The lid of the jar popped open by itself, and a strange black smoke crawled out of it. The smoke quickly rose and distorted into a vaguely human figure.

“What witchcraft is this?!” Baron Bill yelled, swinging his hammer towards the smoke.

The Hog Rider stared.

The hammer passed through the smoke, hitting the ground with a loud thud.

Baron Wolf slashed his sword through the smoke, but it also passed through the smoke. His eyes widened as he yelled, “Bill, this is an evil spirit! We need to run..”

Before he could finish speaking, two streams of black smoke penetrated their nostrils.

Baron Bill’s arms glowed with black light, and a strange howl resounded from his body.

It seemed that he was fighting for dominance against the smoke as he thrashed around in its grip, but Baron Bill soon lost the brilliance in his face, and the same happened to Baron Wolf.

The two of them fell to the ground, their eyes and mouths wide open in horror.

It seemed as if their energy was sapped out of their bodies in an instant, and wisps of white smoke were siphoned from their bodies into the jar, feeding into its physical form.

The two knights might look alive, but they were very much dead.

The evil spirit retreated into its jar, and a strange, otherworldly voice could be heard: “I am very satisfied with this transaction. As promised, I shall make a move for your Brotherhood. The next trade will cost you three knights.”

The evil spirit’s voice pounded in both of their ears.

The Hog Rider lowered his head and whispered, “Yes, Spirit of the Lamp.”

“As we have discussed,” the Hog Rider said coldly. “The three of you were attacked by a legendary evil spirit, and both barons perished in battle. Only by the Holy Brilliance of the Loving Father did you escape with your life.”

“I understand,” Baron Fox replied. “But would they believe it?”

“It doesn’t matter if they don’t—no one will come for you. The church will use your words as a means to spread its word. The King himself will secretly be relieved that he doesn’t have to oversee two barons anymore. Besides, you could simply show them their bodies; it would be impossible to explain how they died. It’s a pity that the Black Snake Knight did not join us today, but as promised, here are your thousand gold coins. Pleasure doing business with you, and may chaos be with us.”

Baron Fox waited until the Hog Rider left before sighing and picking up the bag of gold coins.

For his small territory, this was worth almost ten years of revenue.

With this money, he could easily purchase dozens of pieces of high-quality knight armour. Even at the risk of being discovered by the church, he had to.

“That evil spirit.. It seemed like Baron Bill was able to fight against it for a short while, but he died within seconds..”

Baron Fox had lingering fears about how invincible the evil spirit was.

“No matter. Now that the Brotherhood has come into possession of evil spirits, it is time for the Kingdom and the Church to suffer.”

Winter was approaching, and Baron Fox had to do anything to become as strong as possible before winter fell.

Levi learnt by word of mouth that Baron Bill and Baron Wolf had encountered an evil spirit and died suddenly.

Levi could feel a drop of cold sweat running down his forehead.

“It’s good I didn’t go, then. Even if the rumours aren’t true, I’m sure Baron Fox had ill intentions.”

He was dubious about the rumours. He knew evil spirits existed, but seeing that Baron Fox was still alive made him suspicious.

But Levi had more things to worry about.

“Knights can’t deal with them. That is something for wizards to deal with. Magic must be dealt with using magic.”

Spring was over, and the summer of the Fire Moon was here.

After more than a month, the Church’s investigation into the deaths of Baron Bill and Baron Wolf came to a conclusion.

They were killed by an evil spirit.

For a moment, the country fell into a state of panic—for the longest time, evil spirits were mere urban legends, a lie that adults told to scare restless children. Now, its existence has been confirmed by the Church itself.

The Pope warmly reminded the people to always keep the Church’s Holy Radiance Badge close to them. This was how Baron Fox survived the ordeal.

Coincidentally, the price of these badges increased sharply—from the mere price of one gold coin to a hundred gold coins.

Nobles and aristocrats bit the bullet and bought them; none of them felt at ease without wearing one.

Meanwhile, the Blackwater Valley was largely unbothered by this.