Chapter 54

Chapter 54
There was simply no way such a strike would miss its mark.

“Fugitive Maxim. Your life ends at this spot.”

In that critical instant, a change occurred.

Maxim reached into his clothing and retrieved an object.

It was a vessel of gold, crafted in the likeness of a chalice.

He struck the base of the artifact against the stone floor.

Splash, splash, splash!

A torrent of liquid erupted, instantly drenching the ground.

The rushing water rose so quickly it submerged the very rim of the cup.

And yet, the flow did not cease, pouring out in an infinite stream.

As he realized the true identity of the fluid spilling from the golden vessel, Maxim let out a ragged breath of pure terror.

“The Holy Grail…?”

…The Holy Grail.

And one capable of producing such high-purity holy water at that!

What exactly was the Holy Grail?

It was the legendary vessel saturated with the divine essence of the god the Church worshiped.

A genuine relic of the heavens.

Under normal circumstances, only the Pope himself was permitted to lay hands upon it.

Even a man like Maxim had never heard of a version of the Holy Grail that could generate an inexhaustible supply of holy water.

The liquid continued to surge, surrounding the area like a shimmering, divine barricade.

Roar, roar, roar!

Not content with merely flooding the floor, the madman tilted the vessel over his own head, drenching himself in the sacred fluid.

He was insane.

In all his life, Maxim had never witnessed anyone treat holy water with such reckless abandon.

Even the most elite paladins of the Church would never dream of squandering it so wastefully.

At that moment, the madman’s lips curled into a smirk.

“Let’s see you try to scurry away like a common insect now.”

Witnessing that smile, Maxim felt a wave of cold panic wash over him.

························ Just what kind of monster is this person?

【Lv. 10.5】

It wasn’t a flat 10; it was 10.5.

That was the specific level Maxim held.

Usually, once a being achieved transcendence, their level would be represented by a ‘★’, but because Maxim’s growth had been twisted and unnatural, the system displayed it differently.

‘A worshiper of demons.’

The pungent, heavy odor of corruption clung to him.

It was obvious he had consumed a Demon Heart through dark rituals to forcibly inflate his power.

In this reality, ‘evil’ was not a monolith.

Demons, devils, grim reapers, and denizens of the abyss—each existed within their own unique hierarchies and realms.

Among them, demons were the entities that provided tasks linked to fragments of ‘wicked karma.’

It was no wonder Priest Andrew had been so shaken, questioning if such a man could truly be a hero.

‘Traditional tactics won’t bridge this gap.’

The disparity in levels and raw statistics was vast.

However, that was irrelevant.

By using the holy water to suppress the influence of the Demon Heart, the playing field would be leveled.

With every route of escape cut off, a brutal struggle to the death was the only path forward.

“Pathetic. No matter how much you writhe, a level difference cannot be overcome.”

Maxim had his own reasons for standing his ground rather than fleeing.

Even if the Demon Heart’s mana was suppressed, his opponent was a mere level 6.

The boy might use a few clever maneuvers to hold out for a moment, but the final result was a mathematical certainty.

Maxim shifted into a combat stance.

I mirrored him, taking my own position.

I held two extreme iron swords.

These were the ultimate weapons capable of pushing sword mastery into the ‘Extreme’ threshold!

《Sword mastery adjusted to Lv. 7.》

《Sword mastery adjusted to Lv. 8.》

《Under the ‘Extreme’ resonance, sword mastery adjusted to Lv. 10.》

The twin blades boosted my proficiency by four full tiers, hitting the ceiling of level 10.

《Initiating the reconstruction of Knight King Wilhelm’s swordsmanship: ‘Heaven and Earth Overturn’.》

I possessed the ability to manifest Wilhelm’s legendary techniques.

I was in Randolph’s physical form, yet I carried Wilhelm’s psyche and history.

It mattered little. Through the power of the stars, the memories and combat intuition of the Knight King were entirely my own.

“Wait—what…?!”

In a heartbeat, Maxim staggered back, his face a mask of dread.

The very air had been transformed.

The territory had been seized.

The swords, though approaching with deliberate slowness, felt like an inevitable force that could not be parried.

