Hans remained where he stood, his attention still fixed on Javier.
The words spoken only moments earlier continued to linger in his mind.
The protector of the people of Srivi…
He had spent enough time around nobles to know how easily such words could become empty promises, yet something about the way Javier had spoken made them difficult to dismiss.
There had been no audience to impress and nothing for Javier to gain from provoking men far more powerful than Framon.
Hans was still trying to understand why those words had affected him when a furious shout shattered the silence.
“Gardo!”
Framon’s voice echoed through the tunnel.
Gardo immediately snapped to attention and turned toward him.
“Lord Framon?” The confidence that had filled Framon only moments earlier was gone, replaced by panic as his eyes moved between the hunters blocking both sides of the passage.
“Do something! Don’t let them take us out of here!”
Gardo clenched his teeth.
His gaze darted toward Javier, then toward the armed men surrounding them.
Every path had already been sealed, and surrender was the only reasonable option left, but Framon’s sentence had made it clear what awaited them if they allowed themselves to be captured.
Desperation twisted Gardo’s expression as he turned toward the guards who still remained loyal to them.
“Kill the Crown Prince!” he shouted.
“Kill him!”
The guards drew their weapons and charged.
Alaric moved before any of them could reach Javier.
He stepped directly between his master and the approaching men, one hand closing firmly around the hilt of his sword as mana surged through his body and flowed along the blade.
The air around him tightened beneath the sudden pressure.
“Don’t touch His Highness.”
BOOM!
Mana erupted from Alaric’s body, and in the next instant, he disappeared.
A streak of brilliant light tore through the tunnel as his voice followed a fraction of a second later.
“Lightning Art…”
SHING!
Alaric reappeared behind the charging guards, his sword already lowered beside him.
“…Fourfold.”
Four cuts struck almost as one.
SLASH!
SLASH!
SLASH!
SLASH!
The guards stopped in the middle of their charge.
For a heartbeat, their bodies remained upright as though none of them had understood what had happened.
Then blood spilled across the stone, and one after another, they collapsed onto the floor.
Alaric stood among them without changing his expression.
He flicked the blood from his blade with a sharp movement before turning back toward Framon.
The nobleman’s face had gone pale.
He had seen Alaric disappear and reappear, but almost nothing between those two moments.
“What…?” Framon stumbled backward.
“No way…”
“Attack them!” someone shouted.
Several more guards rushed toward Hans from the opposite side of the passage.
Hans remained completely still as they approached, his eyes following every movement they made.
Only when they entered his range did he slowly raise one hand.
Mana gathered around his fingers before spreading into the space surrounding him.
One blade appeared.
Then another.
Within seconds, ten blades hovered around Hans in perfect formation, their edges catching the dim torchlight as they rotated slowly around him.
The charging guards faltered, confusion replacing their aggression when they saw the weapons suspended in midair.
Hans raised a single finger.
The ten blades moved.
FWOOOOSH!
They shot forward simultaneously, tearing through the passage with terrifying precision.
Several guards barely managed to raise their weapons before the blades reached them.
THUK!
THUK!
THUK!
THUK!
Bodies collapsed across the stone floor as the flying blades swept through their formation.
Hans lowered his hand, and the remaining members of his squad immediately surged forward to deal with those still standing.
Steel crashed against steel, shouts filled the narrow tunnel, and for several violent seconds the passage descended into chaos.
It ended almost as quickly as it had begun.
The surviving enemy guards were overwhelmed, disarmed and forced onto the ground.
Framon could only watch.
Alaric.
Hans.
The hunters surrounding them.
None of them were ordinary warriors, and whatever hope he had possessed of fighting his way free had disappeared with his guards.
His breathing grew heavier as he slowly stepped backward, and for the first time since Javier had cornered him, genuine fear entered his expression.
Yet beneath that fear, something else began to grow.
Rage.
“Gardo…” Framon’s voice trembled as he turned toward him.
“You said that medicine would help me.”
Gardo’s expression changed immediately.
