Blood Zen
"Hah! Hahh! O-outside!"
A follower of the Outer God Alliance, having fled the Guardian Order, cried out in triumph at the light beyond the cave mouth.
"I'm ali—!"
The instant he stepped into the open air and felt the cool wind wash over his whole body, a pain so sharp it numbed his skull shot through him. He looked down.
"Guh… ghk…!"
From empty space, a spear had punched straight through his solar plexus, leaving a hole large enough for a man's forearm. He crumpled without strength.
The spear shoved the corpse aside into a corner, and the man who had dared hope for survival joined the same fate as his comrades.
"Nothing but small fry."
"Mm."
Patisha, watching her sister finish the enemies, re-tuned the refraction veil that had begun to fray.
"Ah, my lady. Leave this to us."
"Indeed. There's no need for either of you to trouble yourselves with trash like this."
The knights who had come along offered to handle the rest, but Merencia refused them flatly.
"It's fine. And the enemy may prove stronger than expected — better that I face them myself. If they weather my attack, concentrate on a pincer."
"But…"
"We were raised this way by Mother. You think we can just change? Do as Sister says."
With Patisha backing her as well, the knights could say nothing more.
Akina had taught them this way — what was there to argue? Especially those who had endured her training in the flesh understood that further protest was pointless.
The small fry really are coming out, so it isn't meaningless… but this is getting dull.
They hunted several more batches of stragglers after that, and the pile of corpses steadily rose. The enemies were so weak, though, that even the knights began to loosen up.
Unlike the rigid Merencia, Patisha — who moved by interest and amusement — was starting to find the whole affair tedious.
If we're this relaxed, then over there… hm?
She had expected the Wolf Mercenary Group posted at the rear to be even more at ease. What she saw instead were faces strangely taut, staring hard toward the entrance.
What? Why are they so stiff?
To a stranger it would have looked as if they were locked in battle against some tremendous foe.
The reality, however, was—
Thuk!
"I'm ali—gaaah!"
—one after another, every man who emerged had a hole punched through his chest by Merencia, corpses multiplying by the second.
Kaisent's face, in particular, had gone past pure white into a sickly blue, so bad that one almost wanted to order him to rest at once.
"Heh heh heh. Kid's gone blue as a corpse."
"Strange, though. I heard he performed quite well when they fought the Outer God Alliance at the royal tombs."
"What? Then why's he like that?"
A few knights snickered at Kaisent's state, but the one who had heard the rumors found the sheer terror on the boy's face puzzling.
Is he sensing something on his own?
Patisha was about to call Kaisent over and ask what he was feeling when—
"H-hiiik! Please, spare me!"
—a new man stumbled out of the cave, screaming for his life, and every eye swung toward him of its own accord.
"I'm not with the Outer God Alliance! I was a prisoner held inside!"
A body that looked as if it had known nothing but farm work all its life. A face twisted with terror. An ordinary presence with no special force like mana.
"A prisoner? Then why are you alone?"
Merencia lowered the spear she had been about to swing and leveled it lightly at the man, pressing him.
"Those madmen started killing the prisoners! When my turn finally came, you people saved me, and—"
"Sister! Get clear!"
From behind, a surge of power and Kaisent's voice hit at once. Merencia threw herself sideways — and in the spot where she had stood, mana arrows rained down and punched clean through the body of the man who had called himself a prisoner.
"What do you think you're doing! The lady was in dang—!"
The knights naturally turned killing intent on Kaisent and Lilith for loosing the arrows — only for the man they thought had been skewered to reappear right beside one of them.
"Shut up."
The face that had been streaming tears and snot, begging for life, was now something else entirely.
Ssslick— thuk—
In the same breath, the knight nearest the man had his throat opened and collapsed without strength.
"A strong one! Surround him!!"
Merencia, who had not even seen the man move, snapped the order to encircle the powerhouse.
Even with a comrade dead, the knights recovered their cold focus, closed ranks at once, and swung their weapons.
"Too late. I've already tasted blood."
"What nonsense—!"
"Die!"
But when the man stretched a hand toward the fallen corpse, blood poured out of it, coiled around him, and turned aside the knights' mana-laden strikes.
Kaaang!
"Ugh!?"
"It's hard as steel!"
Blood met steel, yet the sound that rang out was metal on metal.
