Emperor of Steel

Flash.

Just before Rudolf’s Gold Aura left the sword, Luke went up to him with the speed of light and slashed his right hand.

With a smile on his face, he spoke.

“These days, young knights are great actors. I mean, every move of theirs is worth a flutter in our hearts.”

“Y-you…!”

At Luke’s smile after injuring him, Rudolf knew that he had been tricked by Luke’s acting.

Rudolf then hurriedly tried to strike back at Luke.

But before that could happen, Luke stepped on Rudolf’s foot.

Thud-!

The Sword Emperor’s foot, which was supposed to be harder than steel, broke with a blow.

“Kuak!”

“This isn’t the end!”

Holding out the Dragon Tooth sword with both his hands, Luke raised it high.

Kwannngggg!

Along with a huge noise, Rudolf’s body got pushed back.

Rudolf tried to lift his sword to decrease the impact on his body, but it didn’t reduce any damage taken.

His hands held onto the broken sword, the fragments of the broken sword were lodged all over his body because of the previous attack from Dragon Tooth.

There was a deep and long cut on his face.

“Kuek! Luke de Rakan…!”

“Whoohoo, I guess the Strongest Knight on the continent isn’t out of energy.”

At Luke’s constant mockery, Rudolf grinded his teeth. What was even more resentful was that he got tricked by Luke’s acting.

“I will surely behead you and use your skull as my wine glass!”

“How about you change that sword of yours before jumping into making such wishes? You’re not saying that you are going to defeat me with that smashed up sword, right?”

Rudolf, who was frowning, discarded his smashed up sword and picked up the metal belt he had around his waist.

Rumble!

When the Aura got infused into the belt, the loosely connected iron pieces joined together to form a sword.

‘Chain Sword?’

Luke noticed that the blade of the Chain Sword protruded out like a shark tooth.

It was because the sword’s structure seemed to be as good as any sword made by the blacksmith Zig, and it seemed to have deadly poison applied over it.

‘That is Daios!’

It was called Daios, it was named after the person who had created it. And it wasn’t done by a wizard or an alchemist, but a painter.

The poison was something which got created accidentally when the painter was trying to process a few minerals for dye, it was hard to know what it was as the new dye had no color or smell to it.

However, when Aura or mana was infused, it had the feature of shining like a glass.

The poison on it was known to be very lethal, lethal enough for even the dragons to be killed.

In fact, there have been past circumstances where it has been used for revolts. A single drop of the poison used in quarters could annihilate an entire squad of knights.

‘To use such a mean trick for getting hit once… surely he has the blood of the traitor running deep into him.’

“You will die, Luke!”

When Luke was mocking Rudolf inside his mind, Rudolf came in to attack.

Kwang! Kwang! Kwang!

The Chain sword which moved like a free dancing snake, crushed and burst everything it touched, let it be a tree or a stone.

Even the Gigants of the SS Knights, which were in close distance, got crushed by Rudolf’s sword attack and turned into a scrap.

“Hiik, step back!”

“If we get caught up in His Majesty’s attack, we are done!”

Let it be the SS Knights or a different squad, everyone was busy trying to get away from Rudolf’s devastating attacks.

Luke couldn’t fight back, so he tried to avoid it.

‘That this is no joke. Bombarding with wide-area magic.’

Luke couldn’t help but rub his eyes when he saw the beautiful Imperial garden quickly turn into ruins, no trace that a garden even existed.

Yet, Rudolf continued to bombard Luke with attacks.

“Kuakk! What are you going to do, Luke?! Weren’t you looking down on me a moment back?”

“Huh! It just seems like you are showing me how vain you are!”

Rudolf’s attacks were indeed terrifying, but his stance and the way he was using the sword was a lot less skilled than before.

Luke didn’t have a single fatal injury except for the shoulder wound he deliberately led Rudolf to do, however, Rudolf’s speed had slowed down by a lot, and Rudolf’s right foot bones were crushed.

It was the hand that had to swing the sword, but the lower body had to put strength and speed for the hand to move effectively.

If there was a problem with the lower body, the attack was bound to be dull.

Bang! Bang?!

