Chapter 430: The Lion King (3)  

-It is the task and duty of a true knight. No! Not a duty, but a privilege.

To dream the impossible dream.

To defeat an invincible opponent, To endure unbearable pain, To die for a noble ideal.

To know how to fix a wrong, love with purity and good will.

To fall in love in an impossible dream, To have faith, to reach for the stars.

A romantic poem that would only appear in chivalric literature.

Its author was a nobleman with beautiful blond hair and blue eyes.

Don Quixote La Mancha Passamonte.

He raised his white face and looked at his nephew, Tudor, in front of him.

"Who taught you this favorite poem?"

"...."

Tudor's mouth fell open.

Dolores, Sancho, Piggy, Bianca, and Sinclair knew.

Ever since they'd met as freshmen at Colosseo Academy, Tudor had loved chivalric literature and heroic epics and recited them often.

That passage in particular was his favorite.

Passamonte opened his mouth with a hint of sadness.

"Half of your chivalry was learned from this uncle, and what a tragedy. To stab in the back of an uncle who has given you all his love. What kind of immoral act is this?"

"...."

Tudor did not speak this time.

Passamonte continued.

"Bring me that Gungnir. It is too dangerous an object for you to handle when you are so young. I, your guardian and uncle, will keep it for you until you are old enough to be a knight. Here-"

A white palm stretched out before him.

Only then did Tudor speak.

"You have never been able to remove Gungnir from my father's body."

"...."

"Because it is a family heirloom that only responds to those who are worthy of being a Don Quixote."

Tudor lifted the new Gungnir and tapped it lightly on the floor.

It's heavy, but it's just as reliable.

The blade of Gungnir was as sharply honed as Tudor's resolve.

Then, with a crackle of lightning, Gungnir pointed it at Passamonte.

"Did you intend to capture me alive and make me draw Gungnir?"

Gungnir would not have responded to anyone but Tudor himself.

So did Passamonte need Tudor to get his hands on the spear, a symbol and token of the family head?

At Tudor's rambling words, Passamonte raised an eyebrow at Tudor.

"It's similar to my intention. Just about half. Well, there was that purpose as well."

Then he added, in a tone of amusement.

"To be honest, ... I haven't been in a very good mood lately, nephew."

"Don't call me nephew. You disgusting demon." "Oh- you won't let me call my nephew my 'nephew', what a immoral person. I see, what shall I call you then, mmmm~ Mr. Tudor?"

Passamonte retracted his outstretched hand toward Gungnir and smiled broadly.

But despite the smile on his lips, the voice that escaped his lips held a deep note of regret.

"The reason I'm in a bad mood... is because I lost the body I've been preparing for over a decade to change into in vain at the end."

"...!"

Everyone's eyes widened.

It was obvious what Pasamonte was talking about.

Don Quixote Cervantes, the Spear King.

The demon was planning to abandon Pasamonte's frail body and take on Cervantes' stronger one.

But Cervantes' superhuman mental strength allowed him to destroy his own body before the demon could take it.

His body was completely shattered, and the Divine Spear Gungnir, which had penetrated it, was sealed tightly.

As a last stand, Cervantes made sure the demon took nothing from him.

"I borrowed poison from the Leviathan, and at the last moment, when I looked away for a moment, he committed suicide. It was a moment for which the expression 'One thousand thoughts and one mistake' is perfect."

Passamonte said with a grim look and gesture.

"Cervantes, in the end I got nothing of his soul or body, which is a tragedy, ... but!"

At this, his blue eyes turn black.

The overly enlarged pupils were like holes into a deep abyss.

Just looking into his eyes is like being pulled into a dark abyss.

The dizziness and nausea that followed caused all the Night Walkers to sway.

All the light of the stars, moonlight, and the twinkling of human emotions is sucked away into the darkness beyond.

Into the nothingness, into that infernal void, where no one knows what lurks.

Passamonte looked at Tudor with those eyes and grinned so wide that the corners of his mouth touched his earlobes.

"... But it's all right! For here is a body younger, fresher, and with better qualities than Cervantes's; but a body not yet perfected, and with much to improve!"

