I Became a Dark Knight in the Game

12 – In the Abyss, the Sword Wields the Man (1)

Originally, it was rare for the minions of the Abyss to clash head-on, even if they served different demons. This was because the pie called the material world was so vast that there was enough for everyone.

Of course, this alone was not enough to prevent conflicts within the Abyss. If one reason was that there was enough prey without fighting, the other was the catastrophe that conflict would bring.

One of the forces capable of completely banishing the Abyss from the material world was the Abyss itself. Attacking the minions of another Abyss carried the risk of disappearing from the material world as well.

And Kriel was an exception to all of this.

He did not serve any demon, nor was he interested in corrupting the material world, but he was very interested in hunting down the minions of the Abyss.

Even when Satranak invoked the name of the demon he served, Kriel did not react. Even when tempted with the seeds of corruption he had gathered, it was the same.

‘Where on earth did such a monstrosity come from?!’

All the desires that the minions of the Abyss should naturally have seemed meaningless to him.

The knight’s figure, approaching with consistent silence, was imposing. Satranak struggled to find a way out of the situation.

‘Illusion magic is ineffective. More direct attack magic? Didn’t he already cut through a fireball spell with a single sword?’

Giving up the speed of non-verbal magic and properly chanting seemed like the knight’s attack would come first. The attacks had to continue, if only to buy time.

Satranak’s eyes quickly scanned the depths of the Abyss. He saw a sword taking shape.

‘If magic doesn’t work!’

Satranak cast a few more attack spells. They were not meant to wound, but to blind and confuse for a moment, just a moment.

Leaving behind the loud crackling of red lightning and the scattering of ashes, Satranak dashed.

He sensed Kriel’s movements with the sixth sense granted to demons. The creature seemed unaware of what he was aiming for, mechanically destroying the magic just as before.

Finally, Satranak grasped the hilt of the sword. The blade, which had been as thin as the spine of a dried skeleton, had now regained its full form.

The blade slid out of the heart without a sound. The corpse, already a mummy, lost its last bit of vitality and crumbled into a handful of ashes as the sword was drawn.

Satranak felt the overwhelming power surging through his body. With the Seven Great Demon Weapons he had painstakingly charged, he could create hundreds of seeds.

He did not want to waste this boundless potential on a single fight.

Whoosh─.

The knight swung his greatsword. The flashes and illusions all scattered and disappeared, leaving only the knight and himself. The sharp tip of the greatsword was once again aimed at Satranak.

If he tried to conserve his strength here, his head would bid farewell to his body.

Satranak muttered, as if spitting out his resentment.

“What a waste.”

The knight did not stop.

“Because of a madman like you, the Great Demon’s grand plan has been distorted. I will feed your flesh to this sword and temper it with your blood!”

A chillingly blue light flashed from the sword Satranyak raised. Like the northern snowfields, perhaps even more piercing, the primordial cold.

That cold light enveloped Satranyak’s body.

*

“Uh.”

I couldn’t help but be bewildered. Just from the first charge, I got a rough estimate.

That demon was specialized more in schemes than in proper combat. If it faced me head-on, ninety-nine out of a hundred times it would die, and the remaining one would barely escape.

So I chose to minimize my movements to suppress the use of my blood energy. The more intensely and actively I moved, the more the usage of blood energy would soar, and naturally, the intensity and duration of the side effects would also increase.

Anyway, there was no place to escape in the depths of the abyss, so I planned to wait until it exhausted its dark magic and then slowly cut its throat.

But suddenly, that guy ran to a corner, drew his sword, and was enveloped in an unusual light.

And then he just died.

“What the…”

It was a sight that could only be described as absurd. As the familiar blue light enveloped the demon’s body, it tried to attack while exclaiming something like “Oh… Ohhh…!”

But in the end, it couldn’t.

Because its entire body started to freeze from the hand holding the sword. It tried to use its magic to stop the encroachment of the ice, but eventually, it reached the point of setting its own body on fire.

Thanks to such fervent efforts, the encroachment of the ice stopped, but that didn’t mean its ordeal was over. Under the transparent ice that covered its hands, its arms gradually withered.

