The Adventures of an Overpowered Knight in Another World Chapter 587- Demonic City (2)

Upon touching the dark, ash-like substance, its identity became clear to him. A shadow fell over his face.

This viscous, tar-like material was pure demonic corruption.

Once demonic energy saturates the air to a critical threshold, it begins warping the natural order.

The contamination visible in this village ranged from mid to advanced stages.

Demonic power so intense it devoured the soil and every living thing.

This harsh truth dawned on the other knights too, as they shared grave glances.

"Commander..." Bob began, then trailed off.

No further words were needed; everyone understood their duty.

The Holy Knights drew their blades, activating purification skills to cleanse the spreading corruption from themselves and their fellows.

At such contamination levels, even they required precautions.

As Holy Knights like Bob, Marcus, and Delicia directed the group, Reinhardt surveyed the town.

Ruins stretched before him. Structures had crumbled to debris, whole neighborhoods razed or entombed. Toppled carts, stores with goods scattered everywhere, choked the streets.

Yet the corruption disturbed him most.

Through his [Eyes of Divine Clarity], Reinhardt perceived it clearly.

Black tendrils snaked beneath the surface like a plague, infiltrating the earth and tainting the mana veins.

Corrupted mana veins meant the end of all life here. Streams would blacken, plants and animals wither away.

Soon, this area would mirror the Tainted Lands.

"What happened here? Where are all the... townspeople?"

New recruits scanned the area, bewildered.

Neither knights nor Reinhardt offered answers.

The same puzzle haunted every mind.

The town's devastation screamed of an assault, yet no bodies littered the ground—not even one.

Reinhardt commanded the order to remount and pressed onward into Lunaris depths.

This went beyond rescuing the High Elf. Whatever befell Lunaris demanded full scrutiny.

A demonic surge of such magnitude.

He'd long sensed Lunaris veering toward ruin, with laws favoring humans and crushing demi-humans and the vulnerable.

Demons thrived on negativity, and Lunaris's Hollow Earth practices perfectly suited their appetites.

Among the Seven Kingdoms, Lunaris seemed ripest for demonic conquest.

Today proved his fears justified.

If Darkness forces struck Lunaris—and the evidence suggested so—they had arrived too late.

Reinhardt raised his eyes toward Lunaris's distant capital.

Miles away, his Divine Trait [Celestial Harmony], granting acute mana sensitivity, blared alarms.

"Mount your horses," Reinhardt commanded.

His steady tone amid the peril shone like a guiding light, dispelling their fears. Temple of Light knights obeyed instantly.

"Move out!"

Reinhardt swung atop his steed, reins clenched, eyes blazing with determination.

He vowed to uncover Lunaris's secrets. And if the High Elf Priestess lingered here, he would locate her.

Hoofbeats thundered as Temple of Light knights charged toward the disaster's core.

The further Reinhardt's group delved into Lunaris, the more oppressive the atmosphere grew.

Villages, towns, cities—all ghostlike husks. Emptied of life, shrouded in dead quiet.

The corruption thickened progressively inward.

Its potency rivaled the Tainted Lands.

Now, Holy Knights and elites routinely unleashed [Purify] and [Holy Light] to scour demonic taint from their forms.

Bob and companions wore ever-graver faces.

Silence reigned unless vital words arose.

Horses whinnied restlessly, detecting the lurking peril.

Soon, Lunaris's capital loomed near.

When it appeared... all halted.

"What is that?"

No better words fit the sight.

Lunaris's splendid capital, a wonder of ancient craft and plenty.

The world's former pleasure hub, now a shattered wasteland.

Its grand walls endured, but breaches scarred many parts. Edifices reduced to piles, avenues jammed with abandoned carts and looted storefronts.

Even though the sight was bizarre, nothing about it caught their eyes.

Their attention fixed solely on the entity shrouding the city.

A gigantic dome of shadow enveloped the whole capital, resembling a hellish oversized egg.

Faint glimmers of ominous, shadowy shades danced across it, with throbbing veins lining its borders as though the structure breathed with life.

The bubble-like barrier sealing the city consisted of ultra-condensed demonic energy, so thick it twisted the air nearby into visible ripples.

From inside the dome, suffocating waves of pressure surged outward without end.

New recruits recoiled backward on pure instinct.

Reinhardt held no grudge against their reaction; the demonic energy present was utterly dominating, viscous, asphyxiating, and timeless.

It conjured the eerie feeling of gazing into an abyss nest.

As fellow knights stared ahead with dour faces, Reinhardt invoked his [Eyes of Divine Clarity] to scrutinize the object looming before them.

The revelations flooding in caused his eyebrows to furrow sharply.

This entity mimicking an abyss nest stare proved to be a true Abyss Nest, albeit in its nascent embryonic phase.

A phenomenon typically witnessed only in the heart of the Tainted Lands.

Reinhardt's mind drew upon recollections of humanity's bold incursion to retake the Tainted Lands, complete with vivid scenes.

Those harrowing moments, forever etched as Bloody Rain, saw seventy percent of the expedition's knights—from the Seven Kingdoms and lesser realms—utterly eradicated.

The surviving thirty percent bore lasting scars or rose to prominence in today's world, much like Reinhardt himself.

Regardless, those ingrained memories allowed the present Reinhardt to recognize the demon-spawning horror.

The enormous Abyss Nests dwarfing entire cities.

Upon activation, such behemoths harvested lives as effortlessly as scything weeds.

Far from mere monster breeders, Abyss Nests were living, mobile abominations.

A mature Abyss Nest rivaled even Heavenly Kings in raw power and resilience.

During that doomed campaign, allied forces faced encirclement by dozens of them and got slaughtered like defenseless sheep.

The trauma etched deeply into him, enabling Reinhardt to instantly identify the budding horror ahead.

Witnessing an Abyss Nest's birth firsthand sent chills racing across Reinhardt's skin.

"If this keeps expanding, it will devour the whole region."

"Commander, what is that thing?"

He prepared to respond when his gaze sharpened, head snapping toward a distant point.

Something had caught his sense.

They weren't solitary here.

Across the far plains, faint stirrings emerged.

Peering intently, he discerned a sizable assembly of figures, outsiders to this kingdom.

Yet demons they weren't—from their fluttering banner and gleaming armor, knights they clearly were.

Evidently, rival kingdoms had dispatched their own knight orders to probe Lunaris's odd seclusion.

Naturally so, considering this realm's prominence; such abrupt isolation screamed for scrutiny.

"Let’s go." Reinhardt commanded, steering his knights toward the newcomers.

As the Temple of Light drew nearer, the rival knights detected their approach.

Though wary, shock didn't grip them.

"Commander, they appear to hail from the Order of the Crimson Knights."

Bob murmured at his flank.

Cautiousness toward foreign knight orders was standard, especially from other nations, but circumstances had shifted.

As demon-slayers safeguarding the realm, they stood as comrades now.

Bob grasped deeper layers, particularly the peculiar rivalry linking their Commander to the Crimson Knights' leader.

Against any other Nocturnium order, he'd stay silent.

But facing the renowned Crimson Knight Order under the legendary Crimson Knight changed matters.

Moreover, past clashes showed the commanders inevitably clashing blades upon every encounter.