Treatise Of A Failed Knight-Chapter 285: Adept Leaper

"Aunt Leila..."

I begin with a careful tone, my hand moving toward my blade.

"Step away from him. Slowly."

She pulls back slightly from the embrace, confusion evident on her tear-stained face.

"Javier? What are you—"

"That’s not your husband," I say, though my voice wavers despite my best efforts to keep it steady. "Or rather, he is. But he’s also something far more dangerous."

My words sound absurd even to my own ears.

How do I explain what Existential Resonance has revealed? How do I tell her that the man she loves—the man she’s been desperately searching for—is the architect of all this suffering?

Dracus—if that’s even his real name—tilts his head slightly, regarding me with those cold, dead eyes.

There’s no warmth there.

No humanity.

Just clinical assessment, like a butcher examining livestock. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

"Aunt Leila, please!" My voice rises with urgency. "Get away from him! He’s—"

SQUELCH!

The sound is wet, horribly so.

Time seems to slow—not from Frontflow, but from pure shock.

Dracus’s hand has punched through Aunt Leila’s chest from behind. His fingers protrude from the front of her body, dripping crimson, clutching something that still beats weakly.

Her heart.

Aunt Leila’s eyes go wide.

Her mouth opens, but no sound emerges except a soft, confused gasp. She looks down at the hand piercing her chest, then up at me, and in her gaze I see the terrible moment of comprehension.

Understanding what has happened.

What her beloved husband has done.

"D-dear...?" She whispers, blood bubbling from her lips. "Why...?"

He doesn’t answer.

He simply withdraws his hand with the same clinical efficiency, letting her body crumple to the stone floor.

The entire sequence takes perhaps two seconds.

Two seconds for my world to shatter.

"AUNT LEILA!" I scream, lunging forward—

—and the world shifts.

One moment Dracus stands ten feet away over Aunt Leila’s body.

The next, his hand is around my throat, lifting me off the ground with inhuman strength. My feet dangle uselessly as his grip tightens, cutting off my air.

"Guh!"

I nearly lose consciousness as I choke on my breath.

’He used Tracing,’ I realize dimly through the panic. ’He teleported directly to me.’

Since I just finished using Frontflow, deactivating it when I found Aunt Leila and her husband, it will take some time before I can use it again.

It will take longer to switch to a different Fragmented Conception.

For example, Tracing.

In essence... I am currently stuck.

Paralyzed.

Undeniably helpless!

’This man...’ I grit my teeth and try to resist, but he simply tightens his hold on me.

I can barely breathe.

Can’t move.

"Haa... h-haa...!"

Up close, his face is even more unsettling.

That gentle, pleasant expression doesn’t change even as he chokes the life out of me. Like strangling someone is no more emotionally significant than adjusting his monocle.

"I had hoped to avoid complications..." The Leviathan finally speaks. His words are smooth, his voice cultured and refined.

"My plan was quite simple, really. The cultists would successfully conduct their ceremony. ’I’ would have died during the chaos, leaving no trace of this identity at the end of the day."

He tilts his head, examining me like a curious insect. "But you had to arrive early. That Divination your priest friend received... how did it happen? Was it THEM?"

"W-what...?"

"I was certain you hadn’t had prior contact. Or was I wrong...?"

"...."

I claw at his hand, trying to pry his fingers loose, but it’s like trying to bend steel bars.

My vision starts to blur at the edges.

"No matter," Dracus continues, apparently unconcerned by my struggling. "I’ll simply adjust the plan. I’ll kill everyone present—you, the Knights, the scholars, the prisoners. Frame it as the cult’s final desperate act. When investigators arrive, they’ll find a massacre. And among the bodies, they’ll discover Lord Dracus Krawford, tragically slain alongside the others."

Through the haze of oxygen deprivation, confusion breaks through my panic.

"Then... why...?" I gasp out. "Why not... just kill her... from the start...?"

If his goal was to conceal his identity and disappear, why this elaborate charade? Why let himself be "kidnapped" by this Cult and send all of us on this wild goose chase?

It feels overly complicated for such a simple goal.

"You dragged all of these people into your scheme... I don’t understand!"

I know it’s useless asking these questions.

I am so close to death, yet I cannot help but attempt to satisfy my curiosity.

Perhaps this is my way of prolonging the inevitable... delaying my death. But I am confused by too many things.

The grief from losing my aunt has forced me down the path of rationalization.

Why...?

Just why?

