The Final Contract
The moment Vandine smeared his blood across the seal of the contract, his vision flipped upside down. In that inverted world, there was neither sky nor earth to be felt.
A dark, empty void that seemed as if nothing existed at all.
"Contractor."
At the sticky voice that drifted out of the emptiness, Vandine shuddered against his will.
"What matter brings you to call upon me?"
"God of Death..."
Clenching his teeth, Vandine stared into some distant point in the darkness.
"Speak."
"I wish to... fulfill the contract."
"Hah. So you failed in the end, it seems? And after I went to the trouble of clearing that one out of your way myself. What a disappointment."
"...It is not over yet. One chance still remains to me."
For that price, he would have to offer his own death to the God of Death, but it did not matter. To achieve his purpose, he could do far worse.
"Human greed is such an amusing thing, every time I behold it. Kukukuk!"
A laugh like a blade scraping across iron flowed out from Mors, the God of Death.
"By the terms of the contract, your soul is now mine. What you desire is that boy I spoke of before, yes?"
"It is."
"I will grant you five minutes. During that time, you shall burn every last ounce of the strength remaining in your life!"
Vandine's vision flipped once more.
The black curtain lifted, and reality returned. As though time itself had stopped, the world around him was still frozen.
But the moment Vandine became aware of it, everything began to move again. He blinked his stiffened eyes a couple of times, and his vision cleared as if grit had never been there at all.
"Graaaaah!"
His body, too, had changed completely. A monstrous energy churned within him. It was a power he had never once felt before. He felt as though he could cut down anything at all—even, if it came to that, Duke Randert himself.
'I will grant you five minutes. During that time, you shall burn every last ounce of the strength remaining in your life!'
'Five minutes will be enough.'
Steel himself, Vandine swept his gaze across the battlefield ahead.
'So that's where you were hiding.'
Beings he had not been able to see mere moments ago now stood out in sharp relief. They differed from that fire-wielding girl in nature, but their energy was of a kind. All of them were surrounding Vandine's target—Bayul.
'So they were his underlings.'
He still had no idea what they were, but none of it mattered. Before his eyes stood enemies he had to kill, and as he was now, he was more than capable of it.
'Godfather.'
Vandine thought of Barachel, his godfather.
'I cannot come to where you are, but you will not be so lonely. I shall send the boy after me, in my stead.'
Pahat!
Vandine's body shot upward without warning. With a single light leap, he closed the distance to Bayul in one breath.
Hwaaaaak!
Spinel was terrified, but she did not hesitate. She had to block him. Gathering every scrap of her strength, she hurled her flame at the incoming Vandine.
It was a torrent of fire far too vast for any comparison to before. A crimson vortex of flame coiled around Vandine's body like a whirlpool, its heat searing enough to reach even where Bayul stood.
"Haaah!"
Any ordinary human should have melted away to nothing. Yet from deep within that great spiral of fire, a war cry burst forth—a cry that seemed to split the very sky.
Peong—
And the vortex of flame vanished before his eyes so completely, so absurdly fast, that it felt almost like a mockery.
"...!"
He couldn't believe it. Bayul knew exactly how much power Spinel had poured out. It had been an attack that spent her entire being, leaving her with almost nothing in reserve.
"How...?"
Only moments ago, the two of them had fought as equals. With the other spirits joining in, their side had even gained the upper hand.
Was this the true power of demonic magic?
Bayul felt he finally understood, a little, why Spinel had been so afraid.
Shwik— Shwik— Shwik—
Vandine kept running without the slightest loss of speed. Squeezing out every remaining drop of her strength, Spinel flung fire arrows at him. Dozens of them struck Vandine's body head-on.
"Hraaaaaah!"
But just as with the vortex of flame, they dealt him no harm at all. As he raised his sword, a colossal energy began to swirl around him.
Bang! Peobeobeobeong!
The fire arrows crumbled away once more, vanishing without a trace, and every soul who witnessed it froze in place. That nothing worked against him—more than enough in a battle like this to shatter the morale of the entire allied force.
