Knights and Magic Wand
Chapter 758: 355: Bloodshadow Devil's Trail

Chapter 758: Chapter 355: Bloodshadow Devil’s Trail

Without a moment’s rest, they evaded the patrolling soldiers and infiltrated Count Trolsa’s living quarters in the camp. Suddenly, Leon halted in the second-floor corridor.

He raised a hand to stop Kovis, who was following behind.

In front of them, two Orland guards stood at attention in the corridor.

But Leon frowned, noticing with suspicion that those two warriors remained motionless like statues, their breathing beneath their helmets slow and elongated.

Relying on the shadows cast by his spell, he cautiously approached the two men and prodded them.

Sure enough, there was no reaction.

He lifted the visor of a guard’s helmet, and it appeared that these two warriors were put into a comatose state by some unknown means, standing there rigidly.

“…Someone’s been here before us,” Kovis whispered gravely beside Leon.

Leon couldn’t help but wonder, who else could be after the Earl’s relics on this night besides himself?

Glancing at a nearby door, he groped in the dark and pressed down on Acro’s shoulder.

“Go to the window and stand guard, be ready to retreat at any moment. I’ll go in from the front to check it out.”

In the darkness, Kovis nodded, and immediately turned to head outside, ready to act separately.

Once Acro circled outside, Leon moved quietly, lowering the Garner’s gun blade and holding his breath as he approached the residence’s door.

His hand felt the door latch, confirming it was still locked.

Leon remained cautious.

With a silent sleight of hand, he manipulated magic power to unlock the mechanism without a sound, the atmospheric element enveloping the lock without a hint of frictional noise.

He nudged the door open a fraction, his dark eyes revealing a magic pattern technique, switching his vision to sense the faint glimmers of the night.

In the spacious bedroom of the Earl, a coffin lay quietly in the center.

However, the heavy lid of the coffin wasn’t sealed; either it was left open, or someone had opened it?

What’s going on?

The burial hasn’t even taken place yet, and there’s already a thief aiming for Trolsa’s burial goods?

His gaze swept the room, yet aside from the deathly silence of the furnishings, it was empty.

…Have they left already?

Leon pushed open the door and stepped inside.

As his heightened senses spread out, he caught sight of an invisible silver streak swiftly aiming for his chest, clad only in leather armor.

—Incredibly fast.

But not fast enough for Leon.

The gun blade flicked up, a crisp clashing sound deflecting the approaching blade, sending sparks flying.

The violent action shattered the cloaking spell concealing him, but Leon ignored his exposure. As he cleaved aside the blade, Garner’s wing blade pierced silently towards the shadows at his side.

The forceful gun blade seemed to hit a mass of vapor, and at the corner of Leon’s eye, he glimpsed a flash of shadowy mist whisk past him with a gust of wind.

Vampire Undead!

No wonder it could perceive me even when invisible.

No wonder I heard nothing.

In an instant, Leon reacted, using Cat Spinning body techniques to twist his body. The magic gun’s horizontal blade, covered with a fierce vortex, slashed through, simultaneously enveloped in bright molten flame demon runes.

——!!

A piercing scream shattered the night’s dead silence.

A figure stumbled out of the shadows, rapidly retreating as it climbed the wall, with the magic gun having carved a gaping wound into its chest clad only in light garb.

If it were an ordinary person, such a cross-cut lethal injury would have left them dead beyond recovery, but at this moment, the massive wound quickly shed its scorched shell, regrowing pale flesh.

From the shadows, a pale and handsome face revealed terrifying fangs.

Leon was shocked. Could the Kingmaker’s death truly be the work of a vampire assassin?

Did they come here to kill Trolsa and were dissatisfied, intending to convert the body of the Earl of Buck into a vampire as well?

An ear-splitting roar interrupted Leon’s momentary thoughts, the copper mirror in the room shattering in the process.

The vampire, ignoring gravity, kicked off the wall, twisting its form as it became a ferocious cloud of mist charging down once more.

Seeing the blade hidden in darkness, Leon advanced boldly, wielding the molten flame blade, and leaped up, instantly bisecting both sword and shoulder.

But as he sliced through the shadow, seeing the long sword and the entire right arm of the vampire fall to the ground and immediately turn into a pool of blood, Leon realized he’d fallen into a trap.

The opponent planned to “shed the tail to escape”!

Turning around, he saw the shadow drift open the balcony doors like a gust of wind, flying into the air from the terrace.

“Acro! Stop that vampire!” Leon turned and chased, shouting.

A luminous sword shadow simultaneously sliced through the night sky.

The rune flying sword hammered accurately into the ominous black mist, the escaping shadow yanked suddenly.

On the rooftop, Kovis’s fingertips etched a mark, pulling back, maintaining the magic chain tightly as if in a tug-of-war with the immense opposing force. He almost flew off his feet, his legs scraping up piles of roof tiles.

In a moment of urgency, the young knight was forced to summon a second flying sword sheathed across his back, thrusting it fiercely into the roof beam to steady himself.

When Leon dashed out onto the balcony, he saw the armless figure appearing from the mist, sprouting a massive pair of fleshy wings, roaring as it changed direction, dove down, and immediately broke free from Kovis’s constraint.

Leon raised Garner, ready to throw the magic gun.

However, in the now fully awakened camp, alarms and bellows sounded without end, a dense throng of torches and soldiers loudly converging.

Leon frowned, casting one last glance at the vampire breaking through the rune flying sword’s hold and escaping into mist, before reluctantly lowering the magic gun and retreating back into the room.

Even if he could hit the opponent, he had no way to capture that vampire under such circumstances.

He assessed the traces left by their brief confrontation and knew that if he exposed his identity, it would be hard to explain why he slipped into the camp and infiltrated Count Trolsa’s room at midnight. No matter how he put it, it would cause a scandal.

“Acro, we need to go!”

While calling his companion, Leon hoisted the magic gun, quickly rifling through the room for Trolsa’s relics.

But he found nothing of significant symbolic value and finally reached into the coffin next to the ashes urn, taking what seemed to be Trolsa’s personal sword.

Kovis sheathed his sword, leapt onto the balcony, quickly approached Leon, and once again cast a spell to cloak them both with a shadow cloak: “My lord, I just marked that vampire with a tracking rune. As soon as it’s activated, I can sense his whereabouts. He won’t escape!”

“Ha, you’re amazing,” Leon said joyfully upon hearing this.

However, upon hearing the approaching footsteps from the corridor, he wasted no more time and immediately took Kovis through another window, swiftly escaping the scene…

Evading the incensed military, they relied on the cover of night to distance themselves from the camp, in a secluded corner of the outer city slums of Avim City. In a quiet spot, they blew the beast summoning whistle, riding the war beasts up into the night sky.

Piercing through the clouds, under the moonlight, Leon maneuvered the Griffin’s reins to approach the Stormhawk.

“Can you feel which way that vampire fled?” he shouted over the wind, raising his voice to ask his little intellectual chief.