The Adventures of an Overpowered Knight in Another World Chapter 597- An Unexpected Gift!

With just one thought, she could trigger their explosions. Their very lives hung completely under her control.

After delivering her dire warnings, she pivoted to Giacomo with a charming smile.

"One of Lunaris’s Three Paragons, Sir Giacomo the Grey Blade. Your endless clashes with our demonkind have earned true legend status. Even I hesitate to confront you directly"...

"That’s precisely why I carefully uncovered every one of your vulnerabilities. Oh, valiant knight, you face two choices."

Duvessa’s tone remained gentle yet taunting.

"Option one, take this heart and join our ranks. Should you agree, I’ll release the king and all present. They hold no real appeal for me regardless."

With those words, she summoned a throbbing black heart from thin air.

A demon heart!

"Option two, reject it, and I’ll slaughter them on the spot. Perhaps afterward... I’ll reanimate their bodies. Your king, his offspring... every one turned into my undead thralls."

"You!!"

The menacing words made Giacomo’s fists ball up tightly. He scarcely restrained his body from rash action.

He stood powerless since this woman grasped his critical weakness. As Lunaris’s devoted knight, his loyalty to king and realm ran bone-deep, marking his supreme flaw.

Giacomo stared at the Ninth Heavenly King, sword gripped firmly, poised to attack.

He yearned to eliminate the demon standing there.

But any motion would doom the royal family.

As he wrestled silently with his thoughts, the king cried out in desperation.

"Giacomo, what are you doing? Accept the demon heart!!"

Giacomo regarded the panic-stricken king.

"But your majesty, if I do that, I’ll be betraying humanity. I will betray the vows I swore as a knight. Everything I fought for until now will become meaningless."

He recognized this as an blatant snare and hoped to sway the king toward another path.

Yet terror had already shattered the king’s logic. His shout turned into a furious growl.

"Have you forgotten who you were before I took you in?! You were nothing but a wandering mercenary. I gave you status! I gave you a name! Now show me your loyalty. Even if you must become a demon, protect your king!"

The declaration cut deep like a sharp edge.

Giacomo stood speechless in rebuttal.

All his current standing stemmed from the king.

A knight existed to serve his sovereign, even facing death.

His devotion allowed no question.

Therefore, Giacomo gradually released the sword from his grasp and seized the Demon Heart.

The knights, witnessing their esteemed leader commit this act, turned their gazes aside.

"Loyalty to the crown and country. Even in silence, even in exile. The knight’s allegiance is forged in duty, not convenience."

Giacomo and Reinhardt together recited the second rule of steel.

A wry smile formed on Giacomo’s lips.

He had taken the demon heart and fused it into his own flesh.

"You got what you wanted. Now let us go."

The king uttered this with evident anxiety.

Duvessa ignored him entirely. Her attention stayed locked on Giacomo from beginning to end. Her blood-red eyes shimmered with glee, as though beholding a captivating plaything.

"Good, that’s how a knight should be. As a reward, I’ll let you unleash that new power of yours."

With that, a vicious grin spread across her features.

In that instant, the Ninth Heavenly King exposed the depths of her brutality.

"Kill all the humans here."

"What?"

Giacomo’s eyes bulged wide; in dread, he discovered his body lay beyond his command. The demon heart within responded obediently to Duvessa’s every directive.

Defiance seemed utterly impossible.

"Kill every human in this capital. Start with your king."

His hand stretched for the sword, unsheathing it toward his sovereign.

"Protect the king."

His knights moved to block him.

Yet, under domination, a legend retained his prowess.

He hacked through their ranks mercilessly.

"Wait, why are you doing this? I just gave you Giacomo just like you wanted. You told me you would let us go."

Gazing upon the bloodbath and viscera splattered over the ground, the king and his heirs grew ashen-faced.

"That’s right, I did say that I will let you go. However, I never said anything about my pawn letting you go."

Duvessa’s grin twisted into a savage leer while she relished the hopeless expressions of every human present.

