My Computer Leads to an Instance Dungeon-Chapter 176 - 150: Von Klei’s True Form

Fang Zhen was stunned as he watched the armored Knight, glowing red-hot, stagger toward him.

'How is it not dead? What kind of life force is this?'

'Could it be that after his Evil Descent, all the power Von Kleist traded for was poured into vitality?'

The Knight, its armor glowing a fiery red, was still holding a Knight's Lance.

The lance looked familiar to Fang Zhen. It was the slender, conical type often seen in movies and video games, designed for use on horseback.

The lance was made entirely of metal and was now also glowing red-hot.

The sight struck Fang Zhen, but it didn't affect his next move.

He parked his motorcycle and immediately grabbed his compound bow.

He was still fifty or sixty meters away from the red-hot Knight—the perfect distance for a long-range shot.

Fang Zhen took down his compound bow, picked up a carbon arrow tipped with an Armor-Piercing Arrowhead, nocked it, drew the string, and aimed at the fiery red armor in the distance.

He aimed for a second before releasing the bowstring.

WHOOSH! The arrow left the string, instantly striking the Knight—Von Kleist—right in the chest.

The red-hot armor was pierced. The carbon arrow lodged itself in Von Kleist's chest and stuck fast.

Von Kleist seemed to feel nothing, continuing to walk forward in his swaying, red-hot armor.

Fang Zhen's brow furrowed slightly.

He'd shot plenty of arrows and had developed an intuitive feel for the impact.

'This isn't what it feels like when an arrow pierces flesh.'

The sensation of the arrow piercing the armor and the resulting sound made Fang Zhen realize that Von Kleist's armor was hollow. It didn't seem to contain a physical body.

Fang Zhen frowned.

To test his theory, he took another arrow with an Armor-Piercing Arrowhead, drew his bow, and this time aimed for Von Kleist's helmet.

WHOOSH!

The long arrow flew through the air.

The Armor-Piercing Arrowhead pierced right through the center of Von Kleist's helmet.

A screech of scraping metal rang out as the helmet was run through.

A shot in that spot should have pierced the pineal gland, right between the eyes, and gone straight through the entire brain.

A normal person would be deader than dead after a shot like that.

Yet Von Kleist was still moving.

However, it seemed the flames had dazed him. Von Kleist was disoriented, reacting like a mindless zombie from a movie, moving purely on instinct.

The two arrows made one thing clear to Fang Zhen.

'No one could withstand the heat of red-hot armor. It's worse than any form of torture by fire.'

'And no one could survive having their heart and brain pierced.'

'This can only mean one thing... there's nobody inside the armor!'

The realization hit Fang Zhen in an instant.

A chill ran down his spine.

Even for a battle-hardened veteran like him, this bizarre scene, set against the backdrop of the forest fire, made his skin crawl.

'It's just too bizarre.'

The man who was supposed to be Baron von Kleist... wasn't there. All that remained was an empty suit of armor.

'So where is Von Kleist the man?'

'And why can an empty suit of armor move on its own?'

It felt like something straight out of a ghost story.

The forest fire was still spreading.

Fang Zhen felt a chill, despite the heat.

But amidst the roaring flames, his mind raced.

'Don't panic. First, analyze the situation.'

'This situation seems bizarre, but there are really only two possibilities.'

'One: there's no Von Kleist in the armor at all. The real Baron is hiding somewhere, controlling it remotely.'

'But there's no evidence to support that, and it defies common sense.'

'Fang Zhen hadn't encountered any kind of remote control technology in the Nameless World. Besides, if Von Kleist were controlling the armor, where would he himself be?'

'He can't just be hiding in a crowd every time, can he?'

'If that were the case, what would even be the point of controlling the armor?'

'And if that's unlikely, then there's only one other possibility...'

'This suit of armor *is* Baron von Kleist!'

The thought sent a jolt through Fang Zhen's body, making his skin tingle.

It was the kind of realization that gave you goosebumps.

'Could it be? Is this suit of armor Von Kleist's actual body?' 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

Considering the possibility, Fang Zhen realized it wasn't so far-fetched. In fact, it would explain a lot.

Von Kleist was a confirmed Fallen Knight, and the Evil Descent Ceremony involved sacrificing a part of oneself to a demon in exchange for power—including strange and unnatural abilities.

'Could Baron von Kleist have sacrificed his entire physical form to a demon? Could he have offered up his whole body and transformed into this... armor-based existence?'

The idea seemed heretical, but the more Fang Zhen thought about it, the more plausible it seemed.

Fallen Knights all have insatiable desires. It was easy to see what Montagu wanted: power, conquest, and authority. But what did Baron von Kleist desire?

According to Dalia's information, Baron von Kleist was a generation older than her. That would put his actual age at fifty or sixty, perhaps even older.