“Lord Framon, don’t.”
Dark red liquid shifted inside it, thick enough to cling faintly to the glass as it moved.
Javier’s attention immediately turned toward the object.
Even from several meters away, he could sense mana radiating from the substance, but there was something deeply unnatural about it.
The mana was faint, almost dormant, yet twisted in a way unlike anything he had encountered before.
“Don’t use that,” Gardo repeated, his voice beginning to tremble.
“Lord Framon, you don’t know what that thing will do to you.”
Framon looked at him and smiled.
“You’re afraid?”
He pulled the stopper free.
“I’m not going to die here.”
Before anyone could stop him, Framon raised the bottle to his lips and swallowed every drop.
For several seconds, nothing happened.
Framon remained completely still.
The empty bottle slipped from his fingers and struck the stone floor, but his body showed no immediate reaction.
Then his heartbeat changed.
DUM!
Framon’s entire body convulsed.
His hands flew toward his chest as a scream tore from his throat.
“AAARRRGHHHH!” He collapsed onto one knee, his fingers digging violently into his clothes as the veins beneath his skin began to swell.
Their color darkened rapidly, turning from ordinary blue into a deep, unnatural red that spread from his chest toward his neck, arms and face like something crawling beneath his flesh.
CRACK!
The sound of shifting bones echoed through the passage.
Framon’s shoulders expanded.
His muscles swelled at an unnatural speed, stretching his clothes until the fabric began tearing around his arms and back.
His fingers twisted as his nails lengthened into sharp claws, while the color of his skin gradually changed beneath the pulsing network of dark veins.
Then his flesh turned completely blood-red.
BOOOOM!
A violent wave of mana exploded from Framon’s body.
The pressure swept through the tunnel like a physical force, throwing several nobles from their feet and forcing the hunters to brace themselves against the stone.
Javier raised one arm instinctively as his coat snapped violently behind him.
His Mana Detection immediately focused upon Framon, but what returned to him no longer resembled the presence he had sensed moments earlier.
This mana…
Javier tightened his grip around his sword.
No.
Something was wrong.
This isn’t human mana.
Behind the others, Gardo slowly backed away.
His face had become completely pale as he stared at what Framon was becoming.
“Vilon Devil…” he whispered.
Javier’s head immediately turned toward his voice.
“What did you say?”
Gardo did not answer.
He spun around and tried to run, only for two members of Hans’s squad to block the passage.
He threw himself against their weapons, desperately trying to force his way through.
“Let me go! LET ME GO!” His entire body trembled as tears began streaming down his face.
He pointed toward Framon with a shaking hand.
“You don’t understand! You don’t know what that thing is!”
A monstrous scream answered him.
Framon slowly raised his head.
His eyes had turned completely black.
“AAAAAAAAARGHHHH!”
He lunged toward the nearest noble.
BOOM!
The man barely had time to scream before Framon’s hand tore through his body.
Blood splattered across the stone wall, and the noble went limp almost instantly.
Framon ripped his arm free and threw the body aside without even looking at it.
The remaining nobles screamed and scattered.
One turned and attempted to flee, but Framon crossed the distance in seconds, seized him from behind and drove him into the stone floor.
CRACK!
The impact shattered bone.
Blood spread beneath the man’s body as the others desperately pressed themselves against the walls, searching for somewhere to escape.
Then Javier sensed something even more disturbing.
Framon’s mana grew stronger.
The dark red veins covering his body pulsed violently as blood spread through the passage.
His muscles continued expanding, his breathing deepening into something increasingly inhuman as the twisted mana surrounding him became denser with every passing second.
He’s getting stronger.
Javier concentrated upon the fluctuations surrounding Framon.
The pattern became clearer when another pulse passed through the creature’s body.
Every time blood is spilled…
his mana increases.
The realization settled heavily within him.
Framon was not simply under the effects of Vilon.
Whatever mana now inhabited his body was feeding on blood.
“That mana…” Javier murmured, his face directed toward the creature standing amid the bodies.
