What gave Marta the biggest headache was the identity of the man standing before her.
The second prince of Demacia.
Had he come alone, or had he brought others with him?
And as a mage, what would happen to her if her identity was exposed in Demacia?
Marta barely needed to think about that question.
Because the truth was, from the moment Luke appeared at the entrance, she had already been left with only one choice.
Without the slightest hesitation, Marta's eyes snapped toward Panis, and she lunged at her like a starving tiger pouncing on prey.
At this point, only seizing her would give Marta any leverage to negotiate.
Panis reacted just as quickly. The instant Marta moved, she turned and sprinted toward Luke.
Luke moved in that same second as well.
After only two steps forward, Marta felt a violent gale roar toward her. In the next instant, a slicing whirlwind blade swept in.
Without hesitation, she raised her staff and actually blocked the strike head-on.
Then, in the next moment, a flash of sword light flickered in the air and came crashing down from above.
So fast!
Marta's heart jolted. She lifted her staff overhead again and blocked the descending blade, using the impact to throw herself several yards back.
When she looked at Luke again, her eyes were filled with fresh shock at the second prince's strength.
He had crossed the distance from the entrance to here in the blink of an eye, and from those two strikes alone, she could already sense how strong he was.
That made escaping this place seem even harder than before.
At that moment, Luke was also reevaluating the mage before him. From those two exchanges, he had already tested that she possessed decent physical ability as well.
"Your Highness, be careful. She's a very dangerous mage."
By then, Panis had already reached Quinn's side and tried to provide Luke with whatever information she could.
But when she opened her mouth, she realized she knew almost nothing about Marta. If Dupont had been awake, he might have known more.
Luke gave the slightest nod. Seeing Marta already preparing another spell, he did not hesitate and charged straight at her with his sword.
The distance of a few yards vanished almost instantly, and his long blade came slashing down.
"Come, fire!"
Marta barked the words and slammed her staff hard against the ground. A burst of light flared up with it.
Then, with a roaring blast, a wave of fire erupted from around her body.
In Luke's eyes, scorching flames rushed toward him. At that moment, the wind intent gathered around his body burst outward to both sides, almost forming a barrier around him.
The fire was split open as if by invisible wind blades, and instead of engulfing Luke, it curved around him.
And behind that wave of fire, Marta had already retreated at top speed.
Seizing that brief moment to breathe, she began chanting, then leveled her staff at Luke and fired a blast of magic at him like a cannon shot.
There was absolutely no reason for Luke to take that head-on. He immediately used Godspeed Footwork and slipped clear of the attack.
But in the very next second, enormous boulders as large as rolling stones rose up and rushed toward him from all sides, streaking through the air with heavy booming sounds.
Marta stared at the attack she had formed after spending a great deal of magic power, her brows locked tightly together.
Her original plan had been to quietly take the shield out of Demacia and avoid any complications.
She had never expected this prince to appear here.
Now, the only thing left was to find a way out, and if she wanted to escape, she had no choice but to strike him down.
No matter what happened after this, once she dealt with the prince, she would have to flee Demacia without rest, day and night.
How had things turned out like this?
Marta still could not understand.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Then, suddenly, she saw several sword marks appear across the rolling stones. In the next instant, a figure burst straight through the shattered boulders.
A long blade flashing with cold light slashed toward her once again.
"Completely unharmed..."
Seeing Luke emerge without a scratch, Marta finally realized just how serious the situation had become.
This prince was even more troublesome than she had imagined.
"Come, fire!"
She slammed her staff against the ground again, but this time what rose was not a wave of flame, but two vicious fire serpents.
Twisting through the air, they lunged for Luke.
As Luke felt the temperature of the air rise sharply from the heat those fire serpents radiated, he explosively released the wind intent throughout his body and slashed forward with a single stroke.
In an instant, a whirlwind several yards high howled out alongside the path of his blade.
