Withered Flowers Bloom Again (3)
"Hurry! Move the wounded to the chapel! Anyone whose life is hanging by a thread right now—bring them to me!"
The cathedral walls that had once been pure white were thickly coated in blood.
The Saint was in the middle of it all, commanding the holy knights while treating the critically wounded who came to him. I approached him, pulling the stone shards from his arm and healing the wounds with mana as I spoke.
"...Ugh!"
"Maybe take care of yourself before you start treating the wounded?"
"There's no time for that right now. Far more patients are in worse shape than I am."
He was right. The people lined up before the Saint all carried injuries like severed arms or holes punched clean through their bodies. Left as they were, they would die of blood loss or shock before they ever made it to the chapel.
In a situation like this, there was only one thing I could do.
"What's the cause?"
"The Profane in the forest to the northeast suddenly went berserk. If Sir Evan would lend his aid, it would be a great help."
"All right."
The Holy Kingdom knew the Forest of Blemish threatened them every day and kept a thorough watch. That their defenses had been breached so easily was strange—but I could ask about that later.
I drew Yoru from her scabbard and was gathering mana in my feet to run northeast when the Saint spoke again.
"Sir Evan—Scarlet is likely there. Please. I'm counting on you."
"...I already said I got it."
What was I, a child? How many times did I have to be told not to pick a fight?
"I'm going, then. Don't die on me either."
Thump—
No point in wrecking the already ruined Holy Kingdom any further, so I used a footwork technique modeled after Eastern martial arts and headed for the place the Saint had indicated.
"Brother!! This wicked thing—!!"
"Aaaargh!! My arm!! My aaaaarm!!!!"
The familiar scent of death and rage washed over me. A stench of blood mixed with steel that should have made anyone retch—and yet I felt peace in it.
...I've become a full-blown war maniac.
"It is an illness no warrior who has long stood upon the battlefield can escape," Yoru said. "That is why you must keep a firm hold on your mind."
Yeah. I don't want to become a madman either.
This mental illness—called war sickness, or war addiction—was exactly as Yoru had said: the longer you stayed on the battlefield, the more easily it took hold. Put simply, the human brain, crushed under the stress of blood and screams it never wanted to see, rewired itself to find comfort in them instead. Of course, once that happened, everything that once felt peaceful started to feel like the blood and screams of war.
Those who fell into the severe stage of war sickness became madmen who slaughtered everyone around them without discrimination. Scarlet was a prime example. Born with half-vampire blood, she was especially vulnerable to blood frenzy, making her the perfect target for the illness. The moment she chose to step onto the battlefield, her descent into a blood-crazed maniac was all but guaranteed.
Come to think of it... Scarlet shouldn't even be able to be there.
I'd cut out her tongue and both her eyes, leaving her unable to use two of a vampire's most powerful abilities—bloodsucking and the mystic eyes. So how was she in the middle of a battlefield?
"Kyaaaaaaah—!!"
Slash—!
"Don't tell me Scarlet..."
If Scarlet had sensed my presence when I sparred with Baekseol and launched this terror attack for revenge... this time, I'd have to kill her. And so I prayed, again and again, that that wasn't the case.
"I sense the madness unique to the Profane up ahead," Yoru said. "That is likely the cause of this uprising."
"Yeah. I can feel it now too."
Rage and passion directed at everything that lived crawled up over my skin. Things the gods had abandoned. Failures. Prototypes. Blemishes. They had many names, but the most common was the Profane—masses that never even took a clear form, existing only to pour out hatred at the living. Revolting things with no distinction between hands, feet, or torso. Like the thing writhing right in front of me, for instance.
【G...ah...ah...ah...】
A Profane creature: something shaped like a brain, wrapped in thousands of rings slowly rotating around it. Judging by its size and form, this was the cause of the whole mess. Someone must have already hit it—the mass at the center of the spinning rings was cycling between rot and regeneration.
As far as I knew, only one person could do something like that to a Profane creature.
"Scarlet... is that you?"
"....."
