He saw the flash of the blue-haired child's silver blade‚ but rather than becoming so black that it would have turned to ash‚ it sank into the wavering orange rays of the lantern hung above the door․
The sensation of being cut in half vanished as quickly as it had come․ Instead‚ there was the familiar rattle of wooden wheels on a dirt road․ Subaru gasped‚ clutching at his belly․ There was no blood․ No severed torso․ Only the coarse material of his clothes‚ and the stale air of the carriage awaited him․
Then‚ he looked down․
Louis was sitting on his lap; his chin touched the top of her head‚ and she looked up․ She was warm․ She was breathing․ She was alive․
"You're․․․ alive․․․"
"Uaa․․․?"
He was back․ The Save Point hadn't updated to the island after all․ A choked‚ wet sound caught in Subaru's throat‚ relief mixed with a sense of pure‚ blind terror․ But he didn't have time to break down․
The driver‚ outside‚ clicked his tongue impatiently‚ and guided the earth dragon into the dark forest․
Subaru's pupils dilated․ He remembered it all: the sound of the impact‚ the blood‚ Olbart's raspy laugh‚ and the fact that Louis had gone cold in his arms․
Did my checkpoint move forward?
The sense of hopelessness‚ which had driven him to attempt suicide on the beach‚ turned to freezing‚ hyperfocused adrenaline․ He knew exactly where they were․ He knew what was out there in the pitch-black treeline outside the window․
Cold sweat dripped down the back of his neck. The carriage swayed. Every second felt like an hour. He counted the rhythmic sound of the earth dragon's claws against the dirt.
I'm not going to let them die this time.
Subaru shifted his weight. He wrapped his left arm tightly around Louis, shielding her, and planted his boots firmly against the floorboards. Simultaneously, his Cursed Energy ignited, coating his body like a pressurized suit of armor.
The earth dragon let out a sudden, pained yelp.
Something slammed into the front axle with the force of a cannonball. The carriage jerked violently, the floorboards buckling as the structure began to pitch forward into a deadly flip.
Subaru exploded into motion.
Instead of kicking out the side wall to save himself, he lunged straight forward. His reinforced shoulder smashed through the wooden partition into the driver's seat. Wood splintered into kindling.
The driver was already falling backward, his eyes wide with terror as the world tilted.
Subaru's right hand snapped out, locking onto the driver's collar in a vice grip. With Louis secured against his chest and the driver dangling from his fist, Subaru kicked off the collapsing frame, using a burst of energy to blast the three of them laterally into the air.
They hit the dirt and skidded to a halt just as the carriage slammed onto its roof behind them. The sound of shattering wood and twisting metal filled the forest, kicking up a massive cloud of dust.
The driver groaned, coughing, bewildered but entirely whole. Louis whimpered, burying her face into Subaru's jacket.
Subaru didn't check for his own injuries. He stood up slowly, the pitch-black energy rolling off his skin like dark steam. His eyes locked onto the treeline.
For a long moment, the forest was dead silent. Then, a small, hunched figure stepped out of the shadows, scratching the back of his neck.
"Well, I'll be damned..." Olbart muttered, his raspy voice echoing. "I've been in this business a long time, kid, but I ain't never seen someone read my opening move that cleanly. It's like y'knew exactly where I was gonna hit."
Subaru didn't blink. The weight of Louis's lifeless body from the previous loop was still a fresh phantom in his arms. The sight of her blood and the taste of his own failure screamed in his mind.
Olbart noticed the shift in pressure immediately. He stopped, raising both hands in a lazy, placating gesture.
"Whoa, whoa, easy there! No need to get all prickly. You saved the brat and the driver. My ambush completely flopped. That's a solid win for ya."
"Why are you even here?" Subaru's voice was low, strained with the effort of suppressing his rage.
Olbart gave a casual shrug.
"Don't take it personally. I'm just following orders. Higher-ups pointed a finger, and I threw the rock. Nothin' more to it than an old man doing his job."
The Vicious Old Man kicked a piece of splintered wood from the wreck.
"But seein' as you completely sniffed me out, and you're currently leakin' enough killing intent to choke a dragon... I'm thinkin' this job ain't worth the hassle. I ain't getting paid anythin', especially not enough to fight a monster in the dark. How about we just call this a wash and walk our separate ways?"