It swallowed both fire serpents whole and, rather than being destroyed, seemed to absorb their power. Flames burned within the body of the tornado itself, giving off a terrifying heat.
Then it surged right back toward the spellcaster.
"Damn it!"
Marta's eyes widened in alarm, and all she could do was raise her staff to defend.
The whirlwind itself stopped, but the flames burning inside it crashed over her body directly.
With a violent boom, Marta was blasted backward, the cloak draped over her body still burning with fire.
Luke immediately dashed in and, without the slightest mercy, brought his sword down again in a killing strike.
That fatal blow did not make Marta panic. She instantly cast a spell without a chant.
A sharp crack rang out, the sound of another magic barrier shattering.
Because of that, Luke's blade only drove into Marta's shoulder, and blood immediately soaked through her clothes around the wound.
Marta broke out in cold sweat from the pain. She swung her staff toward Luke and blasted out a pulse of magic, forcing him to dodge. Taking advantage of that instant, she pulled away once more.
But her expression had already turned incomparably grave.
She could now clearly see the state of the battle. This prince was far stronger than she had estimated.
If this went on, she would die here sooner or later.
"Break the seal... release me!"
Suddenly, a hoarse, agonized voice echoed inside Marta's mind.
She knew instantly where that voice came from, and she seized on it like a drowning woman grabbing her last lifeline. With a shout, she slammed her staff into the ground. At once, magic-circle patterns lit up across the floor.
Then, in the next instant, all the magic inside her body erupted outward.
The entire hall was instantly flooded with violent magical force, though the presence of petricite in the chamber was continuously weakening it.
Marta directed part of that magic at Luke and sent the rest at Quinn and Panis.
Luke instantly sensed what she was trying to do, but under that flood of magical pressure, even he was forced to spend a moment fighting through it.
And what Marta needed was simple. She was already not far from the shield.
At that moment, she raised her staff high and smashed it down with all her strength onto the last petricite chain wrapped around the shield.
Crack!
The chain snapped.
In the next second, the shield released a suffocating, violent aura.
Panis clutched her chest in pain and knew at once that something terrible was about to happen.
Luke felt the same surge of danger, his instincts screaming at him without pause.
Marta's eyes shone with excitement, her face almost ecstatic. She had never expected the shield to answer her of its own accord here.
This holy relic, recorded in her family's lineage, possessed incomparable power. Whoever held it could gain everything.
And she was about to become its owner.
With trembling hands, Marta reached around the back of the shield and gripped it.
Instantly, despair, deathly stillness, emptiness, agony, and a flood of other dark emotions all poured into her mind.
It was like being torn apart from within. The pain was unbearable.
All the despair and suffering that had accumulated across a thousand years filled every corner of her body in a single instant.
It was as if countless invisible ants were gnawing at every part of her at once.
"AAAAAH!"
Marta could not withstand that avalanche of negative emotion. Throwing her head back, she screamed in agony.
And together with that scream, a powerful force burst outward from her body, carrying with it the feeling of desolation itself.
The hand that held the shield began to change.
Her body grew taller by itself, broader and more brutal. Her cloak was torn apart by the expansion, revealing scarlet skin beneath.
Steel spikes like fangs burst from her flesh, and even more shocking, armor the same color as the shield began to grow over her upper body and across different parts of her entire form.
At last, a helmet formed over her twisted, agonized face, though not completely, leaving nearly half of it exposed.
A closer look showed the transformation itself was uneven. The armor had not fully grown over her. It covered only certain parts of her body, while elsewhere she remained gaunt, or swollen with unnatural muscle, creating a hideous and bizarre creature.
"Aatrox! Aatrox! I've returned! Where are you?!"
When Marta raised her head again, the voice coming from her mouth was no longer hers, but something hoarse and abyssal, like a sound crawling up from hell itself.
Or rather, at that moment, he was no longer Marta at all.
He was something else.
A Darkin.
Luke looked at the towering, monstrous figure now standing in his line of sight and frowned.
