The monster was approaching, filling the hallway.

Its form resembled black flames.

The overall shape was humanoid, but its entire body was shrouded in writhing jet-black fire.

At a glance, it looked like a knight clad in armor.

The green glow emanating from where its eyes should have been was deeply intimidating.

The mage was being chased by the shadow knights.

Just then, the leading shadow knight hurled the spear in its hand.

Crash!

The spear pierced through the mage’s robe and embedded itself in the ground.

Still running, the mage stumbled and fell, tripping over the robe.

“U-Uwaaaah! Please, don’t kill me!”

The mage begged, but the knight pulled the spear from the floor and moved in to finish him.

Thwack!

At that moment, a massive ice spike flew in and blasted off the knight’s head.

“Wh-Who...?”

The mage spun around in panic.

There stood Ludger, staff raised.

“What are you doing? Get out of the way.”

Realizing he had survived, the mage scrambled to his feet and ran toward Ludger.

His face, now soaked with tears and snot, was someone Ludger recognized.

Right—he was the one who’d picked a fight with Ludger right after arriving here.

‘He survived the Cheshire Tiger attack too, didn’t he?’

Come to think of it, Ludger had saved him that time as well.

Ludger looked at the shadow knights, thinking what a stubbornly lucky bastard he was.

The knight whose head had been blown off now stared at Ludger with a completely restored face.

‘I definitely hit the head properly.’

Its pale green eyes swept over Ludger and the others with casual ease.

The shadow knight readjusted its grip on the spear.

The knights lined up behind it also drew their weapons.

Swords, spears, halberds, maces—

All of them forged from ominous shadow.

Watching this, Loina muttered unconsciously.

“Th-They’re definitely intimidating, but they don’t really look like monsters?”

SKREEEEE!

Just then, the mouth of the leading knight opened wide, letting out a horrifying screech.

The rows of jagged teeth and the way its lower jaw split sideways made for a grotesque sight.

“...Okay, it’s a monster.”

Loina honestly admitted her mistake and drew up her mana.

She didn’t know why monsters were suddenly appearing in the mansion, but considering their hostile stance, it didn’t look like this could be resolved peacefully.

“I’ll wipe them all out in one go!”

With her mana flaring, Loina began casting a complex spell.

In an instant, a dazzling magic array spread through the air like a constellation.

Despite the mansion being saturated with magical energy—making spellcasting nearly impossible without exceptional control—Loina wove the spell as naturally as breathing.

“Wow.”

Arfa, watching the scene unfold, let out a quiet murmur.

Everyone praised Loina Pavlini for her theoretical brilliance, but that was only half the story.

No matter how brilliant one's theory, no one could reach Lexuror level on theory alone.

Loina had reached the 6th Circle not just through knowledge, but by fulfilling every requirement to wield 6th-Circle magic.

Just like now.

A 5th-Circle fire-element wide-area spell—

[Column of the Sun]

The immense magic surged, then transformed into scorching flame.

The fire filled the corridor, engulfing the shadow knights.

Waves of intense heat and a roaring shockwave followed.

The rest of the group remained mostly unbothered, but the young mage who had fled the knights stared in disbelief, jaw dropped.

As the flames faded and the heat dispersed—

The corridor of the mansion, scorched by fire, now looked like a blackened mine shaft.

Considering how even high-level magic barely left a mark on this mansion, the fact that such traces remained showed just how powerful Loina’s spell had been.

After a moment, the charred walls of the mansion slowly restored themselves to their original state.

“Well, it looks like that took care of the monsters!”

Loina sounded cheerful—probably because it had been a while since she’d unleashed a spell of that scale.

The stress she’d been bottling up had been released all at once.

“...I don’t think it’s over yet.”

“Huh?”

Just as Loina turned to ask what Ludger meant—

Something strange happened to the mansion’s atmosphere.

The windows hadn’t opened, but a gust of wind blew through, and then—

From the empty hallway, something black began to squirm and rise.

The shadow knights Loina had incinerated without a trace just moments ago—

They reformed completely, eyes flashing green, fixing their gaze on the group.

“Wh-What the...?”

Loina faltered—but Arfa moved instantly.

Thud.

He tapped Loina’s leg, toppling her backward.

