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Side Story Chapter 260

“…This is no time to be sentimental,” Cain murmured.

Despite the way every muscle in his body screamed and his critical injuries, Cain drew up his mana. Even as blood spurted from every orifice and wound, he persisted. He could not lose the next emperor of Avalon.

Thud!

Cain barreled forward like a raging bull. Despite his late start, Cain quickly pulled ahead of everyone else.

Swallow’s knights reached Kireua first. One of them was about to pick up Kireua when a ray of white light took them by surprise.

“What?”

Cain took two of their heads in short order, and then positioned himself between the rest and Kireua.

“…You won’t be able to lay a finger on him unless you kill me,” Cain declared.

The sound of battle grew louder.

“Ohhhhhhhhh!”

“Take them down! The Combat Emperor and Second Prince of Avalon are wounded. This is our chance!”

“Stop them! Stop them no matter what it takes! Protect His Highness with your life!”

Avalon and Swallow’s knights were locked in an intense battle. Avalon was at an obvious disadvantage; even disregarding the Absolutes present, Swallow’s knights outnumbered Avalon’s several times over. Avalon couldn’t even claim a qualitative advantage, considering that their enemy also hailed from an empire.

“…You over there!” Cain shouted at one of the knights just arriving at the battle; he appeared to be a rookie.

“Y-Yes, sir!”

“Carry His Highness on your back and run as far away as possible!”

“U-Understood, sir!”

“Prioritize His Highness’s safety! Do you understand me?!” Cain yelled.

There was no time to waste anymore—anyone could see that Kireua was in critical condition. Cain had to buy time even if it cost him his life.

Cain overwhelmed the area with his mana. Swallow’s knights stumbled backward as the thrumming wall of power rolled over them, even those in the rear. Cain was attracting their attention on purpose.

“I am Cain de Harry, First Knight of the Martial God. Come at me.”

“Combat Emperor! I’m sure that you don’t have a spare life of your own. Loyalty is a virtue, but nothing is more important than your own life. Why don’t you stand down?” a man, apparently the new leader of Swallow’s forces, shouted.

Cain smiled wryly. “My life is of no importance. I will uphold my pride and save His Highness’s life.”

“…You fool.”

“But I must say, Swallow’s hit rock bottom. You people shamelessly bowed to an undead and yet you show no hesitation treating him like this as soon as he’s dead,” Cain said disdainfully. Lucifer’s corpse had been trodden over by so many feet that it was as good as mush.

“Undead? What the hell are you talking about?”

“What?”

“There’s no way we would actually respect an old loser like that! We were just following orders!”

Cain was so dumbfounded by their response that he just stared dumbly at them for a moment.

‘Do they not know Lucifer already died once?’

Cain quickly shook his head. Even though it had been many years, Lucifer’s first death had caused a sensation across the entire continent. Beside which, the Martial God was a living legend right now, so whenever he was mentioned, his victory against the Crimson Sky always came up too. All of the troops who had participated in the battle were eyewitnesses.

‘They have eyes and ears. There’s no way they don’t know.’

In that case, only one possibility remained.

‘Someone in Swallow has spent decades manipulating history.’

The long misinformation campaign had convinced the people of Swallow that although Lucifer’s defeat was true, his death was just a rumor and Lucifer had retreated after receiving a critical injury. All of the stories on the streets were just rumors that Swallow’s enemies had spread to lower Swallow’s spirits.

Of course, the public wouldn’t have believed it at first because Lucifer had vanished into thin air for a while.

Nevertheless, one question remained.

‘Even if I ignore the soldiers, all the nobles and knights who had been there would have had to be silenced for this to be possible. Is that really possible?’

Information manipulation was extremely difficult short of casting mass hypnosis to keep everyone silent.

‘I really don’t understand.’

If a single person was responsible for all of that… Cain couldn’t suppress a shudder at the thought.

‘There’s a new monster in Swallow, a strategist as brilliant as Her Majesty Icarus. They might be scarier than Bel…’

* * *

Meanwhile, the young knight Cain had entrusted with Kireua looked behind him after riding two hundred meters away from the battlefield. Behind him, the prince was still out cold

“…A melee is indeed the best occasion to use the confusion to my advantage. The Fox Master’s mind is truly a gift from the sky.”

The knight was actually affiliated with Swallow. Avalon’s people would be taken aback once they discovered this, but the knight knew that he would have completed his mission by then.

Ordinary people wouldn’t be able to calculate the myriad possible outcomes of a given situation. However, the Fox Master had predicted everything and had given precise orders to each unit. That was who Fox Master was. Their abilities formulated plans that ordinary people couldn’t even imagine and left everyone shivering in awe.

“Well… I guess even I would’ve been the same. With that many enemy knights coming at them from the front, the last thing they would think about is a spy among their knights.”

The knight concluded that he was far enough away and came to a halt. He was now further inside the Black Monster Forest. He examined the nearby trees for a moment and found the sign that he and his people had agreed upon, so he set Kireua down against the tree.

The tree suddenly turned an disturbing blood-red, making the knight flinch.

“Well done.”

The voice coming from the tree was, to the knight’s surprise, the same as that of Lucifer.

“…It was nothing.” The knight bowed, but there was no hint of respect in his eyes, unlike when he had been talking about Fox Master.

The bloody red tree slowly swallowed Kireua.

“It went just like you said.”

The knight\'s eyes widened.

A crystal ball in the center of the tree hummed. The fact that it was capable of transmitting despite the jamming barrier covering the area didn’t surprise the knight, but the white fox mask he saw within made him drop to his knee as soon as he saw it.

“Greetings to Fox Master!”

In contrast to before, his eyes were filled with respect and awe.

-You must have gone through a lot.

“I-It was noth—”

The bloody red tree shook its branches as if that didn’t want him to interrupt the conversation.

“I have to give it to you. Brilliant. I can’t believe I actually captured the Prince of Avalon. What do I do now?”

-I need you to lie low until I give you further instructions.

Parts of the tree bulged.

“I’m glad to hear that, actually,” the tree said.

-Pardon?

“I happened to have taken a serious injury, so I’ll have to take it easy for the time being.”

-…I see. Yes, this was indeed the best choice. Even in my previous calculations, the most unpredictable variable from Avalon was Kireua Sanders.

The Fox Master reached the correct conclusion with astonishing ease. In this situation, most people would naturally assume that the Combat Emperor was responsible for Lucifer\'s injury, but Fox Master was certain that it was Kireua even without being there.

“How fascinating. This is good; I’m glad to see that I made the right choice,” the bloody red tree—no, Lucifer said.

-You flatter me.

“Speaking of which, how do you believe the war will go?”

-…To be honest, I can’t be certain of anything with the Battle God and Martial God involved. If we were talking about Joshua Sanders before he trapped himself in the ice boulder, the chances of his defeat would be ninety percent…

“Wait, that’s how strong the boy named Bel is?” Lucifer asked, surprised. From his experience fighting Joshua long ago, Lucifer knew how incredibly strong Joshua was. He’d been certain that Joshau was absolutely one of a kind.

-…Yes. Indeed, there is no precedent for someone becoming as strong as the Martial God as fast as he did. He was only a teenager when he battled his way through some of the strongest people of the time and became the king of Reinhardt…

“Forget that. I really can’t imagine Joshua Sanders losing.”

-…I certainly hope he doesn’t.

“You hope he…?” Lucifer exuded a faint murderous energy. “Why do you sound like you want that motherfucker to win?”

-Because I do.

“What?”

-I can’t predict what will happen if the Battle God wins, but if it’s the Martial God…

The Fox Master trailed off for a moment but continued with conviction.

-…he will never be able to harm me.