"Stand at the ready!" A priest ordered as a dozen armored holy knights and small group of priests stood at the entrance of the dungeon. "As you all know, the scouts sent to this area had not returned and is presumed to be dead."
None of the knights reacted.
"As such, we will proceed with caution," the priest raised a ring. "This is the divine halo. As long as we have this, the angels will not attack us."
The priest raised his staff. "Our goal is to capture the angels. We will capture them and use them as the symbol of our military!"
The knights and priests cheered.
Entering proved to be no issue. There were no traps or monsters at all, just an empty passageway. But their smooth journey was interrupted when they came across a cave in.
"Knights!"
Two holy knights carrying maces approached the debris. Divine energy wrapped around their weapons, then with a swift strike, the debris were blown away. At that moment a figure stood up from the clearing smoke, making the knights fall back.
"Positions!"
Four knights stepped into the front, raising their shields and erupting a golden barrier. The figure was revealed to be an angel with two pairs of wings. "I will slaughter that human," the angel stood before them with an imposing aura.
"Fear not! It will not attack us!"
*Slash*
Hearing the sound, the priest had expected one of his knights to have stupidly attacked the angel. But what he was might have been a far worse outcome. The found winged angel was cut in half, making all of them witness both sides of its body fall to the ground.
"Barrier!"
The golden barrier shined even brighter as four knights with lances positioned themselves behind the shields and got ready to attack. The priests chanted, providing all the knights with buffs.
None of them acted just, waiting for the enemy to show itself first.
Stepping out of the shadows. A knight wearing jet-black armor revealed itself. Black aura was emanating from its body, exuding pressure that felt suffocating even for the holy knights.
One of the priests hurriedly pulled out a scroll. "Scroll of identification!"
******
The knight reborn from the shadows – Revenant
Dark type Rank 6 level 7
******
The letters floated above the knight's head. "This was supposed to be an angel dungeon!" the priest yelled in frustration.
Revenant charged. "AAAAHHH!" the shield wielding holy knight roared as they poured their divine energy into the barrier.
Dark aura wrapped around Revenant's blade, and with a powerful slash, shattered the barrier with ease. The lancers attacked, but their lances simply bounced off the aura reinforced armor. Grabbing one of the lances, Revenant pulled one of the holy knights towards him. Knight stumbled and crashed into the shield knight in front of him.
"Die creature!" the two heavy knights wielding maces charged from the sides.
Revenant grabbed the shield of the knight that lost their balance and threw it towards the priests at the back. But two knights blocked the attack with their round shields.
Both maces slammed down on Revenant, but the dark knight did not react at all. Dark aura exploded from Revenant's body, sending the two attackers back. The dark knight reached out as if trying to grasp something.
The head priest heard a choking sound and noticed that one of the priests holding their necks, trying desperately to breath. "Kill that monster!"
The lancers charged towards Revenant, but they felt something bind their legs, stopping their advance. In their panic, they had no time to react as Revenant rushed past them and decapitated the knight that had lost their shield earlier. Revenant raised his hand upwards, and the priest that was suffocating from earlier was lifted into the air.
The two knights guarding the priest charged towards Revenant, their swords ready to attack. Revenant tried to stab one of them with his sword, but a barrier stopped him. Two swords stabbed through his chest, making the knights cheer at their victory.
"Bring me its head!" the head priest ordered.
One of the knights pulled out his sword, but as he was about to decapitate the dark knight, another explosion of aura occurred. Revenant grabbed the other knight and snapped their neck. Everyone witnessed it as the dark aura around Revenant rippled violently.
Everyone in the group was around Rank 4, significantly lower compared to their enemy. But killing higher rank monster were not impossible when done in a group. Unlike humans, monsters followed a pattern in attacking or defending.
But this monster was different. It attacked differently every time and exploited any weaknesses it spotted.
"Please! Spare me!"
The high priest heard the cry of his men, but he could do nothing but just stand there frozen in fear.
"Who are you?"
"I am Revenant, the blade of my liege."
------
"You're saying that the legendary rank spell that I just witnessed was done via a single use scroll?"
Catherine Slywood looked at me with suspicion. We were currently in my newly built home, which was a wooden mansion that was heavily inspired by a cabin.
She had witnessed me using terraform and immediately hounded me for answers after the skill was finished with the construction. Apparently, terraform was a spell that only nature specialized mages that are rank 10 and above could perform.
"Exactly. I got the scroll from a dungeon I conquered," a lie, but she had no way of confirming this at all unless I gave her the location of the dungeon.
"Tell me the location of the dungeon."
"No."
Simple as that.
Catherine had a frustrated look on her face, but there was no way she could force me. Having the last name "Gray" held too much power even if I was cast away by the family.
Catherine sighed. "Never mind that. I came here with an offer," a magic contract appeared in front of me. "Surely you will accept."
The contract states that Catherine will remove the curse on me and will support my growth, in exchange, I will marry her with the intention of severing my connection to the Gray family.
When I read the novel, I found it strange that Catherine did not remove the curse on Raveil. That could have been a good way to earn Argonius Gray's favor and gain a powerful ally.
"Why offer me this now?"
I was certain that the way me and Catherine used "Curse devourer" was different. The part where the curse is converted into Aether was the same, but for Catherine, any curse she devours leaves something called skill shard. That's because she has a gift called "Mana weaver" that allows her to create new skills by combing the shards.
An overpowered ability that allowed her to rival the protagonist. She would either use the skills herself or exchange them during a deal.
Catherine hummed for a second before deciding to answer. "Are you aware of the types of curses?"
"Yes."
There were four types, debuffs, torment, religious, and faith. Debuffs were the common curses used by low ranks. Curses that just temporarily weaken someone. Torment curses are the ones that cause actual damage to someone like inflicting wounds. Religious curses revolve around a god, whether it be good or evil as long as the power used by the curse came from a god. The last and most dangerous curses were faith types. Curses that decide the faith of the victim.
"Debuff, Torment, and Reigious curses are fairly easy for me to get rid of. But a faith level curse is too risky for me."
Her answer confused me since the first ever curse I devoured was Clockwork of death, a faith level curse. "Have you tried it before?"
"You see. In order to fully get rid of a faith level curse, I'll need to gather materials to nullify its power."
Something came to my mind. "Could you tell me the name of the curse?"
In the novel, Catherine had an ego called Sylph. It was a powerful support type ego that could strengthen a whole army.
"World tree's wrath."
Bingo. I smirked when I figured it out. Sylph was the same as Revenant, an ego created by curse devourer.
Since I had the system, all the materials needed to turn powerful curses into egos were simply listed for me. But for Catherine, all she gets is skill shards and in order for her to turn it into an ego, she needed to figure out the materials herself.
"It will be complicated for me to explain everything about my ability to you right now. Now, will you sign the contract?"
The contract was tempting, but there was one issue...
"I already got rid of the curse."
Catherine's face went blank.
"What?"