Chapter 122: The Lord is With Us (43)
Chapter 122: The Lord is With Us (43)
Memories tangle and blur.
My mind was stained with murky colors, like ink bleeding into water, and my breathing grew ragged. The thumping of my heart rang loudly in my ears.
Suddenly, an unfamiliar landscape surfaced.
A meadow soaked in blood exuded an ominous aura on its own. Even the corpses covering the earth felt like a peaceful down comforter in comparison.
A massive crowd stood upon that ground.
A man pushed through the throng, hurrying his steps. He looked anxious. As he moved forward, the buzzing noise of the crowd began to fade.
Finally breaking through to the front, he joined the ranks of the silent.
It was a miraculous sight.
The demonic beasts, which even an army of tens of thousands could not stop, lay fallen, reduced to handfuls of ash. The monsters, having shed their contamination, had regained their human forms and met death with peaceful faces.
The wild grass, once trampled by combat boots, grew thick and lush; the fields were green. Only then did the man realize the season was spring.
And there, beyond it all, she was. A woman slumped against a tree.
The person he had searched for so desperately. With her hands clasped together and a cozy smile on her face, her fallen form looked like a scene cut straight from a holy painting.
Yes, she was hauntingly beautiful. As she had always been.
The man did not move for a long time. The breath he took showed no sign of being exhaled. He remained silent for a while, then took a hesitant step.
Slowly, and with great effort, the sound of his pounding heart drummed against his eardrums with every step.
Finally standing before the woman, he leaned down. He pressed his ear to the tip of her nose, but no sound came.
Not the sweet breath that used to huff softly on the bed, nor the voice that whispered love. Nothing.
He heard nothing at all.
Staggering, the man backed away. He looked down at the woman with despairing eyes.
She was dead.
Was this it? Was this the end of that grand 'Obedience'?
He couldn't understand why she was smiling. All she had gained by throwing her life away like a sacrifice was a little more borrowed time for a history that was hurtling uncontrollably toward ruin.
He wanted to demand answers.
He wanted to ask why she had such a peaceful face, what would happen to the Eastern Front now that she was gone. And why, of all people, she had to leave him behind.
Countless words seethed like a furnace, burning his mind white. His lips trembled, on the verge of spitting out words of reproach.
But in the end, he couldn't.
Instead, the man spoke through gritted teeth.
"……Adjutant."
The woman standing behind him, blankly staring at the corpse, jumped and bowed her head.
"Yes, sir."
"Send a messenger to the Capital. Tell them the withdrawal operation on the Eastern Front was a success. And……."
Burning golden eyes rose into the air.
The woman called the adjutant flinched the moment she met that gaze, her body stiffening as she bowed her head even lower.
"……Tell them humanity has lost another Master."
The adjutant turned and ran without delay. The man watched her retreating back for a moment before looking around.
Soldiers who had survived thanks to someone's sacrifice were kneeling one by one.
Soon, their hands were clasped together. Thus began the most solemn worship service praising the Heavenly God.
The sight of an army numbering in the thousands and tens of thousands reciting a prayer all at once was truly a spectacle.
However, only one person—the man—did not kneel.
He trudged through the kneeling army. Destruction was approaching by the second, and he had no time to spare for prayers.
He simply thought. Grinding his clenched teeth, he repeated it endlessly within a thought circuit distorted by hatred and resentment.
I have to kill them all.
Whether they were demonic beasts, fiends, dark priests, or even monsters out of myth, it didn't matter.
I had to kill them all.
Every single one.
My darkened consciousness resurfaced. My breathing had stabilized before I knew it.
A pleasant tension tingled at my fingertips. I stood in the middle of the heavy flow of time.
No thoughts came to mind. My head was cold, and my senses were sharper than ever.
A Flesh Seed was lunging at me. Toxic liquid dripped from its gaping, hideous maw.
It was already within reach. At a glance, it seemed I was already too late.
There was still no sign of movement in my body. No hint of tension could be seen in my relaxed muscles.
But I realized instinctively. This stationary posture was the seed of all movement.
Stillness in Motion (停中動).
Just before the Flesh Seed's claws could touch me, time stopped.
Only my sword drifted through that frozen time. In an instant, the sword's point dropped to the lower left.
I recalled a sight I had seen long ago. Senior Delphine and Seria had drawn their sword paths upward from this position.
And in that split second when time began to flow again—
Kieeeeeeeek!
A sorrowful scream erupted.
The Flesh Seed, cut into four pieces, rolled across the ground. Blood gushed out in torrents. Three silver claw marks were already engraved in the air.
It was a blinding speed. All three sword paths drawn simultaneously were True Strikes. The Flesh Seed, which had been squirming and struggling, finally died as its head split in half a moment later.
The Yurdina Family's Secret Ritual Technique, the Golden Lion Sword (金사劍).
Seria's eyes widened as she recognized it, but even that lasted only a fraction of a second.
The remaining Flesh Seeds began to leap and scramble along the cave walls.
I didn't know the principle behind it. The only certain fact was that a few had passed me by, and several were rushing toward me.
From behind, I heard shouts and the clashing of metal. The full-scale melee had begun.
In the midst of it, I took a long, steady breath.
Fierce hostility was burning in my chest. Normally, my head should have been hot as well. But it was strange. The more my chest seethed, the colder my head became.
