Emperor of Steel - Chapter 39
Chapter 39: Getting Attacked 4
Wooo! Roarrr!
As the path to the cliff disappeared in an instant, the members of the shadow knights began to fall.
“Waahh!”
“Sa, save me!”
They tried and struggled not to fall; however, they had no choice but to fall wherever they were standing.
The case of the Gigants was much serious.
Because of their heavy weight, they fell from the rugged cliff much faster than the knights and suffered a terrible fall.
“The Ogre is too big to be hit down by the shallow Kobold.”
Luke looked down and smiled.
He examined the state of the ground before summoning his golems.
It seemed a bit hard, but with the right amount of force, the golems seemed to have the strength to break it.
In addition, the assassins were foolishly running and jumping to the Gigants, adding to the weight.
Naturally, the result was a clean kill.
“Some wanted to catch and bury someone, but would they survive at this height…”
Luke was surprised by the sharp energy that moved in the dark which made him stop talking.
The moment he moved his body, a dagger from below went past his body.
“Keuk!”
“This damn bastard!”
As Tigel screamed, he was climbing up the cliff.
Not just that, another four had survived.
Even though the wizards were flustered and unable to unleash a flying magic, they still miraculously survived by digging their sword on the cliff.
They were like demons crawling from the depths of hell.
“I won’t just kill you. I’ll keep you alive until you beg me to kill you!”
“Tch, attack him!”
Luke gave orders to the Golems.
However, the five assassins, who survived the fall, weren’t as slow as the Golem’s fists.
Lightly avoiding the attack from the golem, they ran toward Luke.
“Dark ton… uhk!”
Luke tried to blow the assassins with storm magic.
That was when suddenly, a sharp pain rose in his chest.
The magic manifestation had failed, and the sword of the assassins came in without hesitation.
“Kuk!”
The Tigel’s sword passed by Luke’s cheek cutting it a little.
The four assassins tried piercing Luke’s left arm, the back of his right hand, and his thigh and calf.
Despite the fatal wounds being avoided, Luke wasn’t so lucky to avoid all the attacks.
Just as Tigel had declared earlier, he deliberately avoided any fatal injuries as much as possible.
Tigel approached Luke, placing his sword near Luke’s shoulder; he stabbed it very slowly.
“This time, I’ll cut the flesh out then expose the bone out and then…”
At that moment, Tigel didn’t intentionally stop speaking. Luke used dark magic even though he was suffering.
“Kaaak! Black Bind!”
Thththud! Hwww!
The vines of a black plant came out of the ground, and at the moment, it caught the bodies of the assassins.
“What, what is this!”
Tigel tried to pull the vines off that were binding his body but many more entangled him.
Which was why he pulled out his sword to cut them off.
But all this time, his aura was being sucked by the black vines.
The more he struck them, the more it absorbed his aura.
‘This, this!’
Tigel looked over at Luke with wide eyes.
From his body, the aura he was feeling earlier had just been stolen.
It was obvious that this bizarre spell could take away the opponent’s power…
“Oh, dark magic…!”
The descendant of Rakan using dark magic?!
“Kaaack!”
Tigel tried to say a lot more, but Luke moved faster.
At the gesture from Luke, the vines moved very quickly and Tigel’s body got twisted.
The absorbed aura and vitality were taken in by Luke.
Thanks to that, Luke’s wounds were healed. However, his expression didn’t change.
‘It was a technique used to absorb the power of the demons, but I used it against humans!’
In the past, he had learned dark magic and vowed to never use them against humans.
The vow got broken that day.
He couldn’t help it as he wanted to survive. However, his heart was heavy because he broke the vow he made in the past.
Luke turned to the four assassins who were still alive.
Although they weren’t robbed of their powers, they looked at the scene where their captain—a high Expert—died in vain.
They just heard rumors about it. Their jaws trembled at the horror of the dark powers that they heard only in the old stories. They were happening in front of their eyes.
“Uhhh! Sa, save me…”
“Speak only when I told you to do so. Who has ordered you to kill me?”
“Goth, it was Goth.”
“Goth? Where and what does he do?”
“The secretary and advisor of Count Monarch.”
‘Of course…’
Luke’s face was distorted.
Because of what he did in the Gigant arena, the Count wanted to have Luke killed.
Not only did Luke help princess Reina, but he also won a huge amount.
Considering that there was an assassination attempt even before that, it could be set aside.
Of course, the other assassination attempt was probably not the Count Monarch’s doing, but Luke’s sixth sense was saying otherwise.
