Night Journey

Chapter 93 Plague Knight
The blazing fire of the soul essence washed over the knight's armor, burning away the mycelium on it, but in the blink of an eye, it grew back, sprouting mushrooms, the spores unfolding, just like blooming flowers.

The knight moved forward steadily, and the green mist spread along with him.

"Finally, a real opponent has arrived."

Cillian maintained his arrogant demeanor, but the expression beneath the mask had become serious.

Unlike the trash he had killed before, this heavily armored knight would be a formidable foe.

Just as Cillian had predicted, the knight silently brandished his halberd, the seemingly slow movements creating a whistling sound as it slammed down towards Cillian.

Cillian calmly strode to the side, the halberd falling along his feet, denting the planting platform and causing the surrounding area to shake violently.

In a swaying motion, Cirion thrust out his Boiling Sword, the blade grazing the knight's helmet, leaving a shallow scratch and a fading spark.

"You are not a real reverse falcon."

The knight dragged his halberd, his voice deep and muffled.

“I never said I was a reverse falcon.”

Cillian answered nonchalantly, taking advantage of the lull to change the bullets in his jet revolver.

Seeing that the Soul Essence Bullets had little effect on the Knight, he switched to larger-caliber conventional ammunition, maintaining his distance while pulling the trigger.

The three gunshots almost overlapped, the bullets hitting the same spot one after another, piercing through the knight's breastplate.

There was no blood flowing from the pierced breastplate, only a dark hole.

A rustling sound came from the darkness, and the dense mycelium strangely stitched up the hole, turning into a grayish-white hard substance that was sewn together with the breastplate.

The knight brandished his halberd, stirring up gusts of wind and swirling green mist, which even transformed into a dark green tornado.

Suddenly, the knight swung his halberd down heavily, but instead of smashing it to the ground, he pointed it at Cirion in front of him. The tornado he had created also changed direction, transforming into a large, dark green snake that lunged at him.

"What the hell!"

Cillian cursed and jumped down to another planting platform below.

As soon as he took to the air, the tornado swept over the spot where Cillian had just been, covering everything in its path with a thick layer of green. Matter rapidly collapsed and disintegrated, leaving only a large number of bacteria to grow wildly.

"Ok?"

The knight reached the edge of the planting platform and began searching for Cirion.

But he saw nothing but more ruins and wreckage, and the raging fire still burning after the explosion that Cillian had caused earlier.

A rapid friction sound came from the air.

A line of fire rapidly magnified in the knight's eyes, then slammed heavily into his abdomen.

Cillian didn't fall below at all. Instead, he shot out a grappling hook and hung himself below the planting platform. When the knight lowered his guard, he thrust out his burning fire sword.

"Don't get distracted!"

Amidst Cillian's mocking laughter, the intense heat of the Boiling Sword melted through the armor, calmly piercing into the body, and then slashing upwards, slicing open the breastplate and tearing open the helmet.

Horrible scars burst open on the knight's armor, and the edges of the armor, where the boiling sword had torn them, still retained a lingering red-hot heat.

The knight involuntarily leaned backward, but just before he fell, he steadied himself and swung his halberd.

The incredibly heavy halberd slammed into Ciri's side. At such close range, he had no time or space to dodge and could only barely parry with his Boiling Sword.

The clanging sound of metal colliding echoed throughout.

Like a kite with a broken string, Cillian was thrown several meters away, his figure tumbling in the air. Just as he was about to fall into the darkness, he shot out a grappling hook and dragged himself back onto the planting platform.

"call……"

Ciri calmed his disordered breathing and looked at the knight with a serious expression.

He has killed many beings associated with chaos.

Demons, chaotic creatures, chaotic believers, wicked offspring...

He thought that after hunting down these powerful enemies, he would no longer be surprised by the abhorrence of Chaos, but at this moment, looking at the knight's broken body, he still felt a chill from the depths of his soul.

Beneath the ruptured armor, instead of the expected splatter of warm flesh and blood, a sticky, damp sensation assaulted my senses—dense swarms of fungi, like disgusting maggots, layer upon layer, covered the inside of the armor.

They wriggled frantically, making soft, eerie rustling sounds, as if whispering secrets or greedily sucking something up.

Cillian's gaze slowly moved upwards.

Beneath the breastplate, jagged bones were faintly visible, their flesh and blood devoured. Looking further into the crack in the helmet, a corner of a stark white skeleton was suddenly exposed, its empty eye sockets seemingly staring back at him.

