Chapter 739: Weakness

Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu

“The Strongest Holy Knight had a fierce battle against Chaos Main God Sophocles, and seriously injured the latter to the point of exiling him from the mortal plane!”

The fairies wouldn’t possibly miss such an excellent opportunity for attention-grabbing headline news. This was the top news of every single news outlet the very next morning.

According to accurate information sources, Chaos Main God Sophocles had fallen back into the Chaos Abyss while covered in Holy Light burn injuries all over. His injuries were definitely serious. It seemed likely that he would need to rest for several centuries in order to fully recover.

This was doubtlessly a major victory. In fact, this was the first time in this Holy War that people were hearing about a Chaos Main God being seriously injured. Such a victory would of course raise everyone’s morale, especially since so much of the world was currently embroiled in war.

The demon wave had been unstoppable. War God Donatis had seemingly destroyed everything before him without so much as being slowed down. People still remembered this fresh in their minds, so the defeat of another Chaos Main God would obviously be a critically important achievement.

At the very least, I had proved that Chaos Main Gods were indeed possible to defeat. Not only that, I had beaten Sophocles back all by myself.

The entire world was declaring this a major victory. Everyone chose to ignore the dark past of the “Strongest Holy Knight”.

Of course, some doubted the veracity of this headline news. However, the formerly nameless wasteland that I had fought Sophocles upon had now transformed into a dangerous battlefield filled with dimensional cracks everywhere. Traces of power which surpassed all common sense were the best evidence of how violent and real this battle had been.

Now, more people had a better opinion of the Mist Alliance. Top-level combat strength would always be one of the best methods to assuage people, after all.

One powerful individual might not be enough to influence to course of an entire war, but at least he wouldn’t allow powerful enemy individuals to slaughter as they pleased.

When it came to top-level combat strength, the Northlands had always been at a disadvantage until the appearance of the Hell Gods. The Mist Alliance’s top-level combat strength was indeed weaker than the Holy Light faction’s. But now, this weakness had been made up for.

The Holy Church probably felt more awkward than anyone to hear this headline news.

This wasn’t about something as simple or ethereal as combat strength comparison or glory.

Holy Knights were the defenders of humanity. This was something that all humans already treated as common sense. Although the job class of Holy Knight was difficult, paid poorly, and was highly risky due to all the dangers the job involved, Holy Knights still had outstanding reputation in human society.

There were those who didn’t like the Holy Church, and would ban Holy Light worshippers from their lands. However, even those people would still need to maintain a certain amount of respect for Holy Knights.

Holy Knights were the type who were strict with others and even stricter with themselves. Although such a type was often really annoying in many situations, they were really capable of bolstering everyone’s morale and helping everyone to band together in a time of danger.

This was just like how maybe people would dislike the police in daily life, but if some terrorist incident really occurred, people would still depend on the police.

“There’s always some really stinky and annoying fellow that you don’t like, yet you still need them and trust them.”

In a way, the title of being the “Strongest Holy Knight” also meant that this person was the strongest defender of all humanity. This title would be no mere glory. It would also be a responsibility. In history, this responsibility had always belonged to the Holy Church.

Strongest. This was no vanity gained only from comparison. Being the strongest meant that whenever this person was here, you could sleep without any fear at night because nobody would be capable of defeating the strongest.

No matter how dangerous things seemed to be, as long as the strongest one wasn’t defeated, everyone would still feel reassured. That was what people had felt back when Estrada was still with the Holy Church.

The Most Just Holy Knight? The Fairest Holy Knight? The Oldest Holy Knight? There were countless other nicknames out there, but not a single title would make others as reassured as the Strongest Holy Knight.

The most powerful individuals in other job classes would never be able to obtain the same amount of trust. Right now, this effect of being able to reassure everyone was obviously critically important in this chaotic time.

After Estrada’s death, since it would be absolutely necessary to have a Strongest Holy Knight for the Holy Church’s propaganda, several top-level Holy Knights tried to claim this title for themselves. They were all indeed really powerful knights, as well as actual disciples of Estrada. However, they would need time and combat achievements in order to prove their abilities.

But now, it was no longer necessary for any of them to try and prove themselves. Being able to directly fight against and defeat a Chaos Main God, even if Sophocles had only been forced to retreat, was already something inconceivable for mortals. Even Estrada in his prime might not have been able to accomplish this.

