Battle Inside the Castle (4)
Sylvia was forced down onto her back, unable to resist at all. When the red knight twisted her wrist with brutal force, she cried out in pain and dropped the Light Saber she had been gripping. In the end, Sylvia lay spread-eagle before Doom, her legs pried apart against her will. Pure terror filled her eyes.
“I’ll plant a worm inside that cunt of yours—one that thirsts for pleasure. You will serve me for the rest of your days as nothing more than a toy.”
Black fluid bubbled and frothed. The hands that had burst from the puddle lifted the prone Sylvia even higher, spreading her thighs wider still.
Oh, no!
Doom raised his right index finger. A single larva crawled out through the nail. He held it up, staring between Sylvia’s legs as he approached slowly. Sylvia’s face drained of all color. She shook her head violently.
“No! Don’t! I don’t want it!”
Doom’s calm voice sliced through Sylvia’s scream of pure horror.
“I will drag you down into an abyss you have never known. My dear sex slave.”
She thrashed with all her strength, but despair was already at her throat. Doom extended his long nail, preparing to rip away the cloth covering her most intimate place. Sylvia’s entire body shuddered with fear. Tears poured down her cheeks.
This is it, then. This is as far as my road goes… Cloud…
If this was fate, there was nothing she could do. It was over. The only moment she could still remain herself was right now. Before the larva could burrow inside her and turn her into a demon’s slave, she resolved to bite her tongue and end her own life.
She squeezed her eyes shut, ready to clench her jaw—when an arrow tore through the air with a sharp whistle. It struck the larva perched on Doom’s fingertip with perfect accuracy, then clattered against the wall and fell.
“Hmm?”
Doom narrowed his brows and looked toward the arrow’s origin. There stood Cloud and Elena, side by side.
“Cloud!”
Color flooded back into Sylvia’s face. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears.
Cloud stepped forward and declared in a bold voice, “Hey, you creepy cape-wearing bastard. The moment you laid a hand on my woman, any hope of mercy went out the window. I’ve decided to become a hard-boiled protagonist starting right now! I’m going to be a savage, violent son of a bitch! I’ll chop your limbs into tiny little pieces!”
The instant the words left his mouth, Cloud raised his sword and charged straight at Doom. Behind him, Elena unleashed a rapid barrage of arrows at Galatea and the red knight, drawing them away from Sylvia.
Elena’s archery was nothing short of divine. She selected different arrows for each situation, effectively fighting on two fronts at once. Aggressive shots flew toward Galatea and the red knight, while holy purification arrows streaked toward the shadowy hands still pinning Sylvia down. The moment those arrows struck the puddle, it turned into clear, harmless water and the dark energy vanished.
Freed from her bonds, Sylvia crashed to the floor, landing hard on her backside.
“Ugh.”
She winced, but there was no time to complain about the pain. She snatched up the Light Saber lying nearby and sprang to her feet.
“You bastards! You’d better steel yourselves! I won’t hold back at all!”
Having narrowly escaped death, Sylvia bared her teeth, burning with renewed fighting spirit. The combined assault from Sylvia and Elena crashed over Galatea and the red knight like a violent storm.
Meanwhile, Cloud—who had been blocking Doom—triggered the witch’s power the instant he came under attack. Doom’s outstretched hand, which had been about to unleash dark energy, slowed to a crawl.
“Heh heh. I’m really not going to let you off easy. Get ready.”
In a world where everything else had slowed to a snail’s pace, Cloud smiled with satisfaction and stepped right up beside Doom. He raised his sword high, ready to sever the demon’s arm—when, impossibly, Doom spoke in a perfectly normal voice.
“So you possess a power of the same nature as mine. I see. So that’s what it was. The power Lady Isabelle bestowed upon you.”
“Wh-what?!”
Cloud stumbled backward in shock.
Doom calmly folded his extended arm and stood straight, gazing at Cloud.
“How are you moving so quickly? How?”
Cloud looked around in disbelief, but the only one moving at normal speed was Doom himself.
Doom gave a small, mocking laugh. “Did you believe your ability was omnipotent? Before that—do you even understand how it actually functions?”
“Understand? What’s there to understand? My power makes everything else look slow. Isn’t that it?”
“You’ve been wielding the power Lady Isabelle granted you without even properly comprehending it. How foolish.”
Doom continued, “What appears to be objects slowing down is actually your dynamic visual acuity accelerating tens of thousands of times over. Your movements have reached the speed of light. The ability doesn’t ‘slow things down.’ You simply became faster, so everything else looks slow by comparison. And there is no such concept as the ability ‘activating’ in the first place. Because you only understood thirty percent of the power Lady Isabelle gave you instead of one hundred, you mistakenly believed it had to be triggered. You can move at the speed of light anytime, anywhere, simply by willing it. The only limitation is your stamina. Moving at light speed consumes energy at an equally extreme rate.”
