Chapter 28
“Interesting. If I take down that crow, the master of the empire’s underbelly, I’ll earn great praise.”
Garda swung his great sword around, seemingly quite confident in his abilities.
“Participants, prepare, start!”
In that moment, the announcer called for the battle to begin.
With the command, Garda leaped forward, charging like a bolt of lightning.
Simultaneously, his robe billowed, revealing his full figure.
Those who saw him began to realize his true identity.
“Is he a child of the battle tribe, Prea?!”
His deep green eyes and distinctive tattoos adorned his body.
He hailed from Prea, a small tribe known for surviving in the most treacherous mountains in the empire.
The infamous Prea, reputed for its harsh landscape, birthed warriors with innate combat prowess, dubbed a battle tribe.
If he was indeed a child of that battle tribe, surely even the Night Crow would struggle against him, right?
That was the thought racing through their minds.
However, it wasn’t long before their thoughts shifted.
Kraush simply dodged every swing of Garda’s mighty sword.
“Hey, he’s just dodging.”
“Does he have no chance to counter at all?”
As they observed, they mistook his evasive maneuvers for a desperate struggle, but that perception started to change over time.
Garda’s strikes were fierce.
Yet none connected, transforming the narrative entirely.
Kraush never took a single hit from Garda’s relentless onslaught.
It was almost as if he had foresight, evading each attack with uncanny precision.
“That’s not it.”
“He’s doing it on purpose! He’s deliberately avoiding him!”
The crowd gasped in shock.
It was plain to see that Kraush was toying with his opponent.
Such a performance could only occur if a significant skill gap existed.
“What a coward!”
“Isn’t he the Night Crow? Seems the reputation of the assassination family fits him after all.”
“I’d laughed at that claim about living in the shadows. Who knew he’d be this good?”
“The child of Prea can’t do anything!”
They couldn’t hide their astonishment.
Although it was a joke, the Night Crow was renowned as an assassination family.
Perhaps due to this, Kraush’s elusive movements only solidified their belief in him as the true Night Crow.
“Ugh, you slippery little rat!”
Garda, who was up against Kraush, couldn’t hide his irritation either.
Despite being from a fierce tribe, he was still just a 15-year-old boy.
With his mental immaturity and the weight of the crowd’s gaze, he began to lose confidence, feeling increasingly suffocated.
“Ugh!”
Struggling against this pressure, he swung his great sword wildly, hoping to shake off the tension.
Whoosh!
As the sword sliced through the air, Garda’s eyes widened in horror.
The figure of Kraush, which had been visible just a moment ago, vanished.
“You acted too hastily.”
In that instant, a voice resonated from behind him.
Wham!
Kraush’s fist slammed into his back with pinpoint accuracy.
Thud!
Simultaneously, a sudden surge of energy rattled Garda’s insides.
“Cough!”
Garda, unable to bear the shock, tumbled to the ground.
Even a trained body couldn’t fend off that sudden blow.
The combination of exertion from his earlier movements and that strike rendered him unconscious.
The judge immediately raised a hand toward Kraush’s side.
“The winner is Kraush!”
“Wooooooooo!”
The crowd erupted into thunderous applause.
They had just witnessed the remarkable skill of the hidden Night Crow, naturally an expected reaction.
‘Though, technically, I’m not the Night Crow, right?’
Kraush smirked inwardly, cleverly capitalizing on the rumors spread by Sigrid.
By now, the real Night Crow must be in a complete tizzy.
‘And they’ll be coming for me soon.’
They wouldn’t simply ignore a fake Night Crow in their midst.
Kraush glanced over at Garda momentarily.
He felt a twinge of guilt.
He would have been a favorite for victory otherwise.
‘Well, the other Prea boy is probably already set to enter Rahelrn Academy, so it shouldn’t matter for Prea.’
The real child of Prea from the generation soaring through the skies.
As Kraush pondered, he moved on.
Just then, he crossed paths with someone in the audience.
It was Sizelry, who was watching him with a slight smile.
Despite getting warned, she had entered the martial arts tournament, indicating that she’d caught onto Sigrid’s scheme.
Sizelry was sharp, after all.
– A Night Crow, what an impressive identity!
Though her voice didn’t reach him, Kraush could read her lips.
She was mocking him for knowing that he wasn’t the Night Crow.
Ignoring her, Kraush headed toward the waiting area for the trials.
‘The bait is set.’
Now, he just needed to wait for someone to take it.
Click Clack.
As Kraush walked down the corridor, he heard footsteps approaching from the opposite direction.
Recognizing them as participant footsteps, he looked up.
There stood a man.