Subaru's grip on Louis tightened. Every instinct in his body demanded he tear the old man apart for what he had done——the blood that only Subaru remembered. But as he looked at the terrified driver and the trembling girl in his arms, the weight of his responsibility anchored his feet to the dirt.
Olbart chuckled and turned his back, waving a wrinkled hand dismissively as he began to shamble toward the treeline.
"Take care of the little lady, yeah. Maybe we'll meet again when the pay is better."
Subaru didn't lower his guard. He watched the old man's shoulders, analyzing the way his feet moved almost silently over the dead leaves. He remembered the blinding speed from the last loop.
"Don't come back...." Subaru warned.
"Wouldn't dream of it!" Olbart called back.
Then, the old man vanished.
He didn't leap into the brush——he simply ceased to exist in Subaru's field of vision the moment he passed by a tree.
Subaru's instincts screamed. He didn't think——he reacted, shoving Louis and the driver backward with a wave of shadow just as he spun around to defend.
A kunai, glistening with a dark, oily poison, sparked against a shield of darkness Subaru had manifested just an few inches from his jugular. Olbart was there, his face no longer showing the lazy grin of a grandfather, but the sharp, murderous intent of an apex predator who had found his opening.
"Too slow, kid!" Olbart hissed.
He moved like a blur, his small frame allowing him to narrowly weave beneath Subaru's guard. He wasn't trying to overpower Subaru——that would be suicidal against that kind of defense. He was trying to dismantle him.
Three rapid palm strikes hit Subaru's ribs in quick succession, aiming for the organs beneath, yet they rebounded off the thick layer of Cursed Energy with dull thuds.
Olbart gritted his teeth, his eyes narrowing as he leaned backward just in time to evade a rapid, brutal swipe of Subaru's hand that would have taken his head off.
The kid's got the reflexes to catch me if I make the slightest error and the strength of a monster, but his defense is absolute bullshit. Can't bypass it with normal strikes.
The sole of Subaru's shoe stomped down into the earth, cracking the surface of the forest floor as if it were made of glass. He rushed forward, putting all his weight behind a falling axe kick aimed directly at the Shinobi's skull.
Just like the last loop, Olbart didn't block. He stepped into the strike, placing his hands flat against Subaru's leg, and used his bizarre martial technique to redirect the kinetic energy of the kick back into Subaru's own body.
Subaru stumbled back with a wince, the physical feedback jarring his joints despite his reinforcement.
"Feisty——hrn?!"
Olbart's mocking fell short as he glanced at Subaru's outstretched, recovering arm. Instead of pulling back, Subaru simply pointed his palm at the old man. A wave of volatile, purple-black Cursed Energy blasted forth, expanding over a dozen meters with the clear intention of swallowing Olbart whole and utterly destroying him.
The Vicious Old Man gaped in surprise. He leaped violently into the air, abandoning all grace, but he wasn't fast enough to escape the sheer area of effect.
A cloud of smoke and concussive wind erupted outward a second later, blasting through the trees and packing enough force to make Louis squint and blow the carriage driver completely onto his back.
Olbart hit the ground hard, blood spraying onto the dirt as he bounced. He scrambled back, clutching his side with a harsh grimace.
His body was covered in a variety of painful-looking injuries——burns and deep gashes that dripped and cauterized simultaneously from the Cursed Energy expended. For the first time, genuine shock flickered in the old man's eyes. He had vastly underestimated the raw, destructive power the boy was wielding.
"Cough... damn. You really are a monster, aren't ya..." Olbart wheezed, spitting a glob of blood onto the grass.
"I'm done playing with you." Subaru stated, stepping forward.
Olbart's eyes narrowed. He knew he couldn't win this. He couldn't deal lethal damage through that armor, and one solid hit from the kid's energy blasts would vaporize him. He needed to leave, but he couldn't have this walking natural disaster hunting him through the woods.
The old man glanced at the little blonde girl and the carriage driver for a fraction of a second, before mentally shaking his head.
He could tell that, for whatever reason, the black-haired brat was restraining his blasts to keep them strictly directional. He was actively protecting the bystanders.
While typically, Olbart would attack bystanders in a heartbeat if he was in a battle for his life.
But he knew that targeting them to create an opening would absolutely invoke the kid's full, unrestrained wrath, and Olbart had no desire to see what that looked like.