Slash!

A vertical strike, descending from high to low.

A basic, unadorned swing.

Clang-!

He managed to deflect it with his dagger.

Yet, the blade sweeping toward his flank felt just as impossible to intercept.

Driven by survival instinct, he twisted his body and retreated a step.

Then he took another step back.

It was bizarre. Rationally, he should have been able to stop the attacks, yet his mind told him he couldn’t.

‘The sheer pressure…!’

The opponent’s psychological weight had shifted entirely.

He was being swallowed whole by the other man’s presence.

This was the aura of a master who had spent every waking breath with a sword in hand.

But wasn’t this person supposed to be a player?

‘How can a mere player radiate the killing intent of a lifelong master…!’

Sizzle!

A burning sensation flared across his back.

He had hit the boundary of the holy water.

The sacred aura stood firm like a physical wall, bricking up Maxim’s path of retreat.

He should have been the one doing the crushing, yet he was being held at bay.

Instead, he was the one being suffocated.

Maxim gnashed his teeth.

‘Stop trembling. He’s level 6 at the absolute best.’

Exactly. There was no reason to be terrified from the start.

There was no reason to let this man’s momentum break his spirit.

Cowering before a level 6 was beneath the dignity of the great Maxim.

He tightened his fingers around his dagger.

The weapons met again.

The iron swords moved through the air with agonizing clarity.

They should have been easy to block, yet they weren’t.

If he focused on one, the other seemed to vanish from his perception.

A strike from a blind spot?

‘No, he isn’t even bothering with feints or hidden angles.’

Typical sword styles relied on misdirection.

But this man came at him with total directness.

He was dual-wielding, yet the impact felt as though he were swinging massive two-handed claymores—the weight was immense.

He was masking his secondary blade through pure, overwhelming presence.

‘What kind of technique is this?’

It was a style he had never seen, a mastery he had never encountered.

It defied all logic.

How could level 4 skill bridge such a gap?

Masterful technique shouldn’t matter if the stats were too low. You simply overwhelm the weak with raw velocity and power—that was the rule.

“Is this the extent of your power?”

The man spoke.

His voice carried a heavy note of disappointment.

“Is this what you dared to call salvation?”

…Curse it all.

Maxim was filled with a sudden, sharp regret.

He should have turned and run the moment he saw the boy.

The realization hit him like a tide, but the window of opportunity had slammed shut.

Those eyes.

Simply locking gazes with those bottomless, dark eyes caused his mind to go static.

“You call this salvation?”

Clang!

Maxim let go of his dagger, throwing it in a desperate gamble.

He needed to escape.

They had traded perhaps ten blows—maybe more—but the count was irrelevant now.

He finally understood.

The chasm in their actual skill.

The reality that he stood no chance of winning.

The cold truth that levels were not the ultimate arbiter of fate!

Sizzle!

“Arghhh!”

He could not break through.

The wall of holy water stood firm.

His flesh scorched as if he were being thrust into a furnace, and he realized he was trapped in a cul-de-sac.

Maxim spun around.

‘Damn it. Damn it. DAMN IT!!’

He didn’t want to die.

He wanted to survive.

He would do anything to keep breathing.

This lunatic who had showered himself in sacred water.

He wasn’t some mere apprentice or successor.

Maxim had been blind to the man’s true identity, but the veil had finally lifted.

The warrior who had brought peace to the world single-handedly.

The one hailed as the God of War,

The name that made the lords of the abyss tremble in fear,

The fundamental nemesis of all demonkind.

…Knight King Wilhelm.

The legends surrounding him hadn’t been exaggerated in the slightest.

The world had been foolish to assume his abilities had faded just because he was now a player.

The figure standing before him was the Knight King himself.

Regret tore at his soul, but time had run out.

“Did you really call yourself a hero?”

“P-Phantom, please… have m-mercy…”

Stab!

Maxim’s plea was cut short by the final strike.

What a letdown.

Honestly.

To think a person of this caliber was ranked among the 8 Heroes, supposedly my equal.

A man devoid of both integrity and talent, propelled only by his own avarice.

‘His level is high, but his actual ability is garbage.’

