The Knight of the Sinful God

by Gakuto Mikumo

  Gajou’s heavy machine gun roared and spewed flames to intercept the approaching wyvern. The machine gun was loaded with anti-demon, electrum-tipped bullets. However, the rounds that had penetrated the houda scales with ease did nothing against the gunmetal wyvern.

  For her part, Hisano unleashed offensive shikigami toward the iron knight.

  Silver birds of prey resembling peregrine falcons attacked the knight with the velocity of speeding bullets. It was such an impressive offensive shikigami that it made Shio, a specialist in ritual magic, get chills just from watching.

  But Hisano’s shikigami, numbering over a dozen, shattered and dissipated the instant they struck the knight of iron.

  He had neither blocked them nor struck them down. The shikigami had been completely nullified and had simply ceased to be.

  “What the…?! What’s going on?!”

  Bewildered, Shio stared at the sight of Gajou and Hisano’s difficult battle.

  However resilient it might be, Shio didn’t think electrum-tipped bullets would just bounce off a wyvern, a mere living creature, leaving it unscathed. A mere human nullifying Hisano’s shikigami without the use of sorcery was even less likely.

  Somehow, the resilience of knight and steed alike was uncanny…and unnatural. Furthermore, neither Gajou nor Hisano had any way of overcoming that unnatural nature—

  Gajou and Hisano both had likely realized that from the beginning. That was why Gajou had told Shio to go. Run, while we buy as much time as we can…

  “Li’l Shio, run!”

  Gajou discarded the machine gun and its melted barrel, raising a new weapon: an anti-materiel rifle. Normally, you’d only fire such a huge firearm from a prone position, but Gajou hip-fired it out of sheer stubbornness.

  The round, accurately striking right between the wyvern’s eyes, scattered and exploded with incredible magical energy. He had fired a spell gun round: special, precious, and densely packed with magical energy.

  The wyvern recoiled greatly, its movements coming to a halt, but this, too, lasted for a mere second. Seeing that it was largely unharmed, Gajou gloomily shook his head, howling with laughter at his own expense.

  “A spell gun round…didn’t work…?!”

  The unbelievable sight before Shio caused her to unwittingly stop in her tracks.

  A moment later, the naginata swung down by Hisano made a metallic, high-pitched creak as it shattered. Hisano, so skilled that the Special Attack Mages employed her as an instructor, was being utterly dominated in combat. It was not that she was weak. Hisano’s attacks were being completely thwarted by the iron knight’s armaments.

  “Lady Hisano?!”

  Shio could not help but let out a cry at the sight of blood spurting from Hisano. Shio laid Nagisa Akatsuki upon the surface of the frozen lake and lifted up her silver recurve bow.

  “—Certify request! Freikugel Plus Proto Three—unlock!”

  “Shio, don’t!”

  Gajou, covered in blood, shouted at Shio. However, Shio ignored his warning. Under the circumstances present, only Freikugel Plus had any hope of saving Gajou and Hisano. This cutting-edge area suppression weapon, the pride of the Lion King Agency, ought to have been able to annihilate even a wyvern with a single blow—

  “I, Dancer of the Lion, Archer of the High God, beseech thee! Let there be light—!”

  Shio poured in the last of her ritual energy and unleashed a maximum power attack.

  The spell arrow she had nocked let out a whistle, tracing a high-density magic circle beyond human limits. This generated an enormous, magical cannonball with vast magical energy rivaling vampiric Beast Vassals.

  The iron knight took the blazing beam on his own mantle.

  The knight’s mantle ate away at thin air like ink on the surface of water, changing into a pitch-black aura lacking any thickness that enveloped Shio’s attack.

  Then Shio’s ritual spell cannon attack was swallowed up by the darkness and vanished.

  Without a sound, vast magical energy that could burn even a wyvern to a crisp in a single blow…disappeared.

  It was almost as if the attack had never existed in the first place—

  “N…no way…”

  Shio was still in her shooting follow-through as her entire body cringed.

  The knight of iron calmly looked back in Shio’s direction. Without a sound, the flying wyvern swooped toward her.

  The knight aimed the tip of the lance toward Shio’s heart. Even so, Shio did not move. She’d unleashed ritual energy beyond her limits. Her entire body was completely drained of spiritual strength.