Its presence made the atmosphere of the entire hall more oppressive, wrapping everything in an unease that settled straight into the heart.
The Darkin, a title synonymous with destruction.
Long ago, more than a thousand years before Demacia even existed, they had been great warriors who fought against an even greater catastrophe threatening Runeterra.
Back then, the neighboring continent of Shurima had not even been a desert yet, but a land of green and life.
It was during that era that one of Runeterra's great calamities fell upon the world.
The Void invasion.
And the Darkin had been among the warriors who fought against it.
Yet after saving Runeterra from that disaster, they themselves became another disaster upon it.
Runeterra had nearly been destroyed in their hands.
Poor Runeterra really never caught a break. One disaster after another, from lovesick maniacs to warriors broken by war, while a swarm of voidborn horrors still loomed over it, waiting for the next chance to make things worse.
And just when the Darkin were on the verge of destroying Runeterra entirely, the Aspects of Mount Targon intervened and stopped that catastrophe from continuing.
But each Darkin wielded terrifying power and could not be easily killed. So the Aspects sealed them within their weapons instead.
And the shield sealed away beneath this underground vault was one such Darkin prison.
As far as Luke was concerned, the trouble a Darkin could cause was not one bit less dangerous than that lovesick idiot.
"Freedom... I no longer have to sleep anymore."
At that moment, Joraal had fully seized and mastered the body. He clenched his hand and spoke in a deep voice.
The feeling of regaining freedom filled his long-deadened heart with a flicker of pleasure.
But the weakness coursing through his body immediately made him frown.
He could not remember the last time he had felt so weak.
Clearly, this was not a suitable vessel for him.
He needed a stronger body, one with far greater potential, so he could restore his power.
And then he would search for Aatrox and the other Darkin, and free them too.
"How about you go back to sleep for a while?"
Watching the Darkin mutter to himself in a language obviously not from this era, Luke tried talking to him.
He could not understand the Darkin's words, but Joraal understood him through the memories of this body's former owner.
The instant Joraal's gaze fell on Luke, he raised the shield in his hand without even a hint of hesitation and charged at him.
In Joraal's eyes, this human before him was clearly a far better vessel.
"So there's no talking, huh?"
Luke arched a brow, his expression turning serious. "Quinn, send Valor for help."
"Yes!"
Quinn did not hesitate. She spun and ran for the exit, then gave a sharp whistle.
Luke drew a deep breath and charged the Darkin head-on as well.
He knew Darkin were not mindless creatures, but since this one had no intention of talking and attacked immediately, there was no room for negotiation between them.
That left only one option.
Physical sedation.
With Luke's speed and footwork, if he truly wanted to flee, even carrying both Panis and the unconscious Dupont, he could still escape.
But that would leave only one possibility.
It would unleash this prematurely awakened Darkin into the outside world.
And even if the thing only reached a nearby village, with a temperament like this, attacking without a word, the consequences would be impossible to predict.
So the best outcome was to pin him here.
In the end, though, the real reason Luke dared stay was simple, the danger this Darkin radiated at the moment did not feel overwhelming.
He felt unfinished.
If this were a complete Darkin, Luke would already be running for his life.
But very clearly, the Darkin now charging him with a shield in hand was no complete form.
Based on what Luke knew, the Darkins' power had been sealed inside their weapons, while their original flesh had long since been destroyed during the sealing.
So if a Darkin wanted to return fully to Runeterra, it had to find a body capable of supporting that power.
Humans were their targets.
A truly exceptional vessel would not necessarily be taken over easily, and even after possession, the Darkin would still need time to adapt and recover its strength.
A lesser vessel, meanwhile, would not be able to bring out the Darkin's full power at all.
Like the unfinished thing in front of him now, half-armored, with battered horn-like projections on its helmet, jagged shell-like growths in some places, withered flesh in others, and swollen muscle elsewhere, it looked like a creature stitched together from incompatible parts.
