Ten Seconds
"Reinforce the left!"
Bern shouted at once.
The holy knights moved to seal the gap, but the beasts were a step faster. The direwolves were not hurling themselves mindlessly at the knights behind their shields. Just short of the formation they dropped low and slipped between the knights' legs, under the rims of the shields.
"What—!"
One startled knight lost his balance. The instant he went down, the goblins coming up behind hooked grapple-ropes onto the shields and hauled in every direction. The tightly locked wall split apart. A few shields tore free entirely, unable to bear the strain.
"The formation's collapsing!"
"Cut the ropes first!"
Three hulking trolls charged the opened gap at the same time. The ones that broke the line did not turn on the holy knights. As if they had chosen their mark from the very start, every one of them drove a fist at the same place.
The carriage wheel.
Boom!
The first blow crumpled the rim.
Boom!
The second fist twisted the axle. The last troll locked both arms together and slammed them down with everything it had.
Crack—!
The thick axle snapped clean through. The carriage tilted hard to one side.
"Nina, hold on!"
I snatched at the seat handle. But the scream burst from the other side.
Neigh—!
Hooks the goblins had thrown sank into the horses harnessed to the carriage. Maddened by pain, the animals bolted in different directions, and the carriage, dragged after them, punched straight through the breach in the collapsed left formation. In a heartbeat the Saintess's carriage—which should have stayed at the center—was shoved outside the defensive line.
Missing a wheel, it lurched. Half-toppled and still being hauled along, its side slammed head-on into a thick tree.
Crash—!
The world flipped. Ceiling and floor tangled over and over. My body slammed into the shattered seat, and a roar like a great bell bursting exploded inside my skull.
At the same instant, the protective formula engraved in advance beneath the seat of the Saintess's personal carriage—laid there for her alone—triggered under the impact. The light that burst forth shoved me toward the rear of the carriage as it flew. I rolled across the ground several times, but the barrier wrapped around me kept my bones from breaking.
When I finally forced my eyes open, the carriage that had been flung far outside the formation lay completely on its side. Thanks to the protective formula, I was still inside the line.
In the instant I let myself feel relief that I was alive, Nina came to mind.
Far off, she lay collapsed on the dirt.
"Nina!"
A splinter from the broken carriage was driven deep into the thigh of the priest who had been thrown clear with her. Nina did not run. She caught the bleeding priest's arm and tried to haul him up. In that span, beasts poured through the breach in the collapsed formation.
"Save Miss Nina!"
"Open a path of retreat through the center!"
Bern, grasping the situation, tried to run for the carriage, but beasts were pressing in from both sides at once, and he could not leave his place. Any one of them was an opponent he could drop with a single swing of his sword. They were not trying to bring him down. Two or three at a time lunged in turns, binding only his feet, while the rest surged toward the overturned carriage and Nina.
This is wrong.
Beasts did not fight like this. They used their own lives as bait to pin a stronger enemy's feet. They struck only where the formation had weakened. They went for the wheels and the horses before they went for the people. This was not the movement of animals. Something was looking down on the whole battlefield and moving them one by one.
At Bern's order to open a retreat, three holy knights changed direction. One met the beasts' attacks shield to shield, and the other two sprinted through the gap he made. One of them reached a hand toward Nina.
"Take my hand!"
Close enough to touch, if she only reached. But Nina did not take it. She slung the fallen priest's arm over her own shoulder instead.
"Miss Nina, let go of him!"
"I won't!"
"There isn't time!"
"The Saintess will heal him! We have to take him with us!"
Small as she was, Nina dragged a full-grown adult. Her feet slipped in the mud. He did not move an inch. The holy knight who had reached for her clenched his teeth.
"I'll move both of you."
Of the two knights, one went to Nina and the other to the priest.
Boom!
The claws of a charging beast smashed down on a shield. The holy knight holding it drove one knee into the ground. Blood ran from the gap in his helm under the impact, but the shield did not drop.
"Saintess!"
A priest shouted from the rear.
"We have wounded, but no one is dead yet! Everyone is still alive!"
No one had died. Not the bleeding knights. Not the fallen priest. Not the holy knight shielding Nina. All of them were alive.
"Hold for ten seconds!"
