Sacrifice and Resolve

The Cult Leader's corpse, cleaved clean in two, lay crumpled on the floor.

Even a man who had cradled ambitions vast enough to swallow the world ended no differently from the lowly cultists sprawled lifeless around him.

Kuuung—! The ground rumbled and shuddered—

With the ritualist's death, the crimson barrier he had sustained collapsed, and the sinister miasma choking the cavern died with it.

"Haa… haa… you son of a bitch."

I kicked the Cult Leader's corpse to vent the fury that wouldn't dissolve, then turned my head toward Paula.

"It's over, Paula."

"Thank goodness. Then now—"

Kuuuguung—!!

Just as the tension began to ease, a massive explosion thundered from the far end of the cavern, from the space where the altar had stood.

"Don't tell me—from that direction? The Colossus itself?"

"Antares! Look over there!"

The direction Paula pointed was toward our home. The countless low-ranking cultists we'd burned during our escape were now rising from the ashes.

And the Cult Leader's body—the one whose heart I had surely destroyed—was slowly, steadily beginning to regenerate.

"Kheheheh… so it seems you were preparing a ritual… to offer up the Saintess as a sacrifice…."

The Cult Leader's face, stitched shut with his own spilled blood serving as thread and needle, let out a grotesque voice.

"So long as the Colossus devours the Saintess, he will be fully resurrected. Whether we present her as an offering, or he simply descends and eats his fill—it makes no difference."

"You damned bastard. So you were performing the ritual to summon the Colossus's mouth."

The tremors grew with every passing second. The cavern ceiling shuddered, and soon the bedrock itself began to collapse.

From the cracks splitting the floor, crimson mist surged upward like lava.

"Paula! Run!"

We had to escape. The Red Colossus was not an existence humans could stand against.

We had to get out before even a single finger of the Colossus could manifest.

"Paula! Ignite Holy Fire on the Guardian Stars and the Cult Leader's bodies!"

"Yes! Burn hotter, burn more tenaciously!"

Paula rallied her divine power and once more set Holy Fire ablaze across the Guardian Stars' bodies.

But it was only a stopgap. Sooner or later, they too would revive, just as the Cult Leader had.

"The Colosssus desiiiress usss!! Offer yourrr loyaltyyy!"

"They're so damn persistent…."

The cultists who ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hadn't yet been touched by Holy Fire resurrected with crimson light blazing from their eyes.

Roughly fifty of them. Given the circumstances, they'd revive even if killed—so calling them an endless horde wouldn't be much of an exaggeration.

"Paula! Go ahead and dismantle the barrier! I'll cut every one of them down and join you after!"

"…Don't be late."

I swept away the cultists lunging at Paula's retreating back with a single wide arc of my halberd.

"With a tiger right in front of you, you're going fox hunting?"

Once more dredging up the deep well of resentment and vengeance within me, I poured Sword Aura into the halberd's cleaving edge.

A dark crimson streak tore through the air, and a dozen-odd cultists were reduced to chunks of meat.

"Run north! It's closest from there!"

"Got it!"

Even in the fleeting moments of our exchange, cultists came swarming from every direction.

The cult numbered around four hundred. No need to bother distinguishing combatants from non-combatants.

"Well, that much is… tiring, sure, but manageable."

I spun the halberd and batted away the volley of arrows raining down on me.

In that opening, a cultist with a wolf's head and a horse's legs slithered through the gap, lunging for my flank.

"Twins, dance together."

I stored away the halberd, its length now unwieldy, and drew out a single katana and a rapier.

I severed the foreleg raking for my stomach with the katana, then ran the rapier through the creature from throat to crown.

"Ghurgk… guck…."

"Disgusting thing."

Twirling the wrist holding the rapier in a full circle, I literally scrambled the beast-cultist's brains until it died.

"The Colosssus comess!"

"Death is no morrre!"

By the time I'd finished off the beast-cultist, a horde of cultists had me surrounded.

Here I'd told Paula over and over to make use of the terrain, and here I was failing to do the same myself.

"Well, whatever. Paula couldn't do this sort of thing anyway."

My twin blades accelerated, cutting down and piercing everything around me.

"Loose!! Fire!"

Fweeeesh—!!

The cultists occupying the high ground rained down arrows indiscriminately, caring nothing for their own caught in the volley.

Rather than deflect them, I drove my sword into the chest of the cultist beside me to pin him in place, then hauled him up toward the incoming rain of arrows.

Pababababang—!

"Gwueeeeeeck!!"

I hurled the freshly-made hedgehog of a cultist aside and plunged back into the fray.

But why is it nothing but small fry out here? Have the Guardian Stars not revived yet?

