"Clang—!"
The knight's longsword, brought down in a charging cleave, collided once more in midair with the slender katana.But the overwhelming, one-sided outcome Beldia had anticipated never came.
Instead, the moment he caught the blade, he felt as though the thin katana carried the weight of a mountain. A violent numbness surged up his arm, almost making him lose his grip.
"That's impossible! A mere human—without any support skills—how could you possess such monstrous strength?!"
At the instant their weapons met, Beldia realized he had been wrong—spectacularly wrong.
The opponent standing before him was no speed-focused rogue.
He was a humanoid monster.
That level of raw power was something no ordinary human could ever possess.
"There's nothing impossible about it," Ren Kuroda said calmly. "I already told you—the real fight starts now. What made you think everything I showed you earlier was all I had?"
Despite charging forward with full momentum, Beldia—and even the warhorse beneath him—were sent skidding backward several meters by Ren's single strike.
After they separated, the horse snorted heavily, hooves scraping the ground, while Beldia felt a lingering numbness in the hand gripping his longsword.
"Just who are you?! How does an adventurer of your caliber end up in a place like this?And with strength like that, there's no way you could've been some nobody within this kingdom!"
Beldia had already overestimated Ren's strength more than once—but in the end, he still found he had underestimated him.
They had only exchanged a few blows, yet as a veteran who had fought on countless battlefields, Beldia could clearly sense it.
He was not Ren's equal.
Judging by appearance alone, Ren looked much like Mitsurugi Kyoya—another young swordsman, barely more than a teenager.
But after just a handful of brief exchanges, the difference between the two was painfully obvious.
True, Kyoya—wielding the demon sword Gram and bolstered by his Sword Master class—was no weakling.But when it came to combat awareness and experience, he was like a fragile sprout compared to a seasoned warrior.
Ren, however, was different.
Despite being around the same age, his timing, decisiveness, and composure were anything but those of a novice adventurer.
From Ren's eyes alone, Beldia could tell—there was nothing there but pure, unwavering battle intent. No hesitation. No distraction.
Beldia relied on his mount to keep up with Ren's speed and withstand his attacks.Ren, from beginning to end, fought alone—with nothing but a single blade.
And precisely because of that, Beldia understood the truth.
If not for his mount, he would have already lost.
"Your martial prowess is truly worthy of respect," Beldia said solemnly."Relying on my steed is not my preference—but I am a knight, and my mount is part of my strength.As a knight, I honor your skill and power. However… from here on, I will use the true power of a Dullahan."
After only a few exchanges, Beldia's combat instincts told him this was not an opponent he could defeat through swordplay alone.
If he couldn't suppress Ren through technique, then there was only one option left—
The racial power of a headless knight.
Beldia had once prided himself on being a noble knight in life, and under normal circumstances, he rarely relied on his Dullahan abilities.Only when facing multiple powerful adventurers alone—or when the situation slipped beyond his control—would he resort to them.
The Dullahan's power was simple, brutal, and absolute.
Aside from his earlier ability to perceive weaknesses, his other signature power was—
Curse.
Those afflicted by Beldia's curse would inevitably die, the timing depending on their own strength.It ignored defense. It ignored level. It struck directly.
Of course, no power was truly without countermeasures.
With sufficiently powerful purification abilities, the curse could be cleansed.
But as an officer of the Demon King's Army, Beldia's curse was of an extraordinarily high rank.Even a high priest's purification magic would struggle to dispel it—only purification on the level of a goddess could succeed.
And gods did not descend to the mortal realm.
Which meant that, in theory, purifying Beldia's curse was nearly impossible.
There were only two remaining options.
Kill Beldia—the caster—before the curse took effect.
Or endure it with sheer overwhelming power.
For the weak, Beldia's curse was effectively an instant-death spell.For those stronger than him, the curse could be forcibly suppressed—the stronger the individual, the longer they could resist.
When Beldia openly declared that he would now use his Dullahan abilities, someone who had been hiding finally stepped forward.
Wiz.
She rushed out and shouted a warning to Ren, telling him not to look into Beldia's eyes—his curse was delivered through his blood-red gaze.
As for how Wiz knew this—
It was because years ago, she and her adventuring party had suffered the same curse.
Yes. Wiz had once been an adventurer herself—one so powerful she was known as the Ice Witch.
But when her party encountered Beldia, they were annihilated.
All of her companions were cursed, their lives fading rapidly.
To save them, Wiz sought out the Devil Duke Vanir and learned the method to become a lich—thus turning herself into an undead.
As a lich, Wiz's power skyrocketed. And as an undead, she was immune to Beldia's curse.
After thoroughly beating him into submission, she forced him to lift the curse from her companions.
They survived—but Wiz, now a lich, knew she could no longer continue adventuring with them.
So she left the party… and through a twist of fate, eventually became an honorary officer of the Demon King's Army.
That was why Wiz knew Beldia.
And why Beldia knew her.
It was also the reason she had stayed hidden from the start.
Although Wiz held the title of Demon King Army officer, her role was limited to maintaining the Demon King Castle's barrier.Once human herself, she had never truly sided with the Demon King's Army—and even as a lich, her stance was at most neutral.
Seeing Ren suppress Beldia, Wiz had initially planned to stay out of it.
But the moment she realized Beldia was about to use the same curse that once wiped out her party, she could no longer remain silent.
She didn't want the Demon King's Army to know she was in Axel.And her relationship with Beldia was… strained, to say the least.
He claimed to be a noble knight, yet was absurdly petty.Ever since Wiz beat him senseless over her companions, he made a habit of throwing his head under her skirt every time they met…
Worse still, Beldia's curse wasn't a single-target spell—it could affect multiple people at once.
Ren might be strong enough to resist it.
But the rest of Axel's adventurers?
For them, it would be instant death.
"So you're here as well," Beldia said, eyeing Wiz."My curse may be ineffective against you, but you can't save the others.And given your current position… can you really force me to lift it, like you did back then?"
Seeing Wiz appear, Beldia froze for a moment.
To be honest, nearly half of the injuries he still carried were her doing.
As a lich, Wiz was vastly stronger than him—strong enough to utterly dominate him.So the sight of her did make him uneasy.
But then he remembered—Wiz was now also an officer of the Demon King's Army.
She could no longer interfere.
"Despair," Beldia roared. "And die beneath my curse!"
Noticing how concerned Wiz was for Ren, Beldia found his resolve to kill Ren only strengthening.
Magic power erupted from his body, whipping up a violent gale around him.Only now did the adventurers of Axel truly grasp the terrifying might of a Demon King Army officer.
As his magic reached its peak, Beldia lifted his own head—
And hurled it high into the air.
He intended to wipe out every adventurer in Axel in a single instant with his curse.
At that moment, terror spread across their faces—
"Hadō #4: White Lightning."
A bolt of pure white lightning suddenly tore through the sky, striking Beldia's airborne head dead-on as it laughed maniacally.
"Damn it—IT HURTS! You bastard! Do you have even a shred of a warrior's honor?!Interrupting my curse with a sneak attack—how despicable!"
Ren raised an index finger still crackling with residual lightning and sneered.
"Huh? What, you think this is a turn-based game?You expect me to just stand here and wait while your ultimate move finishes charging?
"And besides—whether it was that weakness-seeing skill earlier, or this curse—you seem pretty dependent on that head of yours.For a battle-hardened veteran, leaving your biggest weakness floating in the air like a target… you sure that's a good idea?"