# Chapter 65
“…?!”
Pulled up like a fish on a hook, Levi was momentarily startled, but as soon as he was seated in the saddle, he drew three thin throwing knives with his bloodied right hand and aimed for Ion’s throat.
Just before the sharp tips of the knives could pierce his neck, Ion caught that hand too and gripped the wrist encircled by a white ring. Thanks to the sturdy bracelet, it seemed there was fortunately no pain despite being held quite tightly.
With both hands restrained while on the galloping horse, Levi glared at Ion with sharp eyes. Ion’s horsemanship was so skilled that he maintained perfect balance despite having let go of the reins to hold Levi.
As Levi twisted his body to push Ion away, he suddenly realized his mistake. Over Ion’s shoulder, he could see the gap in the slightly opened south gate widening more and more. Silver-armored knights flooded into the Iron Fortress and rapidly conquered the hesitant interior.
“Let go! Let me go!”
Levi shouted in a rough voice as he twisted his body with all his might. Sitting sideways on the saddle, Levi tried to lower his lower body straight down the side of the horse to drop to the ground, but with the words “What if you hurt your feet?” he was suddenly pulled back and ended up completely embraced by Ion.
Just being in an embrace with someone he hated made him feel terrible, so he desperately twisted his body and made a commotion. But the more he struggled, the stronger the force constraining his body became.
“Ugh…!”
A short groan escaped through Ion’s clenched teeth.
Despite having his arms and body tightly embraced, Levi violently thrashed about as if he was desperate to get away from Ion.
Then, as if Levi had managed to move his right hand a little, he suddenly thrust the throwing knife he had been holding into a tiny gap in the side armor. While it would have been difficult to insert a dagger into such a small gap in the armor, the thin, twig-like black throwing knife penetrated surprisingly easily.
Ion frowned, not so much from the pain of the knife piercing his side, but from the strange sensation spreading from that spot. Oddly, it felt as if the wound was expanding on its own. Additionally, there was a sense of discomfort, as if the energy that had been flowing naturally through his body was suddenly cut off at that point.
The last thing that came was a dark energy that swept over him instantly.
Ion tried not to miss even the slightest bit of this sensation he had never felt before. Even so, he didn’t forget to turn the horse’s head.
‘I just need to retreat with Levi like this.’
The Immortal Army was one thing, but Count Kairous would undoubtedly make an extremely annoyed face. For a vanguard commander to abandon his command authority and retreat alone with a kidnapped enemy soldier in the midst of battle was truly absurd. It was the kind of thing that would go beyond just an embarrassing personal history to potentially be recorded in history books.
But Ion didn’t care at all.
What was important to him was not how he would be recorded in history books, but getting Levi safely to his camp as quickly as possible. Regardless of the process, he was taking Levi as a prisoner captured during wartime, so there would be no problem claiming the right of life and death over him, as well as ownership.
Just as he was about to rush out through the south gate again—
Suddenly, his body lurched heavily. Then the horse let out a high-pitched scream and buckled its knees.
Thinking they would fall from the horse, Ion quickly embraced Levi and twisted his body. Then, just before hitting the ground, while holding Levi in his arms, he spun his body and landed on the ground using his knees and legs in a breakfall. This caused the throwing knife in his side to move together with the black hand, creating a deeper wound, but what was more important was that Levi hadn’t been injured anywhere.
However, this caused the force that had been strongly restraining Levi to loosen.
As soon as he landed on the ground, Levi pushed Ion away and swung his leg at his face. Ion, who was about to be hit in the face by Levi’s foot, instinctively threw his head back and barely avoided it. By the time he returned his head to its original position, Levi had already jumped backward a couple of times to create distance between them.
Ion stood up and looked down at the fallen white horse.
‘That arrow…’
Ion furrowed his brow deeply as he scanned the surroundings. Allied forces had already penetrated deep into the Iron Fortress and were quickly dealing with the enemy, occupying up to the fortress walls. All the corpses visible were exclusively Caron Empire soldiers. The living Caron Empire soldiers were busy wearing desperate expressions as they tried to hold back the Immortal Army that wouldn’t die no matter how many times they were killed.
Amidst the chaotic battles happening everywhere, someone among the clearly overpowered Caron Empire soldiers had shot an arrow precisely aimed at them.