Roland Mist, the Strongest Holy Knight. Back when I was still in San Antonio, there had still been those who doubted my claim of being the “Strongest” along with my inheritance of the Holy Knights’ battle hammer. But now, all doubts about my claim had completely vanished.

I, Roland Mist, was doubtlessly the proper inheritor of the title of Strongest Holy Knight.

But, this wouldn’t be a good thing at all for the Holy Church. The Strongest Holy Knight had just slain Seraphim Winton a few months back, when Winton had the wondrous reputation of being considered as the God of Holy Light’s right hand.

Some things would be impossible to publicize. The Holy Church and I would always be enemies more than allies.

When considering the Yongye generation and all the stuff about the Mist Kingdom, my relationship with the Holy Church was such that no matter how much someone tried to describe it in beautiful words, at most we would be allies on the surface, while secretly both wanting to kill each other off more than anything.

So, the Holy Church probably felt more awkward than anyone else right now. They had worked so hard to create a Holy Warrior system that wasn’t anywhere nearly as effective as my Contract Hero system which operated on direct benefits. The proper religious interpretation of Holy Light was in question. Now, even the glory of having the strongest defender of humanity was leaving the Holy Church.

Of course, at this time, I was in no mood to think about any of this, nor did I know about what the fairies had done, or the entire world’s shock and delight.

“That damned Sophocles, attacking me so seriously…”

In a way, this passenger airship, which was named “Progress”, had helped me out greatly. If I was instead still in that barren wasteland while being seriously injured, that probably would have been far more troublesome.

I was really grateful right now for my trait of being impossible to find with all detection magic spells. Otherwise, my enemies would have come for me long ago to kill me right now.

“…I’ll have to rest to recover yet again. How many months will it take this time?”

I was currently in the airship captain’s room as I stared at the unfamiliar ceiling. I began to wonder, was it that I had some sort of connection with airships where I would be hospitalized the moment that I boarded one…? Fine, I admit that I was just making all of this up. Although I appeared to be seriously injured, I actually suffered only minor injuries.

After achieving Level 4, my physical body’s regenerative abilities were massively improved. Normally, my current injuries would have required several months for me to fully recover from, but now, since I had achieved Level 4 with the power of Holy Light, as long as my core wasn’t injured—such as being completely out of mana or hit points—I could deal with any problem simply through casting lots of Holy Light healing spells on myself.

Ordinary people wouldn’t be able to handle too much Holy Light healing, because Holy Light healing would have the negative side effect of reducing one’s lifespan. However, such a side effect would be completely meaningless for a Level 4 individual, especially if that Level 4 individual was also a Holy Light specialist.

This was why demons would hate high-level Holy Knights so much. Holy Knights were ridiculously durable, and could light themselves up with Holy Light, meaning that they would hurt like a porcupine for all Chaos creatures touching them. Any Holy Knight who was forced onto the brink could also threaten them with self-destruction. Yet, Holy Knights were still ridiculously durable. It would be highly difficult to kill a high-level Holy Knight unless you cut their head off. They would be as disgusting to demons as an undying cockroach.

On the other hand, since I wasn’t seriously injured at all, and Sophocles’ power level far surpassed mine, how could he have possibly been seriously injured as he returned to the Chaos Abyss?

He had only pretended to be seriously injured as he returned to the Chaos Abyss. It was likely for the sake of disappearing from the Order Gods’ and Karwenz’s surveillance.

“What a pity.”

I really regretted that I hadn’t managed to complete one more of my planned four magic swords. If only I had had one more, I likely would have been able to actually kill Sophocles back there.

For instance, if my ice magic sword had been completed, then I could have locked him in my ice and snow arena, letting him enjoy a Holy Light bath together with Northlands weather calamities. I could continuously weaken him for several hours, or even several days, before I’d then gather Holy Light power to slay him.

And if my Seven Sins death magic sword was complete, I probably would have been able to seriously injure even Sophocles’ soul with just a single backstab. Of course, if my inference was correct, my Seven Sins sword likely wouldn’t be that effective against demons and undead.

