Arknights, but the sickly pretty girl starts

"You!" The Tower Warlock was angry but dared not speak. Facing a Silver Spear Pegasus, she was indeed a little naive. Moreover, this was the cooperation partner designated by her superiors. She really had no position and no ability to confront the other party.

Seeing Kuranta change his clothes and walk out of the Howling Guard, everyone stared at the surveillance camera, watching this scene.

"You came."

"I am coming."

"You shouldn't have come."

“But I came anyway.”

There was a moment of silence. Two familiar faces stood beneath the park's streetlights. One, clad in a battle robe, looked like a fabled Prince Charming. The other, in a suit, frowned deeply. If it weren't for the sword dangling from his waist, no one would have considered this middle-aged office worker threatening. He sighed deeply, as if he had known the other man would come.

"Chesber, I'm waiting for your answer." Maenna said. There was no anger, no sadness, not even regret in her voice, only pure confusion. "Why?"

"...Why are you hanging out with the Leithanians? Why are you here? Why are you breaking the rules and entering the Grand Knight's Territory? What exactly is your problem?" Chesper asked with a smile. "I'm from Casimir. Why can't I enter the Grand Knight's Territory? The question itself is ridiculous."

"You know that's not what I'm asking." Maena raised her eyes. "What I want to ask is why you attacked Noah."

"..." Chesper suddenly fell silent. Indeed, regardless of the greater good, attacking two innocent children was an extremely despicable act.

Chesper originally wanted to defend himself, saying that he did not know the specific situation and that the person who took action acted without authorization. By the time he found out, it was too late. He also notified Tolan to help find Noah and Margaret, but these were just his "compensation". He was not unrelated to this matter.

He knew it, but he didn't want to show his weakness in front of Maena.

It was as if he was questioning why he was so... twisted, so... evil at this moment.

"...There's no reason." Chesper didn't argue, "Because their very existence will block my path."

——That's right, whether it is the nightmare bloodline in Noah's body, or the future star of Casimir like Margaret, they are all unstable factors on the battlefield for Chesper and the remnants of the Witch King who want to provoke a war between Casimir and Letania. Especially when Noah's parents caused serious damage to the remnants of the Witch King, their hatred for Noah was groundless and was simply a way to vent their anger.

When the final report was given to Chesper, it said that one of the two children was infected with oripathy and the other was seriously injured.

Later, Chesper learned from the report that it was Margaret who was infected with the mineral disease, and Noa who was seriously injured. Indeed, these remnants of the Witch King had done it. They had destroyed Casimir's future. And now, they wanted to destroy the next one... the next Brilliant Knight, the next Margaret.

If possible, kill the nightmare bloodline who is disabled but still alive in this world.

But Chesper is different from them. They are only cooperating temporarily, so their ideas are actually not the same.

But none of this needed to be justified - no matter what, his actions had betrayed his creed, and no reason or excuse could make him change that.

"Maenna, I originally thought that your return to the Great Knight Territory... would change everything."

"..."

"You... have the ability... You can obviously change..."

"I can not."

"Shut up!" Chesper's roar was so deafening in the night. "You can!"

It was as if it was not Mainna himself who said this, "I cannot belittle you." Instead, he became even more excited. Mainna looked at his former best friend in front of him. A light rain had gradually begun to fall on the ground, wetting the ends of their hair. The two people, who seemed to be abandoned by the times, looked at each other.

"My sword cannot cut through the ages."

Maenna spoke again, with regret and sadness.

"I'm not omnipotent. There are too many things I can't cut through."

The times are like a big river, always rolling forward, and no one can stop it - no matter how sharp your sword is, you cannot cut off the water.

Times have changed, and the age of knights is over.

The current Casimir needs capital, no new nobles, and no war. The current Casimir has no place for knights.

But you stayed in the past...

Chapter 76: False Voice of the World

Mainna looked at the man in front of him, the brother who had been through thick and thin with him.

He was filled with disappointment at Casimir's current situation. Those knights, who should have been galloping across the battlefield, building great achievements, were now being manipulated by capital, dancing on the stage, while the damned Securities and Exchange Commission turned a blind eye! The knights were stationed at the frontier, unable to even return to the Grand Knight's territory without reporting to the authorities! Was this really normal? Was this really how Casimir should be?

