He no longer cared if the enemy detected the flux of his holy light. As long as he was fast enough, he did not believe that the revulsive couple could escape his pursuit!
Chapter 967 - The Vanished Dark Knight
After giving chase several kilometers, Kennet finally caught up to Rena in a clearing in the woods.
Rena was only a Second Grade witch that had attained her level through potions and resources obtained due to her connections. She typically lived in comfort and luxury and had never really experienced real combat. That was why her decision to flee had appeared to be hesitant and indecisive.
By the time the Dark Knight discovered the enemy approaching, Rena was no longer able to escape from a berserk Gold Knight with her Physique.
Rena turned her head and looked behind her. The blinding radiance that emanated from the Gold Knight when he sprinted only made Rena even more flustered and terrified.
She secretly took out a small vial of potion, opened the cork, and started chanting a strange spell. A completely black, three-tailed scorpion climbed out of the bottle. Its three tails stood straight up and shot a gray beam at the towering Dark Knight.
The Dark Knight froze on the spot.
“Go, stall him with your life.”
Rena hastily gave the Dark Knight a suicide order and continued to flee frenziedly into the forest.
An expression of despair, hatred, and relief appeared on the face of the Dark Knight beneath the helmet. He took out the massive longsword at his waist and turned to engage the Gold Knight.
Enemies with a grudge tended to clash violently upon meeting!
Even though the Dark Knight knew this was a suicidal act, he was under the compulsion of the damned witch’s unusual magic. Thus, he gathered his densely evil aura and slashed at the Gold Knight’s cluster of holy light.
Dong! A muffled boom rang out.
The power of darkness clashed with the power of holy light.
Light and darkness neutralized each other, and sparks flew from the clashing longswords.
The Dark Knight had only just fallen, after all. His mastery of the powers of darkness was still lacking. Moreover, there was a tremendous difference between his Strength and the Gold Knight’s Strength. It was almost as if he had been blown away by an elephant. He flew across the clearing, snapping countless branches and bushes until he finally crashed into a tall and ancient tree.
This entirely artless crash had dispersed all the powers of darkness from the Dark Knight’s body. His bones and organs were also slightly injured by the impact. If it weren’t for his armor neutralizing most of the force, he would probably have died immediately from the Strength of the Gold Knight.
Even so, he had lost all his ability to resist. His body was stuck in the tree, and even slightly struggling caused purple and black blood to come flowing out of his shattered armor.
On the other hand, Kennet had been mildly injured against the berserker strike of a Second Grade Dark Knight. However, as a holy knight who had the protection of holy light, the minor wounds were immediately healed within two seconds.
Kennet walked up to the Dark Knight and lifted his faceplate with the tip of his longsword, revealing the sickly pale and youthful face beneath.
“Essi Daven, what was the cause of your depravity?” The tip of Kennet’s blade was trembling slightly.
Essi Daven had been an elite that his chapel had specially chosen and trained over the years. He had become a Second Grade Silver Knight despite his young age. If he hadn’t made any mistakes, he would have become a respected Third Grade Gold Knight within three to four decades.
It was Kennet that personally gave Essi Daven the order to pursue the witch upon hearing of her appearance near the chapel. It was Kennet’s goodwill. He had hoped that Essi would perform well in this witch-hunt, thereby obtaining even more grace from the Holy Light.
It would undoubtedly have been exceedingly beneficial to his power and talent!
Perhaps he would be qualified to preside over a Holy Light Chapel of his own in another region once he succeeded in this operation.
Unfortunately, his fate took an unexpected twist upon meeting the evil witch.
For some unknown reason, he quickly became depraved and fallen. Lured and aided by the evil witch, he embraced the darkness and became an enemy of the Holy Light. What else could infuriate Kennet even more? What else could make him so unreasonably mad?!
That was why Kennet had been so desperate to capture Essi Daven. He had to ask him why personally.
Sadly, the completely fallen Essi Daven remained silent. His gaze was unfocused, and traces of darkness radiated from his eyes as if he had no intelligence to speak of.
The longsword in Kennet’s hand quivered slightly. There were several times when he wanted to cut off Essi Daven’s head, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
Finally, a cold light gleamed in Kennet’s eyes. He sliced off both of Essi’s legs with two quick slashes, then picked up his dark longsword and pinned him to the tree by the left shoulder.
Kennet left immediately after doing this, his eyes drifting in the direction where the evil witch had fled. He continued his pursuit.
One had to admit that Rena was truly one useless Second Grade witch.
Even with the three minutes that her Dark Knight had gained her, she still couldn’t escape from Kennet’s pursuit.
She didn’t know how to hide her tracks or how to avoid her enemy’s pursuit. In the complex terrain of the Forest of Darkness, Rena only managed to run for two and a half kilometers before Kennet once again caught up to her.
This time, there was no longer anyone who could help her!
Kennet had caught up to Rena’s side just by braving all her magical attacks. He then struck her on the back with the flat of the blade and knocked her unconscious.
After searching and taking away all of Rena’s vials and accessories, as well as severing all her tendons, Kennet grabbed her by the hair and dragged her all the way back.