With long limbs standing tall, he had gloomy black hair cascading down.
His eyes seemed devoid of light, and upon seeing Kraush, a slight smirk crept onto his lips.
“Is impersonating the Night Crow fun for you?”
Just as the man thought he’d secured Kraush, a sharp white blade shot towards him, stopping inches from his throat.
Kraush had grabbed his wrist.
“Wow, a surprise,” Kraush chuckled, looking up at him.
“I didn’t expect you to fall for it so easily.”
Was this luck or misfortune?
The real Night Crow had come to settle the score with Kraush.
＊ ＊ ＊
Historically, crows have always been regarded as ominous creatures that feast on corpses.
They linger near the dying, the harbingers of death.
And here stood a member of the Night Crow, associated with that name.
Yet, Kraush was tilting his head, looking quizzically at the Night Crow member before him.
“Oops?”
A moment of bewildered curiosity escaped his lips.
At that instant, another blade flew from behind the arm he had grabbed.
Kraush effortlessly dodged the incoming blade, then responded with a swift kick to the man’s abdomen, pushing him back.
The hit seemed to stagger the man, but he appeared unfazed by the pain.
That realization only strengthened Kraush’s conviction.
He was sure of the identity of the person in front of him.
“I didn’t even know that.”
Kraush didn’t possess in-depth knowledge about the Night Crow.
The primary reason being that they had vanished while he was attending Rahelrn Academy.
That news spread like wildfire, with the children on the imperial side disrupting the entire realm over it.
Afterward, he learned that the Night Crow were, in fact, hidden weapons of the royal family.
Finding out that the figure before him belonged to that elite was unexpected.
‘So Arthur called him in.’
He truly acted like a reincarnator, knowing all this beforehand and making his moves.
‘It makes sense that they vanished during my academy days.’
It seemed Sigrid had also been utilizing the Night Crow before Arthur could.
She must have known his identity since they had been together.
“What a nice twist.”
Meanwhile, the man twisted his neck into an odd pose, swirling his sword.
“Impersonating the Night Crow means you’re skilled, huh?”
As he spoke, he flashed a relaxed smile.
And just as that smile faded, another blade came flying toward Kraush.
With a swift draw, he parried it effortlessly.
The man opted for a quick strike, but Kraush easily deflected all of his attacks.
In terms of swordplay, Kraush was in a league of his own.
Realizing this, the man’s mouth fell open in surprise.
In the next instant, a poisoned dagger shot out from his mouth.
Kraush easily tilted his head, avoiding the dagger, but just then, an arm shot out from the folds of his clothing.
It was a skeletal black-arm made of bone, shooting straight for Kraush, contacting him at once.
The man grinned, convinced that Kraush was finished for sure.
“What are you doing?”
Yet, Kraush stayed completely unharmed, looking straight up at the man.
“What the—?”
As the man shredded his facade, Kraush’s fist shot up, striking him squarely under the chin.
The man crumpled, disoriented and crashing to the ground.
Kraush stepped on his chest and dusted off his hands.
“The death technique spawned from world erosion doesn’t work on me.”
With his primeval blood poison, he could nullify such arts entirely.
“W-Wait, the power of world erosion? Who the hell are you?”
The moment the man registered that Kraush was harnessing the forces of world erosion, his expression morphed into sheer shock.
Kraush gazed down, raking his hand through his hair.
He had intended to lure the Night Crow in and propose a deal, allowing him to escape from Sigrid.
It seemed he would have to tweak his plans a bit now.
“Ebelask.”
With that, Kraush called out the name.
The moment it escaped his lips, the man froze, and Kraush looked at him with a steely gaze.
“Where are you right now?”
“Uh, uh… w-wait, what? You?!”
The man stuttered, surprised by the sudden reference.
Seeing his shocked face, Kraush relaxed his neck.
“Your heart is currently in Sigrid’s grasp, isn’t it?”
“Yikes, yikes!?”
He screeched in terror.
The mere fact that Kraush seemed to know everything about him terrified him to the very core.
Even amidst that fright, Kraush continued without a hint of emotion.
“Let’s make a deal.”
“A-d-deal?”
“I’ll help you retrieve your heart.”
At that moment, the man’s expression shifted for the first time.
No matter how Kraush knew the information, it was something Ebelask couldn’t ignore.
“I want you to reveal everything about Sigrid’s plan and everything she’s instructed you to do in exchange for getting your heart back.”
And with that, Kraush cornered Ebelask into betrayal.
The heart had been taken by the royal family of the empire, imprisoning him for a millennium.
A necromancer.
Ebelask Venafoch.
It was all for her, after all.
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