Chapter 461: The Dark Knight Strikes

In a distant corner of the battlefield, a silent form was lurking in the shadows. It had watched the events play out with an impassive expression, from the grand melee between the players and the void monsters, to the heroic charge of the core members of Umbra vs the Rank 2 void monsters.

The silent form had grimaced when the core members had come forward, as many old memories had flashed through its head, distracting and tormenting it. Especially since those had not been its own memories, but of another just like him.

For a split second, the quarantined zone that silent form had created for itself to trick the special senses of Eva had trembled and had almost come apart. However, its mind had quickly been stabilized by an external force.

Not understanding who it was that had lent it help, the silent form had subdued its confusion before slowly moving towards Eva. Before he had the chance to act though, the armageddon Fitter Cleric had summoned landed with fury upon the zone, and even Eva and the Rank 3 monsters had been forced to flee.

This silent form quickly dispelled its defense and created an area of Destruction Energy around it. Its barrier had disintegrated everything that came into touch with it, leaving the existence below unscathed.

However, its form now revealed, one should have been able to recognize that the one that had been sneaking through a veil of cordoned space was actually the Dark Knight!

The first clone of Draco and the second clone of Lucifer!

Suddenly, it all made sense!

The reason why this World Event had unexpectedly risen in difficulty was indeed because someone had expanded upon the slight crack Draco had made to the fabric of reality that led to the Abyss.

This had been the Dark Knight himself, in his Dragon Form no less. He had used Destruction Energy to rip the hole as wide as he could before he had been blasted away.

In fact, the Dark Knight had only hoped for a bevy of Rank 2 void monsters to distract Eva for a little while, he had never expected Rank 3 Void Devourers to use that chance to come out and play.

However, he had lucked out by gaining the... assistance... of those 10 monsters in distracting Eva. He had been convinced that it would be almost impossible for Eva to be killed by them, but he just needed her attention gone for a split second.

In truth, he had been quite conflicted about his plans. Many things had seemed out of place to him. For example, why had he seen Draco and Eva together in perfect harmony, despite what she did to him? Why was Eva the co-founder of Umbra and not the leader of Darkrow like in those memories?

When he had asked himself the first question, a voice had whispered into his mind that the memories he had seen were of the future, and only he could prevent Draco from suffering such a horrible fate.

This had calmed the Dark Knight down for a while longer until he had asked the second question, which still contradicted his memories. Once more that voice had guided him, by explaining that what he remembered was jumbled up and of a similar but different timeline.

The Dark Knight had been largely silent but had decided to do some investigations of his own. However, he failed to remember what had happened at that time, only remembering that it somehow had fed the crazed idea running through his head that he had to kill her.

This had been around the time he had created the bigger hole in the tear on space. After he had been blasted away, he had regained his senses and had realized that there was something horribly wrong with the proceedings.

However, his questions had been suppressed and his mind had been kept on a leash by something or someone he could neither see nor ever hope to go against. He had become like a drunk person being led to their car by a friend.

The wasted person might recognize that the friend was leading them astray and would question it, but some soft reassurances would easily get the drunk person to become obedient and follow along.

Since then, the Dark Knight had been half-asleep and half-aware of what had been going on around him. His body had moved to perform actions according to planned out scenarios, but his mind had sluggishly questioned everything.

This had led to great resistance within him. He might be a clone, but he was still related to Lucifer and Draco, meaning that he would never settle for being controlled by another.

Alas, it had been futile. As such, the Dark Knight had single-mindlessly followed through his directives to quell Eva as cleanly as possible, without even considering the aftermath of it.

Like a suicide bomber wearing a vest of C4, the Dark Knight had entered this battle in a way that suggested he didn't plan to come out of it after achieving his goal.

After armageddon came to pass, the Dark Knight struggled to re-enter his quarantined zone due to the amount of energy he had spent. However, a beautiful white light encompassed his form, wrapping around him gently and smoothly.

This allowed the Dark Knight to re-enter a form of impalpability so solid that no person below divinity could spot him... for his current state was bestowed upon him by a divinity.

｢System to Player Announcement

You have been blessed with a veil of impenetrability from the Goddess Sunna. You are completely undetectable to all species below the Divine Rank except for those bonded with the void.

Note: Goddess Sunna included a message in your blessing: "Takedown that wretched whore and destroy her Immortal Spirit, then I shall grant you any wish you so desire."｣

The Dark Knight's conflicted feelings bled away. If a deity of this world could specifically call Eva a wretched whore, then didn't that mean that her infidelity did not start as late as his memories in this timeline?

Could it be that the voice was right? After all, true Gods could see everything on the main plane. For one to specifically assist him in vanquishing her, it had to mean that Eva must have done some great evil.

To even make a promise like this, showed that Sunna was willing to pay any price to see Eva extinguished. This train of logic reassured the Dark Knight that he wasn't exactly doing the wrong thing and might even do society a favor.

As such, the Dark Knight reached a strange state where his mind and body were finally connected, the mysterious entity controlling his mind no longer needed to force him to do the job.

