WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Order

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Became the Dark Knight in the Game World ◈

Chapter 68: The Devil and the Knight (3)

──────

Thoom!

Gila Dekair took a step. The instant he kicked off the ground, he vanished from sight.

Kriel followed the traces: the gouged arena floor and debris soaring into the air. He read Dekair's trajectory.

Kriel rolled across the ground. At that very moment, Dekair's blade, wrapped in Resentment, stabbed into the spot where he had been.

A grim chill spread from the sword embedded in the ground. It was more than an ordinary shiver. It carried undeniable physical force.

Ice spread from the blade like mycelium. The lamentations of wraiths condensed within every branch of frost. Death's pursuers, longing for life, closed in.

Kriel did not retreat.

As long as Dekair's sword remained stuck in the ground, his stance was limited. The enemy's sword paths were restricted, while mine were open.

It was a chance to counterattack.

A tearing sound split the air. The trajectory was a simple, straight line.

Because it was a straight line without any flourish, he could put all his strength behind it.

The greatsword, wrapped in ink-dark Battle Aura, fell toward Dekair's head.

Yet Dekair did not falter. The red lines carved across his body, proof of his Blood Energy, suddenly vanished.

The vanished Blood Energy gathered at Dekair's right fingertips. A red wedge shot up from his palm.

It was a crimson sword formed from condensed Blood Energy. The blood-red blade collided with the greatsword descending from the sky.

The moment Kriel's greatsword struck Dekair's Blood Sword, intense pain bored into his body.

The scars of dismemberment. The screams of burning alive. The lacerations of torture. The suffocation of drowning. The hunger of starvation.

Countless pains, none alike.

They were the sum of every physical pain Gila Dekair had inflicted upon others and collected.

As Kriel's momentum dulled, Gila shattered the Blood Sword and returned it to his body before pulling free his greatsword. When Dekair gripped it, the wraiths' cries grew louder.

Every wraith dwelling in Dekair's blade had been killed by his own hand. Their pain-filled Resentment resonated with the Blood Energy piercing Kriel.

The screams of those who had suffered the very pains now crushing Kriel. On top of the physical suffering came the despair and resignation the wraiths had felt in their final moments.

Kriel did not break.

He raised his sword.

Dekair swung his blade like a storm. Each time the ghosts' shrieks echoed, the air touched by his sword froze, forming lines of ice.

The Ice Spears formed that way flew toward Kriel. Trusting Eve Kaha’s Armor, Kriel charged ahead. Amid the storm of blades, Dekair and Kriel aimed for each other.

Within the reach of their greatswords, brutal exchanges continued, each strike seeming ready to smash apart anything that approached. Sparks flashed as blades met.

Both were wrapped in sword aura, and darkness dwelled within their hearts.

Paradoxically, the sparks were deep black.

Dekair's furious advance drove Kriel from one end of the arena to the other. Every time he stepped down and leaped, he covered a distance longer than three or four grown men laid end to end. Kriel had to retreat with every blow he blocked from the murderous greatsword.

At last, Kriel was driven against the wall of the battlefield, which the Demon had modeled after an ancient circular arena. He planted his greatsword into the ground and held firm, barely avoiding collapse.

Dekair looked at him.

A brief lull followed.

"You..."

Instead of continuing his assault, Dekair asked with suspicion.

"Why aren't you using the power of a Dark Knight?"

Kriel did not bother answering.

It was not because of some personal stubbornness. He had used the Dark Knight's powers whenever necessary until now.

There were two reasons he did not use them.

First was the fundamental principle of the Abyss, the one he had used to deceive Satranak and had occasionally exploited since.

The weak submit, and the strong rule.

The same principle was likely to apply to the Dark Knight's skills. Though Kriel was a Dark Knight, he used those powers very rarely. Who knew how many years Gila Dekair had wielded his power beneath the Abyss?

The difference in experience was a difference in mastery.

If Kriel wrapped his blade in Resentment like Dekair and faced him, the Resentment would instead drain from Kriel's sword and settle into Dekair's.

The very suggestion that he use the Dark Knight's powers was a trap.

