The pain ignited on his shoulder like a fire.
Yona unconsciously hugged the wooden plank that Rubina was bound to and plopped down backwards.
“Ah, ugh, uuuuuh…!”
No matter how tightly she gritted her teeth, even to the point of making a grinding noise, the pain didn’t fade at all.
If anything, it hurt so badly that she felt her head go blank, and she wanted to throw everything she was holding and just clutch her wounds.
Still, she didn’t release the wooden plank.
Instead, she hugged the plank that Rubina was tied to even tighter.
“You bastard—!”
With a loud smack, Andrei went rolling.
Andrei, who was barely recognizable, like a wreck, crawled on the floor and begged.
“C’mon, I’m really sorry…! Please, please…”
“Shut up!”
Alex, who had grabbed the back of Andrei’s neck while he crawled on the floor with his eyes barely open, had already lost his sanity.
“Alex, Alex!”
Even at Yona’s calls, Alex didn’t look back.
The moment he saw Andrei attacking Yona, Alex’s last shred of reason snapped.
“Alex…! If you kill him, no, no… ugh!”
At last, Alex pulled a hammer from his waist.
If he swung that down on Andrei, Alex would become a murderer.
There’s a world of difference between an adventurer and a murderer.
No matter how wicked someone might be, the judgment belongs to the judge, not to the average person.
“Alex—!”
Yona screamed at the top of her lungs.
And then, at that moment.
– Thump.
A loud noise echoed, resembling a heartbeat.
At that sound, both Yona and even Alex froze.
– Thump.
– Thump.
– Thump thump.
Vibrations echoed more intensely, like a beating heart.
The source of that sound was the altar.
Just moments ago, Rubina had been tied there, and it was that very altar where Yona had received Rubina.
Blood, which had overflowed from Yona’s shoulder, flowed through her tattoo and was eagerly absorbed by the altar.
From that altar, the sound of a heart beating rang out.
“Eh, ehhhh, aiya ni—!!!”
Ecstasy.
Agitation.
Excitement.
Andrei screamed with a voice that seemed to mix all those emotions.
Even with Alex holding the back of his neck, threatening to smash his head, Andrei cried out someone’s name as if bound by happiness.
“What the hell is going on?”
Kaiyak and James, who were battling in the hall, along with the guards who had finally joined in to subdue the followers, halted and turned their gazes toward the altar.
“What is… happening…?”
Despite the lingering pain causing her to frown, Yona hid the wooden plank behind her.
He hid it.
I wanted to free Rubina, but now my right arm wouldn’t move as I wished, so I had no choice.
Meanwhile, the heartbeat echoing from the altar didn’t stop.
What started as a thump-thump had grown into a boom-boom.
– Bang!
A bloody flash erupted from the altar.
The crimson light, stronger than the darkness, shot up, piercing through the upper floors of the building above it.
In an instant, the flash created a hole the size of a child’s torso and expanded, thickening until it seemed to combine the size of two grown adults.
“Eh-eh-ehh, eh-eh-ehhh!”
Amidst Andrei’s scream, his words garbled beyond recognition, the flash continued to rise.
Before long, the flash ceased—
– Tchunks!
With a deafening roar, the upper floors where they had been were obliterated without a trace, leaving only the lower floor intact.
*
“What’s happening…?”
As Ceres and Ludvik emerged from the mansion, they looked up at the sky in shock.
It’s not every day one sees red clouds gathering in a pitch-black sky.
Yet that was precisely what was happening right here, right now.
Clouds that looked almost blood-soaked were converging somewhere.
These clouds overlapped and swirled above, creating a thick layer, which began to slowly split apart.
“…We need to move quickly. This is strange.”
Ceres’s voice was laced with tension.
Though I hadn’t known her long, it was unlike her to sound so anxious and impatient, usually exuding calmness.
“We must hurry. This isn’t normal.”
Ludvik felt the same.
The atmosphere was sinister, uncanny.
“Saint?”
Turning to look at Vigrind, who had not responded, Ludvik found himself bewildered.
“Saint, are you alright?”
Vigrind gazed pale, staring up at the sky.
Her once-white face was devoid of color as she fixed her eyes upwards.
“Evil, evil… in the sky… evil…”
“Saint? Saint!”
Ludvik grabbed Vigrind by the shoulders and shook her.
Like a broken doll, Vigrind remained fixated on the sky, swaying around as Ludvik shook her without any control.
It just shook around haphazardly as if it had a mind of its own.