For the first time, something flickers in those dead eyes of his.

Not emotion, exactly.

More like... consideration.

"An astute question," Lord Krawford acknowledges. "The simple answer is connections. My wife wasn’t the only relationship I cultivated under this identity. I’ve been Lord Dracus Krawford for a few decades now. I have friends, colleagues, business associates. If I simply killed Leila and disappeared, too many people would ask questions."

His grip tightens fractionally, and stars explode across my vision.

"If I killed all of them—dozens of people with connections to Dracus Krawford—that would draw even more attention. Someone like you, a Leviathan, would investigate. Once you noticed the patterns and found me missing, I would become a suspect rather than a victim."

It makes sense.

For a Leviathan who considers human lives worth less than their ultimate goals, it makes sense to use so many people as pawns.

But, even now, I find this situation deplorable.

Difficult to swallow.

Is this really the same Lord Dracus Krawford I knew in my past life? Is he the one who found my aunt when he was a Young Noble and fell in love with her on their first encounter.

They were such a perfect couple.

Was all of that... a lie?

"Did you..." I force the words out through my crushed throat.

"Did you love her... at all...?"

For a long moment, he doesn’t respond. He just stares at me with those empty eyes.

Then, quietly: "That’s not relevant to the current situation."

"You—"

"Better to be a victim who died tragically," he continues, returning to his explanation as if the question was never asked. "A body found among many, killed by a fanatical cult. That narrative requires no further investigation. No one searches for dead men. I can shed this identity and move on unhindered."

Despite the darkness creeping into my vision, I force my mind to work.

Something sparks in my mind.

"Jonathan..." I gasp. "You arranged... for him to escape..."

"Precisely." A hint of satisfaction enters Lord Krawford’s voice. "I planted the necessary memories, fragmented just enough to seem like trauma rather than manipulation. Eventually, he would recover enough to remember this location. You would raid it with proper preparation, proper timing. The cult would be destroyed. The prisoners would be found. Including poor Lord Krawford, sadly deceased."

"But this raid came too early. You arrived before I finished positioning all the pieces, and before I could properly stage my own death among the other victims." He sighs, genuinely annoyed. "Improvisation is so inelegant. Still, the core plan remains viable. I’ll simply kill you all now and arrange the scene appropriately."

"Why...?" The question is barely a whisper now. "Why any of this...? What’s the point...?"

"Because they’re hunting me," Dracus says simply. "And I need to disappear completely before they find me."

"They...?"

But before he can answer, his head snaps to the side, eyes widening fractionally.

Then he moves, Tracing away from me just as—

BOOM!

An explosion of golden energy detonates exactly where he was standing. I’m thrown backward by the shockwave, my already oxygen-starved body slamming into the stone wall.

"Gahh!" My body recoils as I scream in pain.

Through blurred vision, I see Dracus fifty feet away, defending against a barrage of attacks that seem to come from nowhere.

WHOOSH!

Blades of compressed air slash at him from impossible angles.

Spears of crystallized light pierce toward his vital points.

The very stones beneath his feet erupt upward, trying to impale him.

But he dances between them all with inhuman grace, Tracing repeatedly, his form flickering in and out of existence as he teleports microseconds before each attack connects.

"Impressive," he comments, still maddeningly calm. "I didn’t sense your approach. How did you conceal yourselves so thoroughly?"

Figures materialize from the shadows—no, not from the shadows.

From nowhere!

Like they simply stepped into existence.

Five of them.

All wearing identical dark coats marked with a symbol I don’t recognize—a serpent eating its own tail.

All radiating the distinct presence of highly defined Existences.

They are all Leviathans... at Rank 2!

"Lucien Zevalis..." One of them speaks, a woman with silver hair and eyes that glow faintly blue.

"We finally meet."

Dracus’s pleasant expression finally cracks, revealing something like genuine annoyance beneath.

"The Ouroboros Sect," he says flatly. "How did you find me already?"

"We’ve been tracking you for months." This time, another figure responds, this one a tall man. "You’re running out of places to hide."

"And you’re running out of time!" The silver-haired woman adds. She raises her hand, and reality itself seems to ripple around her fingers.

"Surrender now. Face judgment for your crimes. Or we’ll take you by force."

For a moment—just a moment—I see something like fear flicker across Dracus’s face.

Then it’s gone, replaced by cold calculation.

"I’m not going back!" He yells, finally losing some of his composure.

But the lady with the blue eyes smiles coldly.

