A deathly silence filled the hallway.
That soul-crushing shout of "we all deserve to die" had drained the last of Karl’s spirit and exhausted the rage and grief Morris had accumulated over half a lifetime.
He stood there, his chest still heaving, but the fire in his eyes had died out, leaving only ash-like exhaustion and emptiness.
On the floor, Karl Vincent was no longer a high-and-mighty Vice Commander, but merely a heap of breathing flesh.
He lay limp, the blood from his severed arm mingling with the bile vomited from his throat, emitting a stench of rust, rot, and despair.
His eyes were wide open, yet his pupils had lost focus, staring blankly at a void on the ceiling as if his soul had been completely ripped from its shell by the judgment just now.
Drip.
Drip.
The beads of blood seeping from the stump continued to tap rhythmically against the wooden floor, becoming the only sound in the silence.
Karl had brought three people with him when he came upstairs.
Morris, the magistrate he had never looked at with respect, was now looking down upon his hideous state with the eyes of a judge.
The other two were his personal guards, elites of the Patrol Division Third Battalion.
From the moment Morris began reciting those crimes, these two had fallen into a state of immense shock and stupor.
Their hands gripping their hilts forgot to draw their swords, and forgot to let them go.
Now, they watched the Vice Commander they were loyal to—the man they believed was omnipotent—sprawled on the ground like a dead dog, his spirit completely broken.
An emotion called panic finally broke through the shackles of discipline and exploded in their hearts.
The Adam's apple of one tall guard bobbed violently.
He looked at the mud-like Karl, then at the expressionless Klein, and finally, his gaze landed on Morris, the magistrate who had just denounced Karl.
Traitor.
The word thundered in his mind.
Reason collapsed rapidly, replaced by despair and a flicker of foolish loyalty.
"You... you traitor!"
A raspy roar broke the silence.
The tall guard's eyes instantly turned bloodshot. He finally drew the longsword from his waist. The blade did not point at the composed Klein, nor at the terrifying blonde Knightess.
He chose the target he considered the simplest.
Morris!
The sword flashed, carrying the final madness of a soldier as it pierced toward Morris’s chest.
After a brief hesitation, the other guard let out a strange cry and drew his sword to follow.
Their world had collapsed; this attack was not for victory, but a vent for their despair.
Morris’s pupils contracted sharply.
The roar from earlier seemed to have drained all his strength, leaving the legs of this naturally timid magistrate weak. He could only watch helplessly as the cold, glittering sword tip rapidly enlarged in his vision, unable to react at all.
The shadow of death enveloped him in an instant.
However, the sword did not hit him.
It did not even come within a foot of him.
Klein never even looked at the two charging guards.
He simply stood where he was, his right hand lightly raised as if brushing away an invisible speck of dust from his sleeve.
"Honestly," he sighed softly, his tone carrying a hint of helplessness, "I thought you would be a bit smarter."
Just before the sword tip could touch Morris’s clothes, the bodies of the two guards suddenly froze.
Their movements solidified in mid-air, their faces still wearing contorted and mad expressions, looking incredibly ridiculous.
"Ugh..."
A groan of pain squeezed out from the tall guard’s throat.
He felt an invisible force, like countless tough spider silks, seeping out from the air in all directions, tightly wrapping around his limbs, his torso, and his neck.
He could not move.
The power was so immense and irresistible that the muscles he took pride in were as fragile as cotton before it.
"Thud!"
"Thud!"
Two dull impacts rang out.
The two guards were lifted off the ground by that invisible force and then slammed heavily against the walls on either side.
The armor on their bodies collided with the walls, producing a tooth-gritting crash.
Immediately after, the force pinned them firmly to the walls, tightening further. Their bones groaned under the immense pressure, and their faces turned a deep purple from suffocation.
"Clang—"
The longswords slipped from their hands and hit the floor, letting out a series of crisp metallic clangs before finally falling silent.
The hallway grew quiet once again.
Morris stared blankly at the two soldiers who were "nailed" to the wall, unable even to struggle, and then looked at Klein, who remained as calm and casual as ever.
A chill shot from his tailbone straight to the top of his head.
Was it him... did this man before him make the move?
What... what kind of power was this?
Ophelia stood by Klein’s side, a flash of approval crossing her golden pupils.
She could clearly sense that in that instant, the mana Klein had mobilized was precise and efficient, without a single shred of waste.
This level of control over mana was not inferior even to the court mage she had seen.
The corners of her mouth curled up slightly into a smile that was almost imperceptible.
As expected of him.
Klein ignored the horror of the crowd.
He was an alchemist proficient in magic; the effect of these two disciplines coordinating on his home turf was far more than one plus one.
In neutralizing those two guards just now, he had merely activated a few "basic" arrays.
Having resolved the two small troubles in the room, his gaze seemed to penetrate the walls of the inn, looking out at the silent street.
There, a few minor threats still lurked.
Karl had brought more than just these three people.
Klein’s brow furrowed slightly.
"Such a hassle," he muttered under his breath.
He slowly raised his hand, his fingertips lightly tracing through the air.
Ophelia keenly sensed his intention, her golden eyes brightening slightly.
"Do you need me to take action?" she asked, her voice steady and reliable.
Klein turned to look at her, a relaxed smile appearing on his face.
"No need," he said. "Dealing with these minor roles doesn't require troubling my Knightess. You just stay here and watch. Also..."
He glanced at the pile of mud that was Karl on the floor.
"Keep an eye on him. Don't let him die. I still have some questions for him."
Ophelia nodded.
She knew Klein was about to get serious.
Klein’s lips moved slightly, and a series of low, ancient syllables filled with a strange rhythm spilled from his mouth.
The sound was light, yet it seemed to carry a vibration at the level of fundamental rules, causing the entire space to begin humming.
Morris felt his eardrums tremble slightly as an indescribable pressure surged from all directions.
Ophelia’s golden pupils glowed. She could feel the elemental mana around them being mobilized and reorganized at an unprecedented speed.
The temperature in the air was changing subtly.
This was the precursor to large-scale magic.
In the next moment, with Klein as the center, a faint silver-blue light lit up on the floor.
The light was initially just a point; then, countless complex, precise, and dizzying runes and lines centered on this point and spread outward like lightning.
They flowed along the floor, climbed up the walls, and interlaced across the ceiling.
Every line was frighteningly accurate, and every rune radiated an ancient and mysterious aura.
In the span of a single breath.
A volumetric magic array, so massive it defied imagination, formed instantly in a way that ignored physical obstacles.
It enveloped the entire second-floor hallway.
Then it penetrated the floor, enveloping the first-floor lobby.
Following that, it continued to expand, penetrating the thick walls of the inn, covering the street in front of the building, spreading into the alleys on both sides, and climbing onto the rooftops opposite...
The entire inn and the area within dozens of meters were completely enveloped by this massive magic array shimmering with a silver-blue ghostly light.
Morris’s mouth hung open. He saw the flowing lights pass under his feet as if they were alive; he could even feel a warm and majestic power brush over his body.
The power did not harm him; instead, it carried a strange sense of comfort that allowed his tensed nerves to relax slightly.
He had never seen such a magnificent sight.
This was not a battle; this was art.
It was like a miracle belonging to the golden age of magic, something that only appeared in ancient legends.
"This... this is..." Morris murmured to himself, his voice full of shock.
Ophelia looked at the runes flowing through the air, a flash of wonder appearing in her eyes.
Even she had to admit that Klein’s talent in magic had surpassed the vast majority of people in this era.
"Gravity magic," Klein said softly, as if explaining a simple arithmetic problem, "combined with a spatial binding spell, and topped with a few little alchemical tricks."
He paused, a somewhat proud smile appearing on his face.
"To be honest, I designed this array a long time ago and haven't had a chance to test it in actual combat. Today is a pretty good opportunity."
Morris was speechless.
My Lord, you call this a 'little trick'?
...
Outside the inn, over a dozen soldiers from the Patrol Division were lurking in the shadows.
