“Stop! Hold on tight!” Vroom!
The armored vehicle came to a halt, and my body swayed slightly. The rear door opened downwards, creating a makeshift ramp.
“Please don’t get hurt!”
“Thank you!”
As soon as the back door opened, the unique sound of cold weapons clashing echoed. Of course, there were cheers, but they sounded more like war cries and the occasional howling could be heard mingled in.
A deafening explosion rang out, and something was being pulverized. It was the sound of special shells flying through the air, designed to efficiently deal with the beasts and demons I’d seen on the battlefield before, crushing them into a pulp.
Holding onto my stuffed backpack, I stepped out of the armored vehicle and swung it onto my shoulder. It wasn’t as heavy as it looked; it was just bulky, not stuffed to the brim with stuff.
Jian and Rina drew their swords. I only held a shield in my left hand. I still had my morning star strapped to my waist. I wasn’t sure if I’d need to use it against the high-ranking demons that might charge at me, but for now, I had to deal with the demons and beasts in front of me. It was easier to use Holy Power with my hands free.
“We’re still a bit away from the magic point. The enemy’s resistance is fierce.”
Rina said that while looking at the front, where knights and demons were clashing. Some knights were still on their steeds, some had dismounted and were fighting in melee.
The number of the knight forces was much smaller, but their combat skills were the opposite. The vanguard was formed by the two strongest knight orders within the church.
One side was risking their lives to protect me, while the other sought to hunt and eliminate demons. They certainly wouldn’t be intimidated by the larger numbers of the enemy.
From the tangled chaos across the battlefield, something jumped up. It looked like chunks of flesh from slain beasts and demons. It seemed someone particularly skilled was performing exceptionally well up front.
Boom! Boom! A cloud of dust rose high where a shell had landed, and the holy swords the knights held shone brightly. The demons touched by those swords had their heads severed as easily as if they were cutting through pudding. In contrast, the blessed plate armor easily blocked the demon’s claws.
“In the name of God! Charge through!”
Those words were heard, and another knight order on horseback charged past the Saint Knights and the Inquisition knights, who were holding the line against the demon forces. The large-caliber rifles they held flashed with flames, and sharp gunfire erupted. Surprised beasts and demons caught off guard instantly turned to rags under the massive bullets.
As the cavalry trampled over the fallen corpses, those caught unawares were sent flying high into the sky. The knights in the second row, waiting behind, fired their guns with precision against the enormous beasts that horses couldn’t push back. The knights moved quickly yet without a hitch. It was clear that they had been carefully selected by the church.
The cavalry that had swept aside the flank swiftly turned and charged ahead once again, while the support troops behind maintained a safe distance, firing from a distance thanks to government fire support.
It was a sight that could stir even a sense of sympathy if watched for too long, but in reality, the demons still had the upper hand even in that situation.
The magic point was still quite plentiful, and the number of demons and beasts pouring forth from it was beyond counting.
And then, there were the flying beasts continually soaring into the sky. Ideally, they would be shot down from a distance, but from close to the magic point where beasts generated, there were plenty of flying beasts that managed to survive as well. The self-propelled anti-aircraft guns brought in by the government forces were helping, so it wasn’t a huge issue, but their ammunition was limited. Even if they weren’t dropping immediately, it was impossible to shoot down the endlessly spawning beasts.
Human stamina has its limits. Even the top knight order couldn’t fight at full strength for hours on end.
And fire support was in the same boat. The military supplies they could bring were limited.
“Let’s hurry. If we don’t eliminate the magic point, then there’s no reason for us to be here.”
Even if we couldn’t deal with the witch, those magic points had to be taken care of. Otherwise, we’d face insurmountable challenges in making it back alive.
At my words, Jian and Rina nodded their heads in unison.
I started running. I didn’t know how to ride a horse, so as long as I could see the magic point, I just needed to head forward.
“Protect the Saintess!”
I couldn’t tell who shouted that, but suddenly a path began to open around where I was running. The knights were pushing back on the demons and beasts, creating a way for me.
I raised my empty right hand to activate my Holy Power. While the wall offered a clear view for effectively using the power against many troops, that’s not something one could do on the ground.
I wished I could ride something like a helicopter, but as I mentioned, the flying beasts were a problem. The beasts themselves weren’t a significant threat, but the fact that anti-aircraft guns were firing at the sky to take them down posed a problem. And the numerous shells flying from our base were just a bonus.
Even if you launched a bunch of helicopters, the witch controlling the troops was a thinking being. If she deemed the entities up above more important, she’d generate even more flying beasts from the magic point. If a dogfight broke out in the air, the difficulty of the battle would escalate dramatically.
While there was the issue of friendly fire from our side, helicopters are constantly moving entities. Connecting my consciousness on the ground while stretching out my hand and aiming is definitely much easier than connecting consciousness inside a moving helicopter.
