**Chapter 60**
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While Sir Helmut alone held off the main forces of the radical elders flooding through the front gates, several of them managed to slip away in the chaos and infiltrate the upper floors of the Saxen ducal mansion.
And there, standing in their way, were the protectors of House Saxen.
“**The Black Proxy…!**”
The shout came from one of the invading elders—his eyes widening at the sight of a woman in a tailored suit, a faint gleam flashing across her monocle.
The secretary of the Black Duke—**Eris, the Black Proxy.**
But to be the secretary of the Black Tower’s Master was by no means a mere secretarial position.
“I never imagined there would be so many fools willing to stand against our Tower Master.”
Eris murmured, her tone tinged with quiet disappointment as she gazed upon the flustered elder before her.
“How dare you say that, seeing what the Black Tower has become!”
The elder spat back, unwilling to yield.
“Proxy of the Black, can you truly not see how far the Black Tower has fallen—how weak your Tower Master has become, how his ideals have withered away!”
“…A dead Tower, a weakened Master, you say?”
“Yes! Lost to the warmth of family and sentiment, forgetting the spirit of the Black Tower—!”
That was as far as he got.
“Ha.”
Eris laughed softly—an uncontrollable, disdainful laugh that cut through the tension.
“What’s so funny!?”
“That a mere Sixth-Circle elder dares to measure the depth of the Black Tower Master’s vessel.”
Her monocle gleamed coldly as she spoke.
“A wolf wearing a sheep’s skin does not become a sheep.”
“What… what do you mean?”
“No matter how an evil spirit dons the guise of an angel, its wings will never bear the angel’s feathers.”
Black mana spiraled around her feet, swirling violently as Eris’s lips curled into a mocking smile.
“**High-order Annihilation: 《Event Horizon》.**”
The words had barely left her mouth when countless “stars of death” began to orbit her—dark spheres revolving like satellites. They were miniature black holes, celestial bodies that devoured everything, from matter to light.
“Th-the Princess of Darkness…!”
The elder’s face went pale at the name—a name Eris herself could barely stomach.
Before she was the Black Proxy or the secretary of the Tower Master, she had once been known by a ridiculous epithet from her youth—a Seventh-Circle dark sorceress once called the **Dark Princess**.
“…Be swallowed by the darkness.”
That childish self-given moniker, born of youthful vanity, had haunted her ever since. The mere memory of it was enough to make her sit bolt upright in embarrassment whenever it crossed her mind.
—
—
“Damn it, damn it all…!”
Like a boiling cauldron of rage, the man’s blood seemed ready to explode from his veins. Facing him was a Sixth-Circle elf sorceress.
“I’ll kill you! I’ll tear you apart!”
The elder of the Black Tower screamed, his fury burning so hot it might evaporate his own blood.
“I’ll make you beg me to end it—to stop the pain!”
The air rang with the dissonance of **《Azure Dissonance》**, the sound of agony and destruction clashing in waves.
“I cannot comprehend why a mage, who should embody calm and composure, is losing his temper so childishly.”
Sephia tilted her head, watching him with mild confusion.
As a Sixth-Circle water mage, she neutralized every spell hurled toward her with pinpoint precision—disrupting, nullifying, and binding her opponent in an unbreakable web of counter-magic.
—
—
Contrary to common belief, **Ray Yuris** was not merely the adopted son of the Crimson Duke.
He was the inheritor of a great bloodline—the one who carried on the legacy of the Crimson Tower.
**《Young Blood》.**
Ray Yuris, of the Yuris lineage, stood there amidst the carnage.
“Y-you… it can’t be…!”
One of the Black Tower elders gasped in disbelief, his body bleeding heavily.
“I don’t dislike the taste of a wicked man’s blood.”
Ray smiled faintly, licking the blood from his lips as he revealed his sharp, predatory fangs.
The power flowing through his veins was the blood heritage of House Yuris—a legacy that transcended mere familial bonds. It was the power of lineage itself.
“I cannot allow my father to be disappointed.”
With those words, Ray surged forward, the ground cracking beneath his feet. His physical power alone—without any aid of aura or magic—surpassed even that of an Aura Knight.
And the fate of any magician who allowed a warrior to close the distance was already sealed.
Even more so before a **vampire**.
*Crunch!*
Ray’s fangs sank deep into the elder’s neck. At once, the blood within the elder’s body was drawn backward, surging into Ray’s mouth.
“Kh—kuh, aghhh!”
The blood of the Sixth-Circle black mage dripped down the vampiric artifact fused into Ray’s jaw—**the Dragon’s Jawbone.**
This was the true purpose behind Ray’s visit to Saxen’s frozen lands—the **exchange of black and red**, the communion between darkness and blood.