"If I can't kill ya..." Olbart muttered. "...I'll just make ya a bit more manageable then."
Olbart lunged off the ground. To Subaru, it looked like a desperate, suicidal charge.
Subaru prepared to impale him on a spike of shadow, but Olbart threw a small sphere at the ground. A blinding flash-powder bomb detonated, filling the clearing with searing white light and a deafening bang.
Subaru flinched, his shadow strike missing by a hair and blowing a massive crater into the treeline. In that split second of blindness, Olbart slipped perfectly inside his guard.
Instead of drawing a blade, Olbart slammed his bare palm directly over the center of Subaru's chest.
Subaru didn't feel pain. He felt a strange, cold sensation of his very soul being folded. It was as if his internal mana flow was being grabbed and forcibly knotted. His Od—the gate of his life force—was violently twisted and suppressed with shocking, surgical precision.
Olbart didn't wait to see the result. He turned on a dime, throwing a smoke pellet, and fled deep into the darkness of the canopy.
Subaru wasn't going to let him retreat. He wanted to reach out and call for the Invisible Providence to chase Olbart down——but the hand simply wasn't fast enough to catch someone like that if he was actively moving.
That was the main reason he didn't use it——it was a powerful ability for catching people off guard, as it did hit very hard, but an enemy who's as fast as Olbart, and is constantly moving is almost impossible to hit with the Invisible Providence.
He also seemed to be taking Subaru even more serious than the previous loop, as annoying as that was.
The reason for that did not seem to be something that Subaru understood, either.
He tried to give chase, but his legs suddenly gave out. His vision swam dizzily. The forest seemed to stretch upward, the trees growing impossibly tall as he stumbled and fell hard to his knees against the dirt.
"Wh... what...?"
Subaru's voice had jumped an entire octave. He looked down at his hands——they were small, soft, and lacked the calluses of a man who had just survived a massacre. Curiously, his clothes hadn't pooled around him... the fabric had warped and shrunk alongside his body, fitting his new, tiny frame perfectly.
Louis crawled toward him, her head tilted in absolute confusion as she looked at the boy who was now barely taller than she was.
"Uau?"
Subaru sat in the dirt, staring at his tiny palms in a state of absolute shock.
"——WHAT?!"
The smoke from the chaotic battle finally drifted away, leaving a heavy, ringing silence in the dark forest.
The driver sat in the dirt, his hands trembling as he wiped sweat and soot from his forehead. He looked at the wreckage of his carriage—his livelihood, shattered in the middle of a dark forest—and then toward the spot where the young man he'd been tasked to drive had been standing.
He had just watched a teenager summon literal shadows and blasts of strange purple mana to mangle the Third Divine General. He never thought he'd actually even see one of the Nine Divine Generals, let alone watch someone capable enough to completely overwhelm one in battle.
He was ready to prostrate himself, to thank his savior, maybe even beg for his life if the boy's terrifying rage hadn't cooled.
Instead, he saw something strange as he cautiously approached.
"Hey... kid?" the driver called out, his voice cracking. "You... you still there?"
A small figure stood up from the dirt. The outfit was perfectly intact, but it was currently worn by a child. Subaru looked up, his face rounder, his eyes wider, and his expression one of pure, unadulterated horror.
The driver's jaw didn't just drop——it practically hit the forest floor. He scrambled backward on his hands and knees, pointing a shaking finger.
"What the——?! Where did he go? Where's the scary guy?!"
"I'm... huff... I'm right here!"
Subaru tried to shout, but the voice that came out was a high-pitched, childish squeak. He looked down in despair. The ground was way too close for his liking, and his arms and legs were way shorter too.
"That old bastard... he did something to me!"
The driver stared. He looked at the shattered carriage, then back at the undersized brat before him. He blinked once. Twice.
"You're the kid? The one who just... with the shadows and the...?"
The driver made a vague, frantic sweeping motion with his hands, trying to imitate the violence he'd just witnessed.
"Yes! It's me, Natsuki Subaru!"
Subaru tried to take a step toward him, but he tripped from the unfamiliar sensation of having tiny legs.
"——Shit!"
Louis crawled over, her eyes sparkling with a weird mixture of curiosity and delight. She poked Subaru's rounded, chubby cheek with a finger.
"Uau! Au!"
"Don't 'au' me, Louis! This is a total disaster!"