Luke could not fight a complete Darkin.
But an incomplete one?
That was at least worth a few rounds.
Now, as the Darkin came charging like a battering ram, Luke swung his long blade through the air. Wind intent and Gale Sword Intent gathered into the strike as it came crashing down with blinding speed.
At full force, the sword left afterimages in the air.
Clang!
The sword struck the shield and rang out with a crisp, metallic sound.
"Hm?"
Joraal's charge was forcibly halted, and he felt a powerful force surge through the shield into his arm.
It did not push him back, but it did make him stop. He looked at Luke in surprise.
In his eyes, humans had always been creatures as weak as insects.
Faced with this promising vessel, even though he currently wielded less than half his power, he had still not regarded Luke as anything worth fearing.
But that one blow made Joraal cast aside his contempt.
And it only convinced him further that this human would make a much better vessel.
In the next instant, he swung the shield in his hand. The thick shield, more than seven feet tall, moved like a toy in his grip, shrieking through the air as it smashed toward Luke.
Luke immediately blurred backward to widen the gap.
The shield missed and slammed into the floor.
Boom!
Stone exploded outward, and cracks spread across the ground from the point of impact.
"If that lands clean, it's not going to feel good..."
Looking at the cracks in the floor, Luke released all his sword intent at once.
The hall instantly filled with a surge of sword intent, and his entire body gained an unstoppable, cutting edge.
Joraal felt the shift in the human before him and charged again without hesitation, shield raised.
Luke dashed forward as well.
In the next moment, the two of them collided. Sword and shield clashed in the air, locked in dead even struggle.
"You are impressive."
Feeling the surging sword intent pouring from the human's blade, so vast and forceful, Joraal's eyes held a hint of approval.
In memories so old they had almost faded away, he too had once been human.
And in that age, someone so young yet already this strong would have been considered truly exceptional.
Then power exploded from Joraal's body. A strange impact force surged through the shield and flung Luke backward.
Luke stabilized himself in midair, landed lightly, and then rushed forward again.
Several razor-sharp flashes of sword light appeared in the air, so fast they almost made the eyes blur.
But Joraal blocked every one of them. Sparks flew where steel collided, and he still had room to counterattack.
He had no true weapon that suited him at the moment, but with the shield in his hand, he already held the best weapon possible.
No matter what attack Luke launched, the shield in Joraal's grip stood like an unscalable mountain, stopping every strike.
"It's useless, human. I possess the strongest defense."
Joraal's hoarse, heavy voice came from behind the shield.
There was pride in his tone.
Luke could not understand the Darkin language before, but now he somehow found that he could.
Honestly, there was no denying it, this damn shield was absurdly hard, harder than a turtle shell.
The constant rebound from striking it had already numbed his hands, and yet there was not even the faintest scratch on the thing.
The fact that this Darkin had been sealed inside a shield made it obvious that defense had been his greatest specialty before his sealing.
As strike after strike landed, Luke finally caught onto something.
Only now did he realize that his attacks were not actually striking the shield itself.
There was an almost transparent defensive barrier surrounding the Darkin's body, blocking every single blow.
That barrier was ridiculously durable.
"You cannot defeat me."
Joraal spoke flatly. He knew that from this point on, even if he did nothing, this human would eventually exhaust himself and die.
But as a proud warrior, he would not choose a method that shameful.
Just as he prepared to start his counterattack, Luke's full-strength sword came crashing down once more. His aura was far beyond ordinary now, and a pale green sword intent seemed to coil around the blade.
Then it struck the shield.
A tiny crack sounded.
Joraal's face twitched.
In the next second, an impossible sight unfolded before his eyes.
His aegis field shattered.
How could that be?
If the one standing before him had been a Darkin as strong as himself, he would not have been surprised at all.
But he knew for certain that the one swinging the blade before him was a human.
A human had broken his aegis field?