“So this is the mana of a Sixth-Circle black mage…”
He murmured, and the two circles within his heart began to spin.
Scarlet mana flared like molten magma, while pitch-black mana welled up like the depths of night.
**Fire and Darkness.**
Red and black mana intertwined and whirled beneath his feet, merging into a vortex—the birth of a power like the frigid dark-blue energy Dale once displayed: **Black Azure.**
—
—
“Mother! Lize!”
Dale burst down the corridor of the ducal fortress and reached the chamber of the Duke and Duchess of Saxen.
“You’ve come, my lord!”
The area before the bedchamber had become a fortress—defended by the **Black Raven Knights** and their elite.
These were the knights sworn to protect the Duke, ever stationed within the castle walls. Among them stood the greatest—those who followed after Sir Helmut himself.
Knights who rarely showed themselves, bound by silence, having sworn the **Oath of Silence** to become shadows of House Saxen for life.
They were the Duke’s most elite guards—
the **Grave Guard**.
As Dale approached, they dropped to one knee as one, driving their swords vertically into the ground.
Even if a Black Tower elder unfolded his **World of Ideation**, these knights—wielders of the **Sword of Thought**—could shatter such barriers with sheer will.
Each was an **Avatar Wielder**, a warrior beyond even the Aura Knight—an **Aura Master**, capable of manifesting the pinnacle of martial transcendence.
Just as mages of the Fourth Circle or above were forbidden from joining minor lordly wars due to their devastating power, so too were Aura Masters forbidden from battle. Their participation would bring annihilation.
That was why the strongest forces in the Black-and-Red confrontation had been limited to the likes of Sir Vale and Sir Milbas—Aura Knights, not Masters.
And now, those Aura Masters—the **Guardians of the Grave**—stood watch before the Duke’s chamber.
As the Black Duke himself had said, House Saxen’s fortress was not so fragile as to fall to a few Tower Elders.
“Waaaah! Brother!”
In the chaos, little Lize cried out, trembling with fear. Though she was too young to understand the world, she could still sense the looming dread that filled the Saxen stronghold.
“Lize, come here.”
“Brother, I’m scared!”
“Don’t be afraid. There’s nothing to fear.”
Dale knelt, pulling his trembling sister into his arms. Her sobs grew louder, unable to contain her terror.
“Your brother will protect you.”
“R-really?”
“Of course.”
Seeing her frail little body quiver, Dale bit his lip, eyes darkening.
“Dale…”
“Don’t worry, Mother.”
He smiled at Elena, who had drawn in a sharp breath. Some unnamable emotion tightened in his chest.
“I won’t let anyone lay a hand on you or Lize.”
He spoke calmly, even as tendrils of blackness coiled around his heart.
“Sir Helmut is binding the enemy’s main force, while our high-ranking magi are dealing with those who infiltrated the upper floors.”
At his side, **Sir Vale of Baskerville** gave his report.
The castle’s elite magicians—Eris, Sephia, and others—served not the Black Tower, but the House of Saxen itself.
Realistically, the chance of anyone breaching this far was near zero. But even that slim possibility was accounted for, and that was why the Grave Guard stood here—knights whose strength left no room for doubt.
The strongest of them all stood guard over the Duke’s family.
But Dale had no intention of simply being protected.
Nor was it his role to guard this place.
That duty belonged to the Grave Guard.
“I entrust my mother and sister to you.”
“Dale!”
“M-my lord!”
“Please—believe in me.”
Leaving behind his alarmed mother and the knights, Dale turned and strode into the castle’s dark corridors.
He moved like a hunter seeking prey—intent on making those who dared defy the Black Tower Master’s dominion pay for their folly.
—
—
**Belloc**, commander of the Black-and-Red Order and a Sixth-Circle black mage, was making his way through one of the castle’s corridors.
His mind wandered briefly to the wartime laboratories of the Order—where all things necessary for the pursuit of “truth” had been prepared. A paradise for demons.
It was there, unshackled by morality, that he had reached the enlightenment of the Sixth Circle.
And then—he sensed it.
A presence, beyond the flickering shadows down the hall.
*A Night Raven Knight…?*
No—there was only one presence.
“You’ve walked right into my trap.”
Belloc grinned. His quarry was here.
“Ah, what a surprise. If it isn’t the **Black Prince** himself.”
The Black Duke’s son.
He smiled thinly.
“…”
But the Black Prince did not respond.
He merely stood there, wrapped in an ominous silence and darkness—feeling the black tendrils writhing within his heart.
“Still haven’t realized your position?”
The monster spoke.
“Does the title of successor to the Black Tower Master feel like a joke to you?”
That black mage saw himself as a monster—
And so, Dale had no reason to hesitate.
At last, the time had come—
**to hunt the monster.**