Subaru grumbled into the dirt before pushing himself back up.
The driver let out a hysterical, breathless laugh, his nerves finally snapping.
"This is great. This is just perfect. I'm stranded in the middle of a forest right outside Gladiator Island, my carriage is scrap, and my only bodyguard just turned into a ten-year-old."
He slumped against a nearby tree, burying his face in his hands.
"Vollachia is a hellhole, damn it! I should have stayed in the city and sold fruit like I was told to!"
Subaru managed to upright himself and dust off his knees. He felt a weird, sluggish sensation in his chest——his gate felt constricted, as if Olbart had tied a physical knot in his very soul, squeezing his Cursed Energy and mana through a straw.
"Listen to me!" Subaru squeaked, trying to regain some shred of authority. "I can still use my abilities... I think. We're not far from the coast. We just need to move."
The driver looked up, eyeing the 'hero' dubiously.
"Move where, kid? You can barely walk without tripping up!"
The driver sighed, though he slowly stood up, wiping the dust from his trousers.
He looked at the tiny Subaru, and despite the absurdity, he saw the same sharp, determined eyes that had saved him from the crash.
"But I guess a brat who can best a Divine General is some of the best protection I can ask for... you sure you're still... you?"
"Yes, I'm still me! Jeez!" Subaru grumbled, crossing his tiny arms. "You think I got possessed or something?"
The driver deadpanned.
"Don't be a smartass with me now!"
——————————————————————————
Capella, now a colossal black dragon, loomed over the shattered vermillion rooftop of the Bloodflame Castle. Her scales were pitch-black, and her orange eyes burned with a frantic, twitching rage.
She lunged, her massive jaws snapping shut on the empty air where Yorna Mishigure had been standing a heartbeat before.
Yorna exhaled a cloud of silver smoke from her kiseru. She didn't fall——she drifted. Beneath her feet, chunks of the castle's masonry rose from the debris, suspended in mid-air by the city's collective will.
She stepped across the floating platforms with the measured grace of someone walking through a private garden.
"Stay still, you disgusting, arrogant scrap of meat!"
Capella roared, the sheer volume vibrating the very stones of the castle.
"Is this all your self-proclaimed love can amount to, little monster?" Yorna's voice carried over the wind, calm and biting. "Noise and scales? You are an uninvited guest in my home, and your manners are lacking."
Capella shrieked. She slammed a clawed foot down, intending to crush the platform Yorna stood on, but the rooftop groaned and immediately gave way. Her hind leg plummeted through the tiles, her massive weight working against her.
In Chaosflame, the city itself was Yorna's ally——the architecture seemed to pull at Capella, making her feel clumsy and exposed.
"I'll tear this whole pile of rocks down! Watch, you bitch!"
Capella hissed, her long neck snaking forward to spew a torrent of toxic, purple mist.
Yorna didn't even blink at the poison. She simply waved her kiseru. A gust of heated air—fueled by the literal spirit of the city—blew the toxins right back into the dragon's face.
"The city does not wish to be torn down——" Yorna said coldly. "Nor would a disgusting thing like you be capable of doing so regardless."
Before Capella could recover from swallowing her own acid, Yorna launched herself from a hovering stone. She didn't draw a weapon, but instead, she drew upon the Soul Marriage, funneling the absolute loyalty and strength of a thousand citizens into a singular point.
She descended like a falling star, her fist glowing with a dense, dangerous crimson light.
"——Get away from me!!"
Capella screamed, violently jerking her head back.
But she wasn't fast enough. Yorna's fist slammed directly into the center of the dragon's skull with an insane amount of force.
The impact didn't just crack bone——it sent a physical shockwave through the entire rooftop, driving the dragon's snout into the stone with a sickening, heavy thud that could only be presumed to be the sound of inside her liquidized skull.
Capella's head bounced off the tiles. Her eyes rolled back for a split second as the sheer, crushing weight of the Mother of Chaosflame's love was hammered into her brain.
"Your love is nothing more than selfish insecurity..." Yorna whispered, standing casually atop the dragon's twitching snout. "Mine is a foundation——mine is real... that is why you never stood a chance against us to begin with!"
Beneath Yorna's zori, Capella's caved-in skull and mashed brain matter rapidly began to knit back together. The grotesque squelch of healing bone didn't go unnoticed.
