Trafford's Trading Club

Chapter 1284: Your Generation Isn’t Cutting It

Strangely enough, once they stepped out of the castle gates, Gillian felt her power return—and precisely because it returned, she once again sensed just how terrifying Mordred truly was.

Around him, it was as if countless wailing resentful spirits and vicious ghosts were roaring without cease… these specters even seemed to be constantly trying to devour his body.

For an instant, what came to Gillian’s mind was pain… the pain of being torn apart by mad biting.

Yet it felt like nothing more than an illusion. When the cold wind blew, what she saw again was merely his ordinary, gaunt appearance.

From afar, she glanced at the fallen Lino, the Grand Knight… a powerful knight in his own right. If she had been the one facing him, she could only have relied on indirect tactics.

“You should’ve stopped the other knights too,” Gillian said with a frown. “By now, news of you leaving the prison has probably already been reported to the Knight Bureau… Forget it, let’s leave this place first.”

“Wait a bit longer. There are still a few little ones around,” Mordred said as he lifted his head to look into the night sky.

The witch froze. She saw that at some point, a transport aircraft was hovering in the sky. Three figures leapt down from it.

They landed and took up positions in a triangle. Gillian’s face immediately darkened when she saw them.

The three who had descended were none other than two of the Twelve Knights of the Round Table she had met a few hours earlier—Gareth and Joker.As for the third point of the triangle, there stood a woman dressed in a tailcoat.

A faint smile appeared on Gillian’s face as she brushed back her hair. “It seems dear Perkins still doesn’t trust me, sending several people to tail me all at once… As for this beautiful lady here, since you’re acting together with Gareth and Mr. Joker, you must be the only woman to inherit the name Lancelot Du-Lake—Lancelot herself, right?”

“I think he should’ve refused you from the very beginning,” Gareth said expressionlessly, his gaze fixed firmly on Mordred.

Mr. Joker and Lancelot were much the same. Neither of them paid much attention to the mind witch.

The witch clearly didn’t mind their disregard and said with a smile, “The people of Doomsday Myth are still lurking within your country… yet instead of hunting them down, you escort me all the way here. Aren’t you afraid of wasting time?”

“That’s hard to say. This place might be the bigger threat,” Joker said with a grin.

They were all closing in—Gareth, Joker, and Lancelot, step by step—completely sealing off every possible escape route the witch might have considered.

Even with the most vicious knight of old at her side, facing three of the Twelve Round Table at once still left her uneasy… especially since, as Mordred himself had said, the poison in his body had only been cleared by about fifteen percent.

Yes, he had shattered those statues of Grand Knights and former Knights of the Round Table in a single blow, but those were merely heroic spirits retaining only a fraction of their former strength.

Gareth and the others, however, had fully inherited the power of the Knights of the Round Table—modern knights at their absolute peak.

“So you are this generation’s Twelve Knights,” Mordred said as he looked them over, his gaze passing from Gareth to Joker, then to Lancelot, finally stopping on Lancelot with a slight frown.

“That’s right,” Gareth replied. In serious moments, he was reliable—far more so than Joker beside him. “Farrell, return to the castle. You still have seven hundred and ninety-three years left on your sentence.”

“Farrell…” Mordred drew in a light breath. “It’s been a long time since anyone called me that.”

“After all, you were stripped of the name Mordred,” Mr. Joker said, his smiling face turning into a crying one as he joked. “Even though the Knight Bureau has never been able to take away the inherited power of Mordred from you, leaving the name Mordred vacant to this day.”

Mordred—Farrell—fell silent for a moment before slowly speaking. “I promised this mind witch to help her with something. Once it’s done, I’ll come back. How about it? I don’t want to draw my sword against the Twelve Round Table here.”

“Well then…” Mr. Joker’s crying face turned back into a smile. “I suddenly thought of a better idea. If this woman dies, then you won’t have to leave, right?”

Whoosh—

A flash of cold light suddenly shot toward the mind witch—it was a throwing knife from Joker Dagonet’s hand.

Already on guard, the witch wasn’t startled and prepared to block, but the blade of the golden greatsword appeared before her, knocking the knife aside.

Joker’s knife wasn’t the real attack. The instant it was thrown, his figure moved. As the golden greatsword deflected the knife, he was already right in front of Farrell, throwing a simple punch straight at his face.

Don’t be fooled by Mr. Joker’s short stature and unassuming build. Among the current Twelve Knights, he was known for having the strongest physical body and the greatest raw strength.

Yet that direct hit failed to shake Farrell in the slightest—it didn’t even manage to shift his cheek.

In the next instant, Farrell tilted his head back slightly, then slammed it forward at incredible speed—his forehead smashing directly into Joker’s head.

Boom!

Joker was sent flying.

“To overpower Dagonet in sheer physical strength…” Gareth was shocked, but he reacted instantly. The moment Mr. Joker was knocked away, Gareth thrust his sword without hesitation.

The tip struck like lightning, unleashing eighteen rapid consecutive thrusts. Farrell, eyes closed, evaded them with ease. The sword wind that pierced through went on to punch eighteen holes into the wall by the castle gate behind him.

“Not fast enough.”

The voice sounded right beside Gareth’s ear. In the same instant, intense pain spread from his chest—the hilt of the golden sword had slammed directly into him, sending him flying just like Joker.

In only a few seconds, as Joker struggled to his feet, Gareth came crashing toward him. Joker managed to catch him.

They exchanged a glance, then simultaneously pulled necklaces from around their necks—the source of the Twelve Round Table’s power.

But just as their inherited power began to manifest, a dark shadow suddenly appeared before them. Light flowed over their bodies, about to summon the sacred armor that embodied the power of the Twelve Knights.

“Too slow! Too slow!”

