EP.165 The Lost Lamb (13)
The sun set, and night fell.
For a brief moment, the ominous atmosphere surrounding us felt absurdly foreboding.
“What the…?”
The man approaching me suddenly stopped in his tracks.
But that wasn’t all.
Drip drips of cold sweat trickled down his face, and he trembled all over like a scared animal, shuffling backward awkwardly.
Well, I could understand his feelings quite well.
If I were in his shoes, I wouldn’t have reacted any differently.
No, I might have looked even worse than that.
Black mud. Sticky tar. A sludgy swamp.
Something indescribable was gushing from the small body of the Saintess, greedily consuming the area beneath the sun’s grace.
In this dimly lit space filled with chilling darkness, even the presence radiating an undeniable light was quite far from the title of hope.
A red moon. No, red eyes.
Those eerie gazes plastered all around, reminiscent of a spider in a glass box, watched the prey their master had its sights set on with perfect precision.
“Fall back! Those with free hands, gather the injured now!”
In a scenario where any ordinary person would have gone mad immediately, the man’s actions were surprisingly calm and intelligent.
He quickly gauged the power of the entity he was up against and realized in an instant that there was no choice but to flee.
Considering everything objectively, I had to admit that the man was quite a capable commander, even with my grievances against him.
But unfortunately, what he was facing wasn’t something that could be dealt with using such shallow wisdom—this was far beyond the realm of common sense.
“Hey! Can’t you hear me? Get out of here now—”
Irritated by his subordinate’s failure to move, the man’s voice rose, but his words were never completed.
The reason was simple.
Because they were smiling.
Me, the Saintess, and everyone here except the man gazed up at the sky, graciously smiling.
Among them were some with gaping wounds all over their bodies, and a werewolf missing an arm.
All of them shed thick tears, much thicker than blood, as if they had received salvation from the gods, revering this grim world.
“Hah! Hah!”
Was the man overwhelmed by this alien spectacle that stirred up humanity’s primal fear? He turned to flee.
But he quickly realized that all of that was in vain.
Gak!
With a squelch of escaping moans, blood pooled on the black earth.
His eyes widened in disbelief, and his self-awareness, wandering aimlessly, was about to be absorbed into the life that was on the brink of extinguishing.
“Th-That’s…!”
A gasp escaped my trembling lips.
A vast darkness devoured both heaven and earth.
Countless hands exploded from all directions, entwining the man’s body in layers, plunging a knife into his gut.
But what truly horrified me wasn’t that.
It was the mysterious entities that were suffocating him, gripping every inch of his body, intent on snuffing out his life.
They looked all too familiar—like puppets in rusty armor.
“Former Heroes…”
Even as I uttered those words, accepting the harsh reality was a challenge for my mind to process.
After defeating the Demon King and achieving peace in this world, the former heroes willingly offered parts of their souls to the Saintess for the future heroes.
The ultimate miracle of the Saintess, channeling their combined power for just a moment.
Hero’s Call.
Due to the increasingly overwhelming Holy Power that grew stronger with each generation, none of the recent Saintesses had been able to use it, making it a lost myth of the current era now reenacted right before my eyes.
“Kill.”
With that cold, solemn command from the Saintess, the black armors began to stir with ferocious bloodlust.
“No! Guah! Gahhh!”
The man attempted to plead for his life, but the relentless brutality of the black armors blocked his every attempt, choking off his very breath.
I instinctively closed my eyes as the horrific massacre unfolded.
The melody of horror twisted a human body composed of bones and muscles, skewered and contorted at impossible angles, writhing in agony.
His muffled screams echoed intermittently, bringing forth waves of nausea.
What was worse was that there seemed to be no end to such cacophonies.
“Save me. Then kill me again. Keep killing me.”
The soft voice of the Saintess flowed from within me, leading me to clearly understand this bizarre situation.
There was no doubt.
The Saintess was endlessly repeating the act of killing and reviving that man.
I expected that the man, having provoked the wrath of the Saintess, wouldn’t die gently, but I never imagined he would suffer such horrific pain without respite.
If there was a hell, it would be right here.
Even with my eyes and ears shut tight, that relentless sequence of slaughtering thoughts was inducing such an overwhelming illusion in me.
No. This can’t happen.
This should never happen.
I mustn’t let the Saintess keep doing such things.
When my thoughts were oppressed by primal fear, an echoing, silent outcry resonated within me.
Swish.
An odd sensation quivered in my trembling arms like aspen leaves.
I slowly opened my tightly shut eyes and forced my gaze toward the source, noticing that the strength I had exhausted from playing tag with the mercenaries was rapidly replenishing, fueled by the Saintess’s dreadful pressure.
In that moment, a feasible plan to rectify this gruesome situation flashed through my mind like an arrow.
The source of the Saintess’s actions.
Divine Power.
If I could thoroughly deplete it, could I not bring an end to this infernal hell?
There was no time to ponder possibilities.
Even now, as I hesitated, the Saintess was treading the wrong path.
Hah…
I took a deep breath, my eyes tightly shut, and meticulously calmed the chaotic thoughts within.
Then, the lingering sense of sucking Divine Power from another’s body that I had left to my subconscious.
I prepared to actively draw it out, honing my consciousness as if sharpening a pencil with a cutter knife.
No half-hearted spirit. No vague illusions.
I had to grasp whatever it may be with everything I had.
This was all I could do for her right now.
“Welna…”
With my arms, trembling from overwhelming emotions, I wrapped them around the Saintess, desperately calling out her name in a pleading, crying tone.
But despite my efforts, the Saintess’s poisonous gaze was fixated firmly on the scene of slaughter, showing no signs of stirring.
She couldn’t hear me calling her name.
This was a first for me.
I was terrified.
It felt like it was already too late.
I feared that she had become so deeply immersed in the wrong path that she would never return.
What could I possibly do?
What should I do?
How could I make her stop?
A heavy weight composed of profound helplessness and deep despair pressed down upon my thoughts.
“Curious?”
A peculiar yet familiar phrase suddenly spread across my retina.
From that moment, a thick wave of Holy Power surged into my body.
Splash! Splash!
Shortly afterward, with a fierce crack, the sunlight flooded back into the dim space, where light had been absent.
“Oh, brother…?”
The Saintess quickly turned her gaze toward me.
The graceful hair following her motion tickled my nose, and the brilliant sky-blue strands, now bolstered by an unknown force, reached all the way to her earlobe.
The sound of blood gushing. The noise of bones and flesh being crushed. The wails of anguish.
Everything was completely silenced.
The dazzling rays caressing my eyelids and the chirping birds like a gentle lullaby helped me realize this was undeniably reality.
Did I do it?
As I basked in a feeling that could be either relief or accomplishment, wiping a satisfying bead of sweat from my brow, that very moment came.
“Huh…?”
Caught off guard by an abrupt sense of discomfort, I unwittingly muttered in a daze.
Why was my clothing so constricting?
No, more importantly, were my hands always this small and soft?
Why did my voice sound like this?
If it was like this, then…
“My brother has shrunk—!”
The sudden exclamation filled with astonishment from the Saintess.
But her heartfelt scream paled in comparison to the late eruption of my own scream.
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