This was bad.
Maximus had ultimately not shown himself in the sewers.
Astraea’s performance had been even better than he expected.
But the moment he saw that goblin mage emitting black mist, his powerful instincts told him something was wrong.
Maximus was one hundred and twenty-three years old.
There weren’t many new things he hadn’t seen in the Human Kingdom and he was certain that the black mist was dangerous, and that it had never appeared before.
What was that black mist?
He didn’t know.
In the sewers, his powerful perception had carefully observed the black mist for a moment, but like the little elf, he couldn’t make heads or tails of it.
This was abnormal.
As one of the combatants standing at the pinnacle of the world, Maximus’s perception was far beyond that of an average person.
For something to be unreadable even to him, just how high-level was it?
The great knight nearly couldn’t help slaughtering that goblin mage on the spot.
But in the end, he held back.
Maximus exercised restraint.
First, he didn’t want Astraea to know he’d been following her.
Second, that goblin mage was just a small fry—letting it go was no big deal.
“I can’t go and get myself killed.”
Though it was just a mutter to herself, Maximus still caught every word the little elf said.
She headed deeper into the sewers.
After watching her turn away, the great knight rested his hand on his sword hilt and followed at a slow pace.
The armor he had conjured was no longer of much use, and there was no need to wear that Dragon Scale Gold Armor…
Maximus wore no armor.
To him, armor forged from mortal materials had long lost its meaning.
He drew the two-meter longsword from his waist.
Maximus gave a cold snort and slashed.
“Hmph. A cheap trick.”
In less than two microseconds, a goblin’s head rolled to his feet.
A faint golden light flickered in the duke’s eyes, allowing him to see everything clearly in the completely dark sewers.
Dozens of hobgoblins, their bodies shrouded in black mist, lurked in the darkness, wielding steel-wrought maces.
Could goblins even forge steel?
Though the reports had mentioned that goblins had started obtaining iron weapons, this steel was clearly too overpowered, right?
Even in a standard human town, this kind of steel couldn’t be forged, yet here it was in goblin hands.
Was this reasonable?
No, was this logical?
It absolutely wasn’t logical!
The Royal Capital Sewers discharged so much filth every day, filled with flammable gases.
These goblins had no place to set up a furnace and smelt iron.
There could only be one reason: these goblins definitely had a passage connecting to the outside world, and they had formed an organized, large-scale goblin settlement beyond.
Within less than a millisecond, Maximus’s super-brain had already made this deduction.
At the same time, the longsword in his hand didn’t even get a single drop of goblin blood on it.
“Thud.”
A circle of over a dozen hobgoblins fell to the ground simultaneously.
The black mist on their bodies dissipated along with them or had it dissipated?
At any rate, he could no longer sense the presence of that black mist.
“If you only have such skills, sir, you’d better leave the Royal Capital quickly.”
After a flourish of his sword that most people couldn’t see, Maximus spoke coldly into the darkness ahead.
In his perception, a large figure was standing there.
How did he confirm it was a goblin and not an orc?
Because the duke could see the other party’s pointed ears and hooked nose.
A super-large goblin, about the same height as the duke, stepped out.
It spoke in broken human language to the duke: “You… human?”
The Goblin Chieftain carried a steel rod wrapped in black mist.
The chieftain wasn’t sure if the creature before it, as tall as itself, was human.
In its memory, humans shouldn’t be this tall.
Maximus was also shocked by the Goblin Chieftain’s size.
What amazed him even more was that this goblin could actually speak.
Though he had already guessed these goblins possessed intelligence, this was the first goblin he had ever seen that could talk.
The great knight wasted no words.
He drew the longsword from its scabbard again and unleashed a smooth combo.
Horizontal slash, vertical chop, upward strike, downward press.
If it had been an ordinary knight, they probably couldn’t have reacted in time and would have been cut into eight pieces by Maximus’s technique.
But the Goblin Chieftain reacted.
Not only did it react, but it also swung its steel rod and exchanged blows with Maximus back and forth.
Their immense power caused the colliding steel rod and longsword to spark violently, igniting the flammable gases around them in an instant.
Fortunately, the Royal Capital had always been recycling fermentation gases from the sewers.
Even if the retained gases exploded, they wouldn’t blow up the entire city.
But the sudden explosion was enough to separate the Goblin Chieftain and Maximus.
After the flames from the explosion died down, the great knight saw his longsword, now reduced to just half its length.
Those hundreds of sword clashes per second had been too much for this ordinary blade.
Maximus drew another longsword from his waist and infused it with his own life force.
A glint of essence flashed across the blade.