At the same time, he caught her gently to break the fall.

Loina didn’t understand what was happening at first.

Then she saw it: a black spear brushing past above her head.

The shadow knight at the front had thrown the spear with full force—it had seemed to fly straight, but suddenly changed direction and began boomeranging back toward the knight.

Crash!

Arfa reached out and snatched the returning spear midair.

It had been flying incredibly fast—but Arfa was faster.

The knight who had called the spear stared directly at Arfa.

Whoosh.

Arfa spun the shadow spear and shifted his stance.

A single swing of the spear stirred the air, rustling Arfa's hair.

SKREEEEE!

The knight, enraged that its spear had been stolen, lunged at Arfa.

It now held two black spears—where had the second one come from?

Both arms moved in a chaotic frenzy, twin spears whipping through the air and filling the field of vision.

The knight’s technique was certainly on par with a seasoned warrior.

But Arfa's physical prowess was far beyond that level.

Tap.

He lightly leapt into the air, spinning like a top.

That reckless movement slipped through the knight’s barrage with uncanny precision.

He dodged what he could, blocked what he couldn’t.

He maneuvered with paper-thin margins, but emerged completely unscathed.

Every movement had been calculated down to the millimeter.

As the group watched in stunned silence, Arfa's spear moved.

BANG!

A rapid triple-thrust in the blink of an eye.

So fast that only one sound of air bursting could be heard.

Each strike landed precisely—between the knight’s brows, at its neck, and into its heart.

Three gaping holes opened in the knight’s torso.

But the wounds immediately regenerated, and the knight swung its spear again.

Clang-clang-clash!

Instead of dodging, Arfa spun his spear and deflected the blow.

The knight’s posture crumbled again, and this time Arfa didn’t thrust—

He swung wide.

Once horizontally.

Then vertically.

Like a whip, the spear shaft sliced cleanly, cutting the knight into four neat chunks.

“Ah.”

But the pieces wriggled, then fused together again.

As Arfa frowned at the result, a bolt of lightning flew in and blasted off the knight’s head.

“Fall back, Arfa.”

Receiving Ludger’s support, Arfa retreated. Immediately, Rimle stepped forward and unleashed her prepared spell.

5th-Circle ice-element magic—

[Breath of the Ice Dragon]

The chill, the complete opposite of Loina’s flames, swallowed the shadow knights.

A sudden wave of frost swept through the corridor, freezing the knights solid.

The knights became statues of ice where they stood, and Loina was sure they’d finally won.

“This time, they’re really dead, right?”

Crack!

Before the words had even left her mouth completely, the frozen knights began breaking free, one by one.

“...”

“...”

“...”

The entire group turned silently to stare at Loina.

“...I’m sorry.”

Loina bowed her head and apologized.

It wasn’t really her fault, but the mood demanded it.

As the knights broke free of their icy prisons, they began slowly advancing again.

Sempas decided enough was enough.

He stepped forward and invoked his spell—

4th-Circle wood-element magic.

[Great Tree Wall]

A massive tree sprouted, filling the corridor.

Its thick, towering trunk formed a barrier, preventing the shadow knights from advancing any further.

“We need to fall back.”

Even Sempas, who never shied away from a fight, insisted on retreat.

He had judged that battling endlessly respawning shadow knights was a losing proposition.

Even now, the knights were breaking through the wooden barrier, advancing.

“Let’s retreat.”

Without another word, the group began running down the hallway.

The wooden wall would buy them some time—but not much.

They needed to widen the distance and find another solution.

“Hahh, hahh... What the hell is going on here?”

Loina panted heavily as she spoke, still shaken from barely escaping the knights.

“No matter how much we attack, they don’t go down. I’ve never heard of anything like that.”

“It’s probably some kind of defensive system built into the mansion.”

“A... defensive system?”

Ludger nodded. “Exactly.”

Rimle’s expression hardened. “Why do you think that?”

“Because those things appeared well before midnight. If you think about it, the earlier events were just the warning signs.”

“You’re saying the tremors we felt made the monsters appear?”

“The opposite. The mansion trembled to make those monsters appear. They’re not cryptids or naturally formed monsters. They’re familiars created by the mansion itself.”