An instant later the blood that had blocked their attacks condensed into beads and poured toward the knights at tremendous speed.
"Waaaaagh!"
"Guhhk!"
Hundreds of blood beads rained down. Knights armored well enough to shrug off Earthling gunfire screamed and toppled in empty defeat.
Crick— crack-crack—
Having finished the knights who had surrounded him, the man twisted his skeleton and shifted the color of his skin until he stood as a young Easterner.
"Hmm~ Strange. I had my presence perfectly veiled. How did they notice?"
Returning to his true frame, he rolled his neck left and right as if working out a little stiffness, the picture of ease —
"Gh… aaagh…!"
"I… it hurts…! H-help…"
—but the screams of the knights, blood beads still punched through their bodies, froze everyone outside the ring who had been waiting for a chance to move.
In particular, the remaining knights, bound by their duty to protect Merencia and Patisha, could not risk a reckless advance.
"Oh-ho."
The man finished loosening up, turned his gaze toward the direction the arrows had come from, and smiled. Every knight fixed on him felt a chill crawl over their skin.
Somehow, that smile forced a dreadful terror into anyone who saw it.
It was not the smile of a villain. It was a fear only a living creature could feel.
Without so much as a running start — without even moving his feet — the man slid forward at high speed toward Kaisent's group.
Lillian and Priscilla would not stand for it. They struck together, blades flashing — and the man, as usual, tried to catch the blows on the blood he wore like a second skin.
"Hm!?"
But their swords crushed the blood veil as if it were nothing and drove in toward him. Feeling their power and realizing a defense he had judged sufficient had been broken, the man was forced to give ground.
Strange. They've clearly reached the realm this world calls Master…
Because of the pincer? No. They had coordinated, but each had attacked from a different angle to cut off his escape.
There's an unusual energy coming off those weapons.
Still a little unsettled, the man sensed that Lillian's and Priscilla's swords were no ordinary steel — and grinned again.
Once he had eaten them, those blades would make excellent spoils in any number of ways.
"Kh…!"
"Ngh…!"
At his smile, both women let out involuntary sounds. Tension alone made sweat roll down their skin even as they stood still.
Like raw recruits on their first battlefield, their breathing roughened and their vision narrowed. No — worse. Their bodies were locking up.
What is this? It isn't killing intent.
I've felt this somewhere before.
An unpleasant sensation they had known once. Following it back, both of them found the memory.
I remember!
This is a predator's gaze!
The feeling they had known facing powerful monsters in the past. Not the killing intent of an enemy, but the look of a hunter regarding prey.
And a human was wearing a predator's eyes strong enough to freeze even Masters?
"You… who are you!"
"How can a human have eyes like that!"
The man smiled as if their outcry amused him.
"Fuhuhuhu. What delicious-looking talents. Using the Outer God Alliance was the right call after all."
"Gyaaaaagh!"
"Aagh! Ah!"
At a casual flick of his hand, blood drained out through the wounds of the dying knights. They screamed and writhed as it left them.
Soon the knights hung limp and bloodless, paper-white, and the space around the man filled with the blood he had drawn from their bodies.
"Just as I heard. Pure white hair, pure white eyes. So you're the little one called Kaisent."
"Hiiik…!"
The man looked at Kaisent the way a man looks at a tasty meal. The boy scrambled behind Arty at once.
But the man's power forced its way into Kaisent's mind and made him feel terror whether he wished it or not.
S-scary…! That isn't a look that wants to kill me! It's a look that wants to eat me!
If it had been mere killing intent, he might have endured it. For the same reason as Lillian and Priscilla, Kaisent locked up solid.
Blood Zen, who had devoured countless humans, carried a species-level revulsion as well; even drawing near him made Kaisent want to retch. On top of that, Blood Zen had used a curse-based mental assault to plant fear in a boy whose mind was not yet fully mature, so fighting never became an option.
It was no joke — the boy looked so fragile that a light touch might kill him. Blood Zen had deliberately terrified him to make subjugation easy.
—Arty. Master is showing an abnormal heart rate. Get him somewhere safe.
"Master, forgive the liberty."
"Arty? Ah—!"
Judging Kaisent's breathing and mental state abnormal, Artemis used the link to Arty and ordered her to get him clear to safety first.
