Emperor of Steel
chapter-165

The Death Knight was one of the strongest monsters of the Devildom along with the Lich.

A long time ago, the demons had invaded the earth, largely in search of destruction of the Mado civilization and the continent after the fall of the Abaron empire.

During that time, the Death Knight was notorious for being the vanguard of the Devildom.

At that time, people managed to defeat the demons, but the magic of the demons to make the Death Knights was passed down to the warlocks.

Death Knight was said to be the being which was revived with cursed dark magic, along with the skills of a Sword Master.

However, a basic of 9 circles of dark magic was needed to make it work, and it was very difficult to obtain a body.

In addition to that, it took a long time for the dark magic ritual to be prepared and for the collection of the other materials for the making of a Death Knight.

For that reason, that enemy was very rare to appear after the demon invasion.

No one knew why, but the Devil King, the best warlock 500 years ago, had never made a single Death Knight and constantly used golems to fight.

Till the current time, not a single Death Knight had appeared in the history of the continent.

But for such a thing to appear then!

“Who, who the hell are you…?!”

The voice of Meister was trembling with fear.

To him, the grey robe wizard was the Devil King who came from the Devildom.

But his prediction was far too vain.

“Who. Am. I? someone. Who. Belongs. To. The Magic. Tower. That. You. Are. Trying. To put. Down.”

“What, what did you say? Then, from Veritas Magic…”

He slowly revealed his identity, which made the Meister more scared.

“Yes, I, am. The. Wizard. Of. Veritas. Magic. Tower. From. 500 years. Back. Arsene.”

Thud-!

An indirect explosion happened as if a huge magic bomb had been released.

Not believing it, the wizards of Rokid screamed.

“Don’t lie! That can’t happen!”

“Arsene is the founder of magic engineering! How can you say his name and defile his greatness?!”

Although they were the rivals to the Veritas Magic tower, the wizards of Rokid respected the work of Arsene and his war against the Devil King Saymon, laying the foundation for the magic engineering.

It was the same with most of the wizards in the continent, which was why no one believed the grey robe wizard.

Elder Jeron was different.

‘Then, according to the rumors that I heard when studying in the Veritas Magic…’

Archmage Arsene.

He was the 17th Meister of the Veritas.

He had grown the Veritas which was just a middle-ranked magic tower to one of the best in the kingdom and led the continent towards magic engineering, Arsene was held up virtually.

Rumors had it that he cared so much for the magic tower that he even touched the taboo magic in the later years.

They were all stories and not a single person dared to uncover it, however, Jeron heard a few rumors about it.

At that time, he ignored them thinking that they were the words of some jealous person.

But he realized that it wasn’t the case.

“Li, Lich!”

As soon as he was recollecting the rumors, a word popped out of Jeron’s mouth.

At those words, Arsene lifted his head.

“Kul? I never. Knew. That. A person. Who knew. Of me. Secret. Was. In. this. Place.”

Arsene admitted that it was a secret.

And there was a reason for it.

Arsene wasn’t going to keep them alive. He had already decided that they were all going to be killed, there was no reason for him to hide the threat.

Jeron, who grasped the meaning behind the words, shouted out.

“All, all of you run away! Our opponent is a 9th circle Lich!”

From what he said, the ability of Arsene could be less too, but the power he held was great.

Wizards who learned of Arsene’s secret began to run away.

They had no odds against the 9th circle Lich.

Besides, he had a Death Knight made of Warrior Rakan.

Now, it was important that one of them survive and make it public.

Everybody thought so, and each of them ran in a different direction.

But…

“Kuk!”

“Kul!”

“This, this is?!”

The wizards who moved into the secret passages, or tried to escape, or teleport, threw up blood on the floor.

“This, this is Mana Force!”

“How is this…?!”

Mana force field which twists the flow of Mana.

Such a magic was unfolding with no sign.

Seeing the wizards fall down, Arsene, laughed.

“You. Men. Thought. You could. Run. Away. From. In front. Of me?”

“Kuak!”

The mana force was being played by another guardian, Saymon, who came along with Arsene and Rakan.

The wizards who didn’t understand it had been developing a heart attack, each time they tried to teleport or use magic, their heart hurts more and they ended up vomiting blood.

“Kul. Kul. Should. We. Call. The. End?”

At the gesture of Arsene, Rakan’s aura began to glow again.

