The End of Crossed Paths
"A little higher. Weave it tight—no gaps."
"Yes, huff… like this?"
At my instruction, Elara wiped the sweat beading on her forehead and stretched out both hands. The faint green life force that poured from her fingertips soaked into the mud, and the venomous thorn thickets that had been crawling across the ground writhed and surged upward.
Srrk, crackle-snap!
Thorn trees as thick as a grown man's arm coiled around one another's trunks and, in an instant, formed a towering wall. A wall of deadly poison that would rot flesh at the lightest brush.
I folded my arms and took in the wondrous landscaping.
"Impressive."
It was sincere, without a shred of exaggeration. Work that had once required hundreds of knights weeks of grueling labor in the North just to block a beast migration route—this small woman was finishing it in half a day.
"Haa, haa… is that enough now?"
Elara turned, gasping for breath. Her pale cheeks told me she had drawn on her life force far harder than she should have.
I pulled a handkerchief from my coat and roughly pressed it to her damp forehead.
"Good work. This should keep the cult bastards from crossing easily."
"Th-that's a relief. I'm glad I could help you, Cassian."
Elara clutched the handkerchief and beamed. It was an innocent smile that could not even begin to imagine how many humans the barrier she had just raised would send to their deaths.
Instead of speaking the truth, I pointed to the single open central approach.
"One last question. Can you send that life-force aura of yours flowing thickly toward that wide path alone?"
"Toward the path? Hmm… if I ride it on the wind, it shouldn't be hard. But why?"
"In case our night-blind guests lose their way. Thought I'd hang a friendly lantern for them."
Elara tilted her head, not understanding the joke, yet closed her eyes and began to regulate her power.
Ssssss—.
The life-force aura rode the only open path and spread toward the forest's edge. That same aura would become bait, drawing not only the uninvited guests who meant to sneak into these woods, but every starving venomous beast as well, straight into the central approach.
"That's enough. Go rest."
"Aren't you coming, Cassian?"
"I still have to finish preparing the welcome. You go ahead and rest."
After sending Elara back to the cabin, I swept my gaze once over the empty path, then launched myself onto the tallest ancient tree among them.
Tak.
I settled on a solid branch and drew my sword halfway from its sheath.
The trap was complete.
Every escape route had been sealed tight with venomous thickets. Down the single open path, beasts intoxicated by Elara's aura would soon come drooling. All that remained were the fools who would walk into this snare of their own free will.
Come if you dare.
Whether they were hypocrites who blindly worshipped a blind grace, or anyone else.
I flicked a finger against the flat of the blade and looked down the end of the path where the slaughter would begin. Through the quiet southern forest, footsteps that hurried their own doom drew closer by the second.
"Grand Inquisitor. The mana response from the communication stone has gone completely silent. The advance party—and even the main force of Holy Knights that entered the forest—appear to have been annihilated."
Inside the dark, sealed command post of the Sun Sect's Heresy Inquisition Bureau, the reporting inquisitor's voice trembled.
Nearly a hundred of the sect's elite forces had vanished without a trace in some nameless southern forest. Under ordinary circumstances it would have been a moment for shock or mourning.
Yet the Grand Inquisitor seated at the head of the table showed none of that. Instead he smiled as he answered.
"Annihilated, you say. Excellent."
"…Pardon?"
"It means that in some southern backwater they wiped out an entire elite knight order. I can scarcely imagine how vast the life force that witch carries must be."
The Grand Inquisitor's eyes glittered with greed, like a starving bald eagle that had finally spotted meat after days of hunger.
The sect's authority rested on the holy power that worked miracles. Now that holy power was running dry and their grip on power was faltering, if they could wring that witch's immense life force dry and forge miracle Holy Water from it, the sect could once again sit astride the imperial throne itself.
The lives of the sacrificed knights were nothing more than a tiny step toward seizing that great prize.
"But Grand Inquisitor, to subjugate a witch of that caliber we will need a large force. Requesting a military deployment from the imperial court right now would be…"
"Foolish talk."
The Grand Inquisitor clicked his tongue and tapped the imperial map spread on the table with one thick finger.
"The Grand Duchess of the North has lost her mind, smashed the border, and raised a rebellion. Right now the Emperor's gaze and the main strength of the Imperial Army are all fixed in that direction. While the imperial dogs are panting after the North—this is the perfect chance for our sect to quietly swallow the South."