There was a way around that. Rather than projecting his power outward, he could focus only on strengthening himself, much like Blood Energy enhanced physical strength.

The second reason Kriel did not even do that was simple.

'I don't have any.'

Kriel had not accumulated any Blood Energy or Resentment.

Dark Knights usually gathered Blood Energy and Resentment through unrestrained slaughter until they reached the limit they could handle.

Eventually, even if they used up every bit they had stored, they could bind their victims' souls through Abyssal skills, exploit them, and replenish themselves immediately.

Kriel hated the very idea of holding another's pain in his grasp. Only when a battle was certain did he gather resources by killing Monsters, then pour every last bit into a single fight.

Kriel answered with his sword.

Dekair believed he had pushed Kriel to his limit and let his guard down for an instant.

Thoom!

A strange sound, metal crashing together with a wraith's lament, echoed through the Abyss.

Dekair realized he had taken a step back.

A flicker of surprise crossed Dekair's eyes.

The rabble screamed pitifully and rolled across the ground the moment their blades met his Blood Sword. Even those proud enough to call themselves knights collapsed as soon as they felt Blood Energy, followed by Resentment.

That unmoving stance, whether it was feigned composure or genuine endurance, had to be the result of tremendous effort.

"Descendant. State your name. From now on, I will treat you as a knight."

Kriel felt the urge to pour out a bucketful of filthy curses.

Yet he was standing against the Abyss. A knight of Tirnanog had a proper way to act.

Thinking of the Nobility he believed in, Kriel opened his mouth.

"How dare you speak a knight's name?"

The red light beneath Gila Dekair's helmet glowed ominously. Blood Energy thickened further in response to the insult.

"As your senior, I'll give you one more chance. State your name."

'You want to be treated like a knight after beating people to death until you ended up like this?'

The blunt question came to Kriel's mind.

No. Simple insults would not work on a madman who took pride in being a knight even after falling into the Abyss.

"My senior? Then let me ask about the weight of the accomplishments you have amassed."

"What are you talking about?"

"Of all the opponents you defeated in battle, how many were true rivals? How many were foes in worthy adventures and struggles where honor was at stake?"

"Even after feeling it through that body, you still refuse to acknowledge it? Countless enemies I defeated, subdued, and conquered are here. The Blood Energy and Resentment I have accumulated are proof of it."

Kriel recalled the pain that had flowed through Dekair's blade.

"Is it glorious to kill an old person who cannot resist? Is it honorable to kill a child before their mother, then strangle the mother with the child's entrails?"

"The number of deaths one has piled up is the achievement of a Dark Knight."

Kriel laughed.

"Then you are not a knight."

"How dare you!"

Dekair rushed at him.

Though blinded by rage, he had not grown weaker.

His swordsmanship might have become more direct, but the hand gripping the hilt and the force of his pulsing muscles grew stronger. The contractions and expansions of those muscles manifested with even more overwhelming speed.

Kriel knew this was the power of a Dark Knight.

A mighty power that turned mental debuffs meant to break the mind into strength. No matter what mad obsession latched onto a Dark Knight, it invigorated his vitality and filled his body with power.

Because any negative emotion could become strength, a Dark Knight wished to become the embodiment of negative thoughts and be reborn as a new Demon. Having finally surpassed humanity, he would carve his name into the Abyss forever.

But that was not the life Kriel wanted.

It was not the Nobility he dreamed of.

Gila Dekair's expression hardened.

"Are you truly refusing the power of the Abyss?"

It was laughable, pathetic, and enviable.

Why would the one his master praised as "the one who would become king" refuse to use the power within his grasp?

"Do not reject the power you possess! A Dark Knight is not like those fools who fear strength simply because it is strong!"

Jealousy born of inferiority also became his strength. Power surged through him.

"Look! At this very moment, my power grows stronger! If you desire it, you can rule everything with ease! To reign over the weak is the duty and mission of the strong, of a knight!"

Rule was a mission?

Kriel did not agree.

That was not a knight's duty.

As a wandering knight in a book Kriel had once read in the library put it, knights walked the narrow, difficult road.

They were those who dreamed foolish, idiotic dreams.

Footnotes:

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried