"Run!!"
John jolted awake from his coma.
He gripped Victor's sleeve tightly, his cloudy eyes filled with an unspeakable terror.
"Child! You've been controlled! Run!"
He desperately tried to push Victor away, but his skeletal frame had been shattered for too long; he had no strength left.
"I saw the trap! The crest on it... it's the 'Black Iron Sword'! It's the elite execution squad of the Corvinus family! They're here! They're coming to kill you!"
The old hunter's voice was hoarse and trembling.
Victor frowned.
"Black Iron Sword?"
He pulled up the system map.
On the map, the edge of the Eternal Night Peninsula, which was originally pitch black, suddenly lit up with a massive cluster of dense red dots.
Those dots formed a giant, moving phalanx, advancing violently from the forest's edge toward the clinic with an unstoppable momentum.
The sound of trees being felled, horses neighing, and the metallic friction of heavy armor clashing grew clearer and closer by the second.
"All personnel, Level 1 Alert!"
Victor suddenly raised his volume, his voice instantly reaching every corner of the castle.
"Detection signal received!"
Helena's modified, mechanized electronic voice echoed in Victor's mind.
"A heavy knight squad, approximately fifty men, is forcibly dismantling the outer mist barrier."
"Well-equipped, highly trained. Preliminary assessment... gold-rank combat power configuration!"
Victor looked at the blood-red area advancing slowly on the map, showing no sign of fear.
Instead, the corners of his mouth curled into a somewhat frantic arc.
"Family assassins? They arrived faster than I thought."
He pushed up his non-existent glasses, his gaze as sharp as an eagle's.
"It seems the 'return gift' I sent Lancelot worked even better than expected."
"Very good."
Victor looked toward the entrance.
There, the wooden perimeter wall that had been easily torn apart by Mia was now being crudely repaired.
Several low-level mud golems, as massive as boulders, were clumsily stacking broken wood and giant stones together. They weren't fast, but they possessed immense strength.
"That's not an army," Victor explained calmly to old John.
"That is... a renovation team."
"It's just that the materials they use might be a bit... special."
Rumble—!!!
The earth trembled again.
This time, the vibration was even more violent.
Victor could even feel the castle's foundation shaking.
"What's going on?" Elizabeth poked her head out from behind the counter, her red eyes filled with vigilance.
"Something is... striking the edge of the peninsula."
"It's not a strike."
Victor's voice became abnormally calm, but his eyes were as cold as ten-thousand-year-old ice.
"They're... 'opening the door'."
His gaze pierced through the layers of mist, seeing the very edge of the peninsula, where the massive barrier formed by ancient curses isolated human civilization—
The Wall of Sighs.
At this moment, that massive magical barrier, composed of countless shattered souls and shrieking sounds, was being frantically scorched and corroded by a dazzling pillar of golden light.
Crack—!
A crisp sound echoed.
The barrier shattered.
A crack instantly spread out, as if space itself were being torn apart.
Pouring out from the rift were countless fully-armed knights.
They wore shining silver armor, and upon their chests sat the crest of the "Black Iron Sword," burning with flames.
The lead knight stood a full two meters tall, clad in heavy black battle armor, holding a greatsword even taller than himself.
The blade of the greatsword was covered in mysterious runes, currently emitting a suffocatingly holy glow.
"The Corvinus family's elite execution squad?!"
The moment the old hunter John saw that army, his eyes widened so far they nearly popped out, and his mouth hung open wide enough to fit a fist.
"This... it's all over!"
"That army... I heard about them back in my great-great-grandfather's generation!"
"They are the family's 'sweepers,' specifically responsible for carrying out the most brutal orders, purging traitors and enemies!"
"And... before they arrive, they perform a ritual called 'Holy Judgment'!"
"Once the ritual is complete, their strength is bolstered by the holy light, making them incredibly powerful!"
"The leader... is Knight Captain Gareth! A gold-rank powerhouse! The sword in his hand... is the 'Blade of Judgment' bestowed by the Church!"
"It's over! They're playing for keeps this time! We're dead!"
John collapsed to the ground in terror, the splints on his legs falling off as he completely lost the courage to fight.
Victor looked at the grand army and the golden pillar of light tearing through the sky, yet his expression remained unnervingly calm.
He felt no fear at all.
Instead, he pulled something from his robes.
It was a...
Newly sharpened, cold-glinting, massive...
Chainsaw.
"Heh."
Victor grinned, flashing an incredibly bright smile at the golden knight order that looked like divine soldiers descending from the heavens.
"You've come at just the right time."
He violently pulled the starter cord of the chainsaw.
Vroom—!!!
The roar of the engine instantly drowned out all other noise.
"Barging in without an appointment?"
Victor carried the chainsaw and walked slowly onto the second-floor balcony of the castle.
He stood there, facing the deafening roar of the knight captain echoing through the valley.
The roar, amplified by battle qi, was crystal clear, carrying the weight of a holy trial.
"Heretic Victor, surrender immediately! Accept your Holy Judgment!"
Victor did not respond.
He just listened quietly, then silently added a thought in his heart:
'Barging in without an appointment?'
'Then I'll just process you as "body donation" volunteers.'
He looked at the fully-armed, murderous golden knight order with eyes that held no ripples.
There was only a look...
Like an experienced doctor seeing a pile of top-tier "experimental materials" waiting for his surgery.
"Come."
Victor slowly raised the Rusty Saw of Redemption in his hand.
"Today, I'll show you all what a real..."
"Surgical operation looks like."
Rate on N.U.
