029. Petals of the Eye (5)
Frey took slow, heavy steps.
Seventh-rank, the leader of the Blood Cult—the Blood Lion. The man had vanished without a trace. After a battle pushed to its absolute limit, the strike that fused mana and innate qi had turned him into nothing but a handful of blood.
But.
Frey’s steps, which had clearly secured a valuable victory, carried no strength at all. More accurately, there was no life in them. He moved like a zombie from a horror movie.
“Fr, Frey…?”
Ariel’s jaw trembled as she watched the impossible change that had just occurred. Something shocking had happened that words could not describe. Naturally, Frey was supposed to advance to a higher realm, but that thought felt like a cruel joke.
His slow steps held not the faintest trace of power.
Like a well-crafted mana doll. With great effort, Frey limped toward the fallen Lancelot and Ariel.
“You worked hard. Both of you.”
With a soft whoosh, Frey dropped to one knee and raised his trembling hand.
“Ah….”
His blood-soaked fingers gently stroked the shoulders of the two men.
Lancelot, finally relaxing, let out a long sigh and collapsed completely onto the ground.
“Did we win?”
With his eyes closed, Lancelot muttered softly. Frey turned his face and gave a silent nod.
“Yeah. The enemy commander has been defeated.”
“…Thank you.”
Lancelot struggled to sit up. He spared no praise for his friend.
What he had witnessed was a man colliding with his own limits and achieving something new.
From the fifth rank to the seventh. An impossible, unwinnable feat had been claimed.
“But something….”
Still on his knees, Frey raised his hand.
“I feel… I feel strange.”
The voice was nothing like Frey’s usual calm tone—trembling, weak, and heartbreaking. For someone who had never fallen no matter how desperate the crisis, it was unbearably pitiful.
“…Strange?”
Lancelot sensed the abnormality.
His already eerie appearance had grown even more severe. Was it blood loss? Mana depletion? Or perhaps a sudden revulsion toward the act of killing?
Then.
“Uweek!”
Frey suddenly vomited. The scene that appeared on Lancelot and Ariel’s retinas was shocking.
……Blood?
It was not ordinary bleeding. The quantity was beyond what internal injuries or demonic possession could explain.
Moreover.
“Black….”
Ariel, lying on the ground, opened her mouth in shock.
The blood Frey had vomited was black. It was unlike normal blood—more like the blood of a person whose organs were burning from within.
“Ah….”
With a soft whoosh, Frey touched his mouth and chin, now soaked in blood, and raised his hand.
He didn’t understand. Was it excessive bleeding? Or fatal damage to his organs from the blood mana?
Kraaack!
“Frey…!”
“Fr, Frey? Hey! Get up!”
The moment Frey’s trembling hand fell to the floor.
Lancelot and Ariel, who rushed to catch him, turned deathly pale.
They didn’t understand what was happening, but one thing was certain: Frey’s condition was critical.
It was at a level where rushing to a high priest for healing wouldn’t even be strange!
“Consciousness has cut off. Breathing is abnormally faint. He seems like he’ll die at any moment!”
Lancelot’s urgent gaze scanned Frey’s body.
It was a situation that wasn’t even a joke. Unlike the two who had suffered lacerations to their leg tendons and abdomen from the Blood Lion’s ambush, Frey’s entire body had been ravaged by demonic energy.
Immeasurable blood loss. A body that had lost all vitality. The two sensed it instinctively: Frey’s soul was trying to leave his freezing body.
“Woman! Didn’t you say you were researching life magic?!”
“L-life magic is completely different from the healing magic priests use! In a mana hole that’s already destroyed, it’s impossible to infuse life! If I’m not careful, Frey might die!”
“W-what…?!”
Lancelot’s eyes widened in shock at Ariel’s outburst, so unlike her usual gentle self.
Then… was his friend really going to die? Leaving behind the miraculous feat of defeating a seventh-rank enemy with a fifth-rank sword?
“……Damn it!”
An inappropriate curse escaped Lancelot’s lips. No holy water, no potions. The answer was clear.
Whoosh.
“W-what are you doing…?”
