‘It’s definitely the Black Legion.’
As Cain, who had been the lead developer largely responsible for creating this world, it wasn’t hard for him to guess the force backing these enemies.
Watching the waves of foes crash against them, Cain muttered to himself.
‘But if it’s the Black Legion, they’re going to be tricky to deal with…!’
The Black Legion—a school of black magic that favored attrition warfare. Just thinking about their combat style made the current situation feel dire.
Of course, the enemy couldn’t have an infinite supply of black knights, and considering the presence of experts like Aaron at his level, Rachel, Viscount Philips Grey, and Viscount Heinrich Denver—all Grand Chevalier-class—the allies would eventually win.
But the cost in lives on their side would be catastrophic.
‘I can’t afford to lose so many knights here.’
Cain, as emperor, was facing the final showdown with the Empire’s airborne forces. He couldn’t lose too many knights before that decisive day arrived.
In the end, he had to hurry and find Onisia’s power.
But that was easier said than done.
Even with a plan in place, Cain couldn’t completely ignore the battlefield and focus solely on searching for Onisia’s power.
As time passed, the allied knights were growing exhausted, while the black knights, despite their dwindling numbers, kept receiving fresh reinforcements.
“I am the shield that guards imperial authority and the sword that executes His Majesty the Emperor’s wrath! I declare once more—in the name of His Majesty the Emperor, holy light, come to me!”
As the paladins and imperial guard knights began to tire and the vanguard’s formation started to waver dangerously, Aren Valerian once again gathered divine power rooted in his absolute loyalty and faith toward the emperor, unleashing a fierce divine storm.
At the end of the clash, the few remaining black knights were caught in the holy tempest and torn to shreds.
Black knights were beings who had transcended human limits through black magic and curses, stepping into the realm of demons. Closer to demons or demonic creatures than humans, they were inherently vulnerable to divine power, leaving them helpless against Aren Valerian’s might.
“They’re coming again!”
One of the Imperial Church’s paladins, face rigid as he held a massive rectangular iron shield forward and aimed his lance toward the front, shouted the warning.
Excluding the lowest-grade familiars they had first encountered, they had already felled over a hundred black knights.
Despite being outnumbered, Aren Valerian’s efforts had allowed them to steadily whittle down the enemy without suffering major losses.
But now, after such intense fighting had drained their stamina, everyone present was too exhausted to repeat the same level of performance if another wave hit.
Yet in front of those weary knights, an even larger force of black knights than before emerged from the darkness.
“I-Impossible…!”
“Damn it!”
“There have to be at least two hundred!”
Just when they thought it was finally over, more enemies poured in, and the imperial guard knights began to falter.
But Aren Valerian alone stood unshaken at the very front, steadfast as a mountain.
“Do not waver! Protect His Majesty the Emperor!”
As Aren Valerian prepared to summon divine power once more to meet the advancing black knights, the black magicians lurking beyond the darkness realized that his radiant divine energy was driving away their veil of fear and terror.
They decided he had to be eliminated first.
“Let us intervene.”
“Very well.”
Having reconfirmed that Aren Valerian’s prowess reached the Meister realm, the black magicians began drawing magic circles in the shadows.
Normally, in the early stages of their preferred attrition strategy—continuously feeding black knights to grind down the enemy—they minimized direct involvement from the rear.
But when facing an overwhelmingly powerful Meister-class opponent like this, the black magicians in the back would actively support their black knights.
As two black magicians completed their circles simultaneously, powerful curses flew toward Aren Valerian.
Focused entirely on engaging the black knights at the forefront of the formation, Aren’s reaction to the incoming curse was inevitably delayed.
Blades of darkness coalesced and rained down upon his head.
But Cain wasn’t about to stand by and watch.
“Vendelhaven!”
Cain activated his sacred mark a fraction faster than the curse could land.
Almost the moment his shout echoed across the battlefield, the Sacred Mark of Vendelhaven ignited.
Brilliant golden power gathered and shielded Aren Valerian.
From the very start of the black knights’ assault, Cain had kept the Sacred Mark of Brünjak ready for quick response to minimize risks on the field.
The instant he sensed the faint leakage of mana from the black magicians behind the advancing black knights, he triggered the Sacred Mark of Brük and countered their surprise curse.
“Behold! His Majesty the Emperor protects us!”
“Long live His Majesty the Emperor!”
Seizing the moment, Aren poured out praise for Cain even in the midst of battle.
The exhausted paladins of the Imperial Church, never forgetting their duty, responded enthusiastically to the chant.
Yet despite successfully blocking the curse and somewhat restoring allied morale, Cain’s expression remained grim.
‘This can’t go on forever.’
Cain ground his teeth.
It couldn’t continue like this.
He didn’t even know how many black knights remained, and now that the black magicians in the rear had started using curses, he needed Onisia’s sacred mark to end this fight in place of the weary knights.
While keeping the golden shield from Vendelhaven’s sacred mark linked to Brünjak’s for instant reactivation and staying vigilant over the battlefield, Cain intensified his search for Onisia’s power.
‘Could I have been wrong from the start?’
In the midst of his frantic movements, a realization suddenly struck him.
No matter how he thought about it, Onisia’s power had to be sleeping here.