Yorna bent her knees and launched herself backward into the air as the dragon started to move once more. A platform caught her feet, propelling her diagonally just as Capella's massive claws snapped shut like a bear trap where she had just been standing.
The rainbow mist from Yorna's kiseru flared, acting as a physical shield that deflected the sheer kinetic force of the dragon's follow-up strike.
The impact sent Yorna launching backward, her boots carving lines into the far side of the rooftop, but she remained almost completely unharmed despite taking the brunt of a dragon's strike.
"You, you you you you——!!"
Capella thrashed, her dragon form tearing massive gouges into the castle roof in pure outrage.
"This is wrong, wrong, wrong! Your love is nothing! The people that follow you see nothing more than a meat-scrap with a seductive body to be used! All love belongs to me! ME! Not a clump of meat like you!"
"Your love is nothing but a fabrication of your own denial." Yorna replied.
Capella let out a deafening screech. Her pitch-black scales ripped open as dozens of grotesque, barbed tentacles erupted from her spine. They shot toward Yorna like a barrage of spears, threatening to skewer her and the remaining roof.
Yorna narrowed her eyes at the sight before she bent her knees low and charged directly into the bombardment, blurring across the rooftop like a stray bolt of lightning.
The rapid tap-tap-tap of her zori echoed as she twirled her kiseru in a circular motion.
A sweeping strike obliterated the first tentacle before she skidded to weave around a second, just as a third smashed through the crimson tiles in front of her, kicking up a thick cloud of dust that swallowed Yorna whole.
"Gyyahahahhaha! How do you like that, meat-scrap?! Just you wait, next I'll strip you down and force your own people to——!!?"
"——Silence!"
Yorna tore through the dust cloud. But she wasn't unscathed any longer——blood trailed from several shallow cuts across her arms and sides, but she didn't slow down. If anything, Capella's words only fueled the fiery crimson aura surrounding her, accelerating her pace.
"Awwee~, are you getting angry, fox-girl? Gyahahaha!"
Capella grinned, her draconic claws elongating unnaturally before she slammed them down to crush the sprinting Divine General.
Though, the claws never quite reached the roof.
They stopped dead mere meters above Yorna as dozens of loose crimson tiles suddenly swarmed upward as if they were alive, overlapping and folding around the dragon's massive arm before they suddenly flared with intense heat and lit ablaze.
"What?! ——Guaaaahhkk!!"
The localized detonation erased Capella's left arm up to the elbow. The dragon reeled, screaming in shock and anger as bone and muscle instantly began weaving themselves back together.
But Yorna was already airborne at that point——her heel whipped upward in a brutal arc, the sheer force and speed of the kick tearing Capella's throat wide open.
Capella's purple blood sprayed out, but Yorna's kaleidoscopic smoke repelled whatever toxins they might've contained.
Bouncing off a floating chunk of debris, Yorna drove her fist straight into Capella's giant orange eyeball. The impact blew apart the eyeball upon impact and bludgeoned a large chunk of the inside of her head and brain into mush.
Without pausing for even a second, Yorna rotated mid-air, gritting her teeth with exertion as she aligned her next attack.
She then brought her leg down in a devastating axe-kick dead center on Capella's upper back. The dragon's spine quite literally shattered into dust from the powerful impact, and the massive beast collapsed onto the ruined rooftop like a dropped puppet.
"Guhkk... gkkh..."
Yet, it took mere seconds for the spine to snap back into alignment.
Yorna narrowed her eyes. Victory was impossible through blunt force alone. Punching and kicking a creature that could regenerate its own brain matter in an instant was a waste of stamina.
She needed absolute eradication——something leaving nothing behind to heal.
She took a deep breath to steady herself against the bitter cost of her next move.
The red aura of the Soul Marriage flared violently around her. She wasn't just drawing from her people anymore——she was directly tapping into the physical foundation of Bloodflame Castle itself.
"If you will not leave my home..."
Yorna stated, tapping the burning bowl of her kiseru against the vermillion tiles.
"...Then you shall burn until not even ash remains, foul beast!"
The entire upper wing of the castle suddenly glowed with a blinding, incandescent red light. The trapped mana reached critical mass in a fraction of a second before Capella could even comprehend what followed a moment later.
"Wha——"
——BOOOOM!
