Since the moment the Knight had teleported over to deliver the finis.h.i.+ng blow on the King, he had sensed that some kind of spell was forming under him.
Although he knew that it was something potentially dangerous, this was the final point of the fight where he had to put everything he had on the line in order to ensure victory. Thus, he had decided to activate his personal barrier which would definitely be able to withstand any Exalted Human Mage level attack long enough so that he could kill the King and flee the premises.
Now, hearing the confident words of the kid in front of him who was supposed to be quivering with fear due to seeing the death that was going to consume him, the Knight got the feeling that he had missed something.
Indeed, after saying those words, the King of Lanthanor looked down, which made the Knight follow his gaze to see the incredible sight below him.
At some point of time, the barrier he was in had been encircled by a bowl which looked like it was made of metal.
This thing had definitely not been conjured in an instant, making the Knight realise that this had all been calculated by the young kid in front of him who he thought was easy pickings.
The metal construct had been conjured beforehand and hidden under the ground, till the moment the Knight moved to appear in front of the King.
Even though they were Exalted Human Mages, there was still a small cooldown between teleportations.
The Knight had just teleported over, and although he tried to initiate teleportation again to get away from this place which made his instincts scream that it was very dangerous, it was too late.
Just as the last word exited the King of Lanthanor"s mouth, the sound of some heavy object falling entered the Knight"s ears.
BOOM
The next moment, the Knight found that the image in front of his eyes had s.h.i.+fted to the wide sky above them.
In fact, this s.h.i.+ft in position was so sudden that he couldn"t even completely comprehend what was happening.
THUD
As he landed on the ground and hastily got up to shake his head to get rid of vertigo, he looked up to see the King of Lanthanor still standing at the same place as before with a smile on his lips.
Only, he was over half a kilometer away from his position.
The Knight was completely uninjured, which made him feel as if the King was just playing with him. With a snarl appearing on his face, he tried to teleport again to get back to attacking the King.
Yet, shock replaced the snarl as he realized that he could no longer teleport.
Looking around, he finally realized where he was.
The darned King had actually thrown him out of the sphere of the formation distortion!
The instant after this realization appeared in his mind, multiple dragon claws wound around the barrier that was protecting him that had also resulted in him being catapulted backward into the area where the formation was still in effect.
Everything seemed to be preplanned, as the claws successfully broke through his barrier before enveloping him tightly.
Just as he was about to take out a s.p.a.ce lock breaking trinket from his pocket, a cylindrical metal object covered his vision before a ball of bright light formed in its depths which sent a chill down his spine.
He knew that the moment he moved, that ball would decimate him into pieces. Although the green flame was still trying to eat away the dragon claws to allow him to escape, he found that it was a losing battle as it had already been used multiple times before, decreasing its power.
He, a Tenebrous Knight of the Church, had actually been captured!
Looking back at the King, he tried to figure out just what had happened.
As he did so, he saw a sight which he would remember till the end of his days.
In front of the King of Lanthanor, a catapult which was made of different elements was just fading away into the air.
With his elemental vision, he could clearly see that each and every element was harmoniously working together in order to bring out the effect of a catapult.
In fact, it could only be called a catapult in the loosest sense of the word. Essentially, it was just two semi-spheres of metal attached together by a wooden block which was placed on a wooden ledge.
Only, the entire thing had been built underground, in a wide rectangular pit that had been extracted at some point of time and filled with loose earth in order to momentarily fool his eyes.
At the moment he had teleported over, all the earth had been gathered into a solid ball which fell on the other semi-sphere of metal which was in the air, causing the counter force to send him flying.
The Knight knew that it was impossible for an Exalted Human Mage to actually conjure solid blocks of any material or element in a small period of time. To overcome this limitation, the King of Lanthanor had actually conjured boards of wood before fixing them together using nails of metal and a layer of ice on top of them to completely secure the block. Meanwhile, the metal semicircular spheres were also actually made of ice before a layer of metal was added over them.
Again, this had enabled the King to overcome the limitation of the extra difficulty inherent in conjuring large amounts of metal in an area where many metal elemental particles weren"t present. After all, this was a clearing surrounded by forests, which meant that water and wood elemental particles were in abundance making it so that conjuring anything out of these elements was easiest.
After taking in everything with his eyes, he couldn"t help that mouth the three words that had appeared in his mind.
Paragon Magical Construct.
Being in possession of high skill levels in all elements, it was only Paragons who could create such incredible magical constructs that could allow them to go up against even entire armies using just their own power.
In fact, there had even been a paragon in his homeland who had protected his Kingdom from over 5,000 soldiers using artillery only he had conjured.
This was why Paragons were so highly valued: not only were they capable of fighting those above their level, they could even overcome the limitation of being unable to handle hordes of enemies like other normal fighters and mages on the same level.
At this moment, with all avenues closed to him, the Knight could only think of one thing to do: activating the secret switch inside him which would allow the green fire to consume him, leaving nothing behind.
Yet, he found that he was interested in the brat in front of him who could even put the geniuses from his homeland to shame.
Since coming to this continent, he had only felt disgust and ridicule over these people whom he considered as nothing more than ants.
Seeing a lion emerge from these ants, he found himself endlessly interested in this individual who was the King of Lanthanor.
Oaths bound him from releasing any crucial information, and there were no methods whatsoever with which he could be stopped from activating the switch which would destroy him.
Indeed, the very fact that he was having such thoughts signified that he had failed his mission and even ended up being captured by the one he had called an easy target.
Finding that even communication trinkets had been blocked completely, he smiled at the thoroughness of the King before wondering whether he had lost due to being too confident.
No, no matter how much he thought about it, he realized that there would have been no way to kill this man who had showed talent that would definitely shock the entire continent and even the Church which was levels above the strongest force on this land.
The information about his power level had been too closely hidden, which meant that the only other possible outcome was that he might have managed to get away instead of being captured.
Alas, it was too late. The Knight was a smart man; all the laughter and glee from before had only been to incite the King and also to rile himself up for the fight. Calming down and thinking about everything, he found that the King of Lanthanor was a much more terrifying person than what the Withering Leaf Sect Master gave him credit for.
After breaking one last trinket that he always hid inside his mouth as a false tooth and putting one last-ditch attempt to finish his mission into effect, the Knight completely surrendered with a smile on his face, waiting for the King to walk forward to address him.