The moment that doubt crossed my mind, a chill crept along my back.

By the time I flung myself aside, it was already too late—the great scythe had bisected a line of cultists and sheared through my thigh.

"Haa… damn it. Speak of the tiger and it shows up, I guess."

"Don't like how you've been sliced? Don't worry. I'll be trimming off everything else too!"

Acrab's great scythe swept across the battlefield. Giving no thought whatsoever to friendly casualties, her blade cleaved countless cultists in two.

It was as if a storm of blood and viscera had been unleashed.

"You… I remember how much you hated fighting this recklessly."

"Kheheheh. Me? All I have to do now is offer up the blood and flesh the Colossus desires!"

It was a brief exchange, but I read a great deal from it.

Cutting through cultists and me together is inefficient. Anything caught between slows a blade's arc.

Fighting without even accounting for that meant she had lost most of her original skill.

So she's under the Colossus's control. And… no trace of the other Guardian Stars. The dead must revive in the order they fell.

After calmly organizing the information, I charged straight into the scythe's descending arc as it aimed for my arm.

WhaBOOM—!

"Kuhek?!"

I shoved aside the scythe's haft with my blade and drove my knee into her solar plexus. Acrab's body launched a good meter off the ground.

But a Guardian Star wouldn't so much as crack a bone from an impact like this, let alone tear anything. It was a setup—a momentary stun to open a gap so I could skewer her heart.

"Your heart. Got it."

The instant the rapier sought the space between Acrab's ribs—

"Antares. Traitor."

"Oh, you've got to be—"

KWAKK!!

An iron club came whipping in from my flank in a sneak blow and hammered into my shoulder.

The crushing impact launched my entire body off the ground—

THUD!

"Kheogh!"

Without even a chance to shield myself, I was smashed into the cavern wall.

My head rang. One arm had snapped from the blow.

"Haa, and now Paula will have a hard time undoing the barrier too."

I spat the blood pooling in my mouth onto the ground and squared my stance once more.

I'd received the Red Colossus's blessing too. The broken bones, the crushed organs—all of it would regenerate soon enough.

"Come at me quickly. I've got a long road ahead of me."

I would kill them all. For that child's sake.

I was wringing out my divine power, wholly absorbed in dismantling the barrier, when I felt something off several times over.

The scattered wall of the barrier hardening back into place—and then scattering apart again.

Did another Guardian Star revive, only to be struck down by Antares again?

And if so, why wasn't Antares coming?

As I sank into an unfathomable unease, a sound reached me from behind.

Clank.

"Antares?"

I turned my head, hope and dread tangled together—and saw her.

Antares, covered in wounds, standing beside the Cult Leader and Acrux. There was not a single spot on her body untouched by blood, and one of her arms had been severed clean off, leaving only the shoulder behind.

"The Colossus… desires…."

Her eyes held none of their usual affection. An empty gaze, containing nothing at all.

"Antares… no. Snap out of it!"

The Cult Leader beckoned to me with a smile that crawled over the skin.

"Poor girl. Accept your fate and be done with it. Yours is a destiny to offer your body for the manifestation of the Red Colossus."

"…Shut up."

The me of the past would have given up right here.

Rationalizing it—so what if this ugly world fell into the Colossus's hands.

"Antares never wanted this. Not this."

But the world where she exists—that world must not vanish.

I refused to let her heart, her wish to never show the children an ugly world, go unrewarded and buried in the dark.

I drew my sword and wreathed the last of my divine power around my body.

"A futile struggle, is it not?"

Grinning, the Cult Leader seized Antares's hair and yanked her head back toward me.

Fury flared at the sight, and I nearly lunged right then—but then I caught the cold, leveled gleam in his eyes.

A provocation. Do not take the bait.

"Ha, so the idiot girl did drill some sense into you after all. Well, I suppose she raised her previous brood well enough too."

"That's enough. Out of you."

"Raise them so lovingly, only to hand them over as sacrifices… and yet you went and defiled them, forcing sealings. Ha—and today, you cast away even the last hope of unsealing them with your own hands. How poetic."

The Cult Leader's gaze flicked between me and Antares. Waiting, it seemed, for the moment I would lunge.

But when a long while passed and I still held my ground, he swayed in place and pointed a finger at me.

"Kill her. Drag her down into the abyss, as you did your other children."

Antares drew her weapon instantly, moving like a hound responding to a command.

Wielding that halberd, she is stronger than I am. Even if I somehow felled her, the Cult Leader and Acrux would still stand behind her.