Chesper hadn't originally planned to meet Mainna. He knew Mainna no longer had the same zeal she once had. In Chesper's view, it was the current Casimir who had alienated Mainna. The glittering golden light had been tainted by this damned Casimir. He didn't even blame Mainna, he only blamed Casimir as a whole. The more he had admired and respected Mainna in the past, the angrier he became now.

The rain had soaked his hair and streaked across his cheeks, making it hard to tell whether it was the knight's tears or the rain. He stared at the man before him, the one he had once admired so much, and questioned him.

"Maenna Linguang! Do you really want to continue sinking into this decadent country? Join us, we can change Casimir!"

His words were sincere. He hoped that his mighty roar could awaken the ranger's heart, which was as hot as the morning sun, and turn him back into the original Mainna. However, the person sitting on the bench sighed softly. At some point, the rain gradually became heavier. Then Mainna stood up and shook off the raindrops on the ground. He held the hilt of his sword but did not draw it. He looked straight at Chesper in front of him and responded.

"If it were before, I would have continued to persuade you... I would have persuaded you to turn back." Maenna, with a heavy heart, approached Chesper. This distance was once where they chatted and laughed, a distance often shared between Maenna, Tolan, and Chesper as rangers, when they teased and joked with each other. But now, that joyful atmosphere between the two was gone. The furrowed brow of the office worker was no longer the ranger he once was... But his sword remained unaffected by this.

He is still Maenna Linguang...never changed from the past to the present.

Just a little more vicissitudes of life——

"It's raining."

Chesper held his lance tightly, but the next moment, it was as if he entered a golden rainstorm. The not-so-dazzling light blended into every drop of rain, turning into a rain curtain that seemed gentle but could kill people at any time. Chesper was unable to resist and could only rush forward against the rain curtain, even if it was just a little bit. He knew that he could never fight Mainna, even though his strength had far exceeded that of an ordinary Silver Spear Pegasus. But no matter in the past or now, he understood it very well.

Countless enemies and traitors have perished under this seemingly gentle golden rain. This was a charge with no chance of winning.

But he had nothing to lose...

He raised his lance and charged, facing the golden rain, gazing at the handsome ranger in front of him, who was stained with gold and looked just like the old days.

"...Maenna..."

He could tolerate Casimir's decay, he could accept the knight's dimness, but what he could not accept... was that the knight in his mind was abandoned by the times and eventually became what he is today.

Maena, if even you give up...

So, Casimir, is there really still hope?

Chesper resolutely charged towards the most dazzling knight in his mind. This was a desperate charge. The golden rain washed over his armor, making him look like the afterglow of an ancient knight family. Mainna's sword had already been unsheathed.

At this moment, a figure fell from the sky, facing the golden rain, and landed between the two of them. Mainna immediately realized who the other person was and subconsciously retracted his sword. Chesper's desperate charge was stopped by a hand that firmly grasped the tip of the gun, and then there was only a crisp sound of metal breaking.

Ding--

A section of the spear tip was directly broken off. While the figure stopped Chesber's attack, he moved his body and pressed Chesber's back with one hand like a dragon. Then he swept the leg to trip the knight and pressed him directly to the ground.

"General."

Kuro, wearing a mask, said coldly, then she raised her head and looked in the direction of Mainna.

"Noah said you've been coming home late again recently, so I asked to come and see. Sure enough—you've been very busy lately?"

"...I'll write a good self-criticism." Mainna looked at Kuro in front of her and shook her head helplessly, "I can handle it."

"But Noya said she didn't want to see you kill your own brother," Kuro responded. "Just take him back—there's no need for you to do it."

"...Haha... I didn't expect that Mainna would actually call for reinforcements..." Chesper was pinned to the ground, unable to resist. The physical strength of this woman who had appeared out of nowhere was simply terrifying. Although she had been caught by surprise, the fact that she had just broken the tip of a charging knight's spear was a real testament to her strength. Such strength was rare in Casimir...

To be honest, he already had the answer in his mind. However, after he was pinned to the ground, a chain reaction naturally occurred. As expected, the magic light in the Howling Guardian once again lit up.

