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“Hurry!” A knight hurried his horse onward when the castle of the Ducal Family of Agnus came into view. Now that he was somewhat close, it was obvious that something really serious was going on in the castle based on the black smoke filling the sky above it.
“Your Grace! We’ll arrive at the castle soon, so we’ll have to prepare in case—”
Before he could even finish, the young man he spoke to, who was thirty years old at maximum, smiled crookedly as he rode his horse next to the knight. His ash blonde and ashen golden eyes made him look quite depressed.
“Didn’t you say that there were only two enemies?” the young man asked.
“
Yes.” The knight bitterly nodded. “But their skills are
”
“Hahahahaha, how did the Great Ducal Family of Agnus become this mess?” The young man chuckled gloomily and turned behind him, rather than to his aide who was at his side.
“Armstrong,” he called.
“
Yes, Your Grace,” Armstrong replied.
“There are at least three hundred knights in the family’s castle, but there are only two enemies. Still, we’re so worried that we’re busting our asses to return.” The young man chuckled bitterly.
Armstrong tried to defend the ducal family.
“
They would definitely be extraordinarily skilled people, or else—”
“You know I’m not talking about that.” The young man narrowed his eyes. Armstrong shut his mouth.
“If my father was still alive, even the three Celestials wouldn’t dare to ambush my family, would they?”
Armstrong closed his eyes for a moment.
“
It’s meaningless to talk about ‘ifs’ in a situation like this, Your Grace.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you’re right, hahaha.” The young man quietly chuckled. “Do you resent me? For dozens of years, you’ve devoted yourself to this family—no, my father, to be exact.”
Armstrong remained expressionless.
“You were the Golden Mane Corps Commander, leader of the best knights of this duchy, but I demoted you to a vice-commander as soon as I acquired power. If you only said you’d serve me, I wouldn’t have gone that far
 but you didn’t swear your loyalty to me in the end.”
They had already made their way right in front of the Duke’s castle, and they could already feel the heat of the roaring flames.
The young man frowned for a moment. “Would things have been different if Joshua led this family?”
Armstrong flinched.
“Hahaha.” The young man chuckled. “I guess I don’t need to hear your answer.”
“Your Grace
” Armstrong tried to say something, but his voice was drowned out when the young man began shouting
“Knights of the Great Ducal Family of Agnus, listen! Enemies trample over our lands right before our eyes! ”
Still riding their horses, the knights drew their swords.
“Although there are only two enemies, their abilities are assumed to be as great as any Superhumans,” the young man said.
The knights shuffled nervously.
“But do not be afraid. We are the first family, the leaders of the Avalon Empire, and no one can stand above us!” The young man lowered his helmet’s visor. “I, Babel von Agnus, order you as the head of the Great Ducal Family of Agnus!”
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“We listen!” the knights shouted.
“Enter the castle immediately, and when you find the enemies that dared to trespass into this land
” Babel drew his sword “...kill them all!”
The knights stomped their feet on the ground.
“We will obey!”
* * *
At the same time, someone covered in black clothes landed lightly on the rooftop of the Agnus mansion in Arcadia, the capital. To be exact, there were at least twenty people wearing black clothes that landed on the roof, even though it was midday.
One of them—he seemed to be the most senior of the masked men—lightly tapped the roof with the back of their hand and looked to their side.
“Are you sure she’s below here?”
“I’m sure.”
“We can make no mistakes. There are only two guards standing by the door, so we’ll only kidnap the target and escape immediately.”
The other masked men simultaneously produced tight, sturdy ropes.
“We’re done preparing,” they told their leader. “Waiting for your order.”
The senior masked man glanced behind him at another masked person. This person’s gender was impossible to determine just by looking at their physique, but he had an impressive black dragon embroidered on his chest. He was the Assassin King.
“We don’t have time,” the senior masked man told the Assassin King.
The Assassin King stayed silent.
“Assassin King!” the senior masked man hissed, but the Assassin King still remained silent. He frowned behind his mask and was about to shout again.
“Who’s there?”
As soon as the senior masked man noticed something was wrong, he leaped like a fish returning to the water and spun midair, just as a sharp sword rose from underneath the roof where the senior masked man had been standing.
The masked man realized he couldn’t wait any longer, so he shouted, “Enter!”
A massive explosion large enough to be heard throughout the entire mansion signaled the beginning of their operation. The masked men jumped into the mansion through the holes that had just been created in the roof.
“Arrgggh!” Horrible screams echoed in the air.
Their leader quietly gritted his teeth. He looked to his side, realized that the Assassin King hadn’t budged at all, and felt his anger boil over
“Have you forgotten how important this mission is?” he furiously demanded.
The Assassin King stayed quiet.
“I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I’m definitely going to report what happened today to the Darkness Emperor,” the masked man growled.
After that last warning, the masked man seemed to conclude that he couldn’t waste any more time and he immediately disappeared into the holes.
When the Assassin King was finally left alone, he began to whisper to himself.
“Mission
 My mission is
”
He glanced down and made a shocking remark.
“...disregard all the other requests and prioritize rescuing Lucia ben Britten.”
