🔔 [A new day has arrived. Your current total EXP: 8,048,000 EXP.] 🔔 [You currently have 3 unfinished quests. Please pay attention to your tasks.] "Hm?!" Lathel frowned, slowly opening his eyes at the system’s notification sound. He glanced at Selvia lying next to him. Though she was still asleep, her face showed signs of worry and discomfort, as if she was caught in a nightmare. Lathel didn’t care, for he knew exactly what Selvia was facing. On the contrary, he thought it was a good thing. Without pressure, there could be no growth. This pressure was just enough to spur Selvia’s fighting spirit, ensuring she wouldn’t become useless. "Eight million EXP, huh..." Lathel glanced at the system’s status window, murmuring, "Still not enough to level up the Space Talent." He didn’t want to use his EXP to buy a ’BlindBox’, even though the items he got from BlindBoxes were interesting. For now, he wanted to focus on strengthening himself first. "It’s coming..." Suddenly, a woman’s voice whispered in his ear. Lathel didn’t feel afraid or surprised, only slightly confused. "What’s coming, Evelyn?" Yes, it was Evelyn’s voice. She seemed to have sensed something, and so she warned him. "It’s almost here... very close now..." Lathel frowned at her words, his gaze sharpening. "An enemy? Or danger?" "It’s here... it’s here..." Evelyn didn’t answer, her voice trembling—not from fear, but as if she was enduring some excruciating pain. The bracelet—Celesthalis—on Lathel’s wrist began to blink with strange black light. Lathel glanced at the bracelet, then frowned and looked toward the window of the carriage. Clip-clop! Clip-clop! Suddenly, the carriage shook violently and came to a halt. At that moment, Selvia startled awake. She rubbed her eyes and asked, confused, "Have we arrived, Lathel?" Lathel didn’t answer. He wasn’t curious either, just sat there silently. Seeing that, Selvia knew something bad was about to happen, so she dared not disturb him and quickly got dressed. "So quiet..." Lathel muttered. Silence descended like an invisible wall. Not the usual kind of silence, but an absolute emptiness. The sound of horse hooves, the metallic clank of armor— Even the wind through the window and the chirping of insects in the night were swallowed up by something. Even the sound of wind whistling through the cracks and the chirping of insects in the night was swallowed by something unseen. The space was engulfed in silence so deep that Lathel could hear each slow, steady beat of his heart inside his chest. It was a silence so eerie it made the skin crawl. "Evelyn..." He didn’t speak, only called out with his thoughts. Only the bracelet on his wrist responded, blinking with frantic, feverish black light—a warning that something terrifying was coming. Selvia’s terrified scream ripped through the silence. Her trembling finger pointed toward the carriage door. From the cracks, something like black smoke began to slither inside. It moved with intent, twisting like tiny snakes searching for prey. In less than a second, a larger cloud of smoke engulfed Selvia. It wrapped around her head like a burial shroud, sealing off her mouth and nose. Selvia’s body convulsed violently. Both her hands clawed helplessly at her throat, her eyes wide and filled with panic and desperate pleading. Her muffled cries were stifled, reduced to painful, strangled moans. She was like someone drowning at the bottom of a deep lake, struggling in vain, only able to feel the darkness invading her lungs. "La... thel... help..." Her voice was nothing but a shattered whisper. Lathel remained still, unmoving. His eyes narrowed, watching the scene with an icy focus, as if what was happening had nothing to do with him. A few seconds later, Selvia’s struggling weakened, then ceased altogether. Her body went limp, collapsing onto the floor of the carriage. Silence fell again, complete and absolute. Only now did one corner of Lathel’s mouth slowly curl up, forming a half-smile full of contempt and satisfaction. He stood, slowly pushing open the carriage door. A rush of cold air swept in. Dark Mist—the very thing that had just consumed Selvia—now coiled around him like a nest of snakes. Strangely, they did not attack him. Instead, they slithered around him, as if probing him, then drew back in fear, keeping a certain distance. Lathel frowned, realizing the entire space had been swallowed by the dark mist. All that remained was a pitch-black, ink-thick fog. The faint magical light from within the carriage could only illuminate a space less than five meters wide—a tiny oasis of light, lonely in a sea of darkness. A little farther out, Lathel could make out distorted shadows among the mist—the shapes of knights and their horses writhing in unnatural ways. At that moment, a female voice rang out—strange, venomous, filled with boundless hatred. A dark figure stepped out of the black mist, moving