Only then did the Night Walkers realize what Passamonte was really after.

A body with the highest qualities, comparable to that of Cervantes the Spear King, but much younger, with a vast future ahead of him, and infinite potential for improvement.

And a much more immature and fragile mind, easy to devour.

That's right.

Having failed to take Cervantes' body, Passamonte now set his sights on Tudor's.

-'Why do you want to take me and Tudor alive? If you're after static elimination, why not just take our heads? Isn't that much easier?'-

-[Mo, I don't know! I'm serious! He didn't tell me!]-

There was a reason Pedro had been so evasive in answering Bianca's question.

Whether he knew it or not, it is impossible to tell.

'...It was a trap!'

Dolores bit her lip.

The cavalry of the Don Quixote family that only attacked a few people. The brainwashing was somehow sloppy. loose boundaries. A darkness that reveals itself so easily.

All of these were Passamonte's enticements to lure Tudor into the heart of the castle.

'If it were you, Vikir, we would not have fallen for this.'

Dolores blamed herself, but that didn't change the situation.

'Regardless, you have to do the best you can. The odds were stacked against him from the start, and there was nothing he could do to change that.

'Let's just get out into the open. There are unbrainwashed knights outside of the castle, and if we can combine forces, we have a good chance of winning....'

Dolores's thoughts were interrupted, however.

"Yaaaaaah!"

Tudor suddenly raised his Gungnir and charged toward Passamonte. Boom-!

Speed ??like lightning, heaviness like a tsunami.

Tudor's strike shot out, aiming for Passamonte's heart.

"Ouch. Better than I imagined. Bone solid, muscle tight, entrails fresh. Such good body."

Passamonte twisted to the side at the waist, dodging Tudor's spear.

Just then.

peog-peog-peong!

Bianca's arrows flew and struck the wall.

"Haas!"

Bianca was firing just as hard as Tudor.

Strangely, it wasn't just Tudor and Bianca, but Sancho, Piggy, and Sinclair as well.

"Eh, eh, my body's going out of control!"

"Something! I feel like I can do something! Although there is no basis...!"

"I feel an inexplicable sense of elation. There's something wrong with this."

Listening to her colleagues, Dolores realized that she had been thinking wrongly, too.

'Now that I think about it, I've been thinking that it might be worth sticking around. no way!?'

Dolores looked up in surprise and stared at Passamonte.

Then she saw the smile on Passamonte's face.

"Have you noticed? I have the ability to make others reckless."

Reckless, like a frog trying to match the size of a bull.

It was this brainwashing ability to make others do whatever he pleased that allowed Pasamonte to possess Don Quixote.

The demon's cunning ability to manipulate others was first manifested when Pedro discovered the fortress of the Night Walkers.

As if possessed by something, the Night Walkers found Don Quixote's castle of their own accord, and now they surrendered everything to the fearsome demon.

'Alas, Vikir was right in his warning!'

Dolores cursed herself deeply.

Vikir had given her a brief explanation of the powers of the Ten Corpses before he left for Nouvelle Vague.

But the powers of demons are so mysterious and strange that even those who experience them firsthand often fail to realize they are real.

The Night Walkers were confused, unsure of how they had been drawn into Passamonte's scheme.

Perhaps their very presence here was a trick of the demon? The thought occurred to them, and from then on, things spiraled out of control.

And demons never miss the moment when a human loses insight and falls into confusion.

"Okay, now that you're properly confused, let's get down to business, shall we?"

To take over the body, the mind must first be shaken. It's the basics of the basics.

Tsutsutsutsutsu...

Passamonte spreads his arms wide.

The floor cracks, and then a thick, deep crack opens up and the floor collapses.

Ujijig! Rumbling!

Something began to surge up through the inky darkness beneath the floor.

It's a terrible malice, rising to destroy human hearts and minds.

"...!?"

The faces of Dolores, Tudor, Sancho, Piggy, Bianca, and Sinclair instantly turned blue as they saw what lurked below.

The abyss beneath the floor of the room.

Beneath them lay a landscape that would traumatize any student who had ever been a part of Colosseo Academy.