The heads of Rokid Magic tower were wiped out.

The next day, the tragedy of the Rokid magic tower spread throughout the magic world. Every leader was surprised to hear that they had died in an explosion which had happened in the magic tower.

However, the cause of the explosion wasn’t known.

Only rumors were that the magic tower heads were performing some secret experiment inside the magic tower and it happened.

And there were a few speculations that the Veritas magic tower charged with dark magic was behind it. For something to have happened at a peak moment.

“The Veritas Magic tower was really learning dark magic?”

“Well, I don’t think that it’s something to be called ‘bad’.”

“I don’t know what is better.”

“But there is no evidence.”

“Which is why it needs to be looked at.”

However, the Magic Federation’s investigation was weak at the Veritas Magic tower.

At the Veritas, they weren’t helping out because of the unfair inspection, and they refuted the evidence of the dark magic.

Therefore, unlike the early days of hardship within the magic federation, there were a few advocates inside them defending the Veritas Magic.

It was claimed that the advocates had taken bribes from Veritas Magic tower, but there wasn’t any solid evidence.

Many of them, however, were wizards who studied Veritas Magic tower in the last years, or they were frequently associated with Veritas magic tower.

Another incident had broken out.

Meister Garond, the owner of Altica Magic tower, the 5th largest Gigant workshop of the continent and a member of the Magic Federation was missing.

He was going over to a small town magic tower with his disciples and attendants, but no one knew how it happened.

The problem was that there was a branch of Modern Magic tower, in the area where he disappeared.

The Modern magic tower, was one of the top 10 magic towers in terms of production rather than quality, and seized a place in the top 5 for gigant manufacturers, and had bad relations with the Altica Magic tower.

It was because the Altica magic tower often pointed out and blamed the deficiencies in Modern Magic tower’s Gigants.

In addition, small and medium magic towers that Altica tried to take over were the ones the Modern magic tower had aimed for.

Naturally, the Altica magic tower claimed that the crime had been committed by the Modern magic tower, and they denied it.

As the two towers were fighting, another story came forward.

“Isn’t this the work of the Veritas Magic tower too?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Altica Magic tower sued Veritas magic tower along with Rokid magic tower. In addition to the act of the Modern magic tower, Veritas magic tower had been damaged a lot with the rumors and stories.”

“Well, isn’t that too much of a speculative work?”

Since the report of Veritas, unknown accidents and killings have taken place.

Coincidentally, all the events involved big or small Veritas Magic towers.

“Doesn’t it look like the Veritas Magic tower has a hand?”

“But the Veritas Magic tower has a high level of influence in the magic world.”

“But this is too sly.”

“That’s called a conspiracy theory, in technical terms.”

“What? Are they studying dark magic then?”

“Any proof? Tell me if you have any!”

“This is just a hunch about Veritas.”

“So what about the hunch? Show me if you have any…”

When wizards gathered, everyone talked about Veritas magic, and it often led to fights between them.

The situation spread to the whole magic world, and eventually, the forces split.

“Rokid and Altica have withdrawn their report from the Magic Federation!”

“Really?”

“About the Veritas magic inspection, and about the very recent events that happened too.”

Magic towers withdrew from the Magic Federation.

Soon, Fiore magic tower and Terra Magic tower, which accused the Veritas with dark magic withdrew their statements.

The magic federation strongly condemned the act of the magic towers and their wizards. It was stated that research and academics would be banned.

But the problem that started didn’t die down so easily.

“The secession magic towers held a meeting?”

“Called as ‘Magic Federation Reform Assembly.’ Or simply as reformists.”

“Are they really going to fight using magic?”

The existing Magic Federation centered on helping the Veritas Magic tower, and defined the reformists as ‘Heretics’.

Various regulations were put in place and suppressed, and it wasn’t the forces of the reformers who had suffered in the process, it was the small and medium magic towers.

The reformers too began to halt the Magic Federation by mobilizing funds and networks to gain power.

Similarly, the medium and small magic towers on the side of the Magic Federation had suffered.

The Holy magic tower of the Holy Arthenia Empire was the only one who managed to escape the misery.

Many people assumed that these two forces were divided and they were brave enough to confront the magic world.

But they never expected the two forces to collide head-on.

Unlike the thick-headed religious behaviors, the wizards had rational and computational thoughts.

Knowing that head-on collision wouldn’t benefit each other, they decided to settle things over time.