After choosing to leave, they regretted it.

Just a simple provocation and he really took the bait.

This guy is as good at using his brain as he is at one-on-one combat.

The Faceless King's smile grew even more smug.

It was well prepared and suddenly lifted itself up and floated into the air, easily dodging Aize's full-strength blow.

The sickle was raised, ready to cut the opponent in half the moment he lost his balance.

"You've been fooled, Brave Aize, you...ah?"

Then, it stared blankly at Aize taking advantage of the momentum to roll, and using the opportunity it had to dodge, it passed directly past him and ran out of the alley in one breath.

He even turned around and made a face in return.

"You're... not good!"

In an instant, a fierce rain of fire emerged from the darkness of the night, exploding and igniting the entire alley, instantly engulfing the figure of the Faceless King.

Villian had been observing the battle.

The reason why he didn't take action just now was because the positions of the two people were constantly changing and intertwining due to the high-intensity close combat, and if he was not careful, Aize would be accidentally injured.

The Faceless King also knew this, so he never gave Azer a chance to move away, and kept using his position to force him into the alley.

Unfortunately, just when he thought he had succeeded, he was severely tricked.

Fortunately, he reacted in advance and immediately transformed his body into the appearance of a fire-resistant fire demon, so he managed to hold on and not be killed instantly.

However, a considerable portion of the body was still directly vaporized, transforming into a deadly pale yellow poisonous mist that spread out, not only obscuring the view but also turning several surrounding buildings into liquid form.

Knowing that the guy wouldn't be killed so easily, Aize stood in the center of the street, raised his sword, and began to gather magic power, ready to strike a big blow the moment it appeared.

Then--

"Don't even think about running!!!"

At a speed far beyond expectations, the charred body of the Faceless King rushed out of the poisonous fog circle, transformed into the appearance of a bird-shaped monster, and rushed straight towards Aize.

Because of negligence, he was marked by Villian's tracking. There was no point in running away, and if he tried to fight head-on, he would be directly blown to pieces by long-range attacks.

So I have to get entangled with Aize.

This is the only chance to win.

For this reason, it had already transformed even before it felt the pain of its body being burned, and was determined to catch Aize before he could gain a firm footing.

Fortunately, I managed to catch up.

With such a short time, there is no time to charge up the powerful offensive technique. I must be able to successfully capture this hero before that.

Then, it noticed that the corner of the brave warrior Aize's mouth in its field of vision raised.

An inexplicable fear arose spontaneously.

"Remember, when facing the Brave Aize, you must always maintain your highest vigilance. If you think you have the situation under control and victory is certain, then congratulations, you are not far from being defeated by him."

This was the advice given by the Demon King himself before setting out, but the Faceless Man scoffed at it at the time.

Now that I think about it, in the entire confrontation starting from the assassination of Jarlsberg, every round of its confrontation with Aize seemed to meet this condition.

Then this time...

boom! ! !

A loud noise and a blue flash interrupted the Faceless King's thoughts. A solid wall suddenly rose up and completely enveloped him, making him unable to move.

Very advanced freezing magic.

It's not launched from a distance, but set here as a trap.

Aize had just been standing in the center of this trap to lure him in. The magic he cast with his sword was defensive magic to protect himself from its influence, rather than an offensive spell to counterattack.

Their goal from the very beginning was to capture him alive.

All of my actions are calculated.

The extremely low temperature not only restricted the Faceless Man's movements, but also made his consciousness increasingly blurred.

There's nothing I can do.

(There is no other way.)

The Faceless King sighed softly in his mind.

----------

As a witch, Villian is even more fragile than Aize. Once involved in close combat, she can easily be ambushed and killed instantly by the Faceless King.

So, according to Aize's arrangement, after setting the trap, she immediately distanced herself and provided support and monitored everything that happened from an absolutely safe position.

He only rushed over when the spell was activated.

He mobilized his magic power to contact a part of the ice and pulled out Aize, who was also frozen inside.

“Ah—A-choo!!!”

Aize, who was only wearing thin clothes, had purple lips and was shaking all over.

"It's so cold... so cold... I didn't expect it to still be this cold after activating the defensive spell... snooze—sneezes—oh no, I feel like I'm going to catch a cold..."

"Isn't that natural?! How could a technique that instantly freezes the demon leader be completely blocked by the defensive technique built into the sword? If I hadn't been careful when I activated it, you'd be dead! Quick, put this on!"

The heartbroken witch snapped her fingers, and magic power immediately condensed in the air, turning into several extremely hot fireballs that circled around Aize and dispelled his chill.

At the same time, he took out a blanket from the storage space and covered him with it.

In this way, Aize's face looked a little better.

He smiled awkwardly:

"Don't say that. Although... Achoo—although it was a bit risky, I did get some useful information, so it was still a win."