In this day and age, that was an age of physical decay, when all sorts of ailments appeared and strength, and even mental acuity, began to decline.

'If that's the case, what would Von Kleist want most?' The deduction was simple.

'The answer: a long life. Immortality.'

The inference wasn't certain, but it was logical. And if that was the purpose of Von Kleist's Evil Descent Ceremony, what would be the most extreme outcome?

'To abandon his fragile mortal body, to trade it for one of steel, gaining a longer life—or even existing as an entirely different life form, transcending the limitations of the flesh.'

That would also explain why, for the past ten-plus years, Baron von Kleist was never seen without his armor, even wearing the full suit inside his own castle.

There was no other reason.

Von Kleist, the man of flesh and blood, was gone. All that was left was this suit of armor.

Fang Zhen figured this all out in a flash, and the hair on his arms stood on end.

'Is such a thing even possible?'

'Does the Nameless World really have methods to transform one's very form of life just to extend it?'

Fang Zhen didn't fear Von Kleist, but he was in awe of the power that could alter a being's fundamental form.

But that wouldn't stop him from acting.

Seeing that his compound bow was ineffective against Baron von Kleist, Fang Zhen hung it on the handlebars of his Jue Ying motorcycle.

He dismounted, took up his spear, and walked toward the armor that was very likely the Baron himself.

He had to test his theory firsthand.

Von Kleist—or rather, the armor he inhabited—seemed to possess some basic instincts.

It sensed Fang Zhen approaching.

A hollow roar echoed from within the helmet.

Von Kleist's armor quickened its pace, breaking into a run and charging Fang Zhen with its Knight's Lance.

Fang Zhen accelerated as well.

The two rushed toward each other.

Von Kleist was using a classic cavalry tactic: an accelerating charge meant to end with a powerful, heavy thrust of his lance to impale his opponent.

However, with his warhorse consumed by the inferno, a charge on foot with a lance was far less effective than one from horseback.

As they charged at each other, their weapons blurred into motion when they were just a few meters apart.

Von Kleist's charging thrust turned out to be a feint. As he closed in on Fang Zhen, the armor tucked the lance under its arm and executed a horizontal sweep, swinging the still-red-hot weapon at him.

The change was sudden; the preceding charge was just a ruse. The sweep was the real attack.

If it connected, Fang Zhen's ribs would shatter, and that was before considering the searing heat of the lance.

Fang Zhen moved as well.

He lowered his spear, catching Von Kleist's lance. He pressed down hard, preventing the weapon—like a red-hot branding iron—from reaching him and redirecting its force downward.

At the same time, Fang Zhen's spear slid up along the shaft of the lance, thrusting toward the shoulder of the arm holding it.

"Mountain Seal!"

With a thunderous roar, a white light flashed on his spear. Immense power forced Von Kleist's lance down as the tip of his own spear stabbed into the armor's right shoulder.

Von Kleist's lance was knocked aside.

Then, the spear, still glowing white, pierced Von Kleist's right shoulder.

The power of his close-quarters technique, amplified by the Power Mountain Seal, gave the thrust the impact of a sniper rifle round.

The armor on Von Kleist's right shoulder exploded as if hit by a heavy sniper round. The spear punched clean through, shattering the entire shoulder joint, and the armor's right arm tumbled to the ground.

As the right arm fell, the red-hot lance it held clattered to the ground, its heat instantly igniting the fallen leaves and creating a new patch of flames.

The strike also gave Fang Zhen a clear view of the truth inside Von Kleist's armor.

Just as he had suspected, the armor was completely hollow. There was nothing inside—no flesh, no body—just an empty suit of plate.

On the inner surface of the armor, however, were wicked-looking runes. They resembled the demonic script Fang Zhen had seen on the parchment scroll, forming sinister patterns.

The patterns squirmed constantly like living tadpoles, as if alive. The sight was both bizarre and nauseating.

The right arm, severed by Fang Zhen's Mountain Power Stab, seemed to have a life of its own. As it lay on the ground, the fingers of the metal gauntlet twitched and moved, crawling across the dirt like a monstrous creature trying to return to the main body.

Seeing that Von Kleist's true body really was the armor, Fang Zhen's theory was confirmed.

He didn't hold back.

Though it had lost its weapon, Von Kleist's armor still tried to attack Fang Zhen.

The armor spread its left arm and lunged at Fang Zhen, looking as though it were trying to embrace him.

Given the armor's temperature, such an embrace would be a fatal, fiery brand.

Fang Zhen retracted his spear, then immediately unleashed another Power Mountain Seal.

White light flashed on his spear.

He swung his spear in a wide arc, striking the armor at the neck.

Empowered by the Mountain Seal, the spear was an unstoppable force. It cleanly swept the helmet—or rather, Von Kleist's head—completely off its neck!