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Chapter 369

Joshua thrust his spear.

The First Irregular—or rather, the Darkness Emperor—blinked in shock as killing intent prickled over his entire body during his collision with Joshua.

Joshua pushed through the attack, releasing demonic power the entire time. He used his demonic power against an enemy that also used demonic power, and he did the same with opponents that utilized close-combat techniques or killing intent. There was no better method to drive his enemies to despair than by defeating them in the area where they were most confident.

“…Arrogant.” The Darkness Emperor swung his set of daggers like a bolt of lightning before anyone realized he was in motion. He moved so fast that he created dozens of illusionary afterimages, fully intending to slaughter Joshua with his second attack.

Nevertheless, Joshua was calm. As the Darkness Emperor was above the level where his opponent could follow his movement by eye, Joshua had to use his other senses. The Darkness Emperor’s attack was intended to fool people’s eyes—Joshua only needed to take one step to nullify it.

It looked like there were dozens of daggers, but the Darkness Emperor ended up cutting through the air fruitlessly. Although even the Darkness Emperor’s second attack failed, he wasn’t dispirited—in fact, he burst into manic laughter as if he was genuinely having fun.

“Hahahahahahahaha!”

Although the Crimson Sky and Martial Emperor had clear ambitions of conquering the continent, the Darkness Emperor was just looking to have fun for the last time in his life. In fact, that was why the Darkness Emperor wasn’t part of any country: life became boring at his age. He was over seventy years old, but he moved just as well as he did in his twenties, which was his prime.

“You’re good, Hero King—no, Martial God!”

The Darkness Emperor hid in the darkness again. For dozens of years, he had created these murder techniques; they were his life’s masterpiece, and it seemed he would be able to use his last technique in this fight against Joshua. With his first strike, the Darkness Emperor cut his enemy’s flesh while his second strike slew his enemy’s shadow. The Darkness Emperor could destroy his enemy’s very soul. Once his enemies became captivated by what they were seeing, the illusion became the reality, and when they focused on what they were hearing, the lies became the truth.

The Darkness Emperor reappeared. Even though he was just holding two palm-sized daggers, he had the power to pulverize a boulder with each dagger.

“Stop this, then!” the Darkness Emperor shouted.

Nevertheless, Joshua didn’t budge. He reached out with his other senses and determined the Darkness Emperor’s location, repeating the mechanism of the Darkness Emperor’s technique in his mind.

“The Darkness Emperor Jarcal, the king of shadows,” he whispered.

The Darkness Emperor’s eyes lost focus for a moment when he heard “Jarcal,” his old name. He never talked about his old nickname in public, so the only reason why Joshua knew it was his previous life. In the far future, the next Darkness Emperor was none other than Aisha Sestropi, Joshua’s friend, a dark elf, and the Assassin King.

“How…?”

Joshua ignored the Darkness Emperor’s mumbling; he was focused on picking out the one real shadow from among countless shadows.

He slowly raised his spear. At the same time, dozens of daggers flew at Joshua, but he only had to thrust his spear once to deflect the assault.

“…Keugh!” The Darkness Emperor grunted upon meeting an unexpected rebound. Joshua’s singular movement was enough to parry all of the dozens of daggers, but he wasn’t done.

The Darkness Emperor’s eyes popped wide open. Although he had been staying hidden in the shadow, Joshua found out which shadow the Darkness Emperor was hiding in and pointed his spear right at the Darkness Emperor’s throat.

“Ho-how…?”

“Your stealth skill is worse than my friend’s, the Martial Emperor was a better close-combat fighter than you, and your sword technique is incomparably worse than the Crimson Sky’s,” Joshua calmly assessed.

The Darkness Emperor’s face reddened in humiliation.

“Wouldn’t it be more odd for me to lose?”

“You!”

“Darkness Emperor, why is a man like you acting as an underling?” Joshua asked, but the Darkness Emperor didn’t answer.

Instead, he smiled crookedly and asked Joshua a question back: “Do you want to know why I’m at the Agnus’s residence? Then spare me.”

Unbelievably, the Darkness Emperor begged for his life.

“What will you do if I spare you?” Joshua coldly asked.

“I will personally answer—”

“I’m well aware that you’re relieving your boredom of life with murder, Darkness Emperor.” Joshua interrupted.

The Darkness Emperor immediately shut his mouth.