Farrell swung the golden greatsword, striking Gareth and Joker once each. Before their sacred armor could fully form, it shattered instantly.

Gareth spat out a mouthful of blood. The inherited sacred armor hadn’t even been donned yet, and he had already been knocked down again.

“What kind of inheritors are you this generation?” Farrell swung again, this time sending Joker flying up into the air. “It takes a full second just to activate sacred armor—and you dare call yourselves the Round Table?”

At that moment, darkness enveloped Farrell from behind. A black-armored knight had appeared at his back without anyone noticing.

Black armor covered the figure from head to toe, strands of dark purple light flickering across it.

“You at least look somewhat decent—but only average.”

Farrell turned around. This time, the greatsword did not strike like a blunt blow—it came down in a clean slash.

The black-armored knight was shocked and hastily raised her sword to block, but the force of the cut drove half her body straight into the ground. Cracks instantly spread across the sword in her hands.

At the same time, a ripple-like shockwave burst outward. The trees around the castle were blasted flat, and only after spreading nearly a hundred meters did the wave finally dissipate.

This was only… a decorative replica, not the true inherited golden sword of Gawaine.

In less than ten seconds, the three Knights of the Round Table had been effortlessly defeated. Gareth coughed up blood, never having imagined that a human could be this powerful.

And yet… he still hadn’t used the inherited power of Mordred.

Thud.

Only now did Joker fall from the air, crashing to the ground and lying motionless—unconscious.

“With strength like this, when the darkness returns, when they appear again…” Farrell muttered to himself. “You won’t be able to stop even one of them.”

“Darkness… they?” Gareth staggered as he forced himself to stand.

Farrell shook his head. The golden sword spun once in his hand, then swept horizontally.

A blade of light shot out for a hundred meters, splitting the small island cleanly in two from where he stood.

Watching seawater pour in, Gareth felt as though he were suffocating.

“At the very least… it requires this level.”

Farrell casually thrust the golden greatsword into the ground, then left with the witch. The three Round Table knights—or more accurately, the two still conscious—no longer had the strength to stop him.

Gareth stumbled back a step and collapsed onto the ground—not from fear, but because several ribs had already shattered.

“So strong it’s ridiculous…” Gareth gave a bitter laugh.

Half-buried in the soil, the black-armored knight’s armor faded away, revealing delicate features that were just as pale and bloodless. She looked up at the night sky and saw an armed helicopter slowly rising and flying off into the distance.

After a long silence, she said softly, “Gareth, do you have the strength to pull me out?”

“Give me at least an hour… or you could try waking Joker.”

Lancelot: emmmmm……

……

This strength completely exceeded the bounds of humanity. And by his own words, only fifteen percent of the poison had been removed—which meant he was using barely one or two tenths of his true power.

Yes. Absolutely yes.

With this man’s help, it would be possible—certainly possible—to obtain that document: the Akashic Records.

There was no one in this world stronger than him.

Piloting the helicopter, the witch had a flush on her face. Her entire body was in a state of extreme excitement, and she kept glancing back at Mordred—or rather, Farrell—seated behind her.

She wasn’t sure if it was her imagination, but his face no longer seemed as gaunt as before… as if he’d gained just a little flesh.

The helicopter’s cabin door was open.

Farrell gazed outside. Below, the sea churned violently. Points of faint light poured from the bottle in his hand, falling onto the ocean surface. The glowing specks drifted with the waves, gradually dispersing before finally going dark.

These were the heroic spirits of the Grand Knights, once members of the Twelve Knights. Though only fragments, and unable to last long without a vessel, scattering them like this—wasn’t it a waste?

Even so, the witch merely opened her mouth and said nothing. After all, the one who truly knew Farrell had been her mother; she herself only knew his legends from various sources.

“Who was your father?” Farrell suddenly asked.

Gillian shrugged. “I never met him. My mother told me he died long ago… Maybe you can tell me something, since you seem to have known her?”

Farrell frowned. After a moment of silence, he asked, “Why do you know about the Akashic Records?”

The witch narrowed her eyes. “That starts with a musician who had great talent but loved adventure… What he obtained wasn’t the Akashic Records, just a few pages of the Dead Sea Scrolls. I made rubbings of those pages. The copies don’t have the Scrolls’ power, but as clues pointing toward the Akashic Records, they work just the same.”

“A few pages of the Dead Sea Scrolls aren’t enough to complete the markers,” Farrell said calmly. “No one has ever assembled the full Scrolls. Give up, and choose another request.”

“What—so even the most vicious knight in history, Mordred, shrinks back from the Dead Sea Scrolls?” Gillian smiled sweetly. “If that’s the case, your impressive feat of defeating three Knights of the Round Table alone will lose quite a bit of its shine in my eyes.”

“You really want to find the Akashic Records?” Farrell asked suddenly.

“Otherwise, I wouldn’t have gone through so much trouble to rescue you. It’s obviously not because I’m some little girl who worships you.”

“And after you find the Akashic Records,” Farrell asked again, “what do you plan to do?”

The witch looked ahead into the night sky and laughed like ringing silver bells—only laughter, no answer.

“My name is Farrell,” he said, also looking outside. “Mordred is already dead.”

“That doesn’t matter,” the witch said softly. “As long as you help me, I wouldn’t even mind calling you my lord.”

Farrell shook his head. “We’re going to Camlann.”

“Camlann?” The witch froze. “Isn’t that… why go there?”

“If we’re searching for the Akashic Records, then naturally we need to retrieve some things first,” Farrell said indifferently. “This document isn’t sought after by just a little witch like you.”

“You mean… non-humans?” the witch frowned. “Very strong? Stronger than you?”

“You wouldn’t want to know what true strength really is…”

He slowly closed his eyes and ignored her.

(End of Chapter)