There was no proper path in the Forest of Darkness. Kennet also made sure to walk where the brambles and thorns were most dense. Witch Rena’s body was soon covered with hundred and thousands of cuts and wounds along the way. By the time they arrived at the withered tree, Rena’s clothes had turned into rags, and her exposed skin had been utterly ravaged.
Kennet suddenly stopped in his tracks and looked at the empty tree.
The longsword he had thrust into the tree was still there, but Essi Daven, whose legs had been cut off and whose bones had been completely shattered, had mysteriously vanished.
It wasn’t just his body that had disappeared. Even his two severed legs were gone without a trace!
“Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!” Kennet thrust Rena against the tree and started circling frantically on the spot.
His plentiful tracking experience told him that Essi Daven had not left on his own. Rather, he had been saved by an outsider. Moreover, the person who saved him was not only powerful but also possessed a unique means of stealth. Otherwise, something would have been left behind; there was not even a single trace or clue.
The witch’s companion?
Kennet picked Rena up and lifted her before his eyes. He glared at her viciously.
“Speak! Do you have any other companions here? Who saved Essi Daven?”
Naturally, since the Gold Knight had snapped Rena’s spine, she had no means of resistance. She lifted her terrifying face covered in blood and scratch marks and screamed curses at the holy knight.
“Let me go! Let me go! Kill me, and my companions will avenge me!”
He slapped Rena twice across the face brutally before she could finish her words. Bruises instantly appeared on her face, and most of her teeth also became loose from the impact.
“I don’t want to hear another useless word from your mouth. Speak! Who are your companions? Where are they hiding? Tell me this, and I will give you a quick death. Otherwise, wait to bathe in the Holy Light!”
“No more. There are no more! There were three of us this time, but an accident happened when we were traveling through the spatial rift. We were split up.”
“Where have the other two gone?”
“I don’t know! I really don’t! I am just here to transport the materials for the magical array. Where they landed in this plane from the space storm, I…really don’t know!”
There were divine spells that allowed the holy knights to discern truths from lies. Kennet finally gave up his interrogation after confirming that the broken witch was not lying.
Since it wasn’t the witch’s companion, then it was very likely a native magical creature of the Forest of Darkness!
Essi Daven’s aura of darkness matched this place very well, indeed. Was he devoured by a magical creature that passed by? Or had he been brought back to the magical creature’s den?
Kennet found no answers, no matter how hard he thought. In the end, he gave up on searching for Essi. Instead, he picked the captive witch up and sprinted out of the forest.
Once his silhouette completely vanished from the forest, a pale face suddenly appeared on the ancient tree where the dark longsword was embedded. The face gazed in the direction where the Gold Knight had disappeared.
It blinked a few times and opened its large mouth, spitting out Essi Daven from within the tree.
His two legs had mysteriously been reattached.
After much difficulty, Essi Daven finally got up from the damp ground and looked at this face in silence.
Ever since he embraced the darkness, he felt like his soul had been covered with a thin veil. Everything he heard and saw and thought was completely different from before.
This human face gave him a similar feeling of peculiarity.
“Hehe, that little witch has quite some tricks up her sleeves. To think she managed to activate the talent for darkness hiding within you. That’s a win for this Lord. I never expected to pick up a decently talented Dark Knight in such a lowly plane. Good, good, good. Come with me now, you!”
The human face on the tree opened its mouth as wide as it could, opening a spatial tunnel in the tree that led to a mysterious space.
The still confused Essi Daven only hesitated for a moment before diving into the dark tunnel and vanishing completely from Henvic Plane.
Kennet, having left earlier, was utterly ignorant of everything that had just transpired.
All his attention was focused on the captive Witch Rena.
Chapter 968 - The Fate of the Witch
Haisas City.
It was not yet harvest season, but the citizens of Haisas were as excited and joyous as if it was a time of celebration.
The entire city bubbled with commotion as the majestic holy knights in shining armor escorted the creaking wooden cage through the streets.
A witch. So that was a witch!
The Zambez Empire had suffered greatly since the otherworldly witches had invaded the Henvic Plane.
They raided the mines and seized the high-grade resources, treating the entire plane as their garden and doing as they liked. Sometimes, to punish places that rejected the witch forces, they even released plagues and had no concern for the deaths of ordinary civilians at all.
It was the past hundred years of such atrocities that caused the people of Zambez to hate the witches with such intense passion. There was a deep-seated resentment that emanated from their very being.
That was why all of Haisas’ population took to the streets when they heard the holy knights–the personification of justice itself–had captured the terrifying witch from the Forest of Darkness and put her in a cage. As the enclosure wheeled down the streets of the city slowly, the people of Haisas greeted her with rotten leaves, dirty water, and sharp stones.
The people chased after the cage, cheering as they threw their rocks at the shivering witch within. It was obvious that this witch had once been a woman of exceptional beauty, with an enviable figure and a perfect face.
Unfortunately, the unrelenting hatred of the holy knights ensured her torture in their hands. Now, she was shut in a cage like a beast and ridiculed, attacked, and humiliated by the common people.
