Throne of Magical Arcana
chapter-6

None of them heard any sound of struggling, screaming, or of anyone leaving. The robust and silent Howson, a high-level knight squire, just… disappeared?

A chilly feeling rose from Lucien’s feet and quickly spread all over his body. He held the hilt of his sword tight, and his breathing became heavier.

He quickly turned his head but saw nothing. The sewer wall on the other side was covered with weird shining green moss.

Suddenly, a bitter scream broke the deadly silence. Lucien quickly turned and saw a terrifying scene: a monstrous rat as big as a man had tripped Corella and sunk its sharp nails into his shoulder. Blood gushed all over Corella’s silver chain mail, dying it red. The monster had scarlet evil eyes that withered.

However, Corella’s blade stopped its row of long and sharp teeth from causing damage.

As a knight squire, Corella saved his own life with the most common movement in their training: he thrust the shield on his left hand with all his strength into the rat’s stomach.

Nothing was scarier than the unknown so, at least for Lucien, a huge rat showing itself was much better than an adult man disappearing all of a sudden for no reason.

Lucien took a deep breath and swung his sword of light at the huge rat, to help Corella.

At that moment, a bestial roar came from behind Lucien.

“Gary?” When Lucien was about to turn, a knight saber hacked at his back.

The white light of the shield trembled and dimmed a bit. The huge impact pushed Lucien several steps forward, and he almost lost his balance.

However, the attack didn’t stop there. The saber was chasing Lucien and continuously tried to hurt him. Lucien did his best to dodge it, while having no time to fight back or use his badge. He felt confused and surprised. “Why? Gary?!”

Lucien could not see clearly in the darkness. If it was not Gary, then there was only one possibility: Gary was already dead!

With good timing, the saber gave Lucien no chance to find his balance, and soon he was pushed into the corner. Lucien was surprised that with the protection of the shield he did not get injured from the attacks at all. He took a deep breath and tried to calm down, getting ready for the next attack.

Then, he dodged the saber’s assault by throwing himself on the ground. At the same time, his left hand grabbed the badge.

This time, Lucien finally saw who was attacking him. It was the group’s leader, Gary.

Nevertheless, the muscles on his face were contorted, and his eyes were shining with scarlet light. He looked like an insane beast.

The poison from the rats! The poison could deprive human’s consciousness and turn them into bloodthirsty beast! Lucien tried to understand, But why haven’t I been affected?

Without further thinking, Lucien rubbed the badge and started chanting. A round iron shield launched a hard whack on Lucien’s shield of light. Although the shield did not break, the violent impact suffocated Lucien for a second, interrupting his casting.

The continuous whacking prevented Lucien from concentrating. As a promising knight squire, Gary received formal training to interrupt spellcasting.

A layman like Lucien, with no basic training, would be unable to resist the disturbances from a knight squire. Any trainee pastor or sorcerer apprentice, with a level-one Saint Truth Badge and a Shield of Light could have killed Gary.

In the same level, a spellcaster was always superior.

While Lucien was being trapped with Gary, Corella could not hold the rat back much longer. His right hand was trembling from the effort of holding the enemy’s mouth away.

Fortunately, the huge humanoid rat also became weaker.

Unable to cast the spell, Lucien changed his mind and swung his sword of light upwards. He knew that his summoned sword was much stronger than the guard’s saber.

Although the swing did not strike true, the radiance from the sword terrified Gary. He stopped attacking Lucien’s shield and switched to a defensive position hurriedly.

It seemed like he didn’t want to be further apart from Lucien: for a traditional knight, letting his enemy successfully cast a spell would be very dangerous.

Without any sound of impact, the sword cut Gary’s saber as if it was piece of wood. Gary barely managed to raise his shield in time and block with it, but the sword left a deep crack right in the middle of the shield.

When Lucien was about to launch his next attack the sword of light suddenly turned into thousands of shining pieces, indicating the spell used up all its power. Actually, its power started decreasing at the very beginning, when it destroyed the magic wall concealing the chamber.

Lucien was unable to react for a moment, and Gary seized the chance, smashing Lucien’s protection with his shield.

Now, Lucien’s sword and shield were both gone.

Having no time to hesitate, Lucien rubbed the badge desperately to cast his last spell.

“S… Ow!”

Before Lucien could spell out the rest of the chant, Gary punched his stomach. Like a cooked shrimp, Lucien cowered in great pain. A wave of strong acid, rising from his stomach, burned his throat.

Gary reached out his hand and squeezed Lucien’s neck, choking him.

Lucien struggled fiercely, and used his right hand to try to free his neck. He felt great pain in his neck and lungs, and his eyes were turning black. The badge in his left hand was being held firmly to his chest by Gary’s other hand.

Lucien could hear his own gasp. He could feel the cold metal glove Gary was wearing. It felt like Lucien’s soul had left his body, and was observing from the side.

Suddenly, Lucien’s will to survive erupted. His soul power increased dramatically all of a sudden and broke through a certain limit, spreading like water from an ocean.

At the same time, Gary’s strength started disappearing. Lucien got a precious chance to breathe. Learning from his past mistakes, this time Lucien did not waste any time being hesitant or confused. He tried to focus and grabbed the badge again.

As soon as he touched it, Lucien’s spirit suddenly entered into an illusionary world of light, where many lines, circles and triangles formed a weird-looking cross in the air.

Lucien recognized the cross instantly: It was the cross on Benjamin’s badge! And he could feel that Benjamin’s power was continuously coming out of the cross!

Out of curiosity, Lucien moved closer and tried to touch it. The cross suddenly trembled and started accumulating power. Soon he felt its power became overwhelming!

Feeling the danger, Lucien hurriedly tried to retrieve his spirit back to the real world but it was too late: A white beam of light shot out from the cross and burned his spirit on the side. A strong nauseous feeling hit him. Lucien felt like his head was splitting. And two streams of cool, rusty-metal-smelling liquid came down from his nose.

Suddenly, the light beam somehow materialized and burst out from the badge that Lucien was wearing. Gary did not have a slight of chance to withdraw his hand. Starting from the hand squeezing Lucien’s neck, the light beam quickly dissolved his arm and part of his shoulder in seconds like some kind of super-strong corroding acid. There was no blood coming out, and the wounds instantly turned black.

Divine power can be activated without any spell? This surprised Lucien. He quickly dodged to avoid the enemy’s following attack.

However, he felt all his muscles aching and it was hard to move.

Then, what Lucien saw shocked him greatly: Gary was lying on the ground, dying, with his eyes half open, and the scarlet light on them was gone.

The pool of blood left by the dead rats had evaporated, forming a red mist and pervading the chamber and nearby pipes.

The weird, human-shaped plant in the corner was stretching its branches cozily in the blood mist.

On the other side lied Corella and Howson, with their own sabres stabbing each other’s back.