Chapter 234

EP.234 A Song for the Remains of Ashes (5)

One step. Then another step.

Every time the Saintess gracefully placed her foot, an overwhelming pressure that didn’t match her light weight pressed down on her body.

Everyone present, including myself, watched the spectacle with bated breath.

A procession of former Heroes kneeling in line along the path of the Saintess.

Its not an exaggeration to call it the most sacred path in the world; watching the Saintess walk confidently was beyond mere words of holiness.

I was witnessing a sight that would become myth in the distant future.

In this moment where nothing was certain, there was one thing I could say with absolute conviction.

“Th-this is insane…!”

In the midst of everyone gazing in awe at the Saintess’s pure steps.

A woman standing at the destination stared in horror, her face as white as a sheet.

“There’s no way you’d have this much power left after pouring a considerable amount of Divine Power into Regis!”

The woman’s trembling red pupils flickered between my face and the Saintess’s.

It was then that I realized the oddity happening to my body.

“…!”

Every part of me that had been damaged was perfectly fine now.

My fingers, previously twisted and stained with a dull purple hue, were back to normal.

My limbs, which had been pitifully dangling as their tendons tore completely, were restored.

The pain that had stabbed at my ribs with each breath was gone, melting away like snow.

It seemed that when she had leaned against me just moments ago, she had surreptitiously replenished my Divine Power.

I had thought it was just another instance of the excessive physical contact she always engaged in. Turns out, there was a reason behind that.

Lately, the Saintess’s unexpectedly mature behavior felt a little strange to me.

“Don’t come any closer! Don’t approach me!”

“…”

Faced with the approaching Saintess, the woman took several steps back, her face filled with terror.

But with her legs rusted with fear, there was no way to escape the current Saintess, not even with a glance.

“This ridiculous Divine Power! Y-y-you… you’ve gained power from the God again!? Gah, gack!?”

“…”

The woman, who had been observing the Saintess’s appearance closely, suddenly let out a moan of pain.

“Cough! Gak! Ack!”

As if something invisible were choking her, her hands flailed around her neck in a panic.

Even as her neck was about to snap, her body was being torn apart, or being burned alive in fierce flames.

Despite her struggle to maintain a calm demeanor, for the first time, anxiety flickered across the woman’s face.

The Saintess had clearly done something to her, but if someone were to ask what that was, I couldn’t clearly state it.

What the Saintess had done on the surface was simply walking slowly up to the woman and staring at her face with indifference.

At a glance, it appeared as though the woman were putting on an intense one-woman show.

Thud!

“Cough, cough! Ugh!”

The woman’s thrashing intensified.

Kneeling forlornly on the ground, her desperate attempts to shake off something around her neck were heart-wrenchingly brutal.

“Does it hurt?”

“…!”

The Saintess’s single line, muttered with a tilting head, carried a coldness sharper than an icicle on a winter day.

“Ugh, ugh! Ahh! Ugh, it hurts! P-please…”

The woman finally realized the nature of the force choking her.

The murderous level of Divine Power seeping through the foul air.

There was no doubt about it.

The Saintess was forcibly injecting her own Divine Power into the woman.

Just like she had done to me once.

“─!!!”

The bone-chilling screams suddenly cut off.

But from the woman’s pupils, which were endlessly contracting and expanding, a fierce desire for life still brewed.

Swoosh swoosh!

How long did the woman flail her hands, as if trying to grasp the hem of the Saintess’s dress?

Thud!

That pitiful hand ultimately couldn’t hold onto anything, falling lifelessly to the ground.

Crack! Crack!

In that moment, ominous cracking sounds erupted, and the woman’s body began to show rough fractures.

Like stained glass shattered by a child’s stone throwing, the flesh fragments that made up her face fell to the floor.

Kugugugung!

She wasn’t the only one showing signs of collapse.

The black barriers surrounding the city in all directions.

The ominous red sky, darker than blood.

All the structures comprising this space.

No, the entire world itself seemed to lose its focal point, slowly crumbling away.

“This, this is…!”

Suddenly, the Hero gasped in astonishment.

Though it didn’t show on his face, even Bigtim, who had carelessly set down his shield, couldn’t hide his confusion.

I too was agonizing over the intense feeling of bewilderment.

Through countless dungeon conquest experiences, we realized what was happening in this place.

This was a sign that a dungeon, having sustained severe damage from a core, was about to collapse.

That meant.

“Could it be, the core of this dungeon…?!”

By the time that suspicion emerged from my lips, the answer had already been revealed.

The woman, transformed into a cracking statue due to the pressure from the Saintess’s monstrous Divine Power.

At the center of her chest, a single red pearl pulsed like a heart.

“Ah, ah….”

Without doubt.

That was the core of this dungeon.

My eyes widened in shock.

I had read in texts that specific monsters could become dungeon cores, and I had seen it in real life occasionally.

But I had never read of or seen a living human becoming a dungeon core.

No wonder she was regenerating from my comrades’ attacks.

To use the dungeon core’s property of instant regeneration against someone without the Hero’s blessing in this way, I had never imagined it.

“Ah, ah… Ah….”

The woman, kneeling pitiably on the ground, let out a soulless whimper.

The spark of life had completely faded from her red pupils.

White hair like an old man on the brink of death.

Saliva dripping from her lips, trickling down her chin in a grotesque display.

That disheveled state was strikingly similar to the Saintess I had met not long ago.

“M-mother….”

One of the Saintesses nearby trembled as she spoke.

Anyone could tell it was a struggle to utter those words, her tone unsteady.

“…Hii!”

Such weak resistance immediately extinguished with a fierce glare from the Saintess.

“Get up.”

“S-save me….”

As if still not satisfied, the Saintess gathered her Divine Power again.

The woman, her cracked lips akin to cheap pottery, desperately begged for mercy.

But that pitiful behavior only fueled the Saintess’s wrath.

Bang!

“AHHHHH──!!!”

As the Saintess casually glared, the top of the woman’s head was blown off.

For an ordinary human, such a critical injury would mean instant death.

Yet even in such a grave state, the woman screamed with the remaining strength in her voice.

It felt as though I were watching a broken statue come to life.

Not a single drop of blood flowed from her body despite her grievous injuries.

That unsettling dissonance only grew.

“Does it hurt?”

“A-ah…! It h-hurts…! Ugh, it hurts. Please… Please, th—”

Bang!

“Crueleeeeee!!!”

The woman’s body exploded once more from the Saintess’s deadly Divine Power.

“You suffered more. You suffered more. You suffered more. You suffered more. You suffered more. You suffered more.”

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The mechanical repetition of those dry words.

Accompanied by the chilling sounds of destruction that let the temperature of the area plunge below zero.

That merciless carnage didn’t cease even when the woman was about to lose the ability to utter a single moan.

“Welna….”

“…!”

It was at that moment I burst into the scene.

Though wholly engulfed in rage, my voice calling her name seemed to have reached her.

At last, the Saintess’s movements came to an abrupt halt.

“O… Oppa…?”

The bewilderment on her face was evident as she looked up at me.

Leaving the stunned Saintess behind, I approached the woman before me slowly.

“A-ah… Aaaaah….”

She was slowly regenerating, but even faster than that, she was collapsing – the woman, no, Raiza, the Sister.

Her appearance, wandering between life and death, was heartbreaking to behold.

“J-just… just give me mercy….”

But I knew that I couldn’t harbor such weak sentiments toward this woman.

The only mercy I could offer her was.

“Hero… Could I borrow your sword…?”

Rest after death.
That was all I could offer.