Doom added one final remark. “If you encounter an opponent with superior dynamic visual acuity and faster movement than you, your power becomes completely useless. Just as I am moving at the same speed as you right now.”
“Th-that’s impossible!”
“Your power is not omnipotent. The world is full of experts who can see straight through the speed of light.”
The moment Doom finished speaking, he swept aside the cloak draped over his shoulders and extended his right hand. Dark energy began gathering in his palm.
Sensing the killing intent directed at him, Cloud was seized by fear and instinctively retreated. The sphere of darkness slipped from Doom’s grasp and hurtled toward him. Cloud curled into a ball, covering his face with both arms. This is it. I’m dead.
But nothing happened.
The sphere of dark power dissolved into nothing the instant it touched him.
Doom narrowed his eyes at the sight. “An incomprehensible bastard to the very end. What was that this time?”
Time flowed normally again. Sylvia and Elena, realizing Cloud was under attack, abandoned their fight and rushed over.
“Are you all right?!”
“Cloud!”
Realizing he was completely unharmed, Cloud grinned at Doom.
“Ahahaha! So you could beat the power the witch gave me, but you couldn’t beat this! In the end, you’re just another small fry scattered all over the place, same as me!”
He pulled out the necklace he wore and held it up.
“I’ll return your own words! Your power isn’t omnipotent! The world is full of experts who can shatter your magical energy in a single blow!”
Doom’s eyebrow twitched. “Hes’s necklace, is it?”
He stared fixedly at the pendant in Cloud’s hand. A single thread of icy mockery crossed his cold, cruel gaze.
“How truly curious. After Hes disappeared twelve hundred years ago, we searched everywhere as if combing through every grain of sand, yet found nothing. To think I would see it in a place like this.”
He murmured as though recalling a distant past. “What a cruel twist of fate…”
At that moment, Galatea and the red knight landed beside Doom after leaping through the air, taking up positions on his left and right.
Sylvia stepped in front of Cloud, shielding him. With a gaze full of vigilance toward Doom and his minions, she spoke to Cloud with solemn resolve.
“Leave this to me. No matter what happens, I will protect you.”
Standing beside Cloud, Elena refused to be outdone. She drew her bowstring taut and took perfect aim at Doom.
“I will protect Cloud.”
The words sounded deliberately directed at Sylvia. As expected, Sylvia caught the subtle jab and turned to glare at Elena, frowning as she prepared to retort—when Doom, who had been lost in thought, suddenly spoke again.
“Hes was my father. A father I both loved and truly despised.”
The sudden confession left Cloud dumbfounded at first—What the hell is this guy talking about?—but he quickly played along.
“The ancient mage Hes is your actual father?”
Cloud, who had no desire to die young, saw an opportunity to buy time. Against an overwhelmingly powerful opponent, victory seemed impossible. If he could drag out a deep conversation, perhaps they might even become friends. Or at least… He racked his brain, searching for any opening in Doom’s seemingly flawless demeanor.
“Hes was human. How could a demon like you be his child?”
“When I was young, the archmage Hes discovered me—a demon’s offspring—in the forest and took me in as his adopted son. I revered him as a true father, and he treated me as his own.”
Doom gazed into the distance, as if revisiting those memories.
“Those were happy days. The memories remain with me even now. But then one day, a human woman appeared. At first she was kind to both Father and me. Yet with each passing day she revealed her true nature. She used her youthful body to seduce him, all to steal the highest-grade magical knowledge he possessed. Father fell for her charms. He became obsessed with her flesh. And when that woman finally left after claiming every achievement he had built over decades, he went mad with rage.”
Doom paused, then continued with a sneer.
“The books that record Hes’s legacy probably omit any mention of that woman. To humanity, he remains a benevolent archmage of legend—respected and revered. But before his death, driven insane by her betrayal, he began capturing living humans, dissecting them, and using them as experimental subjects. As you can see, the truth is hideous.”
Doom turned his gaze toward Sylvia and Elena.
“Since that day, I have hated women. They are useless except for producing offspring. They are filled with nothing but the desire to bewitch men and seize whatever they want.”
While Doom continued speaking, Cloud whispered under his breath, “When I give the signal, Elena, shoot at Doom. Sylvia, target both his legs.”
“Understood.” Elena nodded without hesitation.
Sylvia asked, “Why? Do you have a plan?”
“Just trust me.”
Cloud wore a confident smile.