As if he had expected exactly that, the man drew a talisman from his robes, flung it upward — and a bell-shaped wall of golden light sprang up, sealing them all inside.
"This one's name is Blood Zen. Rejoice, you talented ones. Your gifts will belong to the future greatest under heaven — to me."
Arty hammered the wall with all her strength. It did not so much as crack.
"Spare yourselves the wasted effort and become my pre— hrm!"
Having sealed them in and preparing to begin the hunt at leisure, Blood Zen suddenly had to catch a flying mana arrow on a blood mist. His brow furrowed.
"I've felt it before, but the humans of this world have no manners."
"You call introducing yourself with the enemy right in front of you manners? You must have come from a remarkably stupid world."
Lilith, silent until now, released the mana she had carefully gathered in a single burst and loosed the arrow.
"I even did you the kindness of giving you time to prepare for death. A foolish choice."
Blood Zen fixed his gaze on Kaisent's party. The blood that had been endlessly flowing around him condensed into beads and poured forth.
"Back!"
"Haaah!"
But Lillian and Priscilla raised sword-screens and began batting the blood beads aside.
While the two of them held the beads, Lilith rained mana arrows.
Blood mist that had not yet formed into beads blocked her attacks — yet Lilith felt the enemy's defense thinning, and a smile touched her lips.
"How long can you keep this up! When the blood runs out, will you start drawing your own!?"
Lilith judged that Blood Zen's monotonous blood techniques would be simpler to deal with than expected.
Then an arrow punched through the mist and buried itself in Blood Zen's head — and his form vanished.
An illusion!? Since when—
"Lillian! Priscilla! Watch out!"
From behind Arty, Kaisent shouted a warning at the two women still batting beads away.
Kakakang!
"Ugh!"
"Hup!"
Blood Zen appeared dead ahead, twin swords already wreathed in sword gang, and opened his assault.
"Sorry to get your hopes up, but though they call me Blood Zen, the blood-control arts are something I only learned recently — still a bit clumsy. This is the real thing."
As if each arm possessed a separate will, he moved with dazzling fluidity even while both women attacked from either side, overwhelming Masters outright.
They counterattacked with everything they had, of course — but Blood Zen turned their blades aside with his own edges and, in the same motion, laid the groundwork for the next strike.
"Hup!"
Lilith loosed an arrow into a gap the two women had forced open. Blood Zen swatted it aside as if the motion were the most natural thing in the world.
"Hahahahaha! Fun! This is fun!"
"Shut your mouth, monster!"
"Lillian! That!"
"Got it!"
Catching Priscilla's signal, Lillian began spinning the mana inside her body.
"Haaaah!"
She put everything into a diagonal upward cut. The blade blurred like an unfocused image, split into two, and drove at Blood Zen.
"Hm!"
Suddenly unable to tell which direction the real attack was coming from as the sword went hazy, Blood Zen was forced onto the defensive for the first time.
The instant he did, Priscilla's blade — waiting for exactly that opening — snaked like a serpent and shot for his head.
Each of them seemed about to overwhelm him with techniques newly learned — until Blood Zen simply stepped back and opened the distance.
"Not yet!"
Just as they thought they had forced him to yield ground and allowed themselves a breath of relief, Kaisent shouted another warning.
Shishishik!
Blood Zen swapped weapons from the subspace pouch the Outer God Alliance had given him, drew a bow, and loosed several arrows at once.
Bang bang bang!
"Ugh!"
"Kh!"
The arrows flew true at all three women and detonated. In the shock that staggered them, Blood Zen charged again — this time with a spear in hand.
Kakakakakang!
Precise, dazzling spear-points hunted every opening, and once more they were forced into pure defense.
Lilith tried supporting fire mid-exchange; Blood Zen flexed the spear shaft and casually flicked the arrows aside.
Every weapon art is outstanding!
So this is the monster that devours other people's talent!
Lillian and Priscilla reeled at the sight of a man who handled sword, bow, and spear with perfect mastery — but Lilith alone felt a wrongness.
That bastard… he's deliberately testing us. Not trying to kill us — just seeing how far we can react.
She did not know why, but the enemy was moving with leisure, probing them. Against the true face that would eventually show itself, she kept pouring supporting fire, twisting and forcing open whatever gaps she could find in Blood Zen's guard.