  Shio’s eyes watched the glimmering lance approach her heart in slow motion.

  Thud! went the dull impact.

  Shio’s face twisted in sharp pain as she was knocked onto the icy plain from behind.

  Warm, fresh blood fell onto her cheek.

  It was not Shio’s blood that had been shed. Shio was not wounded……for someone had shielded her—and was impaled by the lance in her place.

  With an impudent smile, the stubble-faced middle-aged man fell on top of Shio, drenched in fresh blood.

  “Uugh… Aagh…”

  Shio’s voice trickled out from her throat. Gajou remained motionless, eyes closed. An incredible amount of blood was flowing out of his back. He had shielded Shio, taking the iron knight’s attack in her place.

  “No… No, this wasn’t what I… This can’t be happening…”

  Shio weakly shook her head. But she, too, already knew the truth: This was her fault. Ignoring Gajou’s warning, she’d attacked the knight of iron—and thanks to that, Gajou had been grievously wounded.

  It was Shio’s reckless act that had put Gajou and Hisano in this position.

  As a result, even Nagisa Akatsuki had been exposed to danger—the very girl Gajou was trying to protect, even at the risk of his own life.

  In a raspy voice, Gajou said to Shio…

  “R…un…Shio… Even if it’s just you…!”

  Shio made a wordless scream. She truly desired to save him, even if that meant sacrificing her own life. And yet, as she was in that moment, there was nothing Shio could do.

  The wyvern’s cold eyes gazed down at them from above.

  The wyvern’s talons, resembling thick scythes, swung downward toward Gajou and Shio as they lay motionless.

  It was an instant later that she felt vast demonic energy coursing nearby.

  “—Shakala!”

  She heard a beautiful voice full of composure and majesty.

  Simultaneously, the enormous frame of the gunmetal wyvern was blown away as it sustained a blow backed by incredible demonic energy.

  In actuality, this explosive power reminiscent of a natural disaster was a sentient mass of demonic energy taking physical form. It was a vampire’s Beast Vassal with the form of a giant snake.

  The blond, blue-eyed vampire who had dragged the summoned beast in from another world stood at Shio’s and Gajou’s side.

  “Who…are…?”

  Shio looked up at the young man as she asked. However, the vampire noble did not reply.

  “Kira, Tobias—you take care of that. At long last, I have found a lead. I must offer suitable hospitality.”

  The young aristocrat glared at the iron knight he himself had sent flying as he addressed his subordinates. Then, ignoring him and Shio alike, he approached Nagisa Akatsuki, lying atop the ice.

  “Though somewhat sooner than I expected…this is our third meeting, yes?”

  Saying this, he picked up Nagisa Akatsuki in what somehow seemed like a very casual manner.

  3

  Around that time, Asagi and Iblisveil were riding Lydianne’s robot tank as it breached Kamioda Temple. The expected SDF checkpoints were nowhere to be found, and the three climbed the long stone stairway to reach the temple grounds.

  However, thanks to the demon beast assault, there was no sign of anyone on the devastated grounds. There were signs left over of a fierce battl
e; it was as if a bomb had gone off.

  Asagi and the others had no time to dwell on that, for they heard a loud alarm coming from the tank’s pilot compartments. The instruments installed into the robot tank were warning they had detected demonic energy.

  “Master Iblis, that demonic energy just now—”

  “Yes. A vampire’s Beast Vassal.”

  Iblisveil grimaced as he continued sitting atop the tank’s heavy armor with ease.

  The demonic energy had been detected over two kilometers from the temple from the very center of Kannawa Lake. The density of the demonic energy had to be crazy for the tank’s relatively low sensitivity sensor to detect and warn of danger at that range.

  “This power, it comes from the Warlord Empire’s Master of Serpents… Damn him, just what is he fighting? Lydianne!”

  “As you command!”

  Lydianne did as Iblisveil ordered, launching the robot tank forward. The crimson vehicle urgently raced down the mountain slope, barreling toward Kannawa Lake.

  Asagi emerged from the copilot seat hatch to gaze ahead with binoculars. The obstructive mist had largely thinned out, so she could see the surface of the lake even from that range.