Loina recalled the tremors she’d felt in the library and nodded.

“Like guardian golems or gargoyles... But is it really possible for something to regenerate like that, even after being hit with overwhelming firepower?”

“Did you forget where we are? Beneath this mansion lies a massive convergence of leylines. The stored mana here is enormous.”

“You mean... those shadow monsters are drawing power from the leylines?”

“Most likely. As long as they’re supplied with mana from that source, they’ll just keep coming back no matter how many times we kill them.”

Monsters composed of pure mana, constantly regenerating?

No wonder the mages didn’t stand a chance.

“Th-Then what do we do?! Is buying time and running the only option?”

“I already said—they’re part of this mansion’s defense system. And they appeared earlier than they normally would.”

At that, a realization passed over Loina’s face.

Rimle came to the same conclusion.

“Then that means... something is controlling the system from inside this mansion.”

“These monsters appearing before midnight means someone tampered with that system!”

“So the locked doors and the murders were all caused by someone else.”

Rimle, Loina, and Sempas each voiced their conclusions.

Now that they’d pieced things together, the overall situation was becoming clearer.

The only one who hadn’t caught on was the young mage who’d narrowly escaped with his life.

“You there. What’s your name?”

“M-Me?”

“Now that I think about it, we never introduced ourselves.”

Caught off guard, the young mage stammered at Ludger’s sudden question.

“You’re asking my name now?”

“I can’t just keep calling you ‘you,’ can I? So—your name?”

“...Samuel Taylor.”

“Alright, Samuel. What happened to the people you were with?”

“Damn it. You’re asking because you don’t already know? I ran away alone—what do you think happened?!”

Samuel’s hands trembled as he clenched his fists. The memory of being chased by those knights was still fresh.

“Shit... I never should’ve come here. Why the hell is this happening to me...?”

Samuel began to despair aloud.

His negativity seeped into the rest of the group.

Not because they hadn’t tried to fight.

And yet... everyone else was dead, and he alone survived.

The shadow knights roamed the mansion, ready to kill any intruder on sight.

They would show no mercy.

They wouldn’t stop until their task was complete.

If they keep coming back after death, then it’s only a matter of time before we’re overwhelmed.

It would become a war of attrition.

And in such a war, one side had limits—while the other had nearly infinite resources.

The outcome was obvious.

There was only one way to stop the knights from roaming the mansion:

They had to shut the system down.

The problem was—

Where was the core that summoned the knights?

If we wander blindly, we’ll just get surrounded by those monsters.

Even now, the mansion's monsters were slowly but surely tightening the noose.

Sudden death was terrifying—but a death that advanced steadily, inescapably, was even worse.

In that sense, a mansion with an activated defense system was no different from hell.

This is a mess.

The shadow knights were choking them off in real-time.

Somewhere, First Order Lesley might be hiding, alongside the Black Dawn who orchestrated all this.

And there was still the unresolved clue about Non-Attributed Mana.

Ludger felt his breath catch—his vision darkening.

It was like sinking into a deep swamp.

So many things to handle. So many variables to consider. So many opportunities they couldn’t afford to miss.

What to do first?

What to prioritize?

All of it weighed heavily on Ludger’s mind.

—Think.

Ludger closed his eyes slowly and gathered his thoughts.

He still had so much left to do.

The so-called “Mystic Night” was nothing more than a turning point.

Just a step. A stone to be crossed.

His true goal lay far beyond this.

—I didn’t survive all this time just to stop here.

Ludger opened his eyes.

His blue irises, once full of turmoil, now gleamed with sudden brilliance.

“Leader?”

Everyone turned to look at Ludger.

They’d instinctively noticed the change in his aura.

“...What is it? You suddenly look different.”

Rimle was the ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) first to pick up on the subtle shift.

Until just now, Ludger had been furrowing his brow, trying to solve the problem.

But now, it was as if he’d thrown off every chain that had been holding him back.

It wasn’t resignation.

It was liberation.

“Just realized how ridiculous it is... making something so simple so damn complicated.”

“Simple?”

“Yes. Why was I overthinking it?”

Ludger turned and looked back down the hallway—the path they’d just retreated from.

“We could just smash everything head-on.”