Holy Knight Jerea (2)

By fulfilling the task given to them by the gods and drinking the holy water of the Grail given to them by the Lionheart King, they are able to reconstruct their bodies and become Holy Knights.

The Holy Knight's powers are most notable for their status as an "agent of the gods".

Arianna of light and justice.

Poma of the sea and waves.

Fle of dreams and death.

Petos of war and flame.

Demera of life and fertility.

Hero of iron and blacksmithing.

Ultima of the sky and thunder.

Tatar of the Sun and Judgment.

Dinah of the Moon and Purity.

Irmin of the forest and trees.

Ventasis of darkness and vengeance.

Sustained by the faith of their followers, they grant their representatives, or "living saints," the power of the faith offered to them.

In other words, unlike the Knights, who are limited to their own holy power, the Holy Knight transforms all the faith offered to a deity into holy power.

As such, a Holy Knight is a vast repository of faith that encompasses the deity and its followers, and their natural ability, given their immense holy power, is Perfect Vitality.

Vitality. In other words, living power.

In other words, a Holy Knight maintains 'perfect vitality' at any given moment──

"How can these lunatics raid for three days straight without rest!"

They never tire.

No matter how many days… no, hundreds of years… of intense battles, their bodies never run out of energy.

"We've already been attacked over three hundred times!"

The barbarian tribes that worship the beast gods are tired of the unrelenting raids that have been going on since the night, three days ago.

They understand if it's a nighttime raid. No, they honestly don't.

A battle requires a minimum of soldiers, but there were only 2 enemies against an army of tens of thousands.

The raids even occurred during the day.

Raiding food stores, blowing up weapons caches, and even slaughtering entire tribes of orcs before making their escape.

'Those fanatics, singing their songs of honor…!'

Surprise is not honorable. The Knights of the Lionheart may sing of righteousness from the front, but they are brutally ignoring it when it comes to the three classes of enemies.

Orcs, heretics, and demons.

They make no secret of their Lionheart-style I-do-it, you-do-it, dishonor mentality, saying that honor is about choosing whom you defend.

"Why the hell can't we catch them!?"

"Because...."

They're Holy Knights.

Everyone knew it.

The ones that defied all odds and impossibilities, freaks whose very existence was unreasonable.

They knew it and even their tribal leader, Dagil knew it.

They just didn't want to believe in this unreasonable reality.

"Chief… At this rate, we're just going to be played by them. We have to find a way...."

If there was a way, they would have killed the Holy Knights long ago.

For whatever reason, Lionheart's old enemies had been slaughtered time and time again over the millennia.

It was because there was so little they could do in the face of the most powerful creatures on earth.

"We must do something…!"

-Quang!

It was then.

There was a commotion outside the tent where the barbarians were holding their tribal council, and then a chunk of meat was thrown inside.

With a thud, the chunk of meat was thrown into the tent was…a barbarian in the shape of a bear.

"What?!"

Barbarians who dedicate their souls to the Iron King are granted a body that is harder and more massive than anyone else's but to blow off the upper half of such a warrior?

"What the…what are you doing, Champion of Helkan!"

The orc wielding a heavy club emanates a fierce energy came soundlessly from the entrance of the tent

It is proof that the orc has the blessing of Helkan. In other words, he is a champion of Helkan.

"I told you to break through, until yesterday."

A gravelly voice echoed through the tent and the barbarians trembled in fear at his mere presence.

But Dagil braced himself, trying to absorb his aura. He is the chieftain of the Black Eagle clan, the leader of the Barbarians, who has the right to summon the embodiment of the Beast God.

Even the most powerful champion of the Orc gods would be doomed if he lost here, and his place in their brutalized barbarian society would be over.

But the Champion of Helkan has no such qualms.

-Boom!

"What?!"

Dagil groaned as a large hand grabbed him by the nape of the neck. The mighty white warrior immediately cast beatification, but was unable to break free of his grasp.

'Pfft…! What kind of power is this?'