Now, information about my Holy Light sword had already been leaked, so trying a sneak attack would no longer work. But, when thinking about it from another standpoint, I was actually happy that my other magic swords had yet to be completed, which meant that information about them hadn’t been leaked yet.

Right now, all I had leaked was that I possessed a powerful Holy Light Myth-ranked weapon which had two abilities: spreading Holy Light and gathering Holy Light into a sword shape. Everyone would likely learn of this. If that was all they knew, then that would still be somewhat acceptable.

“It seems like I’m still quite lacking…”

Me being able to fight against Sophocles to such an extent wasn’t actually because my power level was close to reaching a Chaos Main God’s just yet. It was rather that I had chosen this power which was a natural counter to demons from the very start.

There was no need for me to introduce how strong of a counter Holy Light was against demons and undead. Holy Light would cause more than 10x damage to demons and undead than to other targets. Still, this didn’t mean that my power level was only 10% that of Sophocles’. Many things would truly be uncalculatable.

For instance, the famous Dragon Slaughterer from history. He had slain countless dragons and become a living nightmare to all dragons. Even Supreme Immemorial Dragons would avoid him. Yet, this didn’t mean that the Dragon Slaughterer’s power level surpassed that of all of Dragon City. He had simply chosen a power that was naturally suited for dragon slaying. If the Dragon Slaughterer instead met a high-level demon, it was likely that he would actually perform worse in combat than an average Level 4 individual.

Attack power effectiveness was only part of countering an enemy’s abilities. Not only that, it would be the least important way of countering the enemy.

Rather than attack power, increasing your accuracy against dragons, decreasing dragon breath damage against you, becoming immune to draconic might, enchanting your weapon with penetrative properties against dragon scales, having your weapon become poisonous against dragons to the point where the dragon would be unable to heal its own injuries, having the ability of flight, having the ability to identify the dragon’s weak point, and so on counted more. All these disgusting abilities would be far more effective than simply increasing your attack power against dragons.

Any attack which couldn’t hit would still be useless in the end, after all. Damage which couldn’t even break through the enemy’s defenses would still be zero, and if you couldn’t survive long enough, you also wouldn’t be doing enough DPS. All of the abilities I mentioned were actual abilities that the Dragon Slaughterer had possessed, which was how he had become the most accomplished dragon slayer in all of history.

Every single attack he performed would hit a critical weak spot. He was capable of ignoring the dragons’ breath attacks and claw strikes. The moment that he caused a dragon to bleed, the dragon would constantly weaken until death. Even a dragon whose power level surpassed his would be nothing more than an instant kill for him.

Meanwhile, my Holy Light sword Dawn was a special weapon that I had designed to counter gigantic demons and undead.

Its domain of pure Holy Light would constantly weaken my enemies. Meanwhile, its lightsaber would constantly gather the power of Order, becoming stronger and stronger and ever more difficult to defend against.

In the end, after my enemy was burned and tortured to an extreme by Holy Light, they would then face a fatal one-hit kill sword strike.

Theoretically speaking, as long as I had enough time to gather sufficient power, this one strike would be more than enough to kill any demon or undead enemy.

However, practical combat against Sophocles had exposed the insufficiencies of my first completed magic sword.

“The enemy will be no idiot who will obediently watch as you gather power while they’re constantly weakened.”

Sophocles naturally had tremendous combat experience. He had instantly understood what was going on, and then he unhesitatingly sent his own ultimate technique at me, not giving me any chance to gather power.

Moreover, if he had instead chosen to escape from my Holy Light domain from the very beginning, I wouldn’t have had any method at all to stop him from doing so.

I was the type who would always learn from my mistakes. At this moment, I truly felt that my abilities had their weaknesses.

“It seems that I will need to think of how to swiftly finish working on a second magic sword so that I can restrict my enemy’s movements. Otherwise, if I meet another enemy on the same level, I’ll really… Wuuuu! What are you doing, silly cat!”

I spat out the feathered pillow from my mouth as I glared at the silly cat who was pretending to be all innocent on the bed. Did she really think that I was so much of a jinxer? Was I really that powerful? I said that a Main God would come, so one would come? Did she really think that Main Gods were as common as vegetables?

Yet, I was suddenly forced to retract my words when alarms furiously started ringing on the airship.

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