His voice was angelic, but that wasn’t nearly as important as the fact that he’d just stated that his goals were the total opposite of the goals of the masked men who had just entered the castle.
“The person who made the request is
” The Assassin King clenched his fists. “
the Hero King.”
He—no, she—crumpled up the parchment that she had been clutching in her hand belatedly leaped down to the building through the big hole in the roof just like the masked men had.
* * *
“Urgh!” A man wearing full plate armor groaned for the last time before he died. The knight’s blood belatedly splattered in the air through the cut on his neck.
After finally slaying the last knight, Draxia swung his sword, scattering the blood on the blade over the ground.
“Give up now,” Draxia said.
But who was he talking to?
Draxia adjusted his grip on his rather ordinary longsword.
“Raise your head, Babel von Agnus, and see the reality with your own eyes.”
When he finished speaking, Draxia slowly walked toward an ash-blonde man who lay on his stomach, covered in blood. Blood welled up at the tip of the man’s hair and dripped onto the ground. Draxia eyed Babel von Agnus, the ash-blonde man, silently.
“It’s not just your family,” Draxia eventually continued. “The Swallow and Hubalt Empire Alliance will devour the Avalon Empire anyway, and then your family will also—”
“
Ha, hahahaha.” Babel burst into laughter.
Draxia’s eyes turned cold. “
What’s so funny?”
“Do you think the Ducal Family of Agnus will kneel before that bastard alliance?” Babel smirked.
Draxia’s eyes widened for a moment, but he quickly regained his composure.
“I admire your spirit, but it looks like your body says otherwise.”
Babel panted so loudly that Draxia could hear it. Judging from how Babel occasionally rasped, it looked like there was a problem in his lungs. And yet he forced himself upright with a crooked smile, even though his body was in no state to stand.
“Hmm
” Draxia groaned to himself. “Why is he so persistent?”
“A man oughta know when to give up,” Anna butted in, having watched the whole thing. “Gosh, you guys are brothers, so why are you two so different from one another? On top of that, it’s not like you’re even strong or anything, but Joshua is quite an attractive man even without his abilities.”
She sounded like she was talking about her lover.
“Aha, is it because you don’t share the same blood?” Anna sarcastically continued, “Well, yeah, you two have totally different parents
 so you guys are basically strangers.”
Babel’s head dropped, his eyes widening furiously. “
You—!”
“Anna,” Draxia interrupted before Babel could finish speaking, “I told you to not talk too much.”
“How—!” Babel tried to speak again but coughed up blood and was forced to claw for breath. He was at his limit; the dried-up blood blocked his view, and his body felt heavy like soaked cotton. The stab wound on his stomach was the worst of it all; it was so serious that his intestines were exposed to the air.
“Fu
ck
!” Babel quietly cursed at the reality he faced: Anna and Draxia had unbelievably annihilated the Ducal Family of Agnus’ knights.
At that moment, someone called out in a faint voice, “Your
 Gr
 ace
”
“
Chiffon!” Babel quickly turned his head and saw the wounded Chiffon rapidly fading away right beside him. The knight’s right leg had been neatly severed; his situation looked dire.
“I’m sorry
 for failing to protect you
 Cough!.. until the end
” Chiffon squeezed out with difficulty.
“Chiffon! Wake up!” Babel shouted.
“There is
 something I must
 tell you
” Chiffon continued, struggling to enunciate each word as clearly as possible.
“Tell me that after you survive!” Babel cried.
“Tsk, that’s a pity. His only mistake was choosing the wrong master, but he died...” Anna said.
Babel boiled with anger. She made him so furious that he felt like he was going to go mad. However, there was nothing Babel could do except grit his teeth. If a devil really existed, Babel desperately wished he could sell his soul for more power, but

Babel wasn’t sure what was happening. A stranger suddenly showed up and stood between Babel and Draxia. At first, Babel thought Draxia had approached to cut off his head; however, it wasn’t Draxia.
“Who
 are you?” Babel asked.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” the stranger said without turning around.
“
I’m sorry? Then you must not be a devil
 How dare you make the head of the Great Ducal Family of Agnus look up—”
Babel couldn’t finish speaking. A wind suddenly blew, making the stranger’s black hair flutter, belatedly catching Babel’s eyes.
“You
” Babel blankly mumbled. For some reason, the stranger’s back looked familiar to Babel. Then someone’s face suddenly flashed in his mind, making Babel’s jaw slowly drop. “No way
?”
“Rest for a while,” the stranger said.
Someone else reacted first.
“Joshua?” Anna dumbfoundedly said.
“Draxia bel Grace,” Joshua called with his low, sonorous voice.
When he heard his name, Draxia flinched and froze up.
“I’m at the last stage of my revenge,” Joshua said.
Draxia narrowed his eyes.
“And I’ll start that stage with you.”
That was all Joshua said.
He wasn’t holding the spear that had come to symbolize him, so instead, he just casually waved his hand. However, that was enough to shake the sky.
The ground under him turned upside down when he fired his concentrated mana forward. And


an earsplitting boom wracked heaven and earth.