“You wanted to settle down somewhere and hide behind someone with power so you can kill as much as you want until the end of your life because you’re sick and tired of getting hunted.”

“…You bastard…”

Joshua’s aura spear was just an inch away from the Darkness Emperor’s throat. It was covered in a layer of lightning, so the moment Joshua speared the Darkness Emperor, he would be instantly reduced to charcoal.

“Wa-wait! Don’t you want to know? You want to know the leader of these men!” the Darkness Emperor shouted.

“Don’t disgrace yourself any further. Igrant calls you a Celestial.”

The Darkness Emperor’s dozens of years of experience were telling him in no uncertain terms that Joshua already knew everything.

“In fact, this is for the better,” Joshua muttered. “You’re soon going to become my friend’s enemy, and I get to get rid of you myself.”

In Joshua’s previous life, the Assassin King and Darkness Emperor had once been colleagues, but the Assassin King had ended up becoming a wanted criminal and was chased down by everyone on the continent. After the attempted assassination against the First Prince, the Imperial Family of Avalon had hunted her—and the Darkness Emperor himself had sold her information to the Imperial Family.

“You’ll regret it if you kill me now—!”

The Darkness Emperor couldn’t finish his threat. The spear through his neck reduced him to a lifeless mannequin, and an intense bolt of lightning engulfed the corpse a little later.

“…End… in… vain…!” the Darkness Emperor mumbled, though no one could understand what he meant.

The smoldering body collapsed on the ground. Silence fell as the shocking scene set in.

“E-everyone attack together, now! He’s a monster!”

The storm of shock wiped away any hesitation from the remaining. They had seen the necessity of attacking together with their own eyes.

“…Urgh.”

However, they couldn’t move anymore because of the killing intent surrounding them.

“I… will slay anyone who makes another move,” Joshua declared.

The apostles boggled at him. Joshua had only said that he was going to slay them, but why could they feel killing intent all over their bodies? It was like they had been thrown into the forest of sharp blades naked—no, they felt like they were before a disaster that they couldn’t even imagine fighting against. Joshua was at a level at which he could use killing intent whenever he wanted.

Despite all that, Dake, the forty-ninth apostle, made a move; he knew perfectly well that he’d lost the fight as soon as he let fear get the better of him, but…

The apostles were petrified.

Joshua Sanders had still not moved at all, so what was this horrifying sound of human flesh being torn apart coming from? Why was their colleague collapsing on his own?

“D-Dake…?” The forty-eighth apostle, who was standing right next to the forty-ninth apostle, called his name.

Although they were considered the weakest among Heimdall’s apostles, they were still enough to be called Superhumans, but Dake had died even before he could launch an attack.

“Wh-when…?”

“Do you want me to kill all of them?” Joshua asked.

“Ahhhhhh!!!!” The forty-eighth apostle flew at Joshua, unable to hold back his fear.

His longsword was quite sharp. However, the result was the same. His heart was pierced by Joshua’s aura spear like a fish caught on a harpoon. The forty-eight apostle wasn’t even sure when Joshua had thrust his spear.

Another apostle died just like that. The remaining apostles trembled weakly as they witnessed the surreal sight, and realized that they had no chance against Joshua. The apostles’ will to fight was decreasing to almost zero, but that was when they found a surprising silver lining.

“Enough!”

The killing intent around the apostles disappeared with the swish of a finger.

“Everyone, step back,” someone ordered. “I never asked you to do this.”

“Th-that voice is…!”

The apostles’ heads whipped around, wide-eyed. A mysterious person, hidden behind black clothes and a white mask, stood behind them.

“Hup!” Marco, the third apostle, reacted first and immediately prostrated himself.

“Jabel and Marco, didn’t I tell you to stand by in the secret chamber?” the mysterious person asked them.

Marco and Jabel slammed their heads on the ground without hesitation, and the other apostles did the same.

“W-we apologize, sir.”

That was when Joshua turned his head to look at the newcomer. This man was the cause of everything and the secret mastermind in Joshua’s previous and current life.

His name was…

“…Heimdall.” Joshua’s eyes became cold like ice.

“Joshua, isn’t your business with me?”

“…That’s right.” Joshua smiled enigmatically. He already knew everything.

Joshua felt like he could understand why the Martial Emperor Zactor had so readily betrayed his father a little now.

“So I only need to kill you now?” Joshua said.