It was a bizarre sensation. It felt as if I were possessed by a veteran who had crossed countless deathlines.
And when I opened my eyes again, a silver trajectory cut through the darkness.
It was a strike fired like a bolt of light. It pierced straight through the head of a Flesh Seed lunging from my left. The struggling creature grabbed my blade with its own hands.
It seemed intent on interfering. As if to prove it, one Flesh Seed immediately kicked off the cave ceiling and dove toward my front, while another came from the right.
I didn't have time to wrestle over the sword. I kicked the Flesh Seed dangling from my blade away, sword and all, and drew my hand axe, extending my arm to the right.
The Flesh Seed's claws grazed my slightly twisted body, and soon its head entered my range.
With a thwack, the Flesh Seed's skull exploded. Brain matter and blood sprayed everywhere, the air thick with the stench of iron.
But that wasn't the end. I gritted my teeth and put strength into the hand holding the axe embedded in the side of the Flesh Seed's head.
The creature's skull resisted, trembling, but no matter how much it struggled, the conclusion was already decided.
The silver trajectory connected horizontally.
The half-shattered head of the Flesh Seed flew through the air. My hand axe, thrown along with it, embedded itself in the forehead of the Flesh Seed rushing from the right.
The speed was so great that it felt as if the horizontal sword path had simply extended. Three Flesh Seeds lost their lives in an instant.
It was a savage battle, fueled by rage. My vision, heated by excitement, was turning red. My panting breath now carried a sweet scent.
As a price, I no longer had any weapons in my hands.
It didn't matter. To deal with the Flesh Seed lunging from the rear, I arched my upper body backward.
The Flesh Seed passed narrowly over me. Naturally, I had no intention of letting it go.
Springing back up, I wrapped my arm around the Flesh Seed's shoulder. Using that momentum, I slammed the creature into the ground with all my might.
Kieeeeeek!
With a heavy thud, the Flesh Seed let out a cry of agony. Before the monster could regain its senses, I drove my fist into its face.
A relentless strike. A faint sense of euphoria even flickered in my eyes as I exercised raw violence.
Crunch. Thud. Crack.
A sickening noise echoed every time my fist slammed down.
The first punch caved in its nose, the second burst a spray of blood, and the final one finally crushed the skull, letting brain matter leak out.
And then, death. Three punches were enough to take the monster's life.
The price was harsh. Perhaps because I had spent too much time punching, another Flesh Seed had approached my back before I knew it.
It was too late to turn and reset my posture. I slightly raised my right hand.
Then, thud, a heavy weight settled into my palm.
It was the hand axe. Using the secret of Stillness in Motion, I had recalled the axe that was embedded in the forehead of the other Flesh Seed.
Naturally, this involved complex calculations.
Even when using the secret of Stillness in Motion, the trajectory is determined at the time of the initial throw. This meant that such a precise recovery of the hand axe was only possible if one knew how the battle would unfold afterward.
But that didn't apply to me.
I was simply throwing and swinging based on instinct. My next move was the same.
Collapsing into a turn, I buried the hand axe into the Flesh Seed's neck. Blood erupted, soaking my face.
The Flesh Seed with an axe in its throat couldn't even scream properly. I put strength into my arm, slammed the creature onto the ground, and mounted it.
The rest was simple. I just had to swing the axe until it died.
Crunch. Thud. Crack.
The sound of crushing bone erupted with every swing of the axe. The Flesh Seed's screams followed.
Blood, bone fragments, and brain matter splattered, staining my vision with all sorts of colors.
I was out of breath. My heart was pounding so hard my chest felt tight.
I have to kill them.
It was a kind of obsession. I gritted my teeth and brought the axe down again and again.
Even after the Flesh Seed's body convulsed and then went still, even after all sound had ceased, I continued.
Only the gruesome sound of the axe blade tearing through flesh echoed through the hollow cave. Yet, I couldn't stop.
If only they weren't here.
If only these monsters didn't exist, they could have lived.
I didn't need to name anyone specifically. Everyone could have lived.
Everyone, if only these monsters didn't exist!
An unknown hostility burrowed recklessly into the veins of my brain. Like tree roots taking hold in the soil, hatred and resentment swelled as if they would burst.
I felt like I was going insane.
"……You pieces of shit, seriously!!"
As I shouted and raised the hand axe high, someone grabbed my hand.
My fierce gaze snapped to the side. There stood Celine, looking at me with trembling eyes.
"St-stop... Brother. It's already over."
It's over?
My startled gaze swept the surroundings. It was as she said.
The corpses of a little over ten Flesh Seeds were scattered around. Every single one of them had their heads blown apart. And more than half of those corpses were my doing.
Only then did my sanity return. My eyes slowly drifted down to the Flesh Seed I had been hacking at with the axe.
It was already unrecognizable. It wasn't even minced meat. Crushed flesh, brain matter, and bone fragments were mixed together, flowing like a thick soup.
I had no words. Why on earth did I do that?
I gasped for breath, staggering as I stood up. Looking back, the rest of the group was staring at me with eyes full of terror.
Among them, Senior Elsie and Senior Delphine were in the worst state. Though she hadn't collapsed, Senior Elsie was hiccuping, trying her best to hold back tears.
Senior Delphine's face had turned pale. She looked as if she might vomit at any moment.
Silence settled over the cave.