“It’s Devil mana.”
His eyes moved carefully across Framon’s transformed body, studying every movement and change with increasing focus.
Almost nothing recognizable remained of the noble who had stood before them minutes earlier.
His flesh had become dark red, swollen veins pulsed across his distorted body, and the completely black eyes staring from his face contained no trace of the man he had been.
“Your Highness.”
Alaric’s voice was different now.
Javier turned toward him.
“Fall back.”
“Alaric.”
“Now.” Alaric stepped forward and placed himself between Javier and Framon.
Mana began surging through his body once more, stronger than before, until the blade in his hand started glowing beneath the pressure.
“That thing standing before us is no longer human.”
Javier clenched his teeth.
“He may not have fully become a Devil yet,” Alaric continued, tightening his grip around the sword, “but his strength has already surpassed what we can handle.”
“Alaric, don’t.”
“Your Highness.”
Alaric glanced back at him.
“Trust me.”
Mana erupted.
BOOOOM!
Alaric launched himself forward.
“DIVINE LIGHTNING ART!”
SHIIIIING!
Brilliant streaks of light exploded throughout the tunnel.
Alaric accelerated until his physical form almost disappeared, leaving only fragmented afterimages behind him as he crossed the distance between himself and Framon.
In an instant, he appeared directly before the transformed noble.
Both hands tightened around his sword as he raised it above his head and brought the blade down with all the force he could gather.
SLAAASH!!
The sword struck Framon.
For a fraction of a second, everything became silent.
CLANG!
A violent shockwave erupted from the collision.
Dust fell from the ceiling, cracks spread across the stone beneath their feet, and several hunters were forced backward by the impact.
But Framon had barely moved.
A thin wound had appeared across his blood-red flesh.
Then it began to close.
Alaric’s eyes widened.
Impossible…
Framon slowly raised his head.
His black eyes settled upon Alaric.
His fist moved.
BOOOOM!!
The blow struck Alaric directly in the chest.
His body was launched through the tunnel like a projectile.
He struck the stone wall with enough force to fracture it on impact.
CRAAASH!!
Chunks of stone collapsed around him as his body disappeared beneath the rubble.
His sword flew from his hand and clattered several meters across the floor before finally coming to a stop.
“ALARIC!”
Javier’s voice echoed through the passage.
There was no answer.
For a moment, Javier remained frozen with his hand locked around his sword.
His Mana Detection immediately spread toward the collapsed section of wall, searching beneath the broken stone until he finally found Alaric’s presence.
Weak.
But still there.
Blood trickled from the side of Alaric’s head as he lay motionless beneath the debris.
His breathing had become shallow, and his mana flickered unsteadily.
Just before consciousness abandoned him completely, however, his lips moved.
“Run… Your Highness…”
His body went still.
“Alaric…”
Hans immediately stepped forward.
The remaining members of his squad gathered around Javier without waiting for an order, raising their weapons as they formed a defensive line between the Crown Prince and the creature ahead.
Framon stood in the middle of the blood-soaked passage.
His transformation had not stopped.
Dark red mana poured from his body like a violent storm, filling the tunnel with an oppressive pressure that seemed to grow heavier with every breath.
The nobles who had surrounded him were either dead or desperately trying to escape.
The man called Framon Donius was becoming increasingly difficult to recognize beneath the swollen muscles, blood-red flesh and black eyes now fixed upon Javier.
Javier tightened his grip around his sword.
Beside him, Hans raised one hand, and his blades slowly lifted from the ground before taking position around him once more.
The remaining hunters lowered their stances, their weapons trembling beneath the pressure radiating from the creature ahead.
Javier drew a slow breath.
There was no longer a criminal standing before them who could simply be arrested.
No noble who could be forced to surrender.
Whatever Framon had swallowed had transformed the situation into something none of them had prepared for.
And with Alaric lying unconscious behind them, retreat was no longer simple either.
If they wanted to survive, they would have to fight.