His blunt finger greedily pressed down on the southern tip of the map—the Forbidden Forest.
"Summon every remaining elite inquisitor and the entire Second Holy Knight Order."
"All of them? If we empty the main temple and move a force of that size, it will be impossible to hide…"
"Move under cover of the night mist—swiftly and in secret. Tell the troops it is a sacred crusade to purify the forest's miasma."
Outwardly a holy crusading army. In truth, nothing more than a band of robbers intent on devouring someone else's heart.
"You may burn your way in from the forest's edge if you like. Capture the witch alive—keep her breathing. I will personally squeeze her blood into the Holy Grail myself."
"…As you command!"
The inquisitor hurried out of the command post.
The Grand Inquisitor rose and looked up at the Sun God's cross hanging on the wall. Before the cross painted in lavish gold, he laced his fingers and let out an unpleasant laugh.
"May the grace of God be with us."
Yet for all the fervor of that hypocrite's prayer, at the far edge of the South toward which the greed-blinded forces of the sect now marched, savage traps already waited with jaws wide open.
At the forest's edge under cover of darkness. How long had I sat waiting atop the ancient tree?
From far off, the clank of metal shattered the forest's stillness and rolled closer.
A throng in silver armor stamped with the crest of the Sun Sect—Holy Knights and inquisitors. They had come swarming in numbers that easily topped several hundred.
"Halt!"
The Holy Knight commander at the head raised a hand and shouted.
They could not hide their dismay at the forest entrance. The grotesque venomous thorn thickets that ringed them on every side were the reason.
"Commander! Both left and right detours are completely blocked. One of the scouts who tried to cut through the thicket was poisoned on the spot and died instantly!"
"Poison? Has this forest always been like this?"
"No. These plants have grown unnaturally. That witch bitch must have sealed the paths."
The commander furrowed his brow, then glared at the single wide-open central approach.
"Clever little tricks. But it seems she lacked the strength to block even this broad path."
You don't even realize that open path is an express train straight to your graves.
I leaned back against the branch and sneered inwardly.
"Tighten formation! In the name of the crusading army, we purify this forest!"
"Ooooh—!"
Armed with the nauseating blind faith unique to fanatics, they stepped onto the only path.
Clank, clank.
The moment their ranks reached the clearing I had marked—the deepest heart of the path—
Ssssss—.
The fragrance of life force Elara had scattered rode the wind and brushed across their noses.
"W-what is this smell? So sweet…"
"It could be the witch's hallucination! Deploy holy power!"
The commander shouted urgently, but it was already far too late.
The first to lose their reason to that sweet scent were not the cultists.
KROAAAAAAAH—!
A thunderous roar as if the entire forest had been overturned. From within the venomous thickets that ringed them on every side, hundreds of top-tier beasts that had been starving for blood poured out all at once.
"B-beast swarm!"
"Form up— Gyaaaah!"
An ambush that gave them no time even to raise a barrier.
A beast the size of a house swept its forepaw, and three silver knights at the front crumpled armor and all, rocketing into the sky.
"Defend! Defend, damn you!"
The Holy Knights swung their swords in panic, but what they faced were no ordinary beasts.
These were top-tier monsters that had survived the miasma of the Forbidden Forest itself.
Flesh and entrails torn free from every direction sprayed upward, and screams filled the quiet woods.
The hypocrites who had prattled of grace and miracles were, before these ferocious beasts, nothing more than lumps of protein.
"Aaaagh! My arm! My aaarm!"
"O God, please…!"
Whether God had gone on a distant business trip, the necks of those who prayed were torn out without a shred of mercy.
I propped my chin in my hand and looked down on the hellscape unfolding beneath the branches.
"They're eating well."
The more their blood soaked the ground, the more the venomous thickets Elara had raised drank it in and bloomed redder, more lushly. Fertilizer was being supplied in overflowing abundance.
From my clean high seat on the ancient tree, free of flying blood, I leisurely watched the brutal banquet of slaughter.
Then—
—Kugungugung!
A massive tremor that shook the forest, and the sound of hundreds of hoofbeats reaching my ears.
…?
I lifted my gaze toward the forest entrance.
The mist parted, and a vast force of mounted knights slowly revealed themselves behind the cultists.
I narrowed my eyes and studied the approaching throng.
Armor of the Black Knights—utterly out of place in a southern forest, yet so familiar.
And at their head, scattering a dark-crimson aura, a single woman.
It was Isolde.