardt remained silent for a moment. Then he stepped forward. Stopping a short distance from the fallen knight.

"Why? Why did you accept the demon heart? Why did you kill everyone here?"

Giacomo lay against the shattered stone, looking at the ruins of the palace with grim eyes.

"Fine, since you defeated me I’ll tell you everything."

From his tone, it seemed like he wanted to take this information to his grave.

However, since it was Reinhardt who defeated him and asked the question, as a knight he couldn’t help but answer.

.

.

After demons kept crawling out of the Hollow Earth, Giacomo made plans to get the king, his family, and other key nobles escorted out of here.

The hidden escape route beneath the palace was opened, and elite knights were mobilized.

The plan was simple.

Giacomo would personally lead the royal family to safety. Meanwhile, the other two Paragons of Lunaris would descend toward the Hollow Earth entrance and hold the demons back.

The three Paragons of Lunaris were heroes who had stood at the peak of humanity for decades.

Even if they could not defeat the demonic army outright, holding them long enough for an evacuation was not impossible.

But that hope was shattered the moment the true enemy revealed himself.

The demons attacking Lunaris were not an ordinary invasion force. They were led by one of the rulers of the Abyss.

The Eighth Heavenly King, Astaroth.

The other two Paragons of Lunaris went down to the Hollow Earth to confront him.

However, the situation took a turn for the worse when hundreds of thousands of demons poured out from level two.

Countless mid and high ranking demons, and leading them were elite Demon Generals.

The battlefield quickly turned into a nightmare.

The Paragons might be the strongest humanity or Heroes so to speak.

However, even heroes get tired.

And when besieged by an overwhelming number of demons and a Heavenly King, they fell into a disadvantage.

Still, the situation hadn’t developed to the point of being utterly despairing.

Despite all odds, the Heroes of humanity were still somehow holding on. The call to arms had been made, and soon all forces of Lunaris would converge in the capital.

If only the two Paragons could hold on longer.

However, at that moment, as if to laugh at their pitiful resistance, the sky was torn asunder, and through it emerged two more figures.

If it were simply two more enemies, it wouldn’t have made any difference.

That said, the identity of these two was not simple.

The two presences exuded an aura so oppressive that the demons themselves lowered their heads.

They were none other than the Ninth and the Tenth Heavenly King.

At this point in the story, Reinhardt’s calm expression finally cracked, and he slowly narrowed his eyes.

Three Heavenly Kings!

The weight of that information was staggering.

As someone who had faced three Heavenly Kings before, he understood what their appearance meant.

Despair!

The emergence of two Heavenly Kings did not simply mean the addition of two more demons into the mix.

No, it meant a substantial multiplication of the already overwhelming powers of the demons.

Even if the Heavenly Kings did not partake in the battle themselves, just their title effects and aura were enough to amplify the powers of all the demons.

So when Reinhardt heard from Giacomo that Lunaris was besieged by three Heavenly Kings at once, his mind moved somewhere else.

To the events that happened in another kingdom.

Aetherion too, had suffered from a similar invasion not long ago.

The kingdom had nearly collapsed under the combined pressure of a sacred civil war and an external demonic assault both secretly orchestrated by the demons themselves.

The situation there hadn’t become despair inducing only because Reinhardt and multiple knight orders happened to be there at the right moment.

Without them, even powerful figures like Vaerion and Hell Marshal might not have contained the disaster so easily.

That event alone had proven how terrifyingly cunning the demons truly were.

When they moved, they overturned all assumptions.

After Aetherion, it appeared that Lunaris had become their next target.

However, unlike Aetherion, Lunaris had no such luck.

No Divine Paladin.

What’s more, the Heavenly Kings that appeared were nothing like the ones who besieged Aetherion. The Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Heavenly Kings were some of the most insidious among the Heavenly Kings.

Especially the Ninth Heavenly King.

Reinhardt’s expression darkened slightly as he remembered how this figure in the Battle of Black Tide fooled all of Solaris and stole its Supreme Divine Treasure.

Not only that, but she was also the hidden mastermind behind Aetherion’s attack and nearly stole another Divine Relic.

If not for his Divine Trait [Celestial Harmony] repeatedly warning of something amiss, even he might have been fooled.

The threat that the Ninth Heavenly King posed could be seen from the fact that she managed to escape him even when he followed her tracks using the teleport ability of the [Aetherial Stride].

Even the nightmare that had engulfed the capital of Solaris was her doing.

Reinhardt loathed the Ninth Heavenly King.

However, he was not the only one who held such strong sentiments.

"The Ninth Heavenly King Duvessa."

Rage like a bursting volcano rose from within Giacomo the moment he uttered that name.

"She... was the one behind many of the events that caused Lunaris to suffer."

He continued.

After the battle erupted in the depths of the Hollow Earth, Giacomo rushed to carry out the evacuation plan.

He brought the king, his family, and all the important officials of Lunaris to the secret escape route, one that was only known to the Paragons and the royal family.

However, even Giacomo couldn’t have predicted that the demons had laid a trap for them there.

The moment the royal family reached the entrance to the escape route, the Queen suddenly smiled.

Then, before anyone could react, she grabbed her face and peeled it off.

The skin of the Queen slid off like a discarded mask, and the face that appeared underneath was completely different from the Queen they remembered.

Crimson eyes and citrine colored hair, the face belonged to none other than the Ninth Heavenly King Duvessa.

"The knights and I froze. We couldn’t process what we were seeing."

The Queen that we were so familiar with suddenly turned out to be a demon. It would baffle anyone.

However, Giacomo was a level 10 knight. His instinct kicked in, and he was just about to take action when suddenly a realization struck.

For decades, he had seen and witnessed Lunaris going astray. Its policies turning brutal and inhumane over the years.

Long ago, Giacomo had once confronted the king and questioned him about it.

Though the latter, he learned one thing. That is, it was not the king’s plan to turn the kingdom like this.

Although the king did not reveal who it was who gave him this idea, he did reveal that he could not say no to that person.

What if that person were the Queen?

What if all those policies and laws were her doing?

And... what if the real Queen had already been killed and a demon took her place?

The moment the realization hit Giacomo, he was shaken to his core.

It sounded too ridiculous yet plausible.

For years, for countless years... that demon had lived inside the royal palace. Watching, listening, and manipulating their congress.

Wearing the Queen’s skin and weakening the kingdom from the inside.

The bone chilling realization was enough to freeze anyone. Still, Giacomo forced himself to move.

He was a knight first and foremost.

However, in the face of his blade, the Ninth Heavenly King simply smiled.

"After dodging my blade, she looked at everyone with an amused smile and broke out laughing. After that, she revealed everything. How she played family with them for over fifteen years without any of them noticing anything wrong."

The Ninth Heavenly King confessed everything while taking joy in everyone’s despair.

"And the worst part?"

Giacomo’s lips twisted bitterly.

"She didn’t even bother fighting me."

With a snap of her finger, ominous marks appeared on the bodies of the king, his family and everyone important.

Duvessa revealed that it was the Curse Marks that she had placed on their body a long time ago.