“Let’s go quickly!”
“…Excuse me, Saint!”
At Ceres’s urging, Ludvik had no choice but to lift Priest Vigrind with both hands.
Considering his small stature, he barely felt any weight—thoughts like that crossed his mind as he began to dash along with Ceres.
*
The moment the followers blocking the way to the altar suddenly changed was surreal.
“Oh, Lady Vervaria…!”
“Lady Vervaria descends…!”
“Lady Vervaria…!”
Each of them seemed to throw themselves on the ground, as if they couldn’t even dare to lift their heads. It was only Kaiyak and his party who were left dumbfounded.
Anyway, now that the obstacle toward the altar was gone, they rushed toward it to gather Yona and Alex.
“Yona!”
Only then did Alex scream as he noticed Yona’s wounds and rushed over to her.
Having lost so much blood, Yona was half-conscious, but Alex shaking her brought her back to reality. She opened her eyes halfway and shot a glare at Alex.
“It hurts… you bald baby…! I’m dying here…! Shouting like that and you can’t hear me… you bald baby…”
“Potion, potion, where’s the potion!?”
“I-I’m the healer, why would I have a potion…”
Alex swallowed back the urge to say, ‘You can’t self-heal,’ and turned to Kaiyak and James.
“Here, we have healing potions. Hurry up and take this.”
A man who was supposed to be the captain of the guards stepped forward and handed him a vial.
Alex quickly took the potion filled with a clear liquid, unraveled the string fastening the stopper, and poured the potion onto Yona’s wound.
“Ugh, aaaaah! It hurts, it hurts…!”
With a face full of agony, Yona screamed in pain.
“Just hold still; it hurts because it’s medicine!”
“AAAAAAH!”
After pouring an entire bottle of potion onto Yona’s wound, Alex breathed a sigh of relief.
And only then did he notice Kaiyak, James, and the guards.
James, somehow, had already freed Rubina from the wooden board and was holding her in his arms.
“Rubina… Rubina?”
Yona, feeling a bit better, asked while looking at Rubina cradled by James.
Rubina, thought to be asleep, had woken up and was gazing at Yona.
Tears were welling up in her dark, round eyes as she looked at Yona.
“Rubina… are you okay?”
In response to her question, James carefully lowered Rubina.
“Sister, sister!”
Rubina suddenly jumped into Yona’s arms.
Leaning against the wall, Yona felt the familiar shoulder pain wash over her again as Rubina snuggled closer, but she bit her lip to suppress a scream and gently stroked Rubina’s head with her left hand.
“I’m sorry, sis… You were really scared, weren’t you?”
“Sis, sis! I was wrong… I’ll be good, I’ll go to the orphanage quietly, I’m sorry, I did wrong…!”
Ugh.
Yona gritted her teeth again.
“Let’s think about that later. Once we get out of here…”
Then it happened.
– Whioooooo…!
A sudden gust of wind blew in.
The sticky, damp air, thick with the stench of blood, swept over them as they stood out in the open.
“Oh, Vervaria!”
“Descend to this land and punish those filled with hypocrisy, oh divine one!”
“Awaken, Vervaria!”
“Vervaria!”
As the prayers of the Followers grew louder, the wind intensified.
And then finally—
“I hear the cries of those who call my name.”
“I see that this land is still filled with that false light.”
“I desire to cleanse the glory of the divine.”
“I have come to this place.”
A majestic voice rang out.
The red clouds that filled the sky.
The layers of thick clouds parted, revealing a radiant violet circle glowing from within.
“Behold, the calamity that shall befall this land.”
“Behold, the calamity that shall befall this land.”
“Behold, the calamity that shall befall this land.”
“Hearken, to the screams that will fill this land.”
“Hearken, to the screams that will fill this land.”
“Hearken, to the screams that will fill this land.”
“Feel, the death that will envelop you.”
“Feel, the death that will envelop you.”
“Feel, the death that will envelop you.”
The booming voices abruptly stopped.
“This is your end.”
A serpent descended from the sky.
Its nine heads were larger than Rubina, each featuring a woman’s face.
The flickering tongues moved incessantly like a snake’s, and its body was as thick as that of a grown adult.
So incredibly long, even now coiling in mid-air while looking down on the earth, its overwhelming presence—
“—In the end, you were all useless. To be the offspring of the divine yet fall so short of truly embodying it.”
One of the faces looked down at the group.
“Hey, if we die here, will the bounty come from Evian or Kapatia?”
Kaiyak mumbled.
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