Rather than awakening in his bed, Iustus had found himself in the wilderness alongside one of those black knights, although this one spoke clearly to him and with a certain disdain too.
"The Father-Lord wants me to accompany you to the dragon called Occult, so that you may try and defeat him" she told him before starting to walk, at least, it sounded like it was a woman, it was hard to tell through the helm.
It certainly appeared like this black knight was a slight bit thinner as well but it might just be his imagination and he didn't have much time imagine because she wasn't walking at a normal pace, in fact, she had stopped walking after two steps and was just sprinting now.
Leaping over fallen trees and rocks, weaving past the vegetation as if she had memorised the whole place beforehand, Iustus had to use his mana to not lose sight of her.
She rarely ever stopped and it seemed to only be for Iustus to catch his breath and rest, she seemed to have the stamina of an undead, all of this in armor as well.
Once more, just like everything that seemed to have something to do with Ithelisemou, he didn't manage to question things too much and just went along with the ride, although, he could now clearly feel that something was wrong with him.
After too long of time, Iustus saw day set and rise multiple time during this trip, at least a few days had passed ever since they had started.
Suddenly, the black knight stopped sooner than usual, standing on the edge of a cliff.
'Is she finally getting a bit tired?' he thought as he breathed heavily with his hands on his knees.
She pointed at an enormous moutain range and turned her head to him.
"Occult is in here, somewhere, good luck" she simply stated before going silent and sitting down, swinging her feet above the steep fall of the cliff.
Iustus stayed there, breathing deeply as he rubbed the sweat of his forehead.
"Occult is in there?" he asked in between two haggard breath.
"That is what I said" responded the black knight as she unsheated her sword and started tending to it.
Her sword seemed to be the only thing that deviated from the usual black knight equipment, she didn't a shield to go with it either but considering the length of the sword, it was clearly meant to be two-handed.
It seemed to be some sort of fusion between a common straight sword and a katana, there was only one shard edge to it but its tip was more like that of a more commonly seen sword.
It was a magnificient blade for certain and even if it wasn't made apparent with her aura, its owner was clearly someone powerful.
"What are you waiting for? Go and enact revenge or die trying" she said, almost mechanically as she inspected her sword.
"Say, why is Ithelisemou helping me at all?" he asked her, the man was beyond strange and seemed to be immensely powerful.
"The Godfather is simply doing so because he wants to, do not worry about his intentions and focus on your own task, you have trained for a long time for this, go see if that was enough or if it was all for naught" she spoke coldly.
"Right..." he responded as he scanned his surroundings for a way to go down.
"You think as if you were powerless, there is an obvious way down" the black knight remarked as she walked up to him and pointed to the edge.
"Near the edge?" he wondered aloud as he approached it, before getting roughly kicked off and sent plummeting into the ground below.
He caught himself using his powers and it worked perfectly, although he would have prefered not being shown this that way.
He looked up but the black knight was gone, she probably wasn't going to linger around.
As he ventured deeper into the mountains, in search of the draconic sin, the black knight conversed with someone else near the cliff.
"Do you think he can do it?" asked a man whose head was covered with thorny vines.
"Unlikely, but it doesn't matter, the Father-Lord has no issue in either outcomes, we simply needs to be ready to intervene so that he doesn't actually die, another experiments needs him" responded the black knight.
"MK is stationed inside of the dream realm and will be able to show up at any time, but I doubt he has what is needed to take on Occult in the real world and even if I can mitigate fire damage, is incendiary breath will get the best of me, so it will fall to you to fight the lesser sin if needs come" stated PH-3 before being surroundeds by roots and vanishing alongside them.
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As it turned out, this mountain range was even bigger than Iustus had first thought, filled with sharp fall and large cave systems, the enormous dragon could be hiding in many places and no overwhelming presence was to be felt anywhere, the lesser sin was suppressing his aura.
The virtuous hero inspected everything he came across but Occult was skilled and Iustus didn't notice the mass of stone behind him suddenly losing its color and turning into white.
The great beast walked a few steps in the total absence of noise and opened its maw, various circles appeared in and in front of its jaw as it condensed a thin laser, aiming at the young man's nape.
As it was shot out, Iustus only noticed the attack at the last moment and moved out of the way, only losing his right ear instead of his life.
"Not bad little hero! You seem a slight bit stronger than last time" chuckled the draconic sin.
"Your mana was useless to me, you have no value, so don't expect me to be lenient" he simply stated before unleashing a blue fire, filling the entirety of the space in front of him.
Iustus ran up a nearby wall to escape the inferno and concentrated his mana in his legs to launch himself at the dragon, aiming to stab him in the eye.
Before reaching him, Iustus sword collided with an invisible barrier.
Occult whole figure was then obstructed as he prepared an ungodly amount of spells of various elements all over the place.
"I will surely be rewarded for your death, virtuous hero!" he said as the flurry of spells was unleashed.