The Max Level Hero Has Returned!-Chapter 1047

Perserque sighed heavily.

“Sister Per, what’s wrong?” Aerie asked.

“It’s nothing, don’t worry about it...”

Despite her reassurance, her expression carried a strangely complicated emotion.

“Are you feeling unwell? Maybe you should get a quick check-up before Davey arrives...”

“It seems I might have an upset stomach from overeating the gift Davey gave me.” She tapped her chest lightly, indicating her slight discomfort.

Although she told Aeria that she was fine, she herself could tell it wasn’t just a simple case of indigestion. She wasn’t sure how to describe her symptoms. To put it simply, it felt like her heart wouldn’t calm down. While it didn’t necessarily seem like a bad reaction, it was irritating enough that she couldn’t just ignore it.

‘Could it be that Davey did something to my body?’

She trusted Davey, of course. But because she knew him well, she had to assess the situation rationally.

‘No, precisely because it’s Davey, he might’ve hidden something in what seemed like a simple gesture. Yes, that sounds more like him.’

Still, she didn’t believe Davey would deliberately do something harmful to her. Nonetheless, she had a strange feeling.To put it bluntly, it was an odd irritation bubbling up inside her. On top of that, the subtle pain had been gradually moving from her chest down to her abdomen.

“Sister? You really don’t look well.”

“I told you, I’m fine.”

“But still—”

“I said I’m fine, so stop worrying about it!”

Perhaps because her tone was unusually firm, Aerie made a shocked face.

Recognizing her outburst, Perserque frowned slightly. “Sorry, I’m just feeling a bit off. I should get some rest.”

After setting down what she was holding, she got up from her seat. For some reason, she couldn't shake her incredibly frustrated feeling.

* * *

The apprentice knights of the 270th batch were going through hell.

“Damn it!! Run!!”

“Kyaaah!! Someone save me, please!!”

The apprentice knights gritted their teeth and bolted, abandoning a young mage girl who was reaching out for help while she was buried under a pile of muscular, snow-white rabbits. And it wasn’t just the rabbits they had to worry about.

One apprentice knight, having barely escaped from the damned horde of hopping bodybuilders, ran for what felt like an eternity before realizing he had fled long enough that he was alone in the pitch-black depths of the forest, where not a single ray of light shone through.

“Haah. Haah.” A chilling fear engulfed him.

The cold air brushing against his skin was something beyond nature’s influence—it carried something more, something inexplicably eerie. The sinister atmosphere only made his breathing grow even more ragged, but he didn’t dare stop moving. If he stopped, even for a moment, it felt like something lurking in the darkness would devour him whole.

He couldn’t remember if he had ever been so terrified or powerless before. He had sparred with his seniors in mock battles and received countless lessons from his instructors, but never once had he been pushed to such an extreme.

Even though the whole endeavor wasn’t an actual battle, the fear felt so disturbingly real.

Their seniors from the 268th batch were monsters.

“Haaah. Hoooh.” He frantically waved the torch in his hand, looking for any spying entities, but aside from the occasional rustling, he heard and discovered nothing.

Yet, the overwhelming sensation that something unseen was closing in on him only grew stronger.

“Light! I see light!!”

Knowing full well that he had to regroup with his fellow apprentice knights, he searched desperately for any sign of them. He knew it'd be better to face the fear together rather than alone. When he finally spotted a flickering light in the distance, he couldn’t resist.

The sky above was shrouded in a thick, suffocating fog.

“Haa! Haa! Haa!”

He had already lost control of his breathing by the time he began sprinting toward the source of the light. It wasn't long until he came to an abrupt halt before a lantern hanging from a tree.

He recognized it as belonging to one of his classmates, but there was still no one around.

“What the hell?! What is this place?”

No one had mentioned it being such a strange forest.

“Come out!! I know you’re there!! Show yourself!!!” he shouted furiously while swinging his torch wildly.

No answer. Again.

Zzzt.

The very same lantern that had lured him there flickered violently before disintegrating into nothingness.

Whoosh.

A freezing gust of wind lashed against his cheek.

Thud.

Then something landed in front of him. It was just a small twig.

“What in the world...?”

When he turned in the direction the wind had come from, he spotted something unsettling deep in the forest.

It was a person, but their head was twisted at an unnatural angle with their face pointed toward the sky in an eerie, frozen pose.

Amid the silence, the sinister wind howled through the trees. The apprentice knight couldn’t manage to even make a sound.