His next action was simple. He lifted the powerless Frey and the injured Ariel—whose leg tendons and mana hole had been destroyed—into his arms on both sides.
“I’m going. To the church.”
Lancelot’s answer, delivered with a heavy expression, was short. His legs continued to bleed, pouring out clotted blood from the unhealed wounds.
“With a body like this, you’re going to carry us to the church?! Do you even know where it is?!”
Ariel looked at him with utter disbelief.
The Blood Lion’s attack had been fast and cruel. First, he severed the tendons in the backs of Lancelot and Ariel. Then he stabbed Ariel’s lower abdomen—the variable in the battle.
That meant.
“Uuuuuuugh……!”
Shaking!
Lancelot was saying he could no longer use his lower body.
Yet he was still trying to do the impossible—carrying the two of them while wrapping his mana around the severed tendons.
“Kwaaaaaak———!”
Crack!
Then something astonishing happened. Lancelot, carrying Frey and Ariel in his arms, stood up from the ground.
“……!”
Lancelot’s leg muscles swelled like balloons. It was a grotesque sight. Ariel shouted in alarm.
“Stop it! You might end up unable to use your legs for the rest of your life!”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“……What?”
“Friends… are supposed to be like this……!!”
Crack!
Lancelot roared like a beast and took a step. His body swayed violently.
“Kwaaaak!”
Lancelot roared again and took another step. His entire body swayed like before, but his iron will held it together.
One step. Another step.
To survive. To protect his friends. For Frey, who had thrown everything away, Lancelot was only colliding with everything he had left.
***
“Hurry!”
“Yes!”
The Sword Demon kicked the ground and pushed his speed even further.
Tricked. They had been tricked!
The Blood Cult’s remnant forces had fallen into their smoke screen operation like fools!
Whoosh!
The Sword Demon, who confirmed the sudden attack point was empty, suddenly felt a chill.
‘Please don’t be too late…!’
By chance, they had encountered three young men.
The place the Sword Demon was heading was exactly where they had gone. In the worst case, those young men might have died at the hands of the Blood Lion, the leader of the Blood Cult.
Shuwoo, the Sword Demon’s body stretched out in desperation. It was clear he was using extreme speed enhancement. His subordinates had already fallen behind, but he could not stop.
“……!”
How far had he traveled?
At the break of dawn, when the sky was just beginning to lighten.
The Sword Demon witnessed a shocking scene.
A man covered head to toe in blood was walking along the road. On his left was a young man with a familiar face, and on his right was a young woman being carried.
‘I’m too late….’
The Sword Demon sensed it immediately. The arms hanging limply told him he had arrived far too late.
Kudangtang!
“Kwaaaak!”
“Aaaak!”
The moment the stumbling steps collapsed.
The man—Lancelot—had finally collapsed on the spot, unable to hold on any longer.
“…….”
Lancelot’s body froze like stone.
His sharp vision burned the image into his mind: fallen Lancelot, Ariel rolling across the road, and Frey collapsing powerlessly to the ground.
“……!”
The situation was dire. Yet the Sword Demon hid and watched.
Judging by what he saw, he had been too late by a long shot.
What they needed now was not medicine. They needed the sky—the holy bow from heaven.
That meant… his arrival would only make things worse.
The next scene was even sadder.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
“Huhuuk, huuuh…!”
Ariel, her legs and body soaked in blood, crawled along the ground.
Her face, ruined by tears and snot, was horribly distorted.
And.
“Please….”
Ariel hugged the limp Frey like a precious treasure and sobbed.
“Please help me. Please….”
To whom was she speaking?
Ariel muttered in an unbearably desperate voice. On this empty road, who could possibly hear her and reach out?
“……!!”
At that moment.
A shocking thing happened on the road.
At the break of dawn, when the sky was just beginning to brighten, the bright sunlight that had not yet risen shone upon Ariel holding Frey in her arms.
Golden light fell on the two.
‘You have decided.’
A soft voice rang out.
Ariel lifted her head toward the dazzling light.
‘I will lend you the power to perform a miracle for a moment.’
The voice, unheard for decades, echoed in Ariel’s ears.
Shiver.
Determination filled Ariel’s eyes.