That meant he simply hadn’t discovered something that was already present.
If that was the case, what method could he use to make Onisia’s power reveal itself?
As he grappled with that fundamental question, a certain insight dawned on him.
“Wait.”
Fragments of forgotten memory clicked together in his mind like puzzle pieces, bringing vital information to the surface.
“So that’s how it was…”
Cain let out a wry, incredulous laugh.
‘The Guardian of the Oath.’
The relic-grade artifact he had found not long ago, deep beneath the imperial palace in the mausoleum of the constellations.
It was a one-time artifact that, when a seal, spell, or awakening required a specific oath, made the user recognized as the subject of that oath.
In his understanding, using the Guardian of the Oath to perform the Evil-Exterminating Oath was necessary to awaken Onisia’s power sleeping deep underground.
He had thought it was meant to break Onisia’s seal.
‘But it was the other way around.’
The Evil-Exterminating Oath wasn’t needed to destroy the technique sealing Onisia’s power.
From the very beginning, without the Evil-Exterminating Oath, Onisia’s power couldn’t even be found.
“I had the order completely backward from the start.”
Having cleared up his own misunderstanding, Cain gave a hollow laugh.
He had buttoned the shirt wrong from the very first button due to a mistaken interpretation.
But now that he knew the answer, there was no hesitation.
Cain pulled the relic-grade artifact, the Guardian of the Oath, from his pocket.
With this, he could briefly pretend to be the inheritor of any desired oath.
[Relic-grade artifact ‘Guardian of the Oath’ activated.]
[Designating the ‘Evil-Exterminating Oath’.]
As he infused a small amount of mana into the jewel-shaped artifact, a new message appeared before his eyes.
The relic-grade artifact activated, and the sealing circle recognized Cain as the bearer of the Evil-Exterminating Oath.
Things that had been invisible until now began to appear in his vision.
‘I can see it. I can see it.’
He could see the flow of divine power.
Following the faint but clear trail of divine energy with his eyes, he located the emblem of Onisia—one he had personally approved during the planning phase.
He had been slightly worried, but awakening Onisia’s power required no additional complicated procedures.
The structure was designed so that the power would awaken when someone who had sworn to exterminate evil approached.
Of course, if he had realized this sooner, it wouldn’t have taken so long… but better late than never.
‘Even after losing most of her divinity while sealing Absolute Evil in the past, her powerful will to exterminate evil never wavered—that was the setting.’
He was glad the escorts’ desperate sacrifice to buy time hadn’t been in vain.
Without hesitation, Cain placed his hand atop the constellation emblem from which faint divine power leaked.
His hand, bearing the Evil-Exterminating Oath, became the trigger.
One fragment of Onisia’s authority, long dormant, awoke from its ancient slumber.
The long-sleeping power to exterminate evil stirred.
Pure white divine energy burst vividly from Onisia’s emblem.
The mystical mist-like divine aura gathered before Cain’s eyes, taking the form of a sacred mark.
[You have discovered the sacred mark of Onisia, the Evil-Slaying Paladin.]
The appearance of the sacred mark also meant he had been deemed qualified to receive the constellation’s power.
The qualification to bear the sacred mark of Onisia, the Evil-Slaying Paladin, was a resolute will to exterminate evil.
The orthodox methods were either becoming a traditional inheritor of an oath like the Evil-Exterminating Oath or harboring intense hatred toward black magic and demon gods.
But thanks to his knowledge as a developer, Cain had skipped all the tedious steps.
[Imprinting the sacred mark of Onisia, the Evil-Slaying Paladin, begins.]
[Imprinting the sacred mark of Onisia, the Evil-Slaying Paladin, succeeded.]
No complications arose during the imprinting.
Cain had gained yet another sacred mark.
Though she had lost most of her power, the stature of the paladin Onisia, passed down since the mythic era, remained exalted.
Of course, the fragment Cain now held was merely a tiny piece of her vast power, but it would be more than enough to sweep away the enemies before him.
“Whew.”
Cain took a short breath and channeled mana into the back of his left hand.
As the mana-infused sacred mark activated, the constellation’s power began revealing its vivid presence.
[The authority of Onisia, the Evil-Slaying Paladin—‘Will to Exterminate Evil’—activates.]
[What ultimately drives away deep darkness is brilliant light. The will to exterminate evil permitted by Onisia stands with you.]
[All physical abilities are greatly enhanced when facing wicked beings.]
As the new messages appeared, Cain felt powerful divine energy surging through his entire body.
His physical abilities were being dramatically strengthened by the divine power flowing from Onisia’s sacred mark.
At first it was simple physical enhancement, but before even a minute passed, pure white aura visible to the naked eye began pouring from Cain’s body.
‘I can see it.’
Cain could physically feel his abilities soaring.
Even without using the authority of Brünjak, Baron of Swiftness, he could now track the movements of the black knights clashing with the imperial guard.
He could see the trajectories of their swinging swords and even predict their next actions.
And somehow, a pure white spear had appeared in his right hand.
Confirming the white spear gripped in his right hand, Cain hurled it toward the black knights ahead without a moment’s hesitation.
The spear, thrown by a body strengthened by divine power, tore through the darkness with ferocious momentum and ravaged the black knights’ ranks.