"What exactly are you?"

Cillian could hardly believe that he was fighting against an armor infested with fungi, the person inside of which seemed to have been devoured by the fungi many years ago, the bones fused together with this blasphemous thing.

"I am a child blessed by my mother, a saint who defends the path of the Devourer." Surprisingly, the knight answered his question with utmost seriousness, a loud and solemn voice emanating from beneath the empty shell of his armor.

"I am the Plague Knight, Harvin!"

As soon as the words were spoken, the pale mycelium rapidly multiplied, interlacing and stitching together the ruptured armor, then hardening to fill the gap and form a thick growth.

Examining the bloated and deformed armor now, Cillian finally understood that over countless days, the armor had been broken and reassembled countless times, like a wound with ever-growing scars covering everything.

"Torchbearer, you shouldn't have come here."

Harvin roared, his source energy surging and celebrating, revealing the power of the same rank two as Cillian, and at the same time, the power of chaos also burst forth.

With the combined power, Harvin's seemingly clumsy figure moved at a terrifying speed, arriving in front of Cillian almost in the blink of an eye.

The halberd was raised high, then fell heavily back down.

Cillian shot out a grappling hook to the side, quickly dragging himself out of Haven's attack range. Immediately afterwards, several intertwined mycelium strands were flung at him, slashing down like long whips.

A series of impacts echoed along the way, causing the already precarious planting platform to collapse further.

Several connecting steel cables snapped, causing the planting platform to tilt to one side. The piled-up corpses and pus slid down into the darkness below, unleashing yet another rain of death.

Cirian drew his dagger and drove it into the iron wall, making sure he wouldn't fall down with it.

Havin stood still, with numerous spores blooming from his body like a cluster of vibrant flowers.

Cillian sneered, "Plague Knight? Never heard of such a thing."

"It's alright, your mother's severe punishment awaits you."

Ha Wen responded without any politeness.

“No, no, no, friend, isn’t your trash talk a bit too…classical!” Cillian said disappointedly. “You should be a little more aggressive.”

Harvin couldn't understand why Cillian would start talking nonsense during this life-or-death duel.

"Even more disappointed."

Seeing that Havin remained silent, Cirion grew increasingly bored and fired his jet revolver again.

This time, the warhead didn't hit Havin, but instead pointed at the steel cable above their heads that connected the planting platform.

After the gunshot, the steel cable snapped.

The already tilted planting platform first emitted a creaking sound that made your teeth ache, like an old man groaning in pain. The metal supports of the platform twisted and deformed, twisted together like a rope, and the platform began to shake violently.

With a deafening roar, the platform collapsed completely, and the soil mixed with sticky fungi poured down like a flood.

Whether they were the wicked offspring below or the followers of Chaos... it didn't matter who they were, everyone stared wide-eyed in horror, and before they could react, they were instantly engulfed by the surging waves of earth.

But this was only the beginning of the collapse.

Cillian shot out the grappling hook and got caught on the suspended corridor.

Looking down, the other suspended platforms collapsed one after another like dominoes, the sounds of metal clashing, soil sliding, and people screaming mingling together, filling the air with an atmosphere of despair and death.

Harvin also disappeared into the ruins below as the planting platform collapsed, but Cillian didn't think that this level of attack could kill him.

This was the first time Cillian had ever seen his deformed and bizarre life form.

Cillian muttered to himself, "Plague Knight... what exactly is that?"

"He is the anointed one, a being directly blessed by the Mother."

A woman's voice came from above Cillian's head. He looked up and saw a dark silhouette against the light.

“Some extremely devout and fanatical believers are willing to sacrifice their souls in order to show their devotion to the Mother, even if it means losing their souls and being unable to go any further on the path of destiny.”

The silhouette continued.

"But correspondingly, under the protection of their mother, their lives will be frozen in this moment forever, bound to their mother, and they will gain chaotic power far exceeding that of their peers."

The so-called Plague Knights are such anointed ones.

The blurry figure gradually became clearer, and a face that had kept Cirion awake day and night appeared before his eyes.

"Harvin sacrificed his soul and sealed his body and the fungi given by his mother in the armor, letting them gnaw and digest it until they merged with the armor."

Tania, positioned on higher ground, raised the muzzle of her gun at Sirian.

"Now, do you understand?"

As she spoke, she pulled the trigger.

(End of this chapter)