The tower sorcerer assembled a dozen or sorcerers to cast a combined spell. With Chesper already captured, the tower sorcerer was now the supreme leader. Having been pent up for so long, she finally found an outlet. A terrifying, illogical, and irregular sound echoed from the tower. The spell, imitating the Witch King's earthly voice, was now revealing its terrifying power.

Noya, standing nearby, was startled. This sound-based technique, for someone so sensitive to both emotion and sound, shone like a firefly in the darkness. She sensed danger in that instant, subconsciously gripping the back of her wheelchair, instinctively trying to use her sixth sense to decipher the seemingly random rhythm and find flaws.

However, when she actively began to absorb the emotions of this music, the chaos, brutality, and even madness in this music seemed to have found an outlet and poured into Noah's body.

As a thunderclap sounded, the tower sorcerer who was presiding over the ritual suddenly realized... the ritual was suddenly out of her control.

The technique... went out of control?

Chapter 77: Music Box

Noah's ability is similar to passively accepting the aftermath of other people's emotions, from which he can know the other person's hidden emotions.

At this moment, what she did was to try to interpret this strange melody in her own way, find the flaws in it, and then destroy it.

This was not an easy task, but she could feel how terrifying the chaotic emotions in the music were. For Mainna and Kuro, although they were not weak, this kind of music that made people feel terrified from the bottom of their hearts was very likely an attack on their hearts. This kind of attack was very likely something Mainna and Kuro had never encountered, or even knew about, so Noah intervened decisively.

Music... Noah had studied it in the past. The so-called music, or music itself, is a way to convey emotions.

For someone as sensitive to the emotions of others as Noya, she was particularly attuned to the power inherent in music. She could discern the emotions of both the composer and the performer through the music, a skill she honed in, much like a sorcerer mastering the manipulation of a spell.

But she didn't know that the melody she was trying to feel, accept, and even control was a sorcery created in imitation of the Sorcerer King's Earthly Voice. Although it wasn't the original, after years and days of research by these tower sorcerers, they even found some fragments of the Earthly Voice. The spell they created also possessed the terrifying power unique to the Sorcerer King's Earthly Voice - even if it was only one thousandth of the Sorcerer King's power, it was still genuine.

Noya struggled to feel the emotions entering her body. These negative, almost chaotic emotions were running rampant in her mind, causing her a splitting headache. Noya subconsciously wanted to manipulate the technique, but as soon as her mind touched it, she felt severe pain... That's right, severe pain from the soul. Just a slight touch made her feel as if her arm had been cut off... She subconsciously covered her right arm, but found that her right arm was not damaged. This pain should be just an illusion.

She had never come across such a terrifying technique before. It was as if it was a disordered thing from the very beginning. However, this kind of noise should not be developed as a technique in Leitania.

Why would the other party use this...

Ok?

Noa was about to refute this sorcerer's lack of musical beauty, a complete violation of the traditional aesthetics of Leithian sorcerers, but the next moment, she sensed the patchwork and incompleteness in this melody... as if the melody itself was a product of chaotic patchwork. It was like some musical tailor had found other people's works, then cut them apart, slowed them down, sped them up, and used various methods to try to make them his own, and then pieced them together.

Chaos, disorder, clutter, and disorganization.

This kind of thing should not be called music, and no creative emotion can be felt from it. It is just mechanical copy and paste, without any life. The person using the technique has no understanding of the creator's intention, so this seemingly powerful musical technique has an extremely empty and void core. It is precisely because of this that Noah was traumatized when he tried to understand the emotions in the music.

This meaningless and empty musical technique has a terrifying power. Part of the power contained in the great music it imitates is absorbed by this fake music, and the crazy part of it overflows crazily.

This is the true appearance of this special technique——

When Noah gradually figured out the core of the technique, Mainna and Kuro, who were originally in a state of panic, were stunned. Indeed, they felt threatened, but soon, the threat turned into shrill screams and strange sounds of flesh and blood bursting. The two looked at each other, and then Mainna led the way and Kuro followed behind to suppress Chesber and walked into the building of the Howling Guard. Then they saw a scene that looked like hell on earth.

In the lobby of the Howling Guard, there were two small piles of minced meat. It looked as if the bones and flesh had betrayed their brains, then twisted their bodies into a pretzel, and finally collapsed and disintegrated, forming such a small pile of minced meat. There were also human hair and hair on it, and it was clear that this pile of minced meat should have been part of a human being.