“Why is the Count trying to kill me? Was it because of what happened in the Gigant arena?”
“I, I don’t know anything else… uah! Please, please save me!”
One of the assassin’s body was getting sucked into the ground.
The other assassins were frightened and asked for their lives to be spared, but Luke didn’t care.
“I’ll save the man who can tell me the reason why the Count is trying to kill me.”
“I really don’t know!”
“We just received orders from Goth… aaah!”
The paid assassins had no way of knowing the thoughts of the Count.
Eventually, they got sucked into the ground.
After tidying up, Luke clenched his teeth, recalling the butler of the Count Monarch.
“Count Monarch… oh, since I’m close to him, I’ll kill him first.”
He was a bit similar to the Baroque Duke even though he wasn’t entirely related.
Under the current circumstances, he never thought that he could save his life.
‘I want to go over there right away and kill him, but I’ll let things go for now since I managed to get your name because of this assassination attempt.’
While Luke was deep in his thoughts, he heard Rogers and Philip’s voice from behind.
“Young lord! Where are you?”
“Young Lord!”
Luke hastily sent the golems back into the sub-space with the help of the bracelet.
He then checked carefully if Black Bind had any Magi remnants remaining nearby.
After he was done checking, the two arrived.
They seemed to be exhausted and hurt. However, there didn’t seem to be any serious injury to them.
“You’re safe, young lord!”
“Ah ah, this is really great.”
Rejoicing, they were shocked when they saw that the cliff had collapsed.
“What happened?”
“I was running away in this direction when they suddenly appeared here and blocked my path. They even brought Gigants with them. They tried to get me, but then the weak ground collapsed.”
“Hu, that…”
Rogers was shocked, but he no longer asked about it as he thought it was enough.
“You were really lucky.”
“That is right. The great Rakan must have looked over you.”
At the praise from Philip about Rakan, Luke’s face went hard.
Far from his blessing, because of the curse that Rakan had, he wasn’t able to get his revenge and almost died a while ago.
‘That wave I felt earlier stopped the dark circle on my heart. When I was about to use storm magic, that thing I felt was surely a curse wave.’
The curse played out in a really dangerous situation.
If it was anyone other than Luke, then they might have died.
‘Dammit! I’m not entirely sure, but who the hell could have put this curse?’
While Luke was thinking, Rogers asked,
“There might be more of them chasing for us, so we need to hurry to Lamer.”
“No, we aren’t heading to Lamer.”
“Uh? What is this all of a sudden?”
It was their original plan to head over to Lamer and buy a Gigant.
Rogers knew that there had to be a reason why Luke suddenly changed their plan.
Luke couldn’t say that he used dark magic to handle the assassins.
“I heard one of them talking. When I thought about it, it was a voice I heard when we went to Lamer.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, you knew about it, right? That I went over to Lippie clan’s maintenance room? One of the knights of the Count Monarch.”
That made the expression of Rogers’s face go stiff.
“Then… the Count Monarch may have sent the assassins.”
“That could be. There is no solid evidence, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful.”
“Then, let’s head over to Brandon. It is the largest city in the Southern part of the Empire, and there are many small magic towers in there.”
“Okay, then let’s head over to Brandon.”
Luke nodded at the plan which Philip offered.
Brandon city was far away, but it was better to avoid any danger as much as possible. And as there were many magic towers, there could be many things to see and know there.
The three men rested until sunrise and came down the mountain in the morning.
Their journey to Brandon was going to be hard. However, with the purchase of an unexpected object from the mountainside, the situation changed.
“Isn’t that a trailer?”
“Yes. Perhaps, the one that the assassins used to transport the Gigants. They seem to have left it behind when they were chasing us.”
“Then, let’s use it.”
“But we need a wizard to control that… Oh, you know some magic, right?”
“Yeah, I’m still new to that stuff…”
Luke was worried a bit but handling the trailer seemed to be much simpler than he imagined.
It started with just pouring some mana into the crystal ball which was connected to the Mado Steam Engine.
Of course, there was that inconvenience of using magic spells to not get noticed for being a wizard, but he started it pretty simply.
He then pulled the lever forward, and the trailer moved slowly. The trailer’s direction could be controlled by using a semi-circle control stick which was called a steering wheel to orient the wheels.
After a few test runs, Luke learned how to steer and left with Philip and Rogers for Brandon.
He didn’t know what was waiting for him over there, and who he was going to meet there.