Relying on the positioning technique, as long as the Faceless Man escapes from that strange virtual state, Villian can lock his position very accurately in the first time.

In this case, as long as you use spells and puppets to carry out long-range attacks, you can easily eliminate the target without having to engage in close combat.

But Aize did it anyway.

The reason was simple: he wanted to get as much information as possible.

Although the Faceless King is cunning, he is also a real chatterbox with an extremely strong desire to express himself.

Fight it at close range, then show your disadvantage to make it proud, and then maybe it will inadvertently reveal some valuable information.

In this way, regardless of whether the arrest is successful, more evidence can be obtained for subsequent judgments.

And this is indeed the case.

"That thing, I don't know how it did it, but it did completely replicate the Marquise's swordsmanship, not just learning and imitating. An ordinary Faceless Man would never be able to do that."

"Also, that guy seemed to have been in the Holy City around the time I was first summoned. He even knew some very private things. This is very strange."

These two points are worth paying attention to.

But Villian didn't have much patience to listen to his analysis of these things at the moment.

He even raised his hand and slapped him on the head in extreme anger:

"You're still saying you won't freeze to death! Once you've cooled down a bit, go back to the tent, boil some water, take a nice bath, and drink some hot soup or hot drinks. Otherwise, you'll get seriously ill. What do you think of your body?!"

Aize covered his face with a blanket and shrugged:

"That won't do. The Immortal Dynasty's siege is underway right now. How can I possibly go back and rest? What if—A-choo!!—this is a full-scale assault? The pre-arranged plan might not be enough to deal with it. I have to rush over now!"

This series of encounters with the Faceless King was an unexpected and sudden event. Preventing the Undead from invading and protecting Lilbas remained the most important task at hand.

Although Aize had arranged some defensive measures before leaving to find the succubus, if it really was a general attack, there would still be a risk of defeat without his own on-the-ground command.

This is absolutely unacceptable.

"You—never mind! Whatever you want!! I won't take care of any headaches or fevers you get later!"

Villian was furious, but defending the city was no joke.

He could only turn around with a sullen look on his face, intending to first put the frozen Faceless King into a special storage space that was completely isolated from the outside world, and lock him up completely so that he could study him slowly.

Then, her eyes widened:

"Aize, look!!"

"Um?"

Aize, who was still shaking, turned around and looked in the direction the other party pointed.

It was discovered that the Faceless King was frozen to death, and the bird-shaped monster body he had just transformed into had disappeared, turning into a pool of pure liquid embedded in the ice.

It is highly similar to the appearance of the Faceless Men who were killed before.

"His vital signs have disappeared, but the tracking is still going on... Could this guy have committed suicide before losing consciousness? He'd rather do this than hide this secret!? Damn it!"

Villian was furious.

Aize paid such a huge price just to capture it alive and solve all the questions.

As a result, this happened just when he was destined to fail. He couldn't afford to play the game to the extreme, and all the risks and efforts that Aize had taken were wasted.

Aize himself was very calm.

He sighed, stood up and patted Miss Witch on the shoulder:

"Okay, it's okay, don't get excited."

"But--"

"It's nothing to worry about. This is within our expectations, isn't it?"

"But if that's the case, wouldn't everything you've done be in vain?!"

"It wasn't all in vain, at least we've gotten rid of this scourge. As for the rest... we can take our time. There's no rush. For now, we should focus on the undead army."

"……whispering sound."

Villian's teeth were about to grind to pieces, but at this point there was nothing she could do and she could only turn her head away in anger.

And Aize looked at the frozen liquid that symbolized the death of the Faceless Men again and shook his head slowly.

Is this guy really dead?

Is it really that simple?

In Jarlsburg, the Faceless King became interested in Rosaline and the Faith Network, and thus abandoned his original plan. He even took almost all of his kind to leave the Demon Clan, for which he was wanted by the Demon King himself.

The price is not small.

A plan that had cost such a huge price, but halfway through, the target inexplicably changed from Rosaline to himself?

This is not logical at all.

Besides, there are much better ways to get rid of yourself, there is no need to go through so much trouble.

If that's the case, then using the faith network to start a riot in Lilbas and kill me was just part of the plan?

Is their real target still Rosaline?

Can't figure it out.

There is no time to think about this now.

Aize shook his head again and looked at Villian

"Vir, collect the remains of this guy first. Maybe you can find something later."

"Ok."

"After we finish collecting, let's go straight to the city wall. We... A-choo!! We still have work to do!"

----------

After Aize left to pursue the Faceless King, large-scale violent conflicts broke out almost immediately in the area around the Dark Alley.

Conflict is a nice way of saying it.

The actual situation was a one-sided beating.

The anger accumulated by the locals in the last shelter incident is far from subsiding, and a whole week of preaching that can be regarded as performance art has further fermented it.

Combined with the real persecution of Aize that the believers had just carried out in public, the residents had almost lost their minds.