Having ensured Tanza, Meili and any of her people were clear, Yorna deliberately detonated her own castle. The explosion was absolute. A massive dome of crimson fire and pulverized stone swallowed Capella's massive body, vaporizing the tentacles and completely obliterating the highest floor of the structure.
The shockwave rattled the entirety of Chaosflame, sending a plume of ash and fire hundreds of feet into the sky.
Yorna landed lightly on a floating piece of debris high above the blast zone.
She looked down at the molten crater with a pained expression. It hurt her deeply to destroy a piece of the city she loved, a desperate measure she had hoped never to use, even if she had told herself it was necessary.
For a moment, there was only the crackle of fire and falling stone.
Then, from the center of the glowing slag, came a wet, bubbling noise.
A lump of charred, blackened meat shifted. Bone rapidly extruded from the sludge, wrapping protectively around a newly forming heart. Purple blood hissed against the hot stone as a jawbone snapped into place. The wet, grating sound of Capella's manic laughter echoed from the crater.
"Gyahahaha... Ahahaha! Is that it?! You blew up your own house?! You really are a stupidmeat-scrap after all!"
Yorna's eyes widened. She had assumed the Archbishop's regeneration had a limit——that absolute incineration would tax her mana or biology to the breaking point.
But at a level like this.... was there even a difference between just regeneration and genuine immortality?
Capella's blonde hair spilled out from the meat of her burnt head as she returned to her humanoid form.
She groaned playfully, swaying on her feet as her bare legs constantly burned to the bone and rapidly healed against the molten rock, dragging herself through the destruction like she was walking through a warm bath.
"Ahhh, that was warm! A little intense for a greeting, but I guess you just couldn't contain your passion for me, right?"
Capella tilted her head, her eyes locking onto Yorna floating above the crater.
"But really, blowing up the roof of your own castle? That's just saaaad~. You destroyed a part of the very thing you claim to love, all for little old me!"
Yorna's grip on her kiseru tightened until her knuckles turned white. The sheer absurdity of what she was witnessing sent a cold chill down her spine.
She had reduced the creature to literal ash and liquid, and it hadn't slowed her down for a second.
"What... are you?" Yorna murmured, her voice tight.
"Me? Oh, I'm just a fragile, delicate maiden looking for a little affection!"
Capella beamed, spreading her arms wide. The flesh on her forearms suddenly rippled and split open.
From her wrists, a pair of massive, chitinous mantis scythes erupted, dripping with a corrosive venom that hissed as it hit the molten rock.
"And since you were so generous with your explosive 'love,' it's only fair I return the favor! I'll carve you into ribbons, wear your pretty face, and make your entire city worship me!"
Capella didn't jump right away, instead, the muscles in her thighs suddenly bulged to absurd proportions before she launched herself vertically into the air with a crack that broke the sound barrier.
She cleared the distance between the crater and Yorna's floating platform in a fraction of a second.
Yorna barely had time to react through her internal confusion. She swung her kiseru, generating a dense wall of kaleidoscopic smoke to act as a physical barrier.
The mantis scythes cleaved through the hardened smoke like wet tissue paper.
Yorna violently twisted her body backward, the venomous blades whistling mere millimeters past her throat. She kicked off the platform, sending it flying into Capella's face as a distraction, while Yorna herself plummeted toward another piece of floating masonry.
Capella didn't even bother dodging the rock. She let the massive chunk of stone smash her entire face in, her skull caving with a sickening crunch. But even without eyes, her body moved with flawless, terrifying precision.
The mantis blades snapped out blindly, one of them catching the fabric of Yorna's kimono and slicing a clean, burning gash across the Divine General's thigh.
"Ngh!"
Yorna hissed, landing heavily on a lower platform. The wound wasn't deep, but the venom immediately began to burn like liquid fire in her veins. She forcefully cycled the mana of the Soul Marriage through her body, using the collective life force of Chaosflame to purge the poison before it could reach her heart.
High above, Capella's crushed face popped back out like a dented tin can, her features rapidly reassembling into a manic grin.
"Oh, oh oh? Did I scratch you? Don't worry, meat-scrap, I can fix that! I can fix everything!"
Capella raised her hands, and her flesh began to bubble uncontrollably. Her arms elongated into thick, muscular trunks, and from her back, a pair of bat-like wings tore through her spine, spraying blood over the ruined ground.