Before anyone realized it, Vandine was right in front of them.
"No!"
Spinel shed her human form and became a single mass of flame, throwing herself into Vandine's path. For now, this was the best she could do.
"How dare you!"
Vandine's sword drew a graceful arc across the night sky.
Ssuwaaak—
His blade split the fireball cleanly in two.
—Kyaaaaak!
A scream only Bayul could hear tore through his eardrums.
"Spinel—!"
She writhed in agony and crashed to the ground. Though she was now a shapeless mass of flame rather than a human figure, Bayul could tell exactly how grave her condition was.
"Kkheuk!"
Because Bayul himself was feeling the pain of her body being severed. He had never known this before. His spirits had never been hurt, so he had never dreamed such a thing was even possible.
—Th-that bastard! Our Spinel!
Tempesta raged. Before that savage demonic magic, he too had cowered in fear—but watching Spinel fall was something he could not simply stand by and endure.
Dudududuk!
The first to move was Shame. Tree roots erupted suddenly from the ground around Vandine's ankles, and as if determined to stop his stride, they coiled and twisted up his calf and wound around his thigh.
And that was not all.
Dozens of water arrows, sharp as any blade, trained themselves on Vandine's face, neck, and arms, while a gale powerful enough to bring down the very buildings battered his body indiscriminately.
"Annoying vermin!"
But with even Spinel, an Intermediate Spirit, unable to stand against him, there was no way their attacks would land.
Pababang!
"Ugh!"
"Bayul! Are you all right?"
Bayul had taken no blow from anyone yet. And yet he kept groaning like a man aching all over, so even in this desperate moment, Crown Prince Lindemann could not help but fuss over him.
"Halt! I will permit no further slaughter!"
The arena had fallen into a lull the moment Vandine had fulfilled his pact with the demon. His bizarre transformation had drawn the rapt attention of friend and foe alike.
Hayes was no exception. Having watched the tide of battle for a moment, she gathered all the strength she possessed and once more threw herself into Vandine's path. The flamberge still jutted from her shoulder.
"Your courage is truly admirable."
Swaeek—
Clicking his tongue in displeasure, Vandine brought his blade crashing down like lightning upon the sword Hayes swung at him.
Chaenggeurang!
There was no clash of steel between them. The instant Hayes' mana-laden sword touched Vandine's blade, it shattered to pieces.
"...!"
Hayes was the most stunned of all. But her mind held only one thought: she had to protect the Crown Prince. Bracing with her good shoulder, she drove it into his chest.
Kung!
"Kkeuk!"
But the groan came not from Vandine—it spilled from Hayes herself. An impact like slamming into a colossal boulder shot through her shoulder and across her whole body.
"Stop vexing me!"
Vandine seized Hayes by the face and slammed her straight down into the ground.
Kwang!
A thunderous boom erupted, and the whole area shook as if an earthquake had struck.
"Hayes—!"
The Crown Prince, watching it happen, let out a scream. Hayes' face was buried in the earth, out of sight, and her exposed body hung limp as a corpse's.
"No! Hayes... no, nooo!"
An unbearable fury surged up from the depths of his throat.
He had trusted her. He had trusted her completely. He had believed, with iron certainty, that Hayes would break the man and come back safe.
"Protect the Crown Prince!"
"Raise the human barrier!"
As the Crown Prince, gone half-mad with rage, tried to hurl himself at Vandine, the remaining knights hastily threw up a wall of bodies around him and Bayul. They had been unable to save Hayes, but their duty to the end was the Crown Prince's safety.
"Aid the Commander!"
But the knights were not the only ones on that field. The surviving masked men joined in at Vandine's side.
Seogeok! Seogeok! Seogeok!
Vandine detonated his demonic magic and cut down knight after knight. There was no mercy in his blade. Only death followed it.
Pajik—
Then, at some moment in the carnage, he felt a faint tremor in his elbow.
"Die!"