"Looks like this thing wasn't as unbreakable as I thought."
Luke grinned.
As long as the shield could be broken, everything got much easier.
Wuju Sword Intent really was something else.
The true damage carried by Wuju Sword Intent was practically the natural enemy of defense.
No matter how high your defenses were, once true damage landed, even the hardest shell had to kneel.
Too bad Luke did not know Wuju Swordsmanship itself.
Wuju Sword Intent could only unleash its true power when paired with the sword style that belonged to it.
The smile on Luke's face at that moment looked, in Joraal's eyes, like the greatest mockery imaginable.
"You only broke my aegis field!"
Joraal roared. Raising the shield, he unleashed a terrifying aura and charged Luke again.
Luke's presence was not one bit weaker than the Darkin's. Facing that headlong rush, he stayed completely calm, without the slightest thought of dodging.
Wuju Sword Intent clung to the blade, and he charged straight in as well, slashing down.
The blow hit the shield, but still failed to leave even the shallowest mark.
The two powerful forces collided, and in that same instant, several fierce flashes of sword light flickered through the air.
Blood sprayed out.
A wound opened on Joraal's arm, and the pain was so unfamiliar it actually stunned him for a split second.
He stared at the injury on his arm, unable to believe that a human had actually wounded him.
Boom!
Just as Luke prepared to follow up with another strike, crimson energy suddenly erupted from Joraal's body, making his aura far more violent and savage.
The exposed half of his not-quite-human face changed too. One eye turned completely blood-red.
"Good. Then fight!"
When he looked at Luke now, his gaze held real battle lust.
He had begun reflecting on his own arrogance, and from this moment on, he would no longer care whether destroying this excellent vessel might be a waste.
In the next instant, his feet smashed into the ground and he launched himself at Luke.
The force of it cracked the floor beneath him.
In Luke's eyes, it was like a beast charging him head-on. He instantly used Godspeed Footwork and pulled away at top speed.
But Joraal pursued relentlessly. One leap launched him like a cannonball, and along the way the shield smashed through no one knew how many jutting stone pillars.
He closed in on Luke and brought the shield down in a devastating blow.
Luke dodged at once, and a thunderous crash exploded behind him.
Where he had been standing moments earlier was now a massive crater.
Luke was inwardly alarmed.
So this was Darkin power?
This Darkin had not even recovered all of his strength yet. If he ever did, flattening this entire hall would probably be effortless.
Still, from how things looked right now, this fight was not unwinnable.
Luke turned and slashed out several times in an instant, so quickly that only a few flashing traces of sword light could be seen, like the air itself being cut apart.
Every strike landed on Joraal's shield. Joraal took them all head-on with brutal force, then swung the shield down in reply.
Luke slipped aside with agile ease.
In terms of skill, Luke still had the advantage in speed. His movement had practically reached the level of lightfoot martial arts, swift, flexible, and unpredictable.
By contrast, Joraal looked much heavier. The power and speed he displayed came almost entirely from physical strength far beyond human limits.
After so many years as a Darkin, and with such overwhelming defensive power, Joraal had all but abandoned the combat techniques he had once learned in his human life.
In his eyes, if your body surpassed everything else, then technique itself became meaningless.
But at that moment, Luke's agility was driving him insane.
Damn it, I can't touch him!
As time passed, several more fresh wounds had already appeared on Joraal's body.
What enraged him most was that this human he had looked down on as an insect had managed to carve so many injuries into his exalted body.
If he had been in his prime, something like this would have been a lifelong humiliation.
And what Luke felt right now was basically the experience of wearing down a boss with an absurdly long, absurdly thick health bar.
"I can make countless mistakes. You can only make one."
After another shield strike smashed into empty space, Joraal stared at Luke and spoke.
Luke noticed, a little surprisingly, that he could now understand what the Darkin was saying. He chuckled. "Don't worry. I won't make one."
He never gambled with his own life.
