In truth, El was not dead. Not at all. He was still living, still breathing, even after the man had pierced his chest and leg. His mark of Holy worked instantly. Flesh knitted. Wounds closed. Even the gaping tear in his robe vanished as if it had never existed.
He had only decided to play dead. To see the chaos, he had sown among the Black Castle ritualists. To measure the joy and triumph he would instil in the White Castle ritualists.
He was not bothered in the slightest. Not a flicker of concern. Death could not touch him; not unless someone with a higher divinity, a power granted by the gods themselves, intervened.
Until then, he could be considered immortal.
Really, he just wanted to aura farm. That was all. Just aura farm.
El turned his head away from the sea of corpses before him. Rivers of blood crawled slowly across the bronze sand, creeping toward his feet like dark reflections of quiet streams. The metallic scent of slaughter hung thick in the air. Bodies lay scattered in grotesque silence, some twisted in their final struggle, others lying strangely peaceful beneath the pale sky.
Without sparing the dead another glance, El walked toward the survivors of the Black Castle.
Not far away, Leon and Elias rested upon a mound of corpses. The pile rose high like a crude throne built from the fallen ritualists of the White Castle. Blood slipped down its sides in slow, hollow streams, soaking into the sand below.
El approached them calmly.
"Were they too difficult for you to handle?" he asked lightly, tilting his head as his eyes met Leon's.
Leon gave a short laugh, though his shoulders trembled faintly.
"Of course not, Master. These White ritualists are nothing but fools." He wiped a smear of blood from his cheek with the back of his hand. "If this were a game, I would have easily passed a hundred kills."
His voice slowed.
"But you… what exactly are you? What on earth is this?"
His gaze drifted past El and toward the battlefield.
Thousands of lifeless bodies stretched across the bronze sand like a silent ocean of death. Ghostly white swords stood planted throughout the field, each one piercing cleanly through skulls and chests. Their pale forms shimmered faintly, as though they had never truly belonged to this world.
Severed limbs lay scattered across the ground. Torn organs darkened the sand. The crimson river flowing through the battlefield carried fragments of the fallen as it crept forward.
The silence of the dead pressed heavily against Leon's chest.
A cold shiver passed through him.
He is a monster.
El followed Leon's gaze briefly and smiled faintly, as though the sight pleased him.
Then he turned his attention to Elias.
"What about you?"
Elias remained seated atop the mound of corpses, resting one arm against his knee. His expression remained calm, almost indifferent.
"It was acceptable," he replied quietly. "Quite difficult, but manageable."
Leon's brow twitched.
Difficult?
He glanced sideways at Elias.
The battlefield surrounding them told a different story. White Castle ritualists had been slaughtered in overwhelming numbers, their formations crushed as though they had never stood a chance.
And Elias called it difficult.
Leon gave him a silent look that clearly said, I know you are lying.
Elias ignored it.
El watched them both for a moment before speaking again. The playful tone in his voice faded, replaced by something quieter and far more serious.
"As you both know," El said slowly, "this war must end."
The wind stirred the battlefield, brushing through the countless corpses and whispering across the planted swords.
"You and Elias will return to report to the Mysterious One of the Black Castle."
His eyes darkened slightly.
"I will deal with the Mysterious One of the White Castle myself."
Leon nodded at once.
"Sounds good."
He pushed himself off the mound of corpses and dropped to the ground behind El. His boots sank slightly into the blood-soaked sand.
Elias followed a moment later, landing beside him with effortless balance.
Without another word, the two of them turned and began walking away from the battlefield.
Their steps carried them across the endless field of lifeless bodies, boots pressing into crimson sand as they disappeared deeper into the silent aftermath of slaughter.
El began walking toward the opposite side of the battlefield.
The hem of his dark robe brushed across the spoils of war. Torn flesh, broken bones, and scattered fragments of bodies shifted slightly beneath the fabric as he passed. What had once been living ritualists now lay reduced to formless remains upon the bronze sand.
The faint echoes of distorted reality still lingered in his ears. A quiet, distant resonance that sounded almost like music, as though the world itself had not yet recovered from the violence that had just unfolded.
Memories of the battle drifted across his mind. The clash of blades. The desperate cries of the dying. The final breaths that had escaped countless lungs only moments ago.
Then those memories faded.
The battlefield surrendered to silence.
The silence beneath El's feet trembled faintly, as though it had become aware of his presence. The bronze sand quivered almost imperceptibly while he walked across it.
He did not slow.
The world had grown quiet enough that El could hear the slow rhythm of his own heartbeat.
A few more steps carried him across the corpse-strewn ground. Soon he reached the far end of the battlefield.