The Dark Knight quickly spotted Eva who came out from her underground hiding place and slowly approached her, but stopped halfway when he saw that she converged all the players around her.

After a short wait, it seemed like they had reached some sort of consensus. They executed a beautiful sequence of skills that incapacitated all their foes and began a heavy bombardment that defied all reason.

The Dark Knight was greatly stunned by their prowess, which was a far cry from his memories, especially for all the core members, some of whom didn't even exist in his memories.

However, he quickly focused and got back to his task at hand: vanquishing Eva. He had to be smart about it because once Eva got a whiff of him, he would fail and he somehow knew that the stars would never align themselves in a similar way to give him another chance.

In fact, he was certain that he would be the one extinguished from the world permanently, no matter the outcome. As such, he had to make his sacrifice count and execute everything perfectly. With this blessing from that strange Goddess, he certainly would be able to get into place with ease.

Everything would depend on the effectiveness of his plan. With that in mind, the Dark Knight got close to where Eva stood with the other three beauties nearby.

He then plunged his hand into his chest and silently screamed as he pulled out a strangely shaped scale. It was similar to the one Draco had over his heart, the same shape and all, only that this one was slightly silver in color.

It was his reverse scale!

To tear off his reverse scale, the Dark Knight truly did not plan to live after this. If there had still been a sliver of a chance that he might survive, perhaps getting rescued by the Goddess who had helped him out, he had just extinguished that possibility.

No Dragon could survive without their reverse scale, no matter who. In that same sense, the majority of a Dragon's essence and power was contained in their reverse scale.

After removing his reverse scale, the Dark Knight slotted it on his broadsword. Immediately, the weapon glowed with a bright light that was suppressed by the cover granted to him, but its sheer power made him waver.

This was when Essence Stalker, in his Void Dragon form, sensed some weird undulations of space behind him. It was similar to when he had been in the Ancestral Dragon City and had encountered an ancient Bone Dragon that had been blessed by a True God from the old era.

No, Essence and Fitter had not won that battle, but it had been a valuable lesson teaching Essence a lot about the power of True Gods and Dragons.

He felt that this undulation was similar to that circ.u.mstance, but he wasn't sure. He would have brushed it off if not for where the undulations occurred. It was right behind Eva's location!

With a roar, Essence Stalker shot an Orb of Void toward that location to hold the enemy back while he rushed over. He shouted at the top of his lungs: "BIG SIS EVA, LOOK OUT!"

Eva immediately understood what Essence Stalker was trying to convey by reading his mind and quickly activated her True Void Form. However, the transformations required some time to activate and the Dark Knight had already begun to move the moment he had slotted his reverse scale.

Essence and Eva had discovered him far too late to change anything.

The Dark Knight suddenly appeared in plain view behind Eva, shocking the three NPC beauties beside her, as well as many core members who had shifted their attention towards her following Essence's cry.

In that split second, as everyone confusedly watched on as Eva was impaled on the blade of the Dark Knight, it was as if time had come to a stop. Many wore disbelieving expressions, seeing Eva spit blood from the clearly fatal wound dealt to her that had canceled her transformation.

But if it was just this, Eva would have been able to retaliate. The Dark Knight also knew this, so he had channeled all the energy contained in his reverse scale to fuel his Destruction Energy as the black miasma that usually meant that Destruction Energy was present emerged like flames and covered Eva's entire body.

Eva originally planned to retaliate, but paused when she saw an emergency summon from her pod and chose to exit the game immediately. At that same moment that she left though, the flame-like Destruction Energy had burned her player character to nothing, virtually erasing her existence from Boundless... permanently.

Right as the Dark Knight was about to let out a sigh of relief, he heard a scream fueled by hatred and anger and turned to see three supremely beautiful women gazing at him with such malevolence that even he shook.

.......

Eva pulled her hands off Draco's temple and sighed with a bit of fatigue. She sipped her drink lightly while Draco's expression changed many times as he parsed the information that had flooded his mind.

Eventually, his lips twitched. "I would never have been able to imagine that your mind-reading would become so powerful in such a small amount of time. You really managed to filch that much from the mind of the Dark Knight in that one split second he had shown himself? Damn, those Eyes of Caelo are useless compared to you!"

Eva chuckled smugly. "Well, they weren't made for that purpose, so it's understandable."

Draco gave her the side-eye. Who could not hear the hidden boast in her tone? 'This Celestial Beauty of mine, she's really becoming a shameless crook by the day.'

'Sniff, I'm so proud...'

Draco passed a hand through his hair. "But still, despite going against you, I can't help but feel bad for the Dark Knight."

Eva smirked. "Hehe, lemme guess, it's because of that, right?"

Draco nodded with a bitter smile. "That Dark Knight fellow was ready to die thinking he would vanquish you, yet here you're with me, fine and dandy."

Draco's face became even stranger at this point. He had the look of an older brother, who watched his younger brother make a fool of himself by asking out the school's prettiest girl to prom, when he himself was just a 5/10.

"All his willingness to sacrifice himself, yet his plan was destined to fail if I hadn't interfered anyway... because after the last time we shared our bloodlines, you became immune to Destruction Energy."