He is an elder who in his youth had even fought a Holy Knight but the power he sensed from the fighter in front of him was more powerful than anything he had ever experienced.

'This…is stronger than a Holy Knight!'

Sixty years ago, he had fought a mighty Holy Knight and had barely escaped alive then, but the orc in front of him was stronger than the Holy Knight!

"We'll attack tomorrow. Send in the troops."

"Ha, but…! They have two Holy Knights!"

"Me and the great warrior of Skunik will join hands."

At this, Dagil eyes lit up. Two champions of the Orc gods in this day and age?

If what he said was true, tomorrow's battle would be a foregone conclusion.

"Ah, I see."

Dagil nodded, fearful of the searing red gaze.

"Then, starting today, we will launch an all-out attack──"

-BOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Dagil was about to make a decision as Clan Leader when a bugle began to blare furiously from the direction of the canyon.

"What's going on?"

It was not the trumpets of orcs or barbarians.

Dagil and the orc champion left their tents and headed toward the source of the sound, and there-─

"Hear, beasts!"

Grail Knight Jerea, had the audacity to hover in front of the orcs' serious faces.

"I speak to you lowly beasts in the name of the Lionheart King, and you shall fall down and listen to my overflowing offer!"

With those words, Jerea hurled his spear as hard as he could into the center of the orcs. The javelin, rippling with the Holy Knight's power, pierced one orc before stopping.

-Black!

Jerea, who had just witnessed the death of an Orc, was not the least bit sorry.

"Tsk, His Majesty's robe is stained with the blood of a filthy green beast, a mortal sin that will tear at their souls even in death."

The orc were indignant, but Jerea turned his horse's head and turned back toward the leaders.

* * * * *

"You insolent bastards!"

The Kingdom's message through the javelin was simple.

"One on one."

There was a lot of rhetoric, but that's all the ignorant orcs and barbarians understood.

Each would choose a warlord, and the orcs, barbarians, and kingdom troops would duel.

"We don't need to accept this, these despicable bastards have been sneaking around all night, and now they want to duel!"

The terms were too favorable to the king's army.

If they lost, they'd retreat, but that's something that can be accomplished through combat.

On the other hand, they had two Holy Knights, the strongest creatures on earth.

The odds are not in their favor in a one-on-one fight. In the first place, a monster like a Holy Knight could not be defeated by a single person──

"...."

Dagil's gaze flickered toward the orcs.

Two races that normally wouldn't even hold a meeting together were gathered together, and here were the 'champions' of the Orc gods.

'It's worth a try.'

The orc gods, cranky and selfish as they were, made a rare choice of their champions.

Helkan, God of Struggle, Lord of the Orcs

Gokrok, the orc god of shamans.

Skunik, the orc god of hunting.

Mighty orc warriors whose champions were chosen by the mighty orc gods themselves.

"What are you going to do? I think we have a pretty good chance if you guys show up."

"...."

The orc champion stared at Dagil, who, overwhelmed by his presence, casually averted his gaze and rolled his eyes.

"We've done our part, anyway."

He was surprised. The barbarians could stir up a fight at the mere sight of the Holy Knight.

They know their power and their transcendent strength. Even though the barbarians were treated as serf candidates, not even as human beings, they were like servants.

Orcs were slaughtered for entertainment by the Lionheart Kingdom.

If anyone should be afraid, it should be the orcs, but they seemed to welcome this confrontation.

"The Holy Knight. I've always wanted to face one."

Balbaza, champion of the God of Struggle Helkan, was more than happy to accept the challenge.

"The Holy Knight's body… I'll take it."

"Give me the skin."

Maghar, champion of the orc shaman god Gokrok and Skira, champion of the hunting god Skunik.

The three orc champions willingly agreed to the duel.

As a race of warriors who revere fierce battles and are born to fight, they always look forward to a fight with the strongest.

* * * *

The other day, Beatrice rode out of the canyon and joined the knight cadets.

"Wow, my queen, I was so… scared…!"

"Are you all right, I'm glad you weren't hurt."

It had been three days since the cadets had been scattered, but they had managed to find each other.

Beatrice's convoy of holy relics had been crushing monsters and pursuers alike with overwhelming power.

At one point, chimeras appeared, but such monsters could not be the Queen's enemies.

"The others… don't they have to join us?"

Chen So-yeon asked. She wiped her sword clean of the blood of the monsters that had attacked and mentioned those who were not present.

The corners of Beatrice's mouth twitched benevolently, for despite her stern demeanor, she was concerned for her companions.

"Part of the quest was to defend Lord Jerea's main body, right? The fact that the king hasn't shown up here suggests that he's probably on his way."

When she first entered the gate, Beatrice had cast a tracking spell to locate the cadets.

Of the four who weren't here, two were with Leon, and the other two were with what she assumed was another convoy.

Problem is, they're too far away.

"That's good, but...."

So-yeon, who had been worried about her academy classmates Jae-hyuk and Soo-ho, was inwardly relieved. The problem is the other three.

Koo Dae-sung, Han Ha-ri…and Yakt Spinner.

Koo Dae-sung and Han Ha-ri are with the convoy, but Yakt Spinner is nowhere to be found.

"Where the hell is Lord Yappy?"

She asks Beatrice, who should have a tracking spell on him, but she just shakes her head and gives her a blank stare.

"He's beyond my range of detection. I thought I had every nook and cranny in this canyon covered."

Where the hell had that super-intelligent knight gone?

Either way, it's dereliction of duty.

Of course, no one believes that the Yakt Spinner would have disappeared through the gate.

The Yakt Spinner is an unfeeling killing machine, the ultimate in efficiency. The most bizarre character in the pantheon of gods, far removed from human common sense.

"I wonder what he's up to."

...

...…

...

…

Eight hundred kilometers above the Valley of Death and the Imperial border.

Twenty-four hours have passed since the challenger entered orbit, the 'first' to do so, unconquered by anyone since the dawn of Divine history.

-Orbit stalled. Calculating gravity impact.

-Clear. Observing the gate's world-realization rate.

When the Yakt Spinner first arrived on Earth, he was disappointed.

The level of civilization and science on Earth was beyond his wildest dreams.

Yappy era was a time of satellite terraforming and space exploration, if not for the invasion of demons.

To Yappy, who is the essence of that technology, Earth's civilization's space technology is a baby.

But in the absence of any infrastructure, he had no choice but to improve upon their crude satellite launcher technology.

And it was quite successful.

-In-gate satellite launch experiment successful. Observations limited. Anomalies being calculated.

However, the satellites launched from inside the gate had their limitations.

In essence, a gate is a scene from history that recreates the events of an era.

It is only a representation of a region, not the entire planet.

At first, the ground observed from space has the appearance of a planet, but no information can be observed except for the canyon where the quest is taking place, some of the Imperial borders… and the Lionheart border.

In other words, the other places haven't been implemented in the gate at all.

-Measuring the situation. Main body injection system activated. Integrated Armament Platform MK.2 on standby.

After observing and deciding that it was not necessary for him to act immediately, Yappy scanned the canyon, the Empire, and the Lionheart border to gather as much information as possible.

As he continued his observations, he saw a group of knights waiting on the border of what he assumed to be the Lionheart Kingdom.

-High energy body observation.

It was a Red Knight.

A presence that the machine 'instinctively' felt, even though it was observing from 800 kilometers above.

There was an unspoken momentum about this knight that was distinctly different from the others around him.

The moment he zoomed in on the wide-angle lens to get a closer look-─

-What?

The red knight raised his head. For a moment, Yappy calculated that he had made eye contact with the knight.

No, it couldn't be. The machine's logic circuits insisted it was impossible.

This was high in space, in orbit, 800 kilometers above the ground. It would be impossible to make eye contact with a terrestrial creature there…

Unless he was mistaken in his observations but the Red Knight's lips were clearly saying.

"Go away."