The figure stood motionless, their gray, emaciated skin stretched tightly over their bones as if they were a mere marble statue. Even so, his instincts were screaming that the thing was alive.

He began contemplating whether or not he should make a run for it. It was clear to him that if he moved, or made even the slightest noise, it would come for him.

His breath quickened.

Crunch.

He stepped on the twig, shattering the silence.

“Hmph?!”

His eyes widened in terror as he clamped a hand over his mouth. But it was too late—the grotesque figure had already locked eyes with him.

For a moment, they simply stared at each other.

Apprentice Knight Vant felt cold sweat trickling down his face as he instinctively took a step back. Then another. His body screamed at him to run, but before he could move, the gray-skinned humanoid’s head tilted upward to roar at the sky.

“Gwooouhhh!!”

It let out a horrifying, guttural wail. At the same time, its mouth split vertically into a grotesque, gaping maw.

A sickening chill crawled down his spine. Simply hearing its cry had already made his entire body break out in goosebumps.

“Ugh. Aaaahhh!!”

He had never felt such a deep level of fear, even when facing banshees or other wraith-type monsters.

A knight who protected the order by slaying evil beasts had no business running from one. He knew that, yet his mind was filled with nothing but the overwhelming urge to flee.

The beast’s body convulsed, twisting unnaturally. Then, with a sickening squelch, dozens of tentacles splattered onto the ground, slithering and writhing before snapping back toward its body.

He knew there was no way in hell he was supposed to win against something like this.

Without looking back, he ran. He had to get away, somehow warn the knights. They needed to know that it wasn’t a drill—it was completely real.

His lungs burned as he sprinted through the darkness. Unfortunately, it wasn't long before his feet froze.

But it wasn’t the tentacle beast that stopped him. It was another light, flickering in the distance.

‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. You can't get me with the same ruse twice in a row. It won't work.’

Or so he thought.

Because this time, it wasn’t even a matter of being deceived. The entity wasn’t one of his fellow apprentices at all.

What laid before him was an elf in a rocking chair. An elf would have no business being in the forest in the first place.

They were humming a haunting tune, like a transcendent ghost from the ether. Yet there they were, with a voice so pure yet chillingly eerie.

Then, the elf slowly turned their head toward him. Her eyes began to glow pink.

A violent shiver ran through his entire body before his legs gave out beneath him, and he collapsed to the ground. “Aaaahhh!!!”

She was breathtakingly beautiful—enough to make someone fall for her at first sight. Yet, at the same time, there was something deeply unsettling about her expressionless face. As she tilted her head, something dark stirred behind her.

He knew he had to run. Instinct took over, and he spun around, only to freeze once again.

A soft, warm sensation brushed against his back. He didn’t need to turn around to know where it came from. Tears welled up in his eyes as his entire body trembled uncontrollably with fear. Still—he forced himself to look.

Standing right behind him was the elf Anabelle, her head twisted at an unnatural angle, glowing pink eyes staring straight into his soul.

“Play. With. Me.”

Before he could even manage a scream, her hair—shining the same color as her eerie gaze—came alive, slithering toward and binding him.

“Aaaahhh!!” A bloodcurdling scream tore through the forest.

* * *

Unlike the Decepticons, who moved in plain sight, the Avengers Squadron operated in secrecy.

With Dirro and Anabelle joining in—and the lunatic muscleheads treating the mock battle like a hunting game—the training continued with an elevated level of terror and suffering.

For the apprentice knights of the 270th batch, it was no longer a mock battle—it was a desperate struggle for survival.

One knight stood frozen in terror as a massive metal golem, wielding an enormous saw and drill, charged straight at her. Another was in sheer panic after being surrounded by snow-white rabbits. One fled from their team and unknowingly stumbled into the black forest controlled by Anabelle and Dirro.

Others, though fortunate enough to avoid the forest, fell prey to the nightmarish illusions of the dokkaebi Shiverwock, rendering them incapable of fighting. A few managed to push through and reach the core to make an attempt at ending their nightmare.

But they had vastly underestimated the Zodiac Constellation Taurus.

“Dammit. Damn! Damn it all.”

The apprentice knights lay in beds, groaning in misery.

“This is a nightmare.”

“I-I don’t want to do this anymore.”

For the first time, they realized that some fears remained terrifying no matter how well they understood the truth behind them.

“Hey, are they okay?”

“They look kinda... messed up.”