The devastating damage to her person and the fear of death had chased away Rena’s former brilliance and beauty. Her hair was a tangled mess, and her robe had been torn into rags and ribbons that couldn’t hide her body.
She had all sorts of scratch marks and bruises on her exposed skin. What was once smooth and white now showed signs of wrinkles and spots, like withered tree bark.
Rena looked at the people cheering around her prison with a numb expression, simply letting the rotten vegetables and sharp pebbles hit her body. She did not seem to have any intention to shield herself or dodge the projectiles.
“Burn her.”
“Tie her to the stake.”
Rena’s body twitched uncontrollably and intensely every time such a yell came from the crowd.
Her heart was filled with hatred, and her soul contained nothing but unfathomable resentment.
Unfortunately, frightening anti-magic shackles had been placed on her wrists and ankles. They were made of special magical metal and could not be easily destroyed by acid or other corrosive spells. Countless tiny metal spikes lined the insides of the shackles, piercing into her flesh. Even the slightest of movements would cause intense pain to wash over her entire body.
A special mask covered her face, and an egg-sized metal ball had been stuffed in her mouth. These things prevented Rena from chanting incantations or making handsigns, even without the guards overseeing her.
Low-grade instant-cast spells could not be cast inside this wooden cage either. It had been drawn with all sorts of strange runes. Henvic might be a low-magic world, but its research on magic had not lagged behind at all.
They were still capable of researching an anti-magic barrier like this, with the holy light as the power source!
Rena’s cage was immediately sent to the Holy Light Chapel of Haisas City. More and more holy knights were gathering there, with as many as five Third Grade Gold Knights already present.
The number of Gold Knights wasn’t to keep watch over a mere Second Grade witch but to protect the core magical array materials they had obtained through searching Rena’s person.
The attack on the Dabyrie Highlands had been ongoing for six months now. Though the Zambez Empire was suffering terrible losses, the witches were also at their limits. Given the current momentum, the mighty Empire would only need to grit their teeth, ignore the necessary sacrifices, and they would be able to break into the witch’s tower in another three to four months.
If the witch’s tower obtained these magical array ingredients and fixed their interplanar teleportation array, all of the losses that the Empire had sustained over the past year would have been for nothing. That was why, even with the tension at the frontlines, the holy knight alliance still sent three powerful Gold Knights back to Haisas City. In combination with the two Gold Knights near the area, it was a total of five Third Grade Gold Knights guarding the witch and the magical array materials.
The Fourth Grade Holy Knight Ad Carrhae had also turned west instead of continuing his journey north. He was hurrying here to meet the holy knights in Haisas City. With a Fourth Grade Holy Knight escorting the group, they would be able to safely bring the witch and the materials back to the capital.
Safety was only assured once they were in the capital!
As such, three days after Witch Rena was brought into Haisas, and seven days before the Fourth Grade Holy Knight arrived, the disguised Greem reached the city along with the crowd.
Haisas City was practically under martial law now. The Holy Light Chapel was firmly guarded by holy knights that had hurried over from all over the Empire. The Haisas City guards still managed the security
of the city and the identification of the travelers, but the city gates, the customs, and several other key positions were reinforced with small groups of holy knights.
Military control had been applied to these locations to prevent the witch’s companions making it into Haisas. The examination at the city gates was unusually strict. Many ordinary merchant groups and caravans had already been denied entry. These people had no choice but to take temporary residence in the nearby towns.
Greem, who had hurried over after hearing the news from the Forest of Darkness, had no choice but to intercept a First Grade Iron Knight. He killed the knight and changed into the standard armor of the holy knights. He then rode a tall horse to the gates of Haisas.
The city guards that surrounded the gates saluted upon seeing Greem’s holy knight armor. They then sent someone to report Greem’s arrival to the holy knights stationed there.
Soon, three holy knights emerged from the city with a dozen trainee knights and quickly arrived in front of Greem and his horse.
“The Light be with us! Brother from afar, which Chapel have you come from?” The three holy knights were all First Grade Iron Knights. The one at the very front was a middle-aged man with a full beard. He pressed his hand against his chest and greeted Greem warmly.
Greem leaped off his horse and returned the greeting with the same gesture, “The Light be with us! It is good to see you. I am Eadric from Bael’dun City on the edge of the Avelli Mountains. I was traveling near the Forest of Darkness when I heard that Haisas was gathering the forces of the Holy Light. I rushed here, hoping to contribute my own insignificant power!”
“So you’re from the Avelli Mountains! No wonder you look so unfamiliar! Welcome, brother! Haisas welcomes you!” The holy knight in the lead said with a smile on his face, “I am Heilit, and today I am on duty at the city gates. Speaking of which, I remember Old Christopher was the one in charge of Bael’dun. I used to drink with him. How is he now? He’s still doing good, isn’t he?”
Greem ambled toward the city with his companion, shaking his head and smiling as he replied, “Sir Christopher had already retired from old age and returned to his hometown of Frostspring valley five years ago. The one managing Bael’dun now is Sir Alamande Graythorn. He also left seven months ago, leading many of our brothers to Dabyrie.”
Age of Adepts c1-1513 Page 595