The moment our blades met, the truth about Maxim was laid bare.

‘He has spent his entire life bullying the weak.’

Cowardly targets. Enemies he could crush without needing an ounce of finesse.

That was how he built his record.

On the other hand, whenever he faced a challenge that looked difficult, he turned tail and fled.

Consequently, he was a hollow shell with a high level. He possessed massive stats but didn’t have the slightest clue how to apply them.

Under normal circumstances, one couldn’t even reach level 10 by only fighting inferior opponents.

‘A demon worshiper. He boosted his level through infernal contracts.’

Even Hudson was a superior man.

Hudson hadn’t crawled to the demons even when he was backed into a corner.

I walked away with one more piece of vital information.

‘Traditional gamers cannot fall to demon worship, but players can…’

Demon worshipers.

The apostates who turned their backs on the goddess.

They conspired to obstruct her will and drag the continent into the dark depths of the abyss.

In the original game, several missions involved hunting down such traitors.

But as a standard player, you could never join their ranks.

Now, in this reality, even that path was open.

‘The beings I thought were preset NPCs were actually humans, and those I took for humans were becoming demon worshipers.’

To become a demon worshiper was to discard one’s soul.

Their gifts always came with a terrible price.

‘So the ones who were constantly sabotaging me were demon worshipers?’

In the past, certain enemies had gone to ridiculous lengths to ruin my progress.

At the time, it had been baffling.

What kind of game design has NPCs betraying the player this relentlessly?

Backstab after backstab was just a normal Tuesday.

Looking back, it made perfect sense. As the Knight of the Goddess, I was the natural target for those who served the abyss.

Rip!

I carved open Maxim’s torso.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

A black heart continued to pulse with rhythmic life.

I drenched the organ in holy water.

-Kieeeeeek!

A shrill, otherworldly shriek erupted from the heart as it shriveled, shedding its disguise to reveal its true form.

A miniature demon.

Under the agonizing contact of the holy water, it calcified into gray stone and crumbled.

《Achievement ‘Demon Hunter’ gained.》

《Player ‘Maxim’ has been eliminated.》

《‘Fragment of the Broken Golden Rule (72h)’ has been confiscated.》

By ending Maxim, I had secured his Fragment of the Broken Golden Rule.

But this was merely the opening act.

《The ‘Curse of Coordinates’ etched onto ‘Maxim’s’ heart has been neutralized.》

That was the real reason I used holy water to kill the demon.

Maxim’s death was supposed to trigger an automatic transmission of his location.

However, the sacred water had purged all traces of the hex.

The signal was cut off before it could be sent.

A cold chuckle escaped my throat.

‘They cursed him so his death would ping his location. Likely to one of the other 8 Heroes.’

Only a member of that circle would have the motive to track Maxim so closely.

One of them had set this trap so they could descend upon the killer the moment he fell.

‘Maxim was nothing more than a tethered goat.’

Were they aiming for me?

Did they assume I would naturally hunt the weakest member of their group first?

Someone had provided him with that Demon Heart, dressing him up as one of the 8 Heroes.

They were thorough enough to hide a tracking curse inside the organ itself.

The holy water had rendered their plan moot, though.

‘This is becoming interesting.’

It seems they aren’t total morons.

Whoever orchestrated this, the game was finally getting entertaining.

One thing was for certain: I was finished being merciful.

These weren’t programmed scripts, and this wasn’t a simulation.

They would find out about Maxim’s demise soon enough.

The Hall of Fame or the Golden Rule shop would make his status clear to everyone.

Therefore, my objective remained unchanged.

‘I must become overwhelmingly powerful.’

So strong that they wouldn’t even dare to dream of such petty schemes.

Then, I will break them completely.

It was in that moment that a notification flashed.

[Corpse ‘Maxim’ has been successfully subjugated with the ‘King of the Dead’ skill.]

[‘Maxim’ is classified as a ‘Raid Boss (Lv. 10)’ remains.]

[Permanent Agility increase of 1 achieved through the domination of ‘Maxim’.]

The King of the Dead ability took hold, and the process of claiming Maxim’s body began.