Chapter 112: The True Identity of the Heavenly Judgment Knight

“Hah… hah…”

Leaning against Vivi, Nolan drew in heavy breaths. The surge of adrenaline from moments ago had allowed him to withstand the assault, but now that the tension was fading, the agonizing pain radiating from his shoulder made his entire right arm feel nearly numb.

“Don’t act rashly, Vivi…” Nolan panted as he lightly patted her arm. “This is a misunderstanding. We’re not enemies.”

“A misunderstanding?” Vivi froze.

The gray-armored figure known as the Heavenly Judgment Knight slowly lowered their weapon.

The cavalry lance dissolved into scattered motes of light as the knight silently observed the faint dragon-scale patterns flickering across Nolan’s body and the heavy, imposing aura emanating from Mountain’s Resonance in his hand.

Then the knight stepped back and pressed a hand to their head as if overcome by a headache.

The entire hall fell into dead silence.

Everyone had been caught completely off guard by the sudden turn of events.

The other three hurried over as well, forming a protective circle around Nolan while staring warily at the gray-armored knight standing motionless a short distance away.

“Boss! Are you alright?!”

Little Donnie quickly took the bandages and medicine Renee pulled from her backpack and clumsily began wrapping Nolan’s wound.

“Hiss… easy, easy!” Nolan grimaced from the rough treatment.

Not enemies?

Little Donnie and the others exchanged awkward looks. The other side had certainly shown no mercy during the fight, and they themselves had fought with full killing intent as well.

Both sides had entered the battle fully intending to destroy the other, only for it all to turn out to be a misunderstanding?

“Nolan, who exactly is this person…?” Romina asked cautiously, her guard still fully raised.

Nolan was critically important to the Wood Elves, and she could not allow anything to happen to him again. Besides, after fighting side by side just now, her respect and trust in him had risen to an entirely new level.

“In theory, still one of us,” Nolan explained between breaths. “The guardian of this place. The Heavenly Judgment Knight.”

“One of us?” Little Donnie’s eyes widened. “What kind of ally starts by trying to kill everyone?”

“Probably been here too long. Their consciousness has nearly worn away, leaving only final obsession behind.” Nolan weakly waved a hand before glancing at his mangled right shoulder and grumbling, “Seriously, why does everyone keep targeting my right shoulder? First the golem, now you…”

Then he tilted back a healing potion and swallowed it in one go. His health slowly began recovering, and the wound visibly improved.

Vivi and Renee were both caught between tears and laughter at his attempt to joke in the middle of all this.

“At a time like this, you still have the mood to joke around?” Vivi scolded softly.

Still, his words eased some of the tension hanging in the air.

“My lord, what exactly is going on?” Renee asked in confusion. “The moment you came in, you called it the ‘Demon Overlord of the Seven Serpent Thrones’…”

Romina looked equally puzzled. “And it attacked without saying a word. We all thought it was the demon.”

“That’s because none of you let me finish talking,” Nolan sighed. “What I was trying to say was ‘the guardian of the Demon Overlord of the Seven Serpent Thrones’… Once the fight started, there was no chance to explain anything. And the key problem was that they had no intention of letting us go, so suppressing them first was the only option.”

According to the original dungeon scenario, all they had needed to do was recite the scripted introduction:

Guardian of the Demon Overlord of the Seven Serpent Thrones, the seal is weakening. We come under Master Landon’s commission to reinforce it.

Master Landon was the Tyrian mage who unlocked this hidden dungeon, the chairman of the Blue Robe Society and an elusive figure who appeared and vanished unpredictably. According to Nolan’s estimates, he was likely still wandering throughout the northern Rus Empire.

What an absurd misunderstanding.

Now the question occupying everyone’s minds was simple: Where was the real Demon Overlord?

The Heavenly Judgment Knight, who had remained silent the entire time, suddenly began walking toward Nolan step by step.

“Don’t come any closer!” Vivi immediately tensed and stood up, shielding Nolan even more tightly.

But the Heavenly Judgment Knight ignored her completely and stopped directly in front of Nolan.

The silent gray-armored knight finally spoke again. The voice still carried that deep metallic resonance, but compared to before, some of the coldness had faded, replaced by something far more human—confusion. “Why… have you entered this Eternal Prison? Who… are you people?”

After asking those questions, the knight seemed to fall into another wave of turmoil. Raising a hand to their head once more, they sounded genuinely pained.

“And who… am I?”

Everyone present was stunned speechless.

Only Nolan looked completely unsurprised.

“Nolan…” Romina stayed at his side, her voice low with caution and confusion. “From what you said earlier… you already knew this person’s identity before coming here?”

She could feel it clearly. Even though the gray-armored knight no longer showed hostility, they still radiated an overwhelming sense of danger.

And the phrase “Eternal Prison” deeply unsettled her as well.

“Yes. At first I wasn’t completely certain, but now I can confirm it. This person is the guardian of this demon prison.” Nolan looked at the knight clutching their head and trying desperately to recall something before giving a bitter smile. “Don’t let appearances fool you. This knight really was someone from the War of Heaven. A genuine hero. One of the Order faction’s greatest leaders and strongest warriors during the War of Heaven, one of the Seven Saints who fully awakened their Origin and ascended into sainthood. The Elven Saint known as the ‘Sublime Sword,’ Rollins Morningsong…”

“What?!”

Before Nolan could finish, Little Donnie nearly jumped in shock, his hands freezing mid-bandage.

“H-he’s one of the Saints from the ancient legends?!”

“But… but shouldn’t someone like that be able to turn us into ashes with a wave of a hand?” Renee stammered, her face filled with disbelief.

A Saint! A being who stood at the very pinnacle of the mortal world, almost like a demigod! How could someone like that end up evenly matched against a party whose strongest members were only Gold rank at best?

“That’s why I said I wasn’t finished talking yet.” Nolan shot Little Donnie a helpless look before continuing, “This knight is not Saint Rollins himself. She’s his youngest daughter. Isn’t that right, Heavenly Judgment Knight, Ailindel Delis Morningsong?”

“The Heavenly Judgment Knight…”

“Ailindel…”

The group repeated the unfamiliar name under their breath.

“Wait!” Vivi suddenly realized the important part. Her eyes widened as she pointed incredulously at the gray-armored knight. “You said daughter…? This person is a woman?!”

Not just Vivi—even Little Donnie and Renee stared in complete shock.

No matter how hard they tried, they simply could not connect the heavily armored knight before them, with their overwhelmingly aggressive combat style and deep, resonant voice, to a woman.