Their seniors stood over them, looking somewhat concerned watching the juniors mumble and tremble in fear.

The 270th class was notorious for being stubborn, disrespecting hierarchy, and causing disorder—yet, seeing them in such a pitiful state, even the seniors couldn't help but feel sympathy.

“So, they're gonna be fine, right? I mean, we might have gone a bit overboard, but it was a good stress reliever nonetheless.”

“They’ll be up in no time.”

Then Davey clapped his hands together.

[Wake]

“Hmph?!”

“Guh?!”

The apprentice knights shot up, gasping as if they had just emerged from a near-death experience.

They were the same arrogant punks who had once dismissed their seniors, too confident in their own skills. Under normal circumstances, they would’ve immediately raged, demanding to know how their seniors had the gall to call it a fair mock battle.

Instead, they reacted entirely differently.

“S-Senior! Please, have mercy!!”

“I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!!”

“We swear we won’t do it again!!”

The approach was super effective!

“Your original instructor put me in charge of assessing your conditions,” one of the seniors stated, “and from a medical standpoint, you’re all in perfect health.”

The faces of the apprentices went pale.

“By the way, all of your seniors have successfully completed this mock battle before.”

Of course, it had been quite a long time since then.

The eyes of the 270th class widened in pure disbelief.

“T-That’s impossible!”

“How could they have done that?!”

“Well, I’ll admit the muscle-heads were kind of a special case, but there’s not much of a difference overall.”

From the very beginning, the seniors had been giving them hints on how to win.

“Throughout the mock battle, we kept throwing clues at you while cornering you. You’re the ones who just didn’t bother figuring them out.”

Winning had never been the goal of the training. The purpose of the mock battle was to give the younger knights valuable experience.

Silence fell over the room.

The senior turned to Barus, the 270th class team leader, and smiled.

“Still think your seniors are pushovers?”

Barus swallowed hard. “That’s...”

He couldn't bring himself to answer, rendered speechless.

“Looks like you guys still haven’t learned your lesson. Let’s move on to the next training session, then.”

“Ahhh!! W-We’re sorry!! We won’t do it again, we swear! Please, have mercy!!”

The apprentice knights all shrieked in terror. The mere thought of going straight into another round of training had them scrambling in panic, clinging desperately to their seniors’ legs.

“We were wrong! We’ll never be arrogant again! Please, please forgive us!!”

Tears and snot streamed down their faces as they wailed, making it clear that the lesson had definitely sunk in.

Davey turned toward the seniors of the 266th class. They exchanged glances before giving small, amused smiles and nodding.

Upon seeing their reassuring expressions, the faces of the 270th batch apprentices lit up with hope.

“Seniors, is this enough?” Davey asked.

“Mm, yeah, that should do,” a female mage answered with a smile.

He nodded back in satisfaction. “Alright. Trainees, fear not, we’ll only make you go through the training three more times. Don’t worry—I won’t kill you.”

The 270th class apprentice knights paled even further.

* * *

The 270th class apprentice knights trudged back to their quarters, faces hollow and lifeless, completely drained of spirit.

Watching them leave, Davey turned and made his way to meet the knight commanders.

“It’s been a while, commanders.”

“Welcome back, Davey. You’ve grown even more impressive since we last met,” said Commander Ianis with a warm smile.

Davey responded with a slight nod. “You asked to see me?”

“Wellll. To be honest, considering how much work you already have to do across the continent, we didn’t really want to involve you directly in this matter.”

There was something unsettling about the knight commanders' expressions.

“We discovered a rift.”

Davey tilted his head. “A rift?”

“Yeah. But unlike the occasional distorted rifts we’ve seen before, this one is different in nature.”

The moment he heard those words, a certain possibility came to mind—one he would’ve rather never considered ever again in his life.

“If our preliminary investigation is correct, we believe this rift resembles a beast lair—the most dangerous kind ever recorded by our order.”

Davey was already familiar with the label of ‘beast lair.’

It was the same rift that had swallowed Monster Queen Persephone. It was the place once thought to be the very origin of monsters.

“Beast lair, eh. Are you certain?”

“No. We can’t say for sure just yet. All we know is that, based on our findings so far, it closely matches the description of the worst rift ever documented in the knight order’s archives.”

That was all Davey needed to hear. “I’ll go check it out myself.”

If Tionis was being affected by the fact that he had unsealed a rift on Earth, then it was his responsibility to deal with it.

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