Chapter 46 – The Artist’s End

The count surrendered his body to the mounted magic armor with a displeased expression.

The metallic exoskeleton gently enveloped the count, bestowing upon him a power like never before.

A sturdiness and strength that would not yield to any enemy.

‘To think I would put on magic armor in a place like this.’

The opponent had already chosen a weapon and was walking over leisurely.

As the count’s visor went down, his vision became somewhat uncomfortable.

“Is it a second-tier magic armor like mine? The appearance looks like it.”

An opponent who did not answer.

The count smiled bitterly.

‘Did she break Seraphine’s performance with a Silent Barrier? If so, I am just babbling unsightly by myself. It is the height of ugliness.’

To a noble, there was nothing more shameful than ugliness.

Therefore, the count also decided not to talk to himself anymore.

Instead, he intended to talk with his body.

Since he was more confident than anyone in talking one-on-one with a woman.

Especially if she was an elegant and young woman.

The count grasped the largest and most threatening-looking halberd from his armory.

To stand against that destructive and madness-filled mace, a halberd, which combined a spear, an axe, and a hook, was just the thing.

The halberd’s weight exceeded a whopping 100 kg.

Being able to handle it like a toy was entirely due to the power of the magic armor.

However, a formidable sense of weight was felt from her mace as it was dragged along, breaking the hard floor of the building.

If hit by something like that, even he, wearing magic armor, would not emerge unscathed.

The visor of her, who had closed the distance with the count, went down.

The corners of her mouth, hidden by the visor, were twitching, unable to contain her excitement.

The count aimed at her with the tip of his halberd.

‘Is she a homicidal maniac wearing the mask of justice?’

Although he was an artist who sublimated murder into art,

she looked like a clever and disciplined killer hiding behind justice.

‘I cannot be hunted by my own kind in a place like this.’

The moment the count steeled his will to fight,

her hunt began without warning.

Closing the distance abruptly, she swung the madness-like mace.

The count tried to block it by putting forward his halberd, but it was a reckless act, like parrying a flying boulder.

A boulder like a block of iron, at that.

Unable to overcome the power of the mace, the count’s entire body was buried in the wall.

He had no doubt that he would have been turned into mush if he hadn’t been wearing magic armor.

‘There was definitely a reason why she came alone.’

The count was also facing an opponent wielding a mace for the first time.

Range, control, functionality.

Whichever aspect one looked at, he should have had the advantage in terms of the weapons’ benefits.

Yet the opponent was overwhelming him with a weapon of lower tactical advantage.

‘What ugliness.’

Being buried in the wall was only temporary.

The count broke out and aimed at her like a flash of light.

The blade of the halberd, striking down as if to cleave her in two, was loaded with an energy similar to sword qi, and there was clear killing intent.

However…

She, who lightly dodged this, wrapped the mace and swung it again.

The count also reacted quickly, trying to strike it down with the halberd, but the halberd snapped like a lie.

“?!”

Without even time to be shocked, the count’s entire body was hit directly by the swinging mace, and from then on, he began to be thoroughly devastated.

A one-sided assault ensued.

The count was busy fleeing from the endlessly swinging mace, and she never let go of the fleeing count.

‘How?’

It was a weapon exceeding 100 kg.

Even the count had not expected that it would snap so early on.

Running out of moves, the count summoned illusion chains to bind her body.

The count clenched his fist tightly.

It was magic that constricted the opponent as tightly as he squeezed.

A brief confrontation followed.

The count thought he had bought time with this, but it was a delusion.

The hand, which could not be easily closed, eventually opened wide, and the illusion chains broke.

Panic showed on the count’s face.

Since such a thing had never happened before, the shock the count received was beyond imagination.

The mace head, loaded with energy, was imprinted on the count’s retinas.

‘Could it be?’

Suddenly, such a thought occurred to him.

Could that mace head be made of something else, not ordinary metal?

He had heard of such a metal in the past.

That there was a metal called the strongest, which broke even steel easily.

Sky-Shattering Steel. A fragment of the divine realm falling from the sky.

It was so rare that it could not be bought even with money, and was a precious metal occasionally bestowed upon those who achieved great merits in war.

If that mace was made of Sky-Shattering Steel, the absurd situation from earlier could be fully understood.

Because unless all mana was loaded into the weapon, even a weapon exceeding a hundred kilograms would have definitely broken.

“Oh dear…”

That was not a weapon, but a war machine that shattered everything, including limbs.

The mace directly hit the count, who crouched reflectively.

The mana shield wrapped around his body and the sturdiness of the magic armor were holding up to some extent, but how long they would hold was unknown.

“Kugh…”

The surroundings turned into a mess, devastated by the mace.

Chasing him down before he could even gather his senses, she swung the mace mercilessly.

The count bound her with the illusion chains once again, but just like before, the illusion chains broke in an instant.

Her mana level…

seemed to be far superior to his.

A matter that could not be explained otherwise.

“Count.”

Dragging the mace head, she opened her mouth for the first time.

The count, whose mind was in a daze, showed his palm toward her in an unsightly tumbled state.

“Wa-Wait a minute! What is it you want? If there is something you want…”

Before she could even say her next words, the count put forward several conciliation measures.

A servile tactic to overcome the immediate crisis.

However, nothing entered her ears right now.

What she heard in her imagination…

was solely his screams.

“I cannot hear the screams very well.”

As if playing with him,

she twisted the corners of her mouth cruelly.

“Bark more. So that I can get more excited.”

The count was speechless.