Rudolf’s attacks missed, and Luke went in with the Dragon Tooth Sword.

He couldn’t use one shoulder, so Luke decided to use the sword with the hand which still had movement, however, unexpectedly, the attack from Luke was heavy. Luke’s body turned outward and the sword went ahead with force.

Shocked at the bold move, Rudolf hurriedly tried to avoid it.

But then again, the injured foot made a mess for him.

Not being able to completely avoid the attack, he got hit.

Kwang!

‘Ugh, my stance is shaken…!’

As his lower body was in poor condition, Rudolf couldn’t go ahead on the sheer power of his sword.

As a result, his posture got disturbed.

And Luke didn’t miss that gap.

Taking a huge step ahead, he rushed towards Rudolf.

‘Cheeky! How dare he come straight ahead!’

His posture was indeed disorganized, but Luke’s counterattack was still stoppable.

But Rudolf had the confidence that he would be able to do one critical strike on Luke.

‘My blow won’t be perfect. But just the brushing of my blade will make you die!’

Daios, now used on the Chain Sword, was the strongest poison in history.

Even if he was a Rune Knight, Luke couldn’t do anything!

‘This is where I kill you!’

Rudolf raised the Chain Sword.

But that was the mistake on Rudolf’s part.

He wasn’t able to calculate the movements of Luke which had changed.

‘Clock Up Sword!’

Luke unfolded the very last attack of the Gold Sword.

Which meant that the time and the movement around Luke would slow down.

For some time, he abandoned his Dragon Tooth sword and took out the Holy Sword Valiant from his subspace.

Wooong!

The faint light from the Holy Sword Valiant instantly healed all the injuries Luke had sustained and strengthened his physical abilities.

“This is it, Rudolf!”

‘Sto-stop it…’

Contrary to it, Rudolf couldn’t even get his body to stop it.

It seemed like Luke was running in slowly in front of him, yet his movements seemed a lot slower.

In addition, he was accustomed to Luke wielding the heavy great sword, that he wasn’t able to adapt to the sudden change of sword.

Cang- slash!

“Kuak!”

Rudolf’s Chain Sword got pushed away by Luke’s attack, and Rudolf’s body flew back at the same time.

Like a shell coming out of a cannon, his body smashed the palace, and then went into the dome where the time travel device was located.

“Wh-what was that?”

“Your Majesty!”

Count Ruff who was fighting with Arch Duke Gregory was puzzled.

He was shocked to see Rudolf suddenly be thrown into the dome.

And it wasn’t just small wounds and scratches on him, but a serious injury.

His right arm was bent in the opposite direction, and he couldn’t find out if the left arm got cut off and fell somewhere.

“Move, protect His Majesty… kuek!”

Count Ruff, who was running towards Rudolf by withdrawing the fight, suddenly threw up blood and collapsed as Arch Duke Gregory struck him from behind.

“Tch, stupid of you to show the enemy your back.”

It was the vain death of a strong man, a strong man with the power which would have made a difference to the continent.

But Count Ruff’s death wasn’t in vain.

After hearing the order, the other knights hurriedly approached Rudolf, and poured out the potions in his mouth, and applied emergency treatment on his wounds.

“Kuek. I’m losing… I, the strongest knight on the continent… Kuak!”

Rudolf stood up, with the support of the SS Knights with a bleak smile on his face.

His pride as the knight had been broken down.

“You are no longer the greatest knight on the continent. I am the strongest knight on the continent.”

At Luke’s words, Rudolf shouted with a clenched mouth.

“Don’t be so happy because you won! This win will only burden you!”

“This is it! Go ahead and stop Rudolf!”

Luke saw Rudolf rushing in, and he roared.

The place where he had crashed into was the time travel device.

While Luke was fighting with Rudolf, Karen had defeated the SS Knights and destroyed a few parts of the device, but the space-time passage hadn’t disappeared completely.

“Hahah! See you in the past, Luke de Rakan!”

Having used his last energy, Rudolf threw himself into the passage.

Luke pushed the SS knights and went to catch him, but Rudolf’s body disappeared quickly through the dimensional gap.

Eventually, the passage got closed.