"I will give you gold! I’ll give you as much money as you want. What do you want? Status? Power? I can give you anything."

Beholding Lunaris’s monarch groveling for survival, she flashed a scornful smirk.

Giacomo hoisted his blade, resisting fiercely to the very last.

"It’s no use. The moment you implanted my heart, you became my tool. I can control your thoughts completely and suppress your will."

No resistance could prevail.

And thus, he butchered them without mercy.

The king, the royal family, the palace guards.

Even the other two Paragons, who returned injured from the clash below.

Every human within the capital.

All perished at his hands.

Maybe content with his showing or harboring some hidden agenda, Duvessa had vanished by the massacre's conclusion.

Just like tossing aside a shattered plaything, she left him stranded in the expanding Abyss Nest. Doomed to be consumed alongside the entire city.

With his tale complete, Giacomo let out a long breath.

"That’s all about it. I thought about killing myself. But before I could decide, you arrived."

Feebly, his eyes turned to the knight positioned in front of him.

"So I thought... If I must die, then at least let me die as a knight."

Throughout, Reinhardt had listened with composure.

At last, he grasped fully the events that transpired in the Kingdom of Lunaris.

Harsh and oppressive, the reality hit hard.

Yet beyond that, it served as a stark warning to all humanity about the precariousness of their present tranquility.

Silence hung between them for some time.

Struggling to his feet amid heavy bleeding from his injuries, Giacomo rose unsteadily.

Naturally, his demon heart could mend those injuries effortlessly; demons boasted an outrageous regenerative power that mended any damage.

Yet Giacomo refrained, desiring to perish as both man and knight.

Drawing in a deep breath, Giacomo locked eyes with Reinhardt.

"I know what you’re thinking. That we brought this upon ourselves. And truth be told... maybe we did."

His tone held no refusal. No effort to defend the atrocities Lunaris had unleashed on others—just a dim, exhausted grin.

"The Kingdom of Lunaris... had already begun rotting from within long before the demons came. We became cruel to our own people. We lost sight of what it meant to be human."

The birth of the Hollow Earth.

The laws banning slavery and abuse of humans and demi-humans.

Among the most brutal acts humanity could inflict on itself.

Though demons may have schemed it all, humans permitted its rise.

Humans reaped the rewards ultimately.

Thus, to some extent, this doom was merited.

"So in a way, it’s good that Lunaris was destroyed."

Those words rang nearly sacrilegious.

Still, Giacomo spoke without falter.

"Perhaps now... those slaves in the Hollow Earth... can finally find salvation."

Reinhardt stayed silent; his expression twisted in complication.

Those sentiments resonated deeply with him. Having witnessed plenty of Lunaris, he knew Giacomo held truth in his claim.

Should the kingdom persist on that course, it could have devolved into something infinitely more vile.

A rotting sore at humanity's core.

Nevertheless, despite this awareness, Reinhardt found it impossible to fully dismiss the Kingdom of Lunaris.

For it had produced a knight such as Giacomo.

Its foundational laws might have been flawed.

Numerous citizens could have been rotten, chasing personal gain alone.

Remarkably, such a realm still forged three heroes and knight orders devoted enough to battle till the finish.

And here stood the man before him.

A knight driven to the brink.

Deceived... Exploited.

Yet ultimately... opting for an honorable death.

The kingdom might have harbored potential for atonement.

But now, far too late.

"You’re a strange man."

Reinhardt murmured, conceding the point.

Giacomo gave a feeble laugh, spewing more blood with a cough.

"Before I die... there’s something else. I left you a gift."

A gift?

"I couldn’t let myself die while wondering what would happen if the Supreme Divine Treasure of Lunaris fell into the hands of the demons. So... before I began the evacuation, I moved it."

A faint shift crossed Reinhardt’s face; he knew precisely the gravity those words carried.

Demons had ravaged one of the Seven Great Kingdoms.

But should they fail to seize its Supreme Divine Treasure, one might argue the demons' scheme fell short somehow.