The entire Howling Guard's power system seemed to be destroyed. If it weren't for the faint light emitted by the long sword in Mainna's hand, they wouldn't even be able to see the road clearly.

But the closer they got, the more they felt something was wrong... The air was filled with the smell of blood, and every person they saw seemed to have been twisted by some enormous force, as if they had been stuffed into a meat grinder and turned into minced meat and bones. This method of killing was simply unheard of, and it even made Mainna wonder if some kind of sacrificial ritual was taking place in this place.

The two finally arrived in front of the tower warlock who had originally controlled the spell. The tower warlock's clothes had been shattered, and her entire body was inflated as if inflated. She stared at the twisted [Music Box] in her hand, which was still emitting a broken rhythm. She muttered to herself, no longer in human form.

"Your Majesty... we have undoubtedly tampered with your melody... please grant... mercy."

The bloated bubbles on her body suddenly burst, creating a cloud of blood. She screamed miserably, and a string of unknown black notes were extracted from her head and merged into the music box.

This scene was so strange that even the battle-hardened Mainna and Kuro frowned.

"The technique went berserk?"

"I don't know... The tower warlock I faced before didn't use this kind of thing." Mainna shook his head, indicating that he had never seen such a scene.

"That's the False Earthly Sound created by the remnants of the Witch King. They collected the Witch King's fragments but couldn't understand them, so they mixed them up and created this music box. It's said to be their trump card." Chesper wasn't stingy with his intelligence at this time. "I guess they can't grasp the Witch King's fragments at all, so they ended up like this."

"...The fragments of the Sorcerer King." Maenna gazed at the music box held in the tower warlock's only remaining intact hand, now a fat ball of flesh and pus. She instinctively felt disgusted. This kind of thing, which could backfire on its user, was clearly dangerous. But strangely enough... the music seemed to have no effect on either her or Kuro, merely destroying the warlocks who had attempted to use it...

"...Their ugly desires were finally exposed by the rhythm..." Chesper smiled bitterly, "Perhaps this is what they deserve."

Chapter 78: Rejection

In order not to attract any attention, Kuro put the music box away temporarily after turning it off. After all, in this situation, no one would feel comfortable leaving this thing here.

Now at least Kuro, Mainna and Chesper had no reaction to the music of the music box, but the others might not be the same. Kuro was also worried about Noah staying alone, so after putting away the music box, he temporarily handed the scene over to Mainna to handle.

Mainna looked at the tragic scene of the Howling Guards and was silent for a long time, then asked Chesper who was tied up beside him.

"Is this what you wanted?"

"You know what I'm going to say."

Chesper raised his head slightly, a glimmer still in his eyes. Maina looked at him and sighed slowly. He took out a cigarette from his jacket pocket, which he rarely smoked but used for handing out cigarettes. He took one and handed it to Chesper. Chesper took it naturally with his mouth and closed his mouth.

Mainna didn't light his cigarette, just asked him to shut up temporarily. Back when they were together, Tolan often used this method to silence Chesper. After all, this upright knight was a bit too long-winded for the Sarkaz Knights—they still had that name back then. Stuffing something into his mouth was effective at silencing him. In the past, it was candy, snacks, or even just some sugarcane or straw he'd just picked up by the roadside.

But now Mainna didn't have any, so she could only smoke a cigarette.

Mainna stood there for a while, then slowly turned around and took out her cell phone.

"——Hello, it's me." Mainna rarely called this number, but he never deleted it from his address book. After all, he knew that he would need some help sooner or later.

For example now——

"Howling guards are here. Please bring some people over to deal with this. We need to do it before daybreak, otherwise there will be big trouble."

-

When Kuro hurried back to Noah, Noah was sitting there quietly with his head down, as if listening to the sound of rain.

Surprisingly, Kuro's footsteps didn't cause her to react. Startled, he immediately came to her side and asked, "What happened?"

"..." Noah didn't respond, just shook his head slightly, and then said, "Is everything okay?"

"All is well." Kuro did not tell Noya what happened in the Howling Guard. He just replied, "Maenna did not kill his friends, and he was not injured. Just as you wished."

"...Well, that's good." Noah raised his head and smiled, "Let's go back. I'm tired."