Moreover, judging by how the area around the white horse’s neck where the arrow had struck was gradually turning black with necrosis, it was clear that the arrow had been coated with poison intended to kill the horse instantly. It was hard to imagine that an ordinary soldier would possess an arrow coated with such expensive and dangerous poison.
Ion’s eyes caught a spot on the fortress wall. The person standing there was distinctly different from the other soldiers, wearing solid black armor, and even from a distance, it was clear that the aura he exuded was anything but ordinary. The imposing black longbow he held contributed to this impression.
Despite the considerable distance, Ion recognized him at a glance.
‘Count Chepel Lance…!’
Count Lance, who had been aiming his bow in this direction, shot an arrow at another enemy nearby. The arrows he shot were extremely fast and accurate, and coated with some kind of anesthetic or deadly poison that could knock down even the most spirited immortal soldiers in a single shot.
Even so, the immortal soldiers wouldn’t die, so they could get up again after a short while. Among them, there were instances where enemy soldiers would swarm a fallen immortal soldier and hack them to pieces, and those who were butchered in this way couldn’t get up for quite a long time due to the recovery process.
‘This is strange.’
Ion had known since the previous night that Count Lance was keeping an eye on Levi and circling around him. It wasn’t hard to guess that he might have received some kind of secret imperial order regarding Levi.
So why was such a person leaving him alone now? With those sharp poisoned arrows, he could surely take Ion down as well.
Questions piled up, but Ion couldn’t think more deeply. Because there was Levi, who was glaring at him with unrestrained, needle-sharp hostility.
Ion pulled out the throwing knife that was still embedded in his side in one swift motion. The stinging pain penetrated to the bone.
Looking at the blood-covered knife and the area around his side, Ion suddenly looked at Levi with surprised eyes. Even though his side had been stabbed, there was fresh blood on the handle of the long throwing knife and around his armor where his own blood shouldn’t have been able to reach.
Ion’s eyes fell on Levi’s right hand as they faced off. Blood was dripping from his right hand.
“What happened to you?”
Ion strode toward Levi as if he had forgotten that Levi was trying to kill him. His approach was so bold that it startled Levi.
So instead of rushing forward to attack the approaching Ion, Levi held up his dagger warily and remained on high alert.
“Don’t come any closer.”
Perhaps because of Levi’s stern warning, Ion stopped in his tracks. He still had a hardened expression on his face, looking only at Levi’s right hand.
“Your hand, why is it like that? Are you hurt? How badly?”
Ion’s reaction was something Levi couldn’t understand at all.
After trying so hard to kill him and Raziel all this time, why was he pretending to be concerned like this?
Confused, Levi kept his lips tightly pressed together, and the golden eyes of Ion, dimly concealed within his helmet, flashed with a fierce light.
“Who did that to you?”
It was such a frightening aura that it made Levi’s shoulders flinch. It felt chillingly like, depending on the answer, Ion would drag whoever had injured Levi’s hand before them and tear them to pieces.
Facing Ion’s incomprehensible emotions, Levi now went beyond confusion to find him even more detestable.
“As if you really care.”
Levi said with a cold edge to his pale face, putting up a wall between them.
“All you care about is killing me and Raziel.”
Ion took one step closer to Levi as if he couldn’t even see the dagger pointed at him. Levi stepped back by the same distance, matching Ion’s pace.
“Who told you such a thing?”
As Ion approached with a much softer voice and gaze, Levi kept backing away. Levi glanced at Ion’s sword, which its owner seemed to have no intention of drawing from its scabbard, and retorted:
“I don’t need to be told to know.”
“You’re misunderstanding, Levi. Me killing you? That’s absurd.”
As Levi continued to back away in pace with Ion’s steps, his back suddenly hit a wall.
The moment Levi flinched upon feeling the cold wall against his back, Ion closed the distance in the blink of an eye. He strongly grabbed Levi’s left wrist, which had missed the timing to swing the dagger. Then, moving the captured hand, he fearlessly brought the blade to his own neck.
“Unless I die by your hand.”
The sharp blade touched Ion’s exposed neck, creating a vivid red mark. Blood flowed from that spot down the blade, reaching Levi’s snow-white fingers holding the dagger’s handle.