As Vandine sheared through the waist of a knight who had leapt at his throat, his expression stiffened.
Pajik—
This time the same sensation came not just from his elbow, but from his back.
Proof that his body was breaking apart.
His remaining life was running out.
There is no time.
"Do not... bar my path any longer!"
Vandine rained his sword down in an ever wilder frenzy. He was a dead man walking; there was nothing left for him to fear. At the end of his burning gaze, one figure alone—Bayul.
"Bayul. Step aside."
The Crown Prince picked up a sword that had fallen to the ground. Barely any knights remained. Their retreat was cut off; there was nowhere to flee. Defeat was all but certain, but he could not simply die having done nothing. As Crown Prince, he would hold to the dignity of his station until the very last.
"Your Highness, fall back! It's dangerous!"
Bayul clutched his chest and tried to stop him. He himself was still wracked with pain, cold sweat soaking his brow.
'If only you could live through this...'
The man's target was Bayul himself—so perhaps, just perhaps, he was allowed to hope for that much? Murmuring that impossible wish in his heart, Crown Prince Lindemann leveled his sword at Vandine.
"No, you can't!"
Bayul shook his head.
He was none other than the Crown Prince of this very Empire—the precious heir who must one day inherit the throne. That was why his father had sent the Full Moon Knights in the first place.
"Sir Ian will be here soon. You only have to hold out until then!"
Bayul tried, by any means he could, to rouse the spirits and buy time, but they gave him no answer. He could feel their energy, but it was faint—agonizingly weak.
"Kkeuaak!"
At that moment, a knight fell dead mere steps away from them.
"...!"
While Bayul and the Crown Prince had been tangled in their argument, Vandine had arrived. And he was rejoicing. The mask hid his face, but nothing could conceal the ecstatic gleam in his eyes.
Suuuu—
Vandine's sword rose high toward the heavens.
'I shall cut you both down together. For my godfather, for His Majesty, for the Empire!'
Swaeaek!
His blade split the night sky, carving its trajectory down toward Bayul and the Crown Prince.
"Your Highness!"
Bayul shoved the Crown Prince with every ounce of strength he had.
Puuk!
But just before the heavy blade crossed the empty air and swept past Bayul's neck, a sharp sword suddenly burst out through Vandine's chest.
"Young Master Bayul!"
And from far away, Ian's voice rang out. He had finally arrived. Bayul did not know it, but the sword that had pierced through Vandine's chest was the one Ian had thrown as he came running.
Any ordinary knight would have died on the spot—but Vandine was already spending the whole of his remaining life.
The sudden blow knocked him slightly off course, yet his original purpose was accomplished all the same. His blade had cleaved through Bayul's neck and carried on toward the Crown Prince's chest.
"Aaak!"
Thanks to Bayul's shove, the Crown Prince escaped a fatal wound by a hair. But Vandine's sword carried demonic magic on its edge, and blood gushed from the Crown Prince's chest along with pain far worse than any wound should bring.
"Do not blame me for this!"
Vandine's attack was not finished. He had to snuff out their breaths with certainty. His final desperate stroke flew at Bayul's heart and buried itself deep.
'My neck stings.'
That thought lasted only an instant before Bayul's vision began to darken. As he fell backward, the night sky drifted into view—but he never had the chance to register it.
"Keheok!"
The agony in his heart arrived a beat too late. Bayul's body shuddered violently for a single moment, and then he vomited blood and crumpled to the ground.
Pajijik!
At the same instant, Vandine's shoulder—the one that had borne the strain all this while—burst open.
'So this is enough. This is...'
Jjeojeok— Jjeok!
Vandine's body began to crack like parched earth. Starting from his ankles, his frame crumbled away, and before long he dissolved into gray ash.
As if that had been the signal, the remaining masked men each drew a blade across their own throats and died where they stood—as if to say that nothing at all could be wrung from them.
"Young Master! Bayul, Young Master!"
Only Ian's anguished cries broke the silence, ringing out across the grounds.