Only then did I spot the woman near the Profane, covered in blood, gasping for breath. Fiery red bobbed hair. A red bandage bound over her eyes. Even after confirming it was me, she didn't open her mouth. It was definitely Scarlet.
"You... didn't lose your vampire powers after all?"
"....."
She only stared at me without a word. Don't tell me she'd burned through all her mana—enough that she couldn't even use communication magic on me.
"For now, let's take that thing down first."
She nodded.
"I don't know how you fight now, but you can still use blood magic, right?"
Nod, nod.
"Then freeze those rings with blood for just a single moment. I'll go cut the mass in the center."
Nod.
It was one-sided communication, but most Profane creatures had simple structures—and simple ways to kill them—so a half-assed plan like this would work just fine.
【Kree... kreeuuuh...】
Kii...iiing—
Sensing the threat as we readied for combat, the Profane spun its rings even more violently and began casting a spell. The fact that it could use magic meant it was dragon-class. You couldn't decipher magic used by the Profane, so the standard strategy was to kill them before the spell finished forming.
"When I give the signal, freeze it."
Nod.
Three, two, one...
The geometric magic circle carved in the air before the rings shone its brightest red—and I activated the spell I'd prepared and stamped my foot.
【G...uh...uh..!】
Thud-thud-thud-thud—!
Instant acceleration magic: Ilyad. Exactly as the classification suggested, it made the user's body move extremely fast for an instant. It normally took too long to cast to be useful, but right now it was perfect.
KRAAAASH—!
A crimson beam punched through the spot where I'd been standing. The ground I'd stood on melted and sizzled under the extreme heat.
"Now!"
"....."
Squeeze—
The moment I gave the signal, Scarlet forced up her right hand, blood streaming from it, and clenched her fist as if gripping something in empty air. The thousands of rings whirling furiously around the Profane stopped as if snagged on something, freezing into what looked like a single massive ring.
Perfect timing. Having fought me once before, she knew exactly when to move.
Wooooom—!
As I charged the Profane, I poured divinity into Yoru. Nothing cut through the Profane better than a blade clad in divine power.
"Hmm... pitifully faint," Yoru murmured, "but you do have a scrap of faith in your master after all."
Yoru was a sword Lellasion had made, so even a speck of faith got amplified many times over. How much? Enough to turn the kind of faith that says my neighbor lady will make breakfast for a guy living alone into the faith that says Mom, who makes breakfast every day, will make mine again today. In other words, it was absurdly strong.
Sliiice—!!
【Gah...ah...ah...】
"Haa..."
Shatter the core that formed the heart of its existence, and a Profane creature vanishes. Why? Why else would the gods abandon them mid-creation? Because they never achieved completeness of being. A human or beast doesn't cease to exist entirely just because you cut a piece off them.
"Good work, Scarlet."
"...."
"...I'll give you some mana. Stay still."
As if that blood magic had been the last of her mana, Scarlet had collapsed where she stood, staring at me. I walked over, put a hand on her head, and transferred mana to her.
〈Ah... aah...〉
"I can hear you."
〈You son of a bi—〉
Hold on—the vulgar, filthy swearing that rattled through my brain was so bad I briefly used signal-jamming magic to cut off her communication spell. Scarlet, still sitting there, flapped her mouth and screamed silently—then realized I wasn't listening anymore.
"Stop swearing and I'll listen again."
"....."
She clearly had a lot she wanted to say, but she settled for folding her arms.
"So? Why are you here?"
〈That's what I want to ask. Why the hell do I have to see this piece of dogshit again?〉
"...I only came because my fiancée was critically wounded. As for you—if you lost every last vampire power you had, why aren't you sitting quietly in your room instead of being here?"
〈Wow... wow... would you look at this fucking bastard..! And whose fault is it that I can't use them and have to wear this piece-of-shit eye bandage..!!〉
"Hmm..."
Pointing at her bandage, Scarlet raged, gesturing wildly as she screamed into my head like she couldn't believe what she was hearing.
"...I'm sorry about that. But I didn't have a choice back then, did I?"
〈No—so that means you cut out my tongue and eyes?!〉
"If I hadn't, you would have killed me and gone after Baekseol and Nihala."