As he spoke, Vincent arrived in the Nation of Disorder, sitting in front of that ancient, unadorned scale, golden mist churning ceaselessly around it — Bernadette had spoken the honorific "Lord of Chaos."
As the spirituality spread, Bernadette's silhouette appeared within the golden mist, and through it Vincent gained sight of a certain radius around her. "Emperor's New Clothes!"
Once the Black Knight realized he was trapped, he threw himself into a desperate, all-out fight without hesitation. He first switched which demon spirit he was shepherding, spitting out foul curses laced with lethal effects.
At the same time, his body — grown tall and massive again — burst forward with a speed that didn't match his size at all, closing the distance between them in an instant, gripping the "Flesh-and-Soul Blade" of his Corrupted domain and driving it straight for Bernadette's heart. The corrupting will wrapped around the blade's edge was so concentrated it could overwhelm nearly any spiritual defense.
Unfortunately, the Black Knight's foul curses and his Flesh-and-Soul Blade once again passed straight through Bernadette's illusory form as if cutting through empty air, doing no damage at all.
In that brief moment of "contact," Bernadette released another Mystery Reenactment:
"Sleeping Beauty."
An invisible wave swept out — not targeting the Black Knight's formidable flesh directly, but settling precisely over his spirit, weakened and fragile from the earlier damage. An overwhelming, irresistible exhaustion, rising from the depths of his soul, washed over his mind like a tide, slowing his movements.
"Is that good enough?"
Bernadette didn't press the attack further, simply speaking to herself, aware that Vincent could hear her.
"Already started."
Vincent replied from within the Nation of Disorder — though since he hadn't formed a deeper connection with Bernadette, she couldn't hear his words. If he formed that deeper connection, it would directly interfere with her vision and disrupt her combat.
"Amplify."
Holding the Black Emperor card, Vincent used "Amplify" on the Black Knight once more, boosting the effect of "Sleeping Beauty" until the demigod, under Sleeping Beauty's influence, was left nearly unconscious.
Back in reality, Bernadette quickly noticed the same thing — Sleeping Beauty could indeed plunge a target into exhaustion and make them want to sleep, but for someone at demigod level, it usually only lasted a few seconds — which was already enough to swing a fight decisively.
But this Black Knight had already been asleep for seven or eight seconds now — long enough that Bernadette could have killed him several times over even without the Spear of Longinus.
"!!!"
His blood-red eyes suddenly flashed, and the Black Knight jolted awake from his deep sleep: I... I actually fell asleep in the middle of a fight, for that long? What kind of terrifying ability is this?
But why didn't she kill me while I was out?
Was she... toying with me?
Like a cat that's caught a mouse but isn't in any hurry to finish it off, savoring the game instead?!
Fury surged through the Black Knight's chest, blood rushing straight to his skull. His armor sloughed off rapidly, crimson flesh churning beneath it as brass-colored eyes opened one after another all over his body, his form swelling larger by the second.
He meant to enter his Mythical Creature Form and take her down with him.
Pat.
A small pouch of coins landed on the Black Knight's body — Bernadette had activated her "Black Box" ability, smiling as she said, "Stop right there before you enter your Mythical Creature Form."
"???"
As if by pure instinct, or reflex, the Black Knight actually did stop, falling into a brief daze, seeming to forget for a moment what he'd meant to do next.
This wasn't just Vincent amplifying the effect of "Black Box" — the moment Bernadette threw the coin pouch, he'd also used "Bestowal," stripping the Black Knight of his will to fight and his sense of purpose — call it "losing his mind," for short.
"Looking at this, Black Box and Bestowal really are a perfect combo — that's well beyond simple hard control."
That said, the effect didn't last nearly as long this time. The Black Knight snapped out of it and moved to enter his Mythical Creature Form again — but Vincent's next "Distortion" twisted his mind instead, killing the impulse outright: his body shrank rapidly back down, the brass eyes across his skin closing one by one, until he was back to his black-armored state.
Except now, a still-gushing wound remained in his chest — already shrunk to less than half the size of the earlier fist-sized hole, more than enough to show off the Shepherd's flesh-regeneration.
"Distortion!"
Another Distortion, applied directly to the wound on the Black Knight's chest.
There was a loud bang, and the wound exploded outward, blasting almost straight through his entire chest cavity, twisting what had been a minor injury into a critical one. He dropped to his knees.
Bernadette watched quietly, her expression flat, unreadable.
"All right, we've run all the experiments we need. I've got a decent grasp now of how to fight alongside you in the Nation of Disorder — give him a clean death."
Vincent said, having returned to reality.
"All right."
She raised a hand lightly, and that ancient-styled spear, wreathed in dark red flame from tip to haft, condensed once more in her grip, becoming a streak of afterimage as it drove straight through the Black Knight's skull.
Amid a roar mixing agony and despair, the black armor across his body let out a crisp cracking sound, countless fractures spreading across it, the deep red glow in his eye sockets rapidly dimming.
Crack!
A few seconds later, this Sequence 4 demigod met the same fate as the dragon before him — shattering into pieces like broken glass scattered across the ground, dead for good.
Not long after, a gleaming, crystalline black hand-bone crystallized out of the debris — the Black Knight's Beyonder Characteristic.
Bernadette crooked a finger, and an emerald-green pea vine grew up, coiling around the Beyonder Characteristic and carrying it over to her. She confirmed it, and was about to wave a hand to dispel the "Peach Blossom Spring's" separate space.
"Wait — try summoning his spirit first."
Vincent said quickly. He had a feeling the little snake hadn't "sent" this Black Knight over just for the Beyonder Characteristic — there might be another reason behind it.
Bernadette made a small "mm" sound and set about arranging the ritual. After a series of steps, the Black Knight's lingering soul appeared before her.
"Who are you?"
The Black Knight's lingering soul answered, his eyes hollow. "Cosma."
"You're a Sage of the Aurora Order?"
"Yes. I'm the Sage of Gloom."
"Why did you come to kill me?"
At the question, something flickered in his hollow eyes. "Because you killed the real Mr. A, impersonated him, gave orders in his name, and tried to stop my Lord's descent... You deserve death!"
Bernadette raised an eyebrow. "How do you know all this?"
Surely the little snake hadn't fed him that story specifically as part of "sending" the Beyonder Characteristic — that would be a bit much.
"MI9 told me."
"MI9? Why would you have contact with them? You weren't in Backlund before, were you?"
A fresh fervor crept into the Black Knight's eyes. "Butis brought me here. He's working with Loen right now, using our Lord's vessel to bring about His descent."
"Who is Butis?"
"He's the Aurora Order's Sage of Secrets."
The moment Vincent heard this, he placed it immediately — wasn't that the traitor from the Abraham family? His teacher had spent years carefully training him, and he'd repaid that with betrayal — murder, theft, and then defection to the Aurora Order.
In the original story, the Tarot Club had joined forces to hunt him down at one point, and if he remembered right, he'd been working alongside this same Black Knight, Cosma, at the time.
But the real question was — how had Butis ended up working with MI9?
"Why would Butis cooperate with Loen?"
"Mr. Z contacted him a bit over a month ago. When he arrived in Backlund, he ran into MI9's people, and they had a conversation. Later, with MI9's help, they captured our Lord's vessel, and that's when they decided to cooperate."
Vincent suddenly remembered — he'd asked Mr. Z to get him a "Traveler" Beyonder Characteristic a while back, and Mr. Z had mentioned that the "Sage of Secrets" would be coming to Backlund.
So... did this whole mess trace back to him?
To be continued…
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