MIDNIGHT PRINCE: Empire of Sin

The wind stirred and the ground imploded. Waves of heat, blinding light and deafening sounds created a veritable cacophony of pure destruction.

Mark felt like he was like a lone boat sailing on the high sea during a tempest. He would have been completely swept away but suddenly, all the shockwave went past him.

Looking up, he could see an ice barrier had formed around him and was protecting him.

He immediately recognized the aura of the Director and sighed in relief. His old bones had not been ready for this clash of power.

He sighed in awe as he could now witness the standoff between the two lightning. There was a certain beauty in the chaos, an elegance in the destruction.

But everything eventually had an end.

*Crack*

It was a small sound. One nearly impossible to perceive with all the other thunderous sounds mixed in. But that one sound was the sign of the end.

Boom!

A final explosion went off as a storm of Prana swept off entirely the field.

The winner had been decided.

—--

*Huff* *Huff* *Huff*

Adam felt like his lungs were on fire. Breathing was becoming nearly impossible and his vision was getting blurry.

*Cough*

He landed heavily on the ground, unable to keep himself up in the air, and simply went on a knee.

'Did I get her?'

He shook his head, knowing that he had just raised a stupid flag, and sure enough,

*Step*

The sounds of her footsteps reached his ears and through his blurry vision, he could see her shadow advancing toward him. He sighed. His energy was still running. Thanks to his special circulation, it was impossible for him to lack Prana. But even though he still had enough energy, his body was at breaking point.

There was nothing more he could do.

"I lost it seems."

He stopped propping himself up and fell on his back. Lying down had never felt so good. The hard ground felt suddenly soft and he wished for nothing more than to close his eyes.

A Shadow stopped the light from reaching his face.

"You won."

His gaze crossed with that of Makoto. There was a great turmoil in her eyes as she held a broken stump of what should have been her sword.

"*Cough* What do you mean?"

She threw the stump away and crouched down before helping back up. Propping him on her shoulder, she began to walk toward Mark as well as a crimson-haired woman who was looking at them with a strange expression.

"At the last moment, my divine sword protected me. So, you won."

"Heh…I don't remember us saying that you were forbidden from using your main weapon."

Makoto stayed silent. Indeed they did not. But this did not matter to her. Divine weapons were sentient. Kusanagi in particular was a Tsukumogami [1] a weapon with a spirit and its own will.

Even to this day, she had never been able to have a proper discussion with the spirit inside and had been barely recognized.

The fact that her divine weapon protected her at the last moment despite this cold relationship could only mean that her life had been in danger.

'Kuh.'

She gritted her teeth, clearly despondent about the situation. But was thankfully stopped from going too deep in negativity.

"Hahah! *Cough* *Cough*"

"Be careful."

"Nah. It's just. Don't you find it ridiculous how the supposed winner is looking beat up to death while the loser only has a few wounds?"

Adam grinned as strength entered his legs and he stood by himself,

"Thanks for the help."

He forced himself to walk even though his legs were trembling.

"Since none of us consider this a win, let's just say it was a draw."

He then gave a boyish smile and although his face was entirely covered in blood, Makoto had never felt someone who seemed so radiant.

"This was the best fight in my life to date. I hope we will have a rematch one day."

Makoto was stunned and looked at the hand stained with blood he was stretching toward her.

Her whole life, Makoto had only been exposed to jealousy, hatred, and ridicule from her peers.

With Adam's power, he would without a doubt be recognized as the heir apparent once he went back to the family and he had every right to feel extremely proud.

"Let's introduce each other again, shall we? I am Adam Gospel. Nice to meet you."

Makoto hesitated a little before slowly approaching her hand. She looked like a small rabbit that was wary of the food she was being given and was approaching with caution.

In the end, though, the rabbit surpassed its fear and held the bait. Her lonely heart sought comradeship from someone her generation and the fruit Adam was dangling in front of her seemed too delicious to pass on.

"Makoto….Makoto Kaminari. It was an honor to fight against you."

The smile on Adam's face stretched even more when the two finally shared a handshake.

He could see her color change from yellow to green and on her status page, the emotion of respect displayed increased greatly.

There was no mistake. Makoto could now be considered an ally and someone he could count on.

"Well, watching you seduce my dear disciple is fun and all. But now we need to leave."

Makoto flushed slightly and took her hand away before putting a knee on the ground with her fist closed.

"Teacher. I beg forgiveness for my shameful display."

"Stand up. You are making it seem like I am some harsh teacher. It was a beautiful fight. Well done."

Theresa simply ruffled Makoto's hair before looking at Adam deeply.

"It was indeed a very beautiful fight. I guess you are indeed Lady Mei's son."

"I was raised by Cecilia Gospel."

Adam did not reject his blood. He respected and admired the woman who sacrificed her life to give birth to him.

But he would never let anyone forget that he was Cecilia's son. Not even if that person was her sister.

"I see she did raise you well."

Theresa shrugged. She was quite happy to see her sister had not raised an ungrateful son.

For their given rank, the fight had been extremely spectacular. But in her opinion. Personality was more important than even talent.

"Well. You know the rules. Even though it was an incredible display of power. We can't give you a high rank now since you have zero achievements. At least this should have been the case if I didn't know what happened during the Demon summoning."

She waved her hand and a gold medal appeared on it.

"Adam Gospel. After review of your achievement and exam results. I give you the title of Honorary Gold rank Hunter. Your title will become official once you pass the psychological exam."

She clapped after pinning the medal on the chest of his thorn shirt.

"Congratulations."

All this while, Mark stood and looked around with a lost expression.

He had received too much information and bombshells one after another.

'I…Am I going to get silenced?'

Mark suddenly found his future seemed quite bleak.

.

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[1]: Tsukumogami are Spirit artifacts. Basically in Japanese myth, any object that is 99 years old or more can become a Tsukumogami. There is an interesting manga/anime about this topic called Tsugumomo. But honestly, this is incredibly common in most if not all JP and CN with special weapons. The most popular examples are Bleach with Shinigami and Full Bringer. Another one I can recommend is Seirei Tsukai no blade dance (Only the LN though. Anime is very mid)