Evian
The moment they entered the mist, all sense of their surroundings vanished.
Which was hardly surprising.
Scarlet swept her gaze around and tightened her grip on the morning star in her hand. The tower shield, heavy with its imposing presence, was likewise gripped all the more firmly.
Fear begins in the heart.
Fortifying the defenses of her mind, Scarlet hardened her spirit, cold and heavy, as though sinking into deep water.
Human will is the most resolute of all things,
and faith in the Heavenly God is the most unshakable.
No matter how cunningly the wicked might wag their tongues, she would not be swayed.
The ropes tied at each person's waist still had plenty of slack, which meant the formation was almost certainly holding. The Hero and the Saintess were surely somewhere nearby as well — and this, of all moments, was no time to let the reputation of the Holy War Special Task Force falter.
With every step, a clammy, clinging sensation crept up from the ground. The way the silver greaves seemed to slurp and stick at every stride stirred a instinctive disgust.
A strange silence hung over everything.
Every movement should have produced the sound of armor — and beneath that armor, the peculiar driving hum that was Scarlet's alone —
yet this absurd, oppressive stillness felt unbearably wrong.
Scarlet drew in a breath. She inhaled deeply, exhaled long and slow, and cleared her mind. Reaching out, she ran her fingers along the rope at her belt. That rope, still so very slack, reminded her yet again that her comrades were close by.
"The Heavenly God is present — cast out fear, and be filled with courage."
"The Heavenly God is present — He bids me cleave my enemies and open the way."
"The Heavenly God is present — I shall not fear..."
The golden radiance that wrapped around Scarlet's body flickered to life once more, blazing bright.
The cathedral knights — and among them, the Crusade Knights directly under the Infula Holy See — and among those, the one-woman legion of the Holy War Special Task Force: Scarlet.
The divinity rising endlessly from her, the brilliant golden aura flaring dazzlingly bright, were themselves proof of her faith.
There was no telling how long she had walked. That it had been a considerable time was certain, but the fog seemed to stretch on without end; no matter how far she pressed forward, its edge never came into view.
The rope still had slack to spare, but when she called out her comrades' names at the top of her voice, the sound was swallowed whole by the mist without so much as an echo in return.
And still, Scarlet walked on.
Her stamina was being whittled away bit by bit, yet some unfounded conviction told her that if she sat down to rest, it would be her mind that began to erode first.
She had faced every manner of monster. She had fought beasts the size of a house, and psychic horrors that flashed wicked, mesmeric eyes.
But this — fog billowing this thick and dense — was something even Scarlet had never encountered before.
It all comes down to what you set your mind to. Maintain your composure.
Even as she thought it, she kept every sense straining sharp, wary of the claws of whatever monster might come charging out of nowhere.
"You understand, don't you?"
At the man's voice that came suddenly from out of nowhere, Scarlet's footsteps froze in place.
A voice she could never, ever forget — the very voice that remained within her memory as its most treasured thing.
"Stop thinking of the shield as something that only defends. You have to understand that a shield can be a fine weapon in its own right. Understood?"
Scarlet's grip on her shield tightened without her willing it. The center grip, held in a gauntleted fist that could never possibly sweat, felt as though it might slip anyway.
"...Who goes there."
Scarlet's voice sank low and heavy. That voice had no business sounding in this place.
"Don't think of the shield and the morning star as armor and weapon. Think of it, rather, as a weapon in each hand."
"I asked who you are."
Scarlet's voice rose to a razor's edge. That this voice — the most precious of her memories — should reach her ears here was more than she could possibly abide.
Scarlet stood frozen, scanning her surroundings. The area, shrouded in thick fog, showed her nothing at all — and beyond that, she felt no presence of anyone speaking to her from within it.
"This can never be tolerated!"
"I asked who you are!"
Of all things — that particular memory. That voice — the voice from the moment of his greatest fury.
The hand gripping her morning star was trembling, ever so faintly.
"Do you truly believe the Heavenly God will tolerate this!? Is this what He taught us to do!?"
"You wretch!"
Scarlet let loose a roar of fury. The moment her killing intent erupted, golden light burst violently outward all around her, driving the fog back in an instant.
But the sea of mist surged right back in as if nothing had happened, swallowing the area whole once more.
"This can never be tolerated!"
"Enough. The matter has already been decided."