“No, this can’t be!”

The demon, shouting such a cliché line, eventually became a dried-up mummy. After its body twitched a few times as if in convulsions, it stopped moving.

I was so dumbfounded that I even waited for a while, thinking it might be pretending to be dead to launch a surprise attack.

But the demon never got up again.

[What was that? An idiot?]

Even Orisin threw in a comment. It seemed like an absurd death even to the horse-headed one.

[That guy, he kept using the Seven Great Demon Weapons until they broke, didn’t he? And he still expected to be recognized as their master. He must have fought well with a body that had never properly used a sword.]

“Harsh.”

[I never had good feelings about the abyss. Especially now that I’ve been spiritually decapitated because of it!]

Orisin poured out his anger towards the abyss. The abyss was originally of no help to this world, so it deserved some criticism.

“But. How do I move that…”

The demon grabbed it wrong and ascended straight away. Since I was also from the same abyss, there was no guarantee that I wouldn’t pick it up and end up rolling on the ground, screaming “aaah! Save me, Morigina!”

[If you want to be safe, why don’t you wait for that violent saintess? Since it’s something from the abyss, wouldn’t it stop moving if you poured a bucket of holy power on it?]

“Is that the only way? In that case, I should go to the other side and help with the core destruction work.”

The moment I turned my back. Ssshh, I heard the sound of cloth dragging on the floor.

I immediately turned around.

The demon rose to its feet.

[That’s not a demon, is it?]

Its entire body was drained of vitality, its skin compressed to the limit, clinging to its bones. Every slight movement produced an unpleasant creaking sound.

The most noticeable difference from the previous demon was its eyes. A blue radiance, the same color as the cold light emitted from the sword, was shining from the demon’s eyes.

[Crazy. Did the sword devour the demon?]

The right hand holding the sword continued to creak. The joints from the fingertips to the shoulder pulsed like waves.

It was a strange sight, but it gave me the feeling of looking at a musical instrument. An instrument tuning its pitch before a full performance.

Witnessing that bizarre sight, I…

─Immediately dashed towards the demon.

Originally, I was the type of person who preferred to hit the boss one more time rather than watch the cutscene!

The creaking of the demon’s corpse had not yet stopped. The greatsword was raised above its head.

*

The dark knight dashed, leaving a red trail. Even the spirit Ori couldn’t keep track of Kriel for a moment due to the sudden acceleration.

The red trail created by Kriel moved above his head before anyone realized. The vivid bloodlust clung to the blade. The greatsword, raised to the ceiling, fell towards the demon again.

At the moment of the attack, the blade condensed with bloodlust swiftly descended, leaving an afterimage that looked like a red pillar.

The surging greatsword was not satisfied with mere decapitation; it aimed to cleave the demon’s entire body in two.

Kang─!

However, the greatsword did not touch the demon’s flesh. The demon, or rather its corpse, moved its right hand to swing the sword.

Kriel marveled at the swift movement. It wasn’t just about blocking his attack.

Kriel’s attack was vertical, from top to bottom. Normally, to counter such an attack, one would apply force horizontally to twist the trajectory.

But Kriel was confident that his sword wouldn’t waver with ordinary force, and he could respond even if the trajectory was twisted.

However, the corpse demon’s response was different.

It stepped back. At that moment, Kriel also tried to approach and continue his attack. But the corpse demon moved first.

Its right hand aimed at the sky. A vertical slash, just like Kriel’s. The difference was that the corpse’s sword aimed at the weapon, not the flesh.

The descending greatsword’s blade was met with a downward slash. The combined force of Kriel’s strength and the corpse’s eerie power drove the greatsword into the ground, shattering it.

And immediately, the demon’s left hand moved. A hand sign used in dark magic. The ground contracted, gripping Kriel’s greatsword as if chewing it.

‘It seems difficult to pull it out right away.’

Just like when I fought that horse-headed spirit last time, I can’t seem to use the greatsword properly.

[Ah, damn it. Be gentle.]

Kriel drew out the horn knife.