Chapter 134: Dawn Knight Order

Robin's blade light wove a death net, each slash striking Ke Lei Si's magical nodes with precision.

Ke Lei Si's robe was split by seven gashes, and dark red blood beads seeped from his aged skin.

He staggered, shattering a stone pillar, and the obsidian atop his staff cracked with a "Ka" sound, splitting into a spider‑web pattern.

"What are you still waiting for?!" Ke Lei Si roared at the air, his voice trembling with panic for the first time.

The only response was the sparks from Lei En's clashing twin swords in the distance— the white‑haired Legendary Knight and another Legendary Knight were using exquisite swordplay in tandem to suppress three Black-robed Wizards, the sword wind tossing stone that carved honeycomb‑shaped dents into the wall.

Robin's blade tip suddenly burst with dazzling silver light, and Ke Lei Si's hastily raised final shield shattered like glass.

The old wizard's gaunt finger suddenly pierced his own wound, dripping blood to draw twisted runes in the void: "In the name of the Council—"

"Boom!"

The entire wall exploded, and three hovering figures emerged in the moonlight.

But the cold sneer that had just curled on Ke Lei Si's lips froze— those three First Ring Wizards were bound by silver chains like marionettes, the other ends gripped by a hulking man wearing a bronze mask.

"Knight Academy, Warden Legendary Knight Ao Duo Mu." A thunderous voice came from beneath the mask, and the chains suddenly lit with dense anti‑magic runes.

The three captives instantly let out inhuman screams, their robes igniting without wind, revealing fading magical tattoos on their skin.

Ke Lei Si's face instantly aged ten years.

He recognized those chains—legend says they were forged from the vertebrae of a fallen Earth Dragon, crafted by the first Dawn Knight Commander as instruments to imprison high‑ranking Wizards.

"So… you have long…" the old wizard's voice sounded like a leaking bellows.

He suddenly crushed the crystal hidden in his jawbone, and his body turned into a flock of blood‑crows that scattered into the sky.

But Robin's blade was faster than the flock; the bright blade traced a perfect arc in the air, and thirteen blood crows were sliced into twin plumes of crimson mist.

Only one blood crow broke through, its cry echoing across the battlefield.

"You think you've won; our retaliation has only just begun."

Robin narrowed his eyes slightly; the final slash was deliberately held back, intended to leave a tracking mark on Ke Lei Si.

He would not miss the chance to eradicate the Wizard Council, but now it was inconvenient, so he let Ke Lei Si escape on purpose. Once he settles the business here, he will covertly infiltrate and eliminate Ke Lei Si and his followers.

Robin's fingertips brushed the hilt lightly, feeling the hidden tracking mark in the sheath warm faintly.

He stared toward the direction where the blood crows vanished, a cold curve lifting his mouth.

"Let him escape?" Warden Ao Duo Mu's bronze mask turned toward Robin, the runes on the chains still flickering.

Robin gave no reply, only lightly patting the sheath at his waist.

From beneath Ao Duo Mu's mask came a low chuckle: "Good kid, you've even learned the methods of a witch‑hunter."

Elina was about to ask further when a cough from Marquis Suo Na Ta echoed in the distance.

The old Marquis leaned on his broken longsword, kneeling on one knee, as black blood seeped from the wound on his chest—a cursed injury inflicted by Ke Lei Si's initial attack.

"First, save the man." Robin hurried forward, placing his right hand three inches above the Marquis's wound, his expression instantly turning grave.

Robin said, "Marquis Suo Na Ta, your condition is serious; you need to seek a priest's aid as soon as possible."

A priest attached to the army was dispatched immediately behind Marquis Suo Na Ta.

"I am here to examine you, my lord."

"Warden Ao Duo Mu." Robin cut in without looking up, "The East City slums must be purged." His voice was soft, yet each word weighed a thousand pounds.

The bronze mask fell silent for a moment, then the chains snapped tight.

The three unconscious Wizards were dragged into the air like rag dolls. "In three days, I want a full interrogation report." Ao Duo Mu's figure gradually merged into the shadows, and as he vanished the clanking of the chains echoed on the stone wall.

When the Marquis's breathing finally steadied, Robin suddenly grasped Elina's outstretched hand.

His ears twitched slightly—three zhang away, within a pile of rubble, a leaf was being crushed underfoot.

"Looks like there are still rats." The Tang Sword flashed from its sheath, and a burst of purple smoke erupted twenty steps away.

Robin's blade sliced the smoke precisely, but only cleaved off the melting half of a puppet arm.

The arm's cross‑section revealed a bizarre mesh of gears and blood vessels, with a recording crystal still clutched at the fingertip.

Lei En kicked away the puppet debris: "Gadgets of the Mechanical Church? When did the Wizard Council start colluding with them?"

Robin pried the recording crystal with his blade tip, reflecting the flashing countdown runes inside. His pupils narrowed sharply: "Everyone step back!"

The crystal exploded into countless light specks the instant it was tossed into the air, and those specks formed a three‑dimensional map in mid‑air—showing their current location, with a red dot for Ke Lei Si flickering somewhere north of the city, accompanied by a line of scarlet text:

"【West Knight Academy, you have offended an unprecedentedly strong enemy; we can join forces to overthrow the Wizard Council's rule.】"

"So that's it." Robin stared blankly at Legendary Knight Lei En.

"Sir Knight, what is the Mechanical Church?"

Robin's Tang Sword still hovered in midair, its tip stained with the eerie oil oozing from the puppet arm.

As he turned to Lei En, he saw the Legendary Knight's complexion had grown unusually solemn.

"Mechanical Church." Lei En's blade suddenly hummed, as if sensing something, "It is an entity older than the Wizard Council."

Elina gasped sharply, pulling a gear from the puppet wreckage.

The gear's inner rim bore tiny script: "Flesh is frail, machinery eternal."

"Three hundred years ago, during the Great Cataclysm," Lei En traced three overlapping circles on the ground with his sword tip, "the Wizard Council, the Mechanical Church, and our Knight Order were allies against the Abyss."

He suddenly smashed the gear with his sword hilt, and a few drops of luminous liquid spurted from the metal shards.

The liquid hit the ground, corroding a deep pit that belched white smoke.

"Until they began converting living people into…" Lei En's words were cut off by a distant roar.

The crowd turned, and the northern sky was split by a blue beam, within which a faint silhouette of a massive gear rotated slowly.

Robin's pupils narrowed sharply—it was the direction Ke Lei Si was fleeing.

Lei En drove his blood‑stained longsword into the ground, the metal striking the stone slab with a crisp clang.

He gazed north at the fading gear silhouette, a trace of reminiscence flashing in his eyes.

"Three hundred years ago, when the Abyssal fissure first appeared in the continent's heart," his voice turned ancient like a bell, "there was no Knight Academy then; only twelve knights who inherited ancient heroic spirits formed the original Dawn Knight Order."

(End of chapter)