Waiting there stood the Mysterious One of the White Castle.
"Hello, Mysterious One of the White Castle," El said calmly, tilting his head slightly. His depthless black pupils narrowed while a faint smile curved across his lips.
Moonlight poured down from the sky and gathered around the figure like a pale halo.
The Mysterious One wore a flowing dress that shimmered with fluorescent light. Delicate engravings of dandelions and sunflowers spread across the fabric like painted memories of spring. Yet the cloth trembled faintly in the wind, as though it recognized El.
Or feared him.
The garment flowed freely down to the desolate sand, its long folds trailing behind the figure. It seemed almost too large for the person wearing it, swallowing his frame within its pale glow.
His skin was smooth and pale, reflecting the moonlight with a soft radiance. The faint glow of his body blended with the silver light above them.
His eyes burned like twin golden suns. His lips were lightly coloured, and his nose was slender and sharp.
His face carried a strange balance between masculine sharpness and feminine softness, creating a beauty that felt almost unnatural.
El studied him for a moment.
This guy looks like a femboy.
A trace of disappointment flickered across El's expression.
The Mysterious One suddenly turned his head toward him, startled.
For a brief moment his composure faltered. Then he straightened, regaining his calm.
"I see," he said slowly. "You are not merely an apostle."
His golden eyes sharpened.
"Let us end this quickly. Apostle versus Apostle."
"Okay."
The moment the word left El's mouth, the Mysterious One vanished.
A violent burst of speed carried him forward.
In the next instant he appeared directly before El.
A sword formed in his hand as though summoned from nothing. The sound that accompanied its appearance was sharp and eerie, like thousands of thin whistles echoing together in mourning for the dead.
He swung the blade in a swift diagonal arc.
The air itself split.
A thin red line carved through the space between them, appearing the moment, the sword completed its motion.
At that same instant, El spoke a quiet word.
"Mark of Destruction."
Time slowed.
The battlefield, the moonlight, and even the falling grains of bronze sand seemed to move as though trapped within thick water.
He stretched his hand out.
On the palm of El's hand appeared a broken circular ring, broken and incomplete. Violent fractures split into uneven segments, and faint glowing lines ran through the cracks like molten light within shattered stone.
Rising from the fractured ring were jagged crown-like spikes, resembling broken swords piercing outward. The spikes were uneven, unstable and distorted.
At the centre of the broken circular ring laid a spiralling vortex that curved inward toward a small dark point. It was the force that consumed everything. As the lines slowly approaches the centre, they became dark and darker until they vanished into a void-like dot.
The final focal point was a tiny black core, darker than the surrounding symbol. It did not glow. Instead, it seemed to absorb the pale light round it.
Then El snapped his fingers.
The sharp sound broke the stillness of the battlefield.
It was a small noise, almost insignificant, yet the moment it rang through the air something unnatural followed it. The sound carried a hollow chill, as though the snap had opened a thin passage through which nothingness itself had been invited into the world.
The heavy air trembled.
For a single heartbeat nothing happened.
Then the Mysterious One of the White Castle faltered.
The red line that had been carved through the air froze in place as his body stiffened. Confusion flickered across his radiant face. His golden eyes widened slightly, as though he had suddenly realized something that could no longer be undone.
A faint cracking sound emerged from his body.
It was quiet at first, delicate and brittle, like the breaking of dry leaves beneath a slow footstep.
Thin fractures spread across his glowing skin.
The light around him flickered.
His form began to break apart.
Golden particles peeled away from his body, drifting into the air like fragments of dust caught within moonlight. At first the disintegration was slow, almost gentle, as though his body were quietly surrendering itself to the night.
The wind moved softly across the battlefield.
That breeze carried the fragments away.
The Mysterious One raised his hand as if trying to grasp something that no longer existed. His fingers crumbled before the motion could finish. They dissolved into glowing grains that scattered into the air.
The destruction continued upward.
His arms unravelled into drifting particles. His chest collapsed inward as the golden glow fractured and scattered into the wind. The elegant dress he wore trembled as the body within it faded away piece by piece.
Soon there was no body left to hold it.
The garment fell empty to the bronze sand.
For a brief moment the last remnants of the Mysterious One hovered in the air. Countless fragments of golden dust shimmered beneath the pale moonlight, suspended in silence like the fading memory of a star.
Then the breeze carried them away.
No corpse remained.
No blood touched the ground.
No grave would ever be dug.
Only dust.
The battlefield returned to silence once more, as though the man had never existed at all.
"You are dust pretending to live, and now the dust has reclaimed its own."