Bern shouted, cutting down the beasts surrounding him all at once. Behind the fallen bodies, another pack charged in. As if they knew they could not beat him, they threw themselves at him one after another, at measured intervals.
"Saintess! Wrap them in a barrier! Give me ten seconds and I can move everyone back inside the formation!"
Ten seconds. Only ten seconds. On any ordinary day, that was the time it took to blink a few times. Not now. One second for a claw to smash down on a shield. Another for the crack to crawl farther. Even while the knight holding Nina turned his body, time kept moving.
10.
9.
8.
Every time the number in my head dropped, Nina's death seemed to take one step closer. Bern said ten seconds would be enough. But no one could promise what would happen inside those ten seconds. A beast hidden behind a tree might leap out. A cracked shield might shatter sooner than anyone expected. A knight might catch his foot on a root and fall. A single stroke of chance would be enough. With that single stroke, Nina dies. And a dead person might be beyond even the strongest holy power to bring back.
No. They could not be brought back. If the dead could be saved, then in the original story Elysia would have saved Nina.
I raised my hand to spread a barrier. But in that instant, past the cracked shield, I saw a beast's fangs.
Once. Twice. Every time the claws came down, the fractures across the holy knight's shield widened. A third blow looked as if it would break it. The other knight was only now gathering Nina into his arms. The holy knights who had joined them were already shoving the surrounding beasts back and opening a path of retreat. The rescue was clearly underway. To my eyes, all of it looked far too slow.
Too late.
Wait the full ten seconds and the shield breaks first. Another beast could come from behind. If that knight falls, Nina drops in front of them again. Even if this attack is stopped, the next one might kill her. The word next frightened me. The next attack. A mistake. And death. All I had to do was keep those things from ever arriving. If the cause disappeared, there would be no result.
I just have to erase them all.
I raised both hands and drew a massive formula in the empty air. Complex prayers and patterns of light overlapped, and a pure white ring unfurled above the beasts' heads. Dozens of magic circles stacked atop one another as the formula neared completion.
Judgment of the White Night
The final page of the advanced holy-magic textbook I had read over the past days. A wide-area purification that resonated with strong demonic energy and burned a contaminated target away from the inside. The same warnings were repeated in that book again and again.
If allies contaminated by demonic energy lie within range, limit the output.
Exceeding the permitted output may cause the accuracy of target identification to drop sharply.
When using high output, withdraw allies beyond the range.
I shoved the warnings rising in my mind aside and drew up my holy power. Beast blood on their clothes could not possibly make the formula judge humans as targets for purification. Even if the backlash of the output burned them, it would be fine. I could heal them at once.
I reached the spell's output limit. This was as far as I needed to go. But the moment I saw the beasts charging in behind the knights, strength gathered in my fingertips. The limit collapsed. A mere restriction carved into a formula could never stop the power of a Saintess corrected by the System.
The light gathered at my fingertips began to tremble. A radiance bright enough to blind lit the entire forest.
While all of that flashed through my head, the time that actually passed was barely more than three seconds. The number in my mind was still sitting on seven.
"Saintess!"
Bern was the first to recognize the formula. Having shoved a beast back, he thrust a hand toward me in desperation.
I had to stop the formula. It had not yet left my hands. If I did it now, I could still take it back.
"We've secured Miss Nina!"
The holy knight holding her shouted. He was running for the formation with Nina in his arms. She was alive. From within his hold she turned her head toward me. Both eyes looked straight at mine.
"Saintess!"
Nina reached a hand toward me.
"I'm all right!"
I heard it. I definitely heard it. Nina was alive. The rescue was over. All that remained was to wait for them to come back inside the formation. If I lowered my hand now, I could stop it. I knew that, and still I did not lower my hand.
There were still far too many beasts in the forest. They were alive in this moment, but there was no telling what the very next instant would bring. There was no way they would be all right. Not with that many beasts still left. Not when I might lose Nina.
I have to erase them all.
I only had to leave not a single one. If the danger itself vanished, no one would die. I poured out nine-tenths of the holy power still left in my body. It felt as if my arms were burning away, but that was fine.
Holy magic formula correction applied.
Reconstructing formula range to reflect excess output.
…Correction complete.
The System's correction finished calculating the formula.
"Saintess, you mustn't!"
Bern screamed.