Role reversal.

He had heard that such a thing existed, but the count was someone who could not feel it in the first place.

Yet at this moment,

the feelings of the numerous victims in the artworks, which he had not even tried to know…

why did they touch him so deeply?

* * *

Rashid neutralized Seraphine’s Crescendo in succession by putting forward the Absorption Core.

Sword qi was, in a broad sense, like a spell. Probably all actions crafted with mana were a category of magic.

The rushing sword qi, Crescendo, was a continuation of such magic.

Crackle!

He felt his left hand overloading.

Even with the power to dismantle magic formulas, there would surely be a limit.

‘It is indeed a second-tier magic armor, so it is not perfect. It would have been different if it were first-tier, though.’

If Black Claw, unable to overcome the overload, lost its function even for a moment, Seraphine would target that opportunity to pluck the strings of mind control.

‘I should cast the Silent Barrier before that happens.’

There was a scroll he had brought along.

A-grade, called Flawless, would be enough to break Seraphine’s mind control.

‘She is certainly not an easy opponent. Well, looking only at the level of strength, she is above the count, so it is natural.’

The two continued to clash.

Seraphine blocked Rashid’s offensive with the violin at long range and with the rapier at close range.

Rashid also kept pushing her without stopping.

‘Now.’

It was the moment Rashid, finding a gap, was about to tear through time using his trait.

There was a white knight who blocked Rashid’s path.

He equipping a first-tier magic armor, deflected Rashid’s sword with truly overwhelming martial power, and at the same time, blocked Seraphine’s Crescendo with his magic barrier.

Ryden.

Ryden, who was a Crimson Guard, had arrived.

“Stop! Both of you, stop!”

The duel with Seraphine…

ended up blocked by him, who had arrived without warning.

“Where is the count right now?”

Relief and a smile seeped into Seraphine’s face.

To her, Ryden was no different from a savior.

Because he was an elite knight of the Guard and a hero who saved the empire from the Grey Morning.

“His Excellency is over there right now. His Excellency is in danger. Hurry.”

On the other hand, from Rashid’s standpoint, there was no way this situation would be welcome.

‘An unstoppable guy has arrived.’

He was the number-one person Rashid was most wary of when it came to dealing with the count.

Originally, Ryden was a knight attached by the imperial family to protect the count.

Moreover, his martial power was overwhelming to the point that there was almost no one to compare with in this worldview.

Since he could not block him either by force or justification,

Rashid had no choice but to root for her in his heart.

‘Did she finish him?’

The time was dragged out sufficiently, and by now, the matter would have been settled in one way or another.

Ryden, guided by Seraphine, vanished in an instant.

“How unfortunate. For the attempt targeting His Excellency the Count to end in failure.”

“We will have to wait and see about that.”

“Do you think His Excellency the Count would be victimized that easily?”

She shook her head as if to show him.

“Rather, your attendant must have been victimized. His Excellency the Count is not that soft. If he is the Excellency I know, that is.”

Rashid and Seraphine could not continue the same confrontation as before.

Because at this moment, there were people flocking toward them.

‘In any case, that woman’s gravesite is not here. It is the Basilica Choral Dome. I will close the lid of your coffin there.’

Sparked by Ryden, there were police forces and clerics rushing into the scene like an opened floodgate.

The count’s escort knights gathered around Seraphine, and Karl came to Rashid and bowed his head as if apologizing.

“I am sorry. I tried to block him as much as possible, but since the opponent was a Crimson Guard, there was no other way to block him.”

If it was Ryden, probably no one would have been able to block him.

Because Ryden was that kind of monster.

“It wouldn’t have been easy for me either. Don’t be so disheartened.”

“Thank you for saying so.”

After that, Karl asked carefully.

“By the way, what happened to the count? Did you deal with him, Inquisitor?”

Just then, there was a welcome message rising in his field of vision.

– You have completed the main quest, ‘Owner of the Gory Artwork’.

– You have obtained ‘Sense +1’ as a reward.

Rashid smiled faintly.

‘Was she a useful blade? Fortunately, she dealt with the count.’

* * *

Arriving at the scene, Ryden could not speak for a while.

“Aria…”

In front of her,

what was once called the count remained in a grotesque state.

In the least beautiful appearance in the world.

“You are a bit late, Senior.”

As if she had expected it,

she welcomed him without any sign of embarrassment.

“I knew you would come, but I am glad I was faster.”

“What is this? Surely you weren’t the one who killed him?”

The expectations he might have harbored…

crumbled to pieces before the returned answer.

“Yes, I killed him in the act.”

“What? In the act? What do you mean…”

“Senior. Look over there.”

In the place she pointed to, there were countless corpses.

“It is His Excellency the Count’s artwork, no less. You must have heard before entering guard duty, Senior? About the noble hobby His Excellency the Count possessed.”

“That…”

“Unfortunately, His Excellency the Count was caught red-handed by me while carrying out his noble artistic activities.”

Ryden shook his head.

“Aria, do you know who you just killed? He is not a simple murderer, but a count. A lord of a great family with an autonomous territory. This is not a light matter.”

She snorted as if to show him.

“A lord? So what does that have to do with me? There is someone else who said they would take responsibility anyway. I merely acted according to the Inquisitor’s instructions. This is the result.”

Her expression turned cold.

“So if you have something to argue about, visit the Inquisitor, not me. Do not bother me for no reason.”

With those final words,

she leisurely left the scene.

The only one left in the place was…

the white knight who failed to protect the count.