Although it wasn’t officially disclosed yet, the information on the classes associated with the ‘Lich’ was already known.

Many Warlocks had gone through the quests related to the higher-hidden classes. And because of it being a Lich King Episode, hidden clues could be found everywhere.

The two known hidden classes were the Lich Mage, which Hoonie rejected, and the Lich Knight, a warrior class.

Ian already knew about the Lich Knight class.

‘Lich Knight? That is a 4th tier knight class…’

As of the moment, no user had advanced to a 4th tier class yet.

Even Ian wasn’t a 4th tier yet.

If Helliem was a Lich Knight class and Ian got him as a retainer, then he would be a user who has a retainer that has a higher class than the user.

That wasn’t a bad thing either.

However, Ian wanted to check the status window of Helliem right away, but he tried not to.

In order to check Helliem’s information, he first had to be made into a retainer.

“It has been a long time, Helliem.”

A bitter smile came on Helliem’s lips after he heard Ian’s voice.

“I never thought that I would see you again.”

“What’s with that?”

“If I had been left as the servant of Chalian, it would’ve been just a shell that would be left of me.”

“That makes sense.”

If Ian didn’t manage to destroy the Dark Sanctuary, then the soul of Helliem would’ve been trapped in there forever.

And if Helliem did lose his soul, he would probably not recognize Ian.

Helliem spoke once again,

“Since the time I joined the Imperial Knights, I only lived to serve the Luspel Empire.”

“Yes. You were faithful to the empire.”

“But now… there is no empire.”

Ian couldn’t respond to him after seeing the sadness on the face of Helliem. Helliem then continued with what he was saying.

“All of this couldn’t have happened just because of my distrust in God. My incompetence is to blame as well. I couldn’t defend my majesty, and eventually, it turned out like this.”

Ian who listened to Helliem couldn’t help but think.

‘Why are you blaming yourself? Kailan’s story was created to develop like this…’

Ian didn’t say those words out loud.

Ian’s thinking was interrupted when Helliem spoke again,

“Please cut my neck off. If the Grand Duke of the Luspel would punish me, then maybe that’s enough payment for my stupid actions.”

Ian then asked after hearing those unexpected words from Helliem,

“Price? You want to die in my hands?”

“Yes, Grand Duke. For the sin of not being able to defend the empire… wash me away with death.”

“…”

“Made an example out of me to the other Knights. If you take my life, then surely none of them will dare betray the empire.”

Thud-!

While kneeling in front of Ian, he banged his head on the ground so hard.

Subsequently, the other knights who were behind him knelt down altogether.

Ian and his party couldn’t help but feel that the situation became absurd.

‘Aren’t you overestimating yourself a little too much? How can one person alone stop the fall of the whole Empire?’

Ian was flustered at the excessive responsibility that Helliem took.

At the same time, crazy thoughts were going through his mind.

‘What will happen if I cut him down here? A level 470 myth class… won’t that be a salty experience?’

It made Ian laugh just thinking about that.

At the moment, Ian felt something surge throughout his body.

Woong-!

For the quest to progress, Kailan’s AI took over.

As Helliem approached, Ian or Ian’s AI suddenly pulled the sword that was stuck in the waist of Helliem.

Srrrng-!

A purple glow came out of the white sword.

After seeing that, Ian was much more flustered at what was happening.

‘Yah, crazy AI! You’re not really thinking of cutting him down, are you? Are you trying to get rid of an S class retainer with my own hands?’

Ian couldn’t say those words out loud, and the AI of Ian lifted the sword to the air.

‘…!’

All eyes were focused on Ian and Helliem, Ian’s mouth opened slowly,

“The Great Helliem.”

Helliem lifted his head that was on the ground upon hearing Ian’s call.

“Grand Duke.”

The two people began to talk.

“Your sins for not being able to defend the empire are grave.”

“I know, Grandee.”

“You and the Imperial Knights have certainly fought for Luspel with your lives on the line.”

“That… is.”

Ian and Helliem’e eyes met.

Ian then swung the sword down.

Thud-!

The sword fell in front of Helliem.

Ian’s words continued,

“I, Ian, won’t bury your sins.”

“Grandee…”

“One, I won’t ask of you, but your sins won’t go away.”

Ian picked up the sword that was on the floor and spoke,

“The Legion of Darkness that led the destruction of the empire, go against them to wash away you feeling of disloyalty!”

“…!”

“I, Ian of the Lotus Kingdom will take you as my servant.”

Thud-!

As soon as Ian’s words were finished, the knights kneeling in front of him bowed on one knee.

From the mouth of Helliem, a trembling voice came out,

“I will come back, Grand Duke majesty…!”

After seeing that, Ian who didn’t have to cut the neck of Helliem felt very glad.

‘Hu, thank god…’

Ian put his hand on the handle of the sword and pointed to the dozens of Imperial Knights in front of him.

Ian felt overwhelmed at the splendid scene he was seeing, and the system messages that he had been waiting for finally came up.

[Recruit ‘Helliem’ as the servant of the Lotus Kingdom.]

[Recruit ‘Rosen’ as the servant of the Lotus Kingdom.]