Luke slashed again. The blade struck the shield with a crisp clang.
Then, in the next second, a hard crack rang out.
The sword could not endure any longer and snapped cleanly in two, with one half flying off.
Luke's brow jumped, and he immediately went full speed to widen the gap.
Damn it, again?
That sword had already been the highest-quality weapon he could buy in the capital.
There was no telling what this cursed shield was made of. It was ridiculously hard.
Seeing Luke retreat the instant the sword broke, Joraal gave a cold laugh and exploded after him at full speed.
In the distance, Panis and Quinn, hiding near the entrance, grew even more anxious.
Quinn knew perfectly well that at her current level, going up there would only get in the way.
And Panis had no combat ability at all. There was nothing she could do to interfere in a battle between Luke and a Darkin.
Watching the battle suddenly tilt, her heart tightened along with it.
Her eyes dropped to the holy relic in her hand.
Redemption.
Redemption possessed the power to heal all things, but at the same time, it also carried a portion of the immense power of the one who had created it.
But only one aspect could be chosen.
And now, only a single use remained.
If she used it here, then her father...
She hesitated for only a brief instant before lifting her eyes again, as though she had finally made a decision.
Then she poured her whole mind into Redemption.
When she had been very young, her father had once told her that from the moment some people were born, their destinies were already decided.
What a person encountered, what kind of events, what kind of people, all of it was fate.
Losing her mother in childhood, the early death of her brother, her father being struck with grave illness, that was fate. Traveling all the way to Demacia and meeting Luke was fate. Being used by Marta until Luke appeared was fate too.
The relic in her hand was called Redemption, yet it had also been treated as a symbol of misfortune.
Maybe her suffering had always been part of fate.
Maybe her whole life was destined to be shaped by loss.
But at the very least, she did not want to lose someone precious right in front of her.
A clear tear slid down from the corner of her eye and fell onto Redemption. In that instant, a dazzling burst of multicolored light flared up.
Joraal felt danger and turned toward it.
Then he saw Panis lifting Redemption.
The light gathered together, transformed into an immense force, and crashed onto Joraal in an instant.
"AAAAAH!"
Wrapped in Redemption's light, Joraal let out a low, agonized howl.
It continued like that for several long seconds.
Then the light faded.
The shield crashed heavily to the ground.
But the one holding it did not fall.
Steam-like heat poured off his body, making him look as though he had just stepped out of a furnace, and his presence seemed even more frightening than before. He was breathing in deep, heavy gasps.
Panis froze.
She had not expected Redemption's power to fail to destroy the monster.
"The power of the stars is impressive indeed. Unfortunately, the one who created it left only a fragment of that stellar power within."
Joraal turned his gaze toward Panis and spoke flatly. "It would have been enough against others, but not against me. Human, you cannot change anything."
"No. At the very least, it bought time."
Luke's voice rang out.
Joraal turned to look at him, and his eyes narrowed at once.
Luke now held another sword in his hand, but it was nothing like the one he had used before.
This blade was far longer, nearly five feet in length, entirely snow-white, with pale patterns running along the body of the sword. Even the hilt was white.
"That weapon..."
Memory surfaced in Joraal's mind.
And with it, the memory of how he had once been sealed away on this land.
That year, under Aatrox's command, he had marched onto this continent and rapidly conquered the land beneath his feet, enslaving the humans who lived there.
Then a group of cunning humans had claimed they were forging for him the sharpest weapon imaginable.
Together with his indestructible shield, they said, it would make him even stronger.
But the instant he took the weapon into his hand, a terrible suction force burst from the blade and tore away part of his power.
And while he was weakened, those humans had chanted their vile spell and imprisoned him within the shield, sentencing him to endless emptiness and sleep.
At once, monstrous fury surged through Joraal's heart.
"Give me that sword!"
Power exploded from his body as he charged Luke, his hatred so intense it looked ready to tear him apart.