"Decided by whose will alone? He is my comrade! He is the junior I hold dear! Did I not say I would look after him myself!"
"That cannot be. He has already gone too far. Step aside."
"Then turn me into your enemy as well. No wonder the Heavenly God no longer shows Himself. A church of the Heavenly God forsaken by the Heavenly God — how perfectly you deserve it!"
"...Mind your tongue."
"Was I wrong? Why not simply cast me out as well? O great and mighty Holiness, Pope Axell IV! That this Heavenly Church you have led should rot and fester so — what a grief it is!"
"I said, MIND YOUR TONGUE!"
Scarlet lifted her deeply bowed head.
She knew well everything that had followed. All of it — every last thing — had unfolded before her own eyes.
And so the knight had left the cathedral: the former Special Forces Commander of the Crusade.
The one who had resolutely shielded Scarlet to the very end, and who had walked away himself rather than abandon her — the former Special Forces Commander.
"...To use him to mock me like this."
Scarlet raised her head, slowly. Behind the visor that had hidden her eyes, something strange flared alight, blazing as though light itself were pouring from them.
The divinity that had been smoldering between the joints of her armor now burst past any mere smoldering, erupting explosively outward, and what could not escape through the gaps began pouring from every inch of her body.
"It should never have been touched. He should never have been used."
Scarlet clenched her fist around the morning star. The rising divinity took shape, condensing above her head. Gathering in a pallid white form, it revealed itself at last — a morning star resplendent in gold.
Above Scarlet's head floated a morning star many times larger than her own frame.
A weapon wrought from divinity itself — something only a handful in the entire Crusade could manifest, permitted only to those who might truly call themselves vessels of the Heavenly God —
or so it should have been.
In this moment, Scarlet was not moving by the will of the Heavenly God, nor by faith.
Not forgotten, but kept wrapped and enshrined deep in a corner of her heart — that memory.
The man's retreating back. His voice. The traces he left behind.
The man who should never have been used as fodder for cheap illusions like these —
for these nameless things that dared wield him so blasphemously —
Retribution.
Fury.
Hatred.
All of it, she poured into this morning star. All of it, she sealed within this morning star.
Scarlet's eyes flashed.
"Begone. Now."
Scarlet slowly raised the morning star in her hand. Following her motion, the morning star floating above her head lifted its great head as well.
The morning star of divinity itself, its majesty towering higher still as it stood erect. The morning star of divinity itself, overwhelming all who beheld it by sheer magnitude alone.
It flared, scattering radiance of molten gold.
"None shall beguile me—!"
With Scarlet's roar, the morning star slammed down into the ground. And in the same instant, the colossal morning star hovering above her head came crashing down upon the earth with all its enormous weight behind it.
A cloud of dust and sand billowed upward. The sea of fog that had blanketed everything receded as if swept away in a single stroke, laying the surroundings bare.
The cathedral knights scattered here and there were in a sorry state indeed. One sat slumped, clutching his head in his hands. Another crouched low against the ground, weeping and begging forgiveness of someone unseen. Yet another had fallen where he sat, screaming at nothing, at no one, to stay away.
And amid all of them, only Ludwik and Vigrind stood composed.
The moment Scarlet spotted them, she ran to their side.
"Are you unharmed, Hero? Saintess?"
"Yes, we're fine. Are you all right as well, Sir Scarlet?"
"I am. And you, Saintess?"
"...Yes. I'm all right."
Her complexion was pale and weary, but Vigrind forced her expression steady and nodded.
The divinity rising from Scarlet had all but vanished. And as a Saintess, Vigrind could tell — the divinity she could sense from Scarlet was now almost gone entirely.
"The fog will rise again soon, I imagine?"
"Most likely."
Ludwik's gaze caught on a single point.
And as Vigrind followed his line of sight, a look of horror dawned across her face. Scarlet turned after their gazes as well — and drew in a sharp breath.
There was a tree.
Where the Catacombs should have stood, an enormous tree had grown. A trunk so thick it would take two or three full-grown men linking arms to encircle it, rising so high they had to crane their heads back just to glimpse its crown.
No common russet or brown, but a tree mottled through and through in blackish red — and it stood there before them, exuding a sinister aura at a single glance.
Vigrind clenched her jaw. From the ground where its roots had taken hold, they began to crawl out, one by one.
The dead.