They were the elites of the Third Battalion, Karl Vincent’s most loyal subordinates.
They held their breath, their longswords and spanned crossbows all aimed at the various exits of the inn.
They were waiting.
Waiting for the signal from the Vice Commander.
Once the signal appeared, they would turn into the fiercest hounds and tear this little inn to shreds.
A squad leader hid in the shadows of a street corner, his eyes sharp and focused on the second-floor window where lamplight shone through.
Suddenly, his pupils contracted.
He saw a smear of silver-blue light.
The light seeped out from the walls of the inn, tracing strange and complex patterns on the stone slabs of the ground.
"What is that?"
The soldiers beside him also noticed the anomaly and let out suppressed cries of surprise.
The squad leader’s heart skipped a beat.
An ominous premonition surged in his mind.
"Retreat! Quick, retreat—"
Before his command could be shouted, the silver-blue light covered every inch of the ground beneath their feet in an instant.
Then, an indescribable and terrifying pressure descended from the sky.
It was not a physical weight, but a more fundamental, more irresistible suppression.
It was as if the gravity of the entire world had concentrated on them at this moment.
The squad leader’s body sank abruptly.
He felt as if an invisible mountain range had been pressed upon him. Immense force squeezed in from all directions, and his knees buckled, sending him thudding to the ground.
"Ugh!"
He let out a grunt, trying to use his longsword to prop up his body, but the force suddenly surged.
The bones throughout his body wailed, and his muscle fibers let out a cry of being on the brink of tearing.
"Clang!"
The longsword slipped from his trembling hand and fell to the ground.
His entire body was pinned ruthlessly to the ground, his cheek pressed tightly against the cold stone slab. Even lifting a finger became a luxury.
Panic bred wildly in his heart.
He looked around, and the sight he saw made his soul nearly leave his body.
His companions, the Empire’s elites who were usually brave and skilled in battle, were all pinned to the ground by an invisible force just like him.
Some were kneeling, some were prone, in various postures, but without exception, they had lost all ability to resist.
Their weapons were scattered across the ground, reflecting a cold and desperate light under the silver-blue magical glow.
A young soldier’s cheek was pressed against the rough stone. His lips trembled as he squeezed out a few words: "What... what is this..."
His voice was quickly swallowed by fear.
On his chest armor, the runes that were supposed to defend against magical intrusion lit up with a faint light, like dying fireflies. The light flickered for less than a breath before being completely extinguished.
The squad leader’s eyes widened as he watched the runes go dark one by one.
Those were defensive runes specially made by the Imperial Armory, capable of withstanding direct hits from mid-level magic.
But now, they were like scraps of paper, utterly meaningless.
His throat tightened; he wanted to shout something, but found that even breathing had become difficult. That pressure continued to intensify, as if it were going to completely flatten his lungs.
The suppressed groans of his companions drifted over, along with the harsh sound of armor grinding against the ground.
The squad leader’s vision began to blur, and the silver-blue light before his eyes grew more and more dazzling.
It wasn't over yet.
When the glow of the silver-blue runes on the ground reached its peak, strands of pitch-black shadows, like living things, rose from the earth.
Those shadows turned into tough ropes, automatically winding around the immobile soldiers.
They bound the soldiers' hands and feet securely, their movements precise and efficient as if they had a consciousness of their own.
Then, they dragged them together in groups of three or five, piling them up into heaps.
The entire process was terrifyingly quiet.
There were no battle cries, no screams, only the 'shuffling' sound of armor rubbing against the ground and the 'clinking' of falling weapons.
The occasional suppressed groans were also quickly strangled in their throats by that invisible pressure.
The ambush circle that had been brimming with murderous intent just minutes ago had now turned into a large, silent prisoner camp.
Over a dozen elite soldiers had been easily subdued by a single magic array.
They hadn't even had the chance to resist.
Back in the hallway, as Klein’s final syllable fell, the magnificent magic array that had enveloped the interior and exterior receded like a tide, finally vanishing from sight.
Rate on N.U.