Luke only smiled faintly, utterly fearless as he charged forward as well. Wuju Sword Intent wrapped around the white blade, and he slashed.
This time, when the sword struck the shield, the result was not a clear metallic ring.
It was a thunderous explosion.
And in the next second, it was Joraal who was sent flying backward.
His body shot through the air like a rag doll and smashed straight into the wall.
"Huh?!"
Even Luke stared at the weapon in his hand in stunned disbelief.
He had basically just grabbed this sword on the spot, and it was this strong?
"That is not your power! Return it to me!"
Joraal burst out of the wall in fury, realizing that the part of his power he had never recovered was inside that blade.
"Sure. Here."
Luke replied, then sent another strike straight at him.
Boom!
Another violent blast erupted, and Joraal was launched backward again like a truck had slammed into him.
"Now this feels good."
Luke's sense of satisfaction was basically maxed out now. He was using the sword's power almost effortlessly.
With this blade in his hand, he actually felt a little invincible.
Panis and Quinn both stared in shock at the sudden leap in Luke's combat strength.
When Joraal emerged from the wall yet again, he already looked much weaker than before. His eyes burned like fire as he stared at Luke.
"How are you able to use it?"
The humans of that era had not lied. The weapon truly was terrifyingly sharp.
But a weapon that powerful was not something just anyone could use.
That included the power sealed inside it.
How had this human broken the seal and made the sword obey him so easily?
"You can think about that after you're back in the shield."
Luke could feel the power inside the blade draining away, and he had no intention of dragging things out any longer.
His figure blurred, and in the next instant he was already in front of Joraal.
Joraal raised the shield without hesitation.
But even so, under that overwhelming strike, one knee slammed into the floor as he struggled desperately to endure it.
And there, on the smooth outer surface of the shield, a sword mark had finally appeared.
But a single sword mark seemed to be the absolute limit.
Luke swung again, exhausting the last of the power sealed in the blade and finally forcing Joraal's body out from behind the shield.
Without a moment's hesitation, Luke thrust straight forward.
"No!"
Seeing the white sword driving closer and closer, Joraal let out a furious, desperate roar.
In the next second, with a wet, sharp sound, the white blade punched straight through Joraal's heart.
"NO!"
He roared again in grief and fury as he felt his power rapidly draining away, and with all the despair in his soul he shouted the one name he had never stopped yearning for.
"Aatrox!"
Then his strength began to fade, retreating back into the shield.
In only a short while, the Darkin who had only just regained freedom was forced back into the shield once more and vanished completely.
The bright red jewel on the shield flashed faintly. The shield trembled twice, then went still.
Everything fell silent.
Marta's body returned to normal, but life had already left it. She collapsed to the ground, blood pouring from her chest.
The light in her eyes was gone.
Because what Luke had actually pierced was her heart. In the final second, Joraal had willingly retreated into the shield.
Even if he had hated doing so.
He had no choice.
Because he had been possessing Marta. If that body died, then even a Darkin as powerful as he was would suffer tremendous damage.
He might even die together with the vessel.
At the very least, Luke was certain of one thing.
The Darkin definitely was not dead.
Because even now, he could hear the voice whispering from inside the shield, like a demon murmuring into his ear, constantly trying to tempt him.
"Release me, and you will gain even greater power."
"I will not take your body."
"Let me out..."
Luke looked down at the motionless shield in front of him, then kicked it hard so it slammed onto the ground.
"Shut it already. I was already in a bad mood from staying up this late."
If he had known this would turn into such a mess, he would have brought more people from the start.
Instead, he had ended up spending all this effort.
And now this damn shield still had the nerve to keep trying.
Luke's irritation flared immediately.
A few words still were not enough, so as he spoke, he stomped on it twice more, then eyed it thoughtfully.
"This thing's so hard, it'd make a perfect table leg prop."
Shield: "..."
//Check out my P@tre0n for 30 extra chapters on all my fanfics //[email protected]/Razeil0810