Her voice is low and dark.

"It wasn’t a request."

BOOOOOM!!!

The chamber erupts in chaos.

The Ouroboros Sect members attack in perfect coordination, their movements synchronized like they’ve trained together for years.

It’s difficult to explain.

They’re all too fast, each using distinct abilities that make my head hurt just by watching them.

My blurry vision makes everything even more difficult to comprehend

These five are extremely powerful.

Far more than I am.

But their enemy is Rank 3.

An Adept.

The gap in power is evident even as five Disciples work together.

Not only is he able to perfectly coordinate himself against each of their attacks, but his Tracing ability is so smooth and flawless that he easily evades their blows and targets gaps in their attack formation without much difficulty.

So this is the power of a high-rank Leviathan!

I can’t properly explain it.

Powerful!

Too powerful!

"You’re better than the last team they sent," Lord Krawford observes, already positioning himself for another Trace. "But still insufficient. Tell your masters that—"

He stops mid-sentence, head snapping toward the entrance.

New pressure floods the chamber.

This one is different from the Disciples.

It is far more refined.

—Another Adept.

"Tch! To be continued..."

Lord Krawford’s entire visage suddenly vanishes, leaving behind not even an ounce of Trace Elements.

Only mild distortions remain in his wake.

"As expected... He fled." An elderly member of the group mutters with a sigh.

"We were so close." Another member speaks with a frustrated sigh.

"No, he wasn’t fighting seriously. He was on guard against any trump cards we could have had, and the moment he noticed the Captain, he decided it was best for him to retreat." This time, the white-haired girl speaks.

Although she appears frustrated, her words are as composed as her dainty gait.

I can only stare at these people in silence.

"It is as Elma says."

A deep, mature voice echoes from the entrance. It emanates from the same presence I detected right before Lord Krawford vanished.

Footsteps... they grow louder.

A figure steps through the entrance—tall, imposing, wearing the same coat as the others but with additional insignia marking higher rank.

He also has a gentlemanly hat on, but with a face obscured by shadows.

Then, he speaks yet again, his voice carrying absolute authority. "We now understand the full scope of his earlier plans, and we also prevented needless bloodshed, so that’s good news for today."

"Agreed." The group nods in agreement.

"Good job, everyone." He speaks, his tone indicating some measure of satisfaction.

Afterwards, the chamber falls silent except for my ragged breathing.

"Haaa... haa..."

I wish to say or do something, but I am still.

Confusion bears down on me.

Shame, too.

Who in the world are these people? They appear to be against the Adept Leaper, but they also appear dangerous in their own right.

Six Leviathans—five Disciples and one Adept.

That is extremely dangerous.

I can easily tell that I am out of my depth here, so rather than make any impulsive movements, I continue to watch them.

Then—

"Javier Aditi..."

—The Rank 3 Adept turns to face me, his features still obscured by shadow.

’He knows who I am, huh?’

At this point, I cannot be too surprised.

But this still unnerves me.

"No need to fret. My name is Alistair Wormwood, Captain of Division C-07 and loyal member of the Ouroboros Sect. You have many questions, I’m sure."

I don’t say anything.

A small nod suffices, as I continue to stare at the group with a dazed expression.

I try to stand, but my legs won’t support me.

I’m still reeling from everything—Aunt Leila’s death, Lord Krawford’s betrayal, and this mysterious organization appearing from nowhere.

This is simply too much to take in.

’I knew the abductions involved a Leviathan and there was more to the Enlightened Witnesses of Truth that meets the eye, but to think the matter was this deep...’ With a quiet shudder, I compose myself and swallow the leftover bile in my throat

The man, Alistair Wormwood, approaches me with a calm pace. As he draws near, the shadow obscuring his features recedes.

Then, I see his face.

He’s younger than I expected—perhaps mid-thirties, with sharp features and eyes that seem to contain deep profundities.

His expression is stern but not unkind.

He parts his thin lips and continues to speak.

"You’ve gotten yourself involved in a rather troublesome affair, one that concerns this entire Kingdom."

"Tell me..." I whisper, my voice coarse as I alternate glances between my aunt’s corpse and the crowd of six before me.

My shuddering breathing finally reaches a pause and I speak with a loud, bold statement filled with all my rage and resolve.

"Please tell me everything!"

[A/N: Apologies for my rather inconsistent uploads as of late. I have been sick, and so the quality of my writing has suffered as a result. I promise things will change from this moment.]