Yorna took a slow, measured breath, forcing her trembling leg to lock into place. The silver smoke from her kiseru drifted lazily around her, but her eyes remained sharp, even as fatigue began to claw at her senses.
It was growing tiresome. The sheer, repetitive obscenity of the Archbishop's existence was an insult to the city Yorna loved.
But as the crimson aura of the Soul Marriage pulsed faintly against her skin, she felt them all——the people of Chaosflame, fighting far down below in the streets of the city.
"To share their strength is to share their burden...."
Yorna whispered, her voice regaining its steel as she leveled her pipe at the winged abomination before her.
"If this is the end, then we shall greet it as one."
——————————————————————————
"What in the hell..." Al muttered, his voice muffled by his helmet.
The sky over Chaosflame was choked.
A massive, roiling pillar of black and crimson smoke geysered into the atmosphere, originating from the center of the city where the Crimson Lapis Castle stood——or where it used to stand.
The top third of the structure was gone, replaced by a jagged, glowing ruin that pulsed with the aftershocks of a massive detonation.
But the immediate horror was in the streets below.
"They're... they're glowing!" Medium breathed, her eyes wide.
Every citizen, from the hulking bear-man to the smallest child throwing stones, was enveloped in a faint, shimmering crimson aura.
Under the effect of Yorna's Soul Marriage, the people were sharing the Divine General's peerless strength.
A small, elderly rabbit-man swung a wooden staff with enough force to shatter a cultist's ribs and send him crashing through a stone wall. The power of Yorna Mishigure was flowing through every baker, smith, merchant and child in the district, turning a city of civilians into a literal army.
Individually, the cultists were being tossed around like ragdolls. But they had numbers, and they had the cruelty of a surprise attack.
"They're holding them back," Medium said, a spark of hope in her voice. "They're actually winning!"
"That appears to be the case in terms of raw power," Abel said, his eyes narrowed as he assessed the scene. "But these attackers seem to have little care for their own survival. It is a war of attrition Chaosflame cannot afford to lose."
Al stood frozen for a second, his hidden gaze locked onto the gray-robed figures swarming the streets.
"You've gotta be kidding me...."
Al muttered, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous register.
"What are these freaks doing all the way out here in the Empire?"
"You recognize them, Al-san?" Medium asked, glancing back.
"Wish I didn't. That's the Witch Cult, kid. And if they're here, it's not just for a scenic tour. They're here to turn this whole place into a meat grinder for whatever bat-shit crazy reason they might have."
He shifted his grip on his sword, his posture becoming incredibly tense.
Abel didn't comment, but his hands were curled into fists at his sides. This was a catastrophic variable. They had come to Chaosflame to secure the loyalty of the Mother of the City, to bring Yorna Mishigure into the fold of the revolution. She was the lynchpin of his strategy to retake the throne.
But a city under siege by the Witch Cult was a city that could not provide soldiers.
"The General is occupied at the castle——"
Abel said, his gaze fixed on the glowing crater atop the spire in the distance.
He could see the flashes of light and the destruction being wrought around the peak.
"If she falls, the Soul Marriage breaks. If the Soul Marriage breaks, every citizen currently holding a line in these streets will be slaughtered in seconds."
Medium tilted her head.
"She's a Divine General, right? Surely there can't be that many people who could take someone like her on!"
Abel didn't answer immediately. He watched the glowing citizens fighting below before finally glancing toward her.
"That would normally be the case. Yorna is undoubtedly one of the Empire's strongest in terms of raw physical prowess. But that is not taking into consideration her army."
Al furrowed his brows beneath his helmet.
"And what does that mean?"
"The people of Chaosflame are this powerful because of Yorna Mishigure. Her strength is divided between herself and her people via her technique."
Al's eyes widened.
"So, that just means that the more she shares her power, the weaker she gets as an individual."
Abel looked at the rising smoke without giving a verbal response, but his silence said enough. His mind was racing through a thousand permutations of the coming hours.
"We move to assist her as fast as possible."
Abel commanded, his voice brooking no argument.
"But... what about the people?!"
Medium asked, her tone laced with concern as she watched a group of citizens get swarmed by cultists in the distance.
"——The revolution cannot begin if its most vital ally is consumed by these vermin," Abel stated coldly. "Al, you know their patterns. Lead the way."
Al let out a long, heavy sigh, his shoulders slumping.
"Haaaa.... my stars really ain't so great today."