  “I found her! It’s Nagisa!”

  Asagi could barely breathe as she shouted against the strong headwinds.

  She was near the center of the frozen lake. There was a vampire nobleman wearing a pure-white coat standing against an icy wall, like a cliff jutting out from the lake. He was carrying Nagisa Akatsuki, who was dressed in white priestess attire. She looked like she was still asleep, practically sleeping like the dead.

  And at the vampire aristocrat’s feet lay a blood-soaked Gajou Akatsuki and a girl she didn’t know wearing a school uniform.

  It had taken less than five minutes for the robot tank to arrive at the center of the lake. The ice made cracking noises as the tank decelerated. Asagi poked her head out of the stopped robot tank, launching a question Vattler’s way.

  “Vattler?! What did you do to Nagisa…?!”

  With Nagisa in Dimitrie Vattler’s arms, Iblisveil shot him an antagonistic look.

  “Nagisa Akatsuki…the Fourth Primogenitor’s little sister?”

  Vattler looked back at those intruding upon the scene, laughing sarcastically as he said, “My, my, Your Highness, Iblisveil Aziz… To think the Priestess of Cain would arrive with the likes of you in attendance. This comes as quite a surprise.”

  Then he bowed with great courtesy.

  “The Priestess of Cain… You cannot mean…?!”

  Iblisveil looked at Asagi. Asagi shot a questioning look back at him. The surprised vampire prince could not conceal his shock, clicking his tongue and shaking his head as he said:

  “Well, fine. It seems this was fated to be. But I shall have you divulge the details, Vattler!”

  “Fate… It would be good if it ended simply as that… Now, then.”

  Vattler let Iblisveil’s provocation slide as his gaze shifted toward his own back.

  The next moment, there was an explosive roar, and the wall of ice fell away.

  As the frozen shards scattered about, an ironclad knight riding a wyvern emerged from within.

  Two Beast Vassals—an incandescent bird of prey and a spider spewing threads of magma—encircled their foe, resuming their battle with the man in archaic armor who seemed more than up to the task.

  “Vattler… Is that…?”

  Iblisveil narrowed his eyes, ferociously baring his fangs as he looked up at the iron knight.

  “Yes. An armed operative of the Cleansers.”

  “The Knight of Cain, then…… I see, so that is why you stepped to the fore.”

  “I suppose it works out that way.”

  Vattler casually shrugged his shoulders as Iblisveil began to understand.

  The iron knight’s deadly duel with the Beast Vassals was progressively drawing closer to Asagi and the others. Noticing this, Iblisveil leaped off the robot tank and gave a quick order, “Asagi, take those humans with you and withdraw. The safest place for them is likely at your side. He shall do you no harm.”

  “R-right… I don’t really get it, but sure! Tanker!”

  “At your command!!”

  Deftly controlling the robot tank’s manipulator arm, she recovered the wounded Gajou Akatsuki, the girl in the school uniform, and the old woman in the dougi uniform.

  “Take Nagisa Akatsuki as well. You have no complaints with this, Vattler?”

  Iblisveil glared at the young aristocrat from the Warlord’s Empire as he spoke, seemingly to preempt any move on his part.

  “Of course not,” Vattler replied, readily handing off the still-sleeping Nagisa to the robot tank’s manipulator. His demeanor was almost surprisingly cool, without a trace of opposition.

  The knight and his opponents continued their attacks.

  The knight of iron repelled the bird of prey, a mass of incandescent demonic energy, as the wyvern tore loose from the magma threads entwining its entire body. It was clear by that point that the Beast Vassals were being overwhelmed.

  “So Kira Voltisvala and Tobias Jagan are being repelled…… It would seem that is no ordinary demon beast. And that armor… It employs the power of the true Nod. Intriguing…”

  Iblisveil smiled ferociously as he gazed at Kira and Jagan’s dire straits. The chance encounter with an unexpectedly powerful opponent had kindled his demonic fighting instincts.

  “If possible, I would prefer to capture him alive, but…”

  Vattler gently chided the prince from the Fallen Dynasty. However, Iblisveil laughed loudly at the young aristocrat’s words of wisdom.

  “I’ll let you have the lizard. Let’s have some fun, Vattler.”