to the boundary between the darkness and the small lit area around the carriage. Lathel could now see clearly—it was a woman, her face ordinary but her skin burnt into blackened patches. Her body was covered in countless cracks, from which black smoke poured endlessly. Yes, it was Anna. Chapters fırst released on novelꞁire.net Her eyes, black as ink and brimming with relentless hatred, glared at him. The cracks in her face continually spilled black smoke, twisting and warping in anger, making her visage even more grotesque and terrifying. Lathel saw that the woman showed no fear, no worry, no trembling. His own face remained blank, as if he were looking not at a monster, but at a mere tree. Tilting his head indifferently, Lathel asked, "Do I know you?" His indifference made Anna even more furious. Gritting her teeth, she said, "My husband... my children... my neighbors..." "Lathel... you trampled on my faith... drowned everything in fire." "I’m here for revenge... to crush you, to drag you down to hell." "Ah!" Lathel nodded lightly, as if he understood why Anna appeared here in such a ghastly form. "It seems the Church is even more mysterious than I thought." He clasped his hands behind his back, smiling, his posture languid and full of contempt. "LATHEL!!!" Anna roared, her voice bestial. "I’ll make you feel the pain of losing everyone you love." Suddenly, Lathel sighed, cutting her off: "So much talking. Just a dog of the Church—what do you think you can do?" Anna faltered, thrown off by Lathel’s bizarre attitude, making her start to doubt herself. "No!" Anna muttered. "The great Xal’veth is always with me—He’ll help me get my revenge." Just mentioning Xal’veth seemed to inject Anna with a potent sedative. Black smoke poured from the cracks in her body, forming smoky tentacles that reached out to the writhing knights in the dark mist. They suddenly stilled, then gripped their swords and slowly began to move toward Lathel like puppets. "Hahahaha..." Anna laughed maniacally. "How does it feel when—" "Huh?!" Anna jolted as something flashed past her. She turned, eyes wide, just in time to see a spear pierce straight through the head of a knight. The knight, impaled through the skull, crashed to the ground, never to move again. The spear flew back through the air and landed neatly in Lathel’s hand. Lathel glanced at Anna, his tone indifferent: "Any other tricks? Go on, keep dancing." "Huh!" Anna snorted, and with a wave of her hand, the knights charged at him like death-defying moths to a flame. Lathel frowned and hurled the spear once more. It instantly drove through another knight’s chest, the impact flinging him backward. Yet he didn’t die—even with the spear driven through his heart, the knight writhed, struggling to get up. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Lathel appeared beside the knight, grabbed the spear, and yanked it hard. A rending sound tore through the air. The spear’s razor edge easily slid from chest to skull, slicing the knight in two as if cutting a cake. Blood sprayed everywhere, splattering across Lathel’s white robe, making him look like a bloodthirsty monster. "Looks like... unless you sever the head, attacking anywhere else is pointless," Lathel remarked coldly. He swung his spear, severing the heads of the surrounding knights as easily as harvesting wheat. It had to be said—he already possessed ten years of combat experience thanks to the ’Basic Melee Card’. Added to that, Celesthalis was a rank B magic weapon; he was like a wolf among chickens, easily dispatching the puppet-like knights, their movements stiff and mechanical. "This can’t be..." Anna muttered, unable to believe what was happening before her eyes. "He’s just a useless Prince—how could he possibly..." "No! Xal’veth is still with me... I must have my revenge..." At that moment, the maid Mira, who had been lying on the ground, suddenly stood up, her body moving stiffly like a puppet. She burst out from the mist, wielding a sword and lunged at Lathel. ’Hm?! Why can’t I control his wife? No matter... this is enough.’ Anna sneered maliciously. ’Lathel, maybe those knights meant nothing to you, so you could kill them so easily.’ ’But what about this maid? Don’t you feel sorry for her?’ ’Lathel... now you’ll feel it...’ A sharp whistle cut through Anna’s thoughts. Lathel’s spear stabbed straight toward Mira without a moment’s hesitation. The spear pierced through her chest with ease—but Lathel didn’t stop there. He swung his leg, kicking Mira hard in the abdomen. The kick was so powerful that Mira was sent flying dozens of meters, disappearing back into the mist. "You..." Anna realized something, gritting her teeth, her charred, blackened flesh cracking and falling to the ground as she clenched her fists. "You’re not Lathel, you... you’re not even human." Lathel chuckled at that. "Pff! Hahaha... I’ll take that as a compliment."