Banished to the Abyss After Defying the Author-Chapter 31: Silver Divides

Time resumed like nothing had happened.

Voices returned. Wind moved. Palace banners fluttered again beneath the artificial blue sky.

Noah stood alone in the courtyard for half a second before footsteps rushed toward him.

"Lord Noah! Where did you vanish?"

Astriye looked at him with concern.

Noah looked at her calmly.

"Lady Astriye, do you know that something unnatural is happening in your kingdom?"

She frowned slightly.

"No. I don’t sense anything unnatural."

Noah looked at her with skepticism but said nothing.

Then steel rang behind them.

Knights came charging directly at him without warning, swords drawn.

Noah sidestepped easily.

"You are the destroyer of this kingdom!" one of them shouted.

Astriye stepped forward quickly.

"Please calm down! Lord Noah is a good person!"

One of the knights turned and slapped her across the face.

She fell to the ground.

Noah looked at them.

He could sense their emotions clearly now. Amplified. Distorted. They weren’t thinking straight. They just wanted civil war, violence, anything to destabilize what remained.

He moved toward the knights.

One of them immediately drew his sword and slashed toward Noah.

Noah dodged, but the slash curved in midair and followed him.

He took a deep breath, pulled out the elixir he’d taken from Claus earlier, and drank it in one motion.

Then he stopped dodging.

He let the slash hit him.

It cut clean through.

But the regeneration from the elixir countered it instantly, and the wound sealed before blood could even fall.

Noah stood there fully healed and looked at them with a faint smile.

"You’re all doing this because someone told you to, aren’t you?"

The knights raised their swords together and used thunder magic.

Lightning exploded outward at light speed. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

Noah dodged each strike, moving between the attacks with precision.

He smiled.

"Oh, I understand now."

He ran toward them, still dodging effortlessly, grabbed Astriye, and leapt into the sky.

They burst upward, rising above the palace entirely until they were outside the borders of Solaris kingdom.

Noah looked down.

Below them, spirits drifted between rooftops. Phantasmal beasts stalked the streets openly now. The red haze was visible everywhere beneath the false sky.

Astriye looked at it with shock and fear.

"What... what is all this?"

Noah didn’t look away from the kingdom.

"Well, just think someone made a pact with an outer entity to destroy Solaris."

She looked at him.

"Why would someone do this?"

"Well, to know that, the best answer is... let’s find out."

She hesitated, then said, "But where should we start from?"

Noah looked at her.

"Does your kingdom have any old stories or prophecy about this? Or something similar?"

She shook her head.

"It doesn’t have any prophecy or story like that."

Noah smiled.

"Then there is someone who is doing this on their own. And also, that person has a lot of magical power."

She looked confused.

"What do you mean?"

Noah looked at the beasts below.

"Suppose you summon a dragon. You need to give energy to sustain that dragon, even if your energy is amplified by Real Sky."

Astriye blinked.

"What is even Real Sky?"

Noah sighed.

"Well, Real Sky is a place beyond all worlds. It exists as the prison for the sinners."

She looked completely confused.

Noah sighed again.

"Just forget it. You will understand on your own."

Astriye thought for a moment, then her eyes brightened.

"Lord Noah, I have an idea. Even if I don’t understand everything, if we want to find that person you mentioned with high magic power, then in my palace we have the records of every mage’s aptitude."

Noah looked at her and nodded.

Then phantasmal beasts swarmed upward toward them.

Dragons of red vapor. Winged wolves. Distorted griffins.

Before Noah could move, silver light exploded from Astriye’s body.

Her dress dissolved and reformed into a fitted silver knight’s suit with silver aura surrounding her. Her hair shimmered pale, and her eyes sharpened with cold focus.

She launched herself downward like a falling star toward the nearest phantasmal dragon and slashed it cleanly in half.

Noah watched for a moment.

"Wow. You are so good."

She glanced back at him briefly.

"Tch. Useless men."

Noah blinked, confused and slightly annoyed by the sudden disrespect.

He looked at her more carefully as she continued fighting.

She was killing the beasts very easily with elegant movements and no wasted motion.

Then he sensed it.

Two lives in one body.

Two pulses.

He was shocked but kept fighting alongside her.

Within minutes, the swarm thinned.

They descended back into the kingdom.

Time had resumed throughout Solaris, but the whole kingdom was silent now.

No people visible anywhere.

Noah walked through the empty streets and sensed extreme hate directed toward him from every direction, though he couldn’t see the source.

He couldn’t understand why.

They reached the palace again.

The knights were still there, standing in formation as if they’d been waiting.

Before Noah could move, Astriye attacked them.

Noah sighed under his breath.

"That woman is really reckless in this mode."

He moved toward her.

One knight raised his sword and went for Astriye’s throat.

Noah instantly appeared and pulled her back, then punched the knight.

The force rebounded.

Noah flew backward and hit the wall hard.

He stood and looked at the knights.

"So you have the power to reflect all physical attacks, huh?"

He looked at the sky.

"Sorry, Karna. I need to borrow your spears."

Far to the north, at Karna’s grave, the two spears vanished.

They appeared in Noah’s hands.

He cleaned them briefly, brushing off dirt from their tips.

"I will say sorry later to Nakula."

He raised both spears and moved forward.

The knights charged.

Noah threw the first spear and pinned one knight to the ground. He controlled the second spear remotely and pinned another.

Then a third knight came from the side, attacking Astriye directly.

Noah threw the second spear.

It struck.

Fire erupted.

Golden sunfire exploded outward and consumed the entire palace garden in seconds. The heat was overwhelming, burning through grass, stone, everything.

The knights looked shocked.

Then they vanished instantly, dissolving into red mist.

No corpses. No blood. Just fading smoke.

Noah lowered his hand and smiled faintly.

"So they fear the fire. Or the sun."

He looked at the empty courtyard where the knights had been.

Astriye stood behind him, her silver aura flickering faintly as her colder presence began to recede.

Her normal voice returned.

"What... what were they?"

Noah watched the smoke dissipate.

"Not knights. Not humans."

He turned toward the palace doors.

"And whoever controls them knows I’m here now."

The air grew heavier.

Far in the distance, a pulse of red light rose from Solaris’ southern district.

Noah’s expression shifted slightly.

"Good."

He started walking.

"This saves me time."