Gerard touched his face with a shocked expression.

Juan lay on his back, facing the sky, since he no longer had the strength to maintain his mana arm. However, his eyes were still fixed on Gerard.

“This is just, this is… but how, where…”

“You’re scared, aren’t you?”

Elkihel, which Gerard had taken back from Haild, was hidden in a secret place that only Gerard could access. As far as Gerard knew, Elkiehl could only be brought out using his own spell—but what he didn’t know was that there was one more Elkiehl.

Gerard didn’t know about this fact, but Juan and Sina did.

“Dane Dormund gave it to me as a gift. He told me to make sure to kill you when he did.”

It was the Elkiehl in the form of a dagger—the dagger that Dane had given Sina while trying to convince her to assassinate Juan at the Magic Tower.

“According to him, that was the way for him to take back the Crown… although he ended up dying first.”

Gerard touched the wound on his face once more, a look of disbelief still visible on his face. His wound had stopped bleeding, but the fact that he had been cut could not be reversed.

The power of Elkihel took effect as soon as it left a wound on Gerard. The Crown would immediately be liberated if Juan were to take the crown away, and then death would be instantaneous if Juan tried to take his life.

Gerard felt that all the time that he had endured until now and all the future that waited for him was crumbling down. His vision began to feel distant and he felt the ground beneath his feet shaking.

‘Is this how everything I accomplished collapses? Was it all in vain? Just because of a trivial...