  A vast, ghastly aura scattered about as Iblisveil spread wings of demonic energy and leaped. He didn’t even bother to summon a Beast Vassal. Iblisveil simply pounded the wyvern with a demonic blow of his own, sending its huge frame crashing down.

  The iron knight was thrown from the wyvern’s back, but the tip of his lance was aimed at Iblisveil. The vampire prince’s face twisted in delight.

  “You are a witless fool to turn your blade on me! Rip out his entrails, Meretseger!”

  Iblisveil summoned his own Beast Vassal—an enormous cobra rivaling the wyvern in size. The wyvern roared in anguish as it came into contact with the fiercely poisonous miasma wrapped around its serpentine body.

  No living flesh of a mere demon beast could fend off an attack from a Beast Vassal—a collection of pure demonic energy. By rights, it would hardly have been strange for the wyvern to perish from the initial blow alone.

  Yet, the wyvern endured. Having landed atop the ice, the iron knight deployed his pitch-black mantle, absorbing the Beast Vassal’s attack like a skilled matador.

  The mantle’s hem spread what seemed like an all-consuming void, blocking the approach of Iblisveil’s cobra. The aura had no thickness, a thin membrane of nothingness. Even the miasma, able to lead any living creature to its doom through mere touch, could not destroy that wall of void.

  It was surely that ability of the knight that had caused Kira and Jagan such difficulty. The bizarre aura he deployed included the effect of annihilating demonic energy unleashed by a Beast Vassal. But.

  “Is that all, filthy peon—?!”

  Iblisveil laughed deeply, seemingly mocking the knight of iron.

  The long, serpentine body of the vampire’s Beast Vassal circled around the knight as if to hem it in. The next moment, a sudden change occurred in the very air. The entire space enveloped by the Beast Vassal was tinted a ghastly shade of purple; when the wyvern came into contact with that purple air, it convulsed, seemingly writhing. Its steel scales spewed white steam, as if melting from too high a temperature.

  Iblisveil’s Beast Vassal had transformed the air itself into a powerfully acidic poison. Even annihilating the demonic energy could not halt the air that had become thick with virulent toxins.

  “That
cobra… Was Meretseger not the Beast Vassal of Mavia, Second Crown Princess…? Your Highness, you…”

  “Did you believe that consuming your brethren was your own exclusive privilege, Master of Serpents?”

  In response to Vattler’s side glare, Iblisveil continued with venom in his voice.

  “Because of the humiliation that damned Zaharias inflicted on me during the Blazing Banquet, I exposed and struck down the traitor who sold me out to that arms merchant. No more than was due!”

  “I see…”

  Vattler smiled with visible satisfaction as he gazed at the prince of a rival nation that had raised his demonic energy to such impossible heights. He was like a hungry carnivore licking his chops as a feast was laid out before his eyes—

  At the height of the incident that brought about the revival of the Fourth Primogenitor, Iblisveil had tasted a humiliating defeat from a surprise attack by three Kaleid Bloods. In the span of less than a year, he had exacted his revenge upon the mastermind of the plot—his own biological sister—and in so doing, had increased his own combat capabilities. This gave Vattler great joy.

  “What is wrong, Knight of Cain? Are you done?”

  For his part, Iblisveil trained a cold gaze upon the iron knight he had wreathed in crippling poison. Though the iron armor was barely managing to protect him for the moment, it was only a matter of time until its durability was exhausted. Even its bizarre power could not destroy the Beast Vassal’s barrier. That was what everyone thought when, in the next moment…

  The knight of iron plunged his lance into the icy plain.

  A heavy machine gun for military use lay in that spot. Iblisveil had no way of knowing it, but it had been employed—and discarded—by Gajou Akatsuki. The instant the machine gun was pierced, the contours of the gunmetal lance contorted.

  The sharply tipped lance seemed to melt, coursing like jelly as it changed form, transforming into a brutal-looking firearm.

  “What…?!”

  The unnatural spectacle caused Iblisveil’s face to twitch.

  It resembled the transmutation employed by alchemists, but it was of a fundamentally different nature. Alchemists freely manipulated the structure of matter, but they could not copy complex mechanisms operating on principles they did not understand.