The great knight raised his head again to look at the Goblin Chieftain, which now bore a wound he had inflicted.
“Human, you are strong. Why not… pledge loyalty… #%#%?”
The words from the Goblin Chieftain became jumbled.
At least Maximus couldn’t understand its last word.
But Maximus could see that after speaking that word, the black mist on the Goblin Chieftain’s body suddenly began to surge.
Flesh and blood started to grow rapidly on its wounds, quickly stitching together on their own.
“Praise @%@$!”
The Goblin Chieftain loudly praised some unknown entity.
Its eyes, wreathed in black mist, stared at Maximus, as if waiting for the great knight’s reply.
Maximus gripped his longsword tightly.
Life force continuously surged from his life seed, forming a barrier in front of him.
This barrier blocked the surging black mist three meters away from Maximus.
The black mist rolled, and Maximus smelled an aura of blasphemy from it.
“By the All-Father!”
The great knight roared.
Golden flames suddenly burst from his body.
The flames began to spread along his life force, and when they reached the barrier, strands of black mist were seared out of the life force.
The great knight immediately felt his soul lighten somewhat.
This damned black mist could pollute people!
Maximus’s multi-threaded brain immediately thought of the Royal Capital Guards who had been carrying out cleansing operations in the sewers, and in the next instant, he also thought of the priests of the Church of All-Father.
Though he was blessed by the All-Father, he couldn’t spend every day doing nothing but purifying the black mist pollution for the Royal Capital Guards.
So this time, he would have to swallow his pride and cooperate with the Church of All-Father.
He needed the priests of the All-Father to perform a large-scale purification for all the Royal Capital Guards who had rotated through these days.
Many people had rotated through.
Those people had then come into contact with the commoners of the Royal Capital…
Could it be that the black mist hadn’t polluted the commoners at all?
No, not just the Royal Capital Guards.
Over the past month, the Royal Capital Guards might have made things even worse.
Before they discovered the goblins in the sewers, the commoners of the Royal Capital had probably already been polluted.
What was needed now was a large-scale purification covering the entire Royal Capital.
While one of Maximus’s brain processes considered cooperating with the Church of All-Father, the golden flames had already collided with the surging black mist outside the barrier.
The golden flames burned the black mist with a “hissing” sound, while the black mist, relying on its sheer quantity, could extinguish the golden flames alive.
The two sides were locked in a stalemate.
Watching this, Maximus’s heart grew heavier.
This black mist could actually contend with the flames of the All-Father.
Maximus didn’t believe the worst-case scenario—that even the Church of All-Father had been polluted.
These years, the black mist hadn’t spread within the Royal Capital.
But it wasn’t impossible.
As far as Maximus knew, every year the Church of All-Father in the Royal Capital used a large number of goblin long ears to replace the rare elves as sacrifices to the All-Father.
Those priests must have known long ago that there were large numbers of goblins in the sewers.
It seemed he would have to finish this business in the sewers quickly.
The great knight now blazed with golden flames.
Like an angel of the All-Father, he held a longsword also wreathed in flames and charged at the Goblin Chieftain.
The black mist hissed as it burned.
With a powerful swing, the great knight’s golden sword slammed fiercely into the steel rod wreathed in black mist.
The Goblin Chieftain did block Maximus’s powerful strike, but the golden flames quickly spread along the steel rod upon contact, burning the black mist on the rod into nothingness.
“Die, Heteromorph!”
The golden light on Maximus grew denser and denser, finally overwhelming the black mist on the Goblin Chieftain.
The burning chieftain let out a scream.
It spat out a sentence Maximus couldn’t understand at all, then could no longer hold on and collapsed to the ground.
The moment he heard that sentence, Maximus felt his head spin, but under the influence of the All-Father’s power, he quickly regained clarity.
Without hesitation, Maximus thrust his sword into the Goblin Chieftain’s two hearts and twisted it to shreds.
With the death of the Goblin Chieftain, the black mist that had filled the area, like water without a source, was quickly burned away by the golden flames.
The corpse of the goblin boss was also enveloped in golden light, instantly incinerated until only a skeleton remained.
The golden light and flames were withdrawn back into Maximus’s body.
The sewers returned to darkness.
Should he continue deeper?
For the first time in his invincible years, Maximus felt hesitation.
They were just goblins, after all but looking at the skeleton of the Goblin Chieftain and recalling those troublesome black mists…
Maximus chickened out.
He couldn’t be sure if an even more powerful existence than the Goblin Chieftain lay deeper.
So he decided to play it safe—at the very least, he’d have to drag that paladin from the Church along too.