[Recruit ‘Million’ as the servant of the Lotus Kingdom.]

The best knights of the Luspel Empire.

After managing to recruit him, Ian quickly opened his information window.

However, Ian was shocked after seeing Helliem’s stats.

* * *

Helliem –

Level: 470

Race: Undead

Class: Knight (Dark Knight)

Status: Commander

Character: Valor

Talent Class: Myth

Combat Abilities (Expandable)

Detailed Abilities (Expandable)

Abilities

* Dark Vision

The Dark Knight Helliem can appear wherever the power of darkness resides.

The Dark Knights that appear in the darkness get explosive damage instantly, and nothing can cut off their sword.

Teleports a target that was hit by an enemy’s ‘dark’ attribute and deals 375% damage.

For the next 10 seconds after using Dark Vision, Helliem’s damage would be increased by 250%.

The cooldown of Dark Vision will reset if the enemy is killed. (Maximum of 10 times, the cooldown will not reset if the Dark Vision has been triggered 10 times in a row.)

(Usable Range: 20 meters)

(Cooldown time: 1 minute)

* Soul Destroyer

The Dark Knight Helliem is a soul destroyer.

The souls of his enemies can be cut off with his sword. Only Helliem could heal wounds inflicted to an enemy’s soul.

When Helliem attacks an enemy with a regular attack, there is a 15% chance of triggering this ability.

Inflicts 150% additional damage when dealing with the ‘dark’ attribute targets.

Provides an unrecoverable status for 15 seconds to the target.

(Passive)

* Dark Counterattack

The Dark Knight Helliem is good at counter-attacks.

If he dodges an enemy attack he will be able to use the ‘Dark Counterattack’.

Dark counterattack teleports him at the back of the target and inflicts an additional 150% damage.

(Passive)

* Chain Darkpulse

Helliem wields a sword that can expel a wave of darkness.

The wave of darkness inflicts 450% of damage dealt with the target and shots nearby enemies within the radius of 5 yards.

Darkpulse can deal up to 10 damage at a time.

Whenever the target of Darkpulse changes, its damage is reduced by half.

(Cooldown Time: 7 minutes)

A brave knight, former commander of the Imperial Knights of the Luspel Empire.

Turned to an Undead by the experiment done by the servant of Chalian, ‘Lacamer’, now he recovered his soul and became a special being.

He is now a Dark knight.

– – –

That was Helliem’s information window.

However, the most notable thing there was Helliem’s class.

His class wasn’t a ‘Lich Knight’ which Ian had expected.

‘What? A Dark Knight?’

An unusual class name.

Ian carefully read the whole information window of Helliem. After thoroughly reading everything, he was able to make rough guesses about the Dark Knight class.

He had an idea when he saw the description at the bottom of the window.

‘You got your soul back and became a variant before becoming a Lich Knight.’

Ian didn’t know much about the class called Lich Knight.

That was just normal since there weren’t any Lich Knight user in Kailan.

So knowing which one of the Dark Knight and the Lich knight were better was impossible.

But apart from that, Ian seemed to like the Dark Knight more.

Unlike the Lich Knight whose existence was known, the Dark Knight was very unique.

‘Its skill composition looks fun.’

Just as Ian had expected, the combat ability of Helliem was less than that of Kaizer’s.

However, when compared to the level of Kaizer which was 430, he was 40 levels higher and had superior abilities.

In addition, his skill and attack coefficient was better than that of Kaizer. Even if their level would become the same in the future, their overall combat abilities would be different.

‘Keu, I want to use them as soon as possible…!’

Every time he read the unique abilities of Helliem, Ian’s head kept calling him to link the skills.

‘If it is poorly linked to Darkpulse, it will be worth to see.’

The chain of Darkpulse was like the magic chain-lightening spell of the Wizard class that dealt damage while going against enemies.

When he imagined Helliem walking through the dark wave while wielding his sword, Ian couldn’t help but squirm out of excitement.

“Okay, let’s do it quickly! Contact Herz! We should join the siege now!”

They had finally figured out the Rataphel Domain, their biggest obstacle in conquering the Elrika Kingdom. Conquering the Elrika Kingdom was now just a matter of time.

With his newly acquired knights and Helleim, they could quickly capture the Elrika Kingdom.

But unlike Ian, his party members were tired.

“Ah, hyung. Let’s take a break.”

“Yeah, Ian. We haven’t even picked up the items yet.”

Ian just smiled fabulously in response to Levya.

As a result, the time-related quests proceeded very quickly, the dungeon was dropping items here and there which they couldn’t even pick up.

Ian smiled and spoke while looking at Levya and Remir.

“Then after the maintenance is done, aside from you two, will the others come for the guild siege?”

“…”

“Why now…”

It wasn’t just Ian, Hoonie and Yu Shin who were members of the Lotus Guild were a great asset to the guild.

Ian received the confirmation from the two. They then began picking up the dropped items in the dungeon.

There were no notable items that were dropped. However, since the dungeon had quite a high difficulty, any item they could get there would bring them a lot of money, so they made sure that they had picked up every item that was dropped.

Kaka who was flying from a distance threw some unusual object in Ian’s direction.