There is no chance of victory. But even so—

"If you're the woman who was willing to cast aside everything you were to protect me—then you can't stop here!! Even if it kills me! I will struggle and survive to the very end!"

For Antares's sake, I threw myself against Antares.

At me, rushing her with everything I had, she looked—briefly—with her usual crimson eyes, eyes brimming with love and sorrow.

"…I'm relieved. Paula."

KWADUDUK!

In that same instant she whipped her whole body around and brought the flat of her axe down onto the Cult Leader's skull, shattering it to pieces.

She had been moving the moment she turned—and Acrux was already reacting.

"You lumpy sack of muscle!! BURN!"

My Holy Fire engulfed Acrux's entire body and drove him back.

But even Holy Fire at maximum output only made Acrux stagger for a breath—he smothered the flames with his forearm and began advancing on me.

"Well done, Paula."

FWEHAK!

Acrux, his single eye fixed dead ahead, never saw Antares carving in from the side.

The halberd punching through his flank and into his heart spewed its venom once again.

"KWEEEAAACK!! Ugh! GRAAAAH!!"

Then Antares wrenched the haft sideways with all her strength.

The halberd burst out through Acrux's belly, and the massive body crashed to the floor.

"The mind control. How did you break it?"

"…He showed me the same illusion. I just endured it, from inside."

Antares said it flatly, but tears were spilling from her eyes.

"Now then. Time to make sure this never happens again."

The Cult Leader, whose skull and spine had been pulverized, had somehow already regenerated about half his wounds.

With an unsettling smile, he sneered up at Antares from the floor.

"Foolish… creature…. The Colossus comes soon. To witness his countenance at last—"

"Yeah. Judging by that regeneration speed, his manifestation is nearly complete."

"Even now… accept your fate quietly."

"You won't get to see it. A sacrifice devoured can't be resurrected."

For the first time, fear cracked through the Cult Leader's faintly smiling face.

"There is no altar here."

"A sacrifice is a channel for connection with the Red Colossus. But while he is already manifesting, an altar is unnecessary."

"H-how… how do you—"

"You taught me. Forgotten already?"

The Cult Leader's face drained white, as if every drop of blood had left it.

Then, thrashing with limbs that hadn't even finished regenerating, he ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠tried to crawl away from Antares.

"N-no! No!! It was my life's devotion. All the prayers I offered to welcome him—"

KWADUK!

Antares's hand punched through the Cult Leader's chest. In her grip, she held his faintly pulsing heart.

"O Colossus. Take it."

"This… cannot… be…."

The crimson mist rising from the ground eagerly swallowed the heart of a cultist whose power had failed.

"Is it over?"

"…I have to end it. By getting you out of here."

"I'm sorry. My divine power is on fumes now—I can't break the barrier."

The Guardian Stars' revivals mid-way through had devoured a hefty chunk of my divine power, and the battle just now ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had drained plenty more.

At this point, I couldn't pierce even that flimsy barrier holding the strength of a single Guardian Star.

"…If I die here with Antares, then an ending like this is fine with me."

I stepped toward Antares. My second death—I didn't want it on a traitor's blade. I wanted to die in the arms of the woman I loved.

"I'm sorry, Paula. If I could have chosen, I'd have done this somewhere you couldn't see."

Stab.

Antares drove a sword into her own chest. A shabby blade belonging to some lowly cultist, picked up who knows where.

"Wh-why? What are you… doing… Antares!!"

She shoved me aside as I bolted toward her.

"When the last Guardian Star dies… the barrier will vanish."

"R-right! Yes! The Colossus will resurrect you. You're… leaving me… the barrier—"

If I carried Antares out with me, the Colossus's power would resurrect her—no. She would be taken. She would die.

If she stays inside, Antares will revive—but she'll be in the Colossus's clutches.

"Paula. I'm… at peace now."

"How can you say that…? They might do things to you worse than death!"

Antares moved one last time. The silver bracelet on her wrist passed into my hand.

"Because the ones I love most… will be able to walk out of here."

The moment I caught that bracelet, Antares's body tipped forward, toward me.

Slowly, she grew cold. That warmth of yours I could never forget.

"You. I'm going to curse you."

And then Antares will say it. Blame me, curse me—it's all right. Even if I become the thing she hates most in this world—as long as she lives on.

Kuuguuguung—!!

"…I'm going. No. I'll be back."

I left Antares lying in the collapsing cavern and sprinted for the exit.

When I looked back one final time, beyond the barrier reborn in the darkness, a massive crimson finger was reaching in to carry her body away.

"Fine. Take her. Take her and keep her alive. But in the end… no matter what tricks you pull—"

"I'm coming back here. And I'm taking her back from ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠you."