If a helicopter moves widely to either avoid the enemy’s attacks or our anti-aircraft fire, it’d severely disrupt the connection.
But I still had some air support. A massive airship floated high in the sky. Some of the artillery shells that fell near the magic point were likely fired from that gunship.
So the gist of this operation was to deal with the situation on the ground quickly and decisively.
I unleashed my bottled-up Holy Power. The demons and beasts visible among the knights were swept away. For a moment, the fighting among the surrounding knight orders ceased.
And, huh.
The holy swords held by the knights began to sparkle with brilliance.
The swords infused with Holy Power through immersion in Holy Water glowed with Holy Power by themselves. It was possible for users to release that power in response, but the blades held by the knights around me radiated far more brilliantly than when released.
Those swirling hues of white and gold were truly the image of a “Holy Sword.”
…Usually, such swords only appear one or two times in fantasy novels.
Even experienced knights, momentarily taken aback, stared at their holy blades in awe, then snapped back to reality and swung their swords at the oncoming demons.
The divine light extending from the blades swept many demons away.
“Ooo…”
Someone uttered that in a trembling voice.
“The Saintess has shown us the way!”
“Hail the Saintess!”
The knights surged with renewed vigor and began to sweep away the demons and beasts before them. The demons and beasts thrust into battle were emotionless constructs made purely as expendables, yet it appeared they instinctively feared the knights’ resolve to attack.
“Hey, you can do stuff like that too?”
Rina asked me, but I shook my head.
“No, what’s that? I don’t know. It’s scary.”
I hadn’t expected my power would resonate with the holy sword.
While I was stunned, Jian swung his sword. The blade cut through a straight line among the knights, cleaving the demons and beasts in half.
You’re pretty scary too.
No matter how many times I see that power, it’s horrifying. How much mercy did he show during practice? I mean, couldn’t he block a group attack even with just his pinky?
But thanks to Jian, I could see the magic point in the distance. That particularly enormous magic point was so massive I could see the demons and beasts spilling out of it from such a distance.
“Alright, let’s begin.”
“Yeah, don’t worry.”
Jian nodded. Rina didn’t specifically respond, but she readied her stance with her sword raised.
Well, even with just those two, I wouldn’t have to worry about getting hurt, especially with so many knights around.
I stood tall and stretched my arms forward, firing my Holy Power.
A beam of light shot out in a straight line like a laser, obliterating the beasts and demons in its path.
I closed my eyes and expanded my consciousness. The time it took for my Holy Power to reach the magic point wasn’t long.
The sensations in my body gradually faded, leaving only the feeling in my fingertips as my consciousness extended, eventually brushing against the surface of the magic point. After a brief moment of searching—
Found it.
I grabbed onto that handle-like part and twisted, tearing it apart.
*
“Wow, that’s frightening.”
“Frightening?”
As Rina muttered that while looking at Clara, Jian tilted his head in confusion. Rina frowned slightly and pointed at Clara’s fingertips.
On Clara’s hand, which looked like she was holding a huge glowing orb, thick rays of light streamed towards the distant magic point. Though the light gradually tapered off in its direction, the beasts and demons entering seemed to combust and vanish as they touched that light.
A slender yet extremely condensed pillar of Holy Power.
While typical clergy would occasionally take part in eliminating magic points, it often took multiple clergy to create just one of those pillars. If a beast or demon slipped in between, the output would weaken.
But this insane human was creating a beam stronger than any light pillar alone. Not merely eliminating the magic point but cleaving the battlefield in two, that very light pillar acted as a force of deterrent.
A power so wondrous it could momentarily distract the knights nearby.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Rina were to shed tears behind her helmet.
“If I just brush against it, it’ll kill me, if I’m human. But…”
As she said that, Rina shot her Holy Power at a charging demon. The red-skinned demon, with a hole through its head, collapsed forward, sliding on the ground, trailing a line of its own blood as it went.
…You seem pretty terrifying too.
While Clara’s Holy Power didn’t harm humans, Rina’s was essentially a magic that borrowed the power of a god and could harm both humans and demons alike.
Especially, the way she effortlessly blasted a hole through a demon’s head with that laser was simply absurd. Of course, it wasn’t like Jian’s attacks were any less absurd, but at least Jian’s were physical blows. They had the motions of swinging and stabbing.
I wondered if everyone became like this when facing demons with Holy Power, as I pondered seriously—
Bang! Something exploded.
The sound itself resembled a common popping noise, like that of a water balloon bursting, but the absolute magnitude of that sound evoked a feeling of strangeness.
“Done!”
Clara, who had finally regained her composure, shouted out. The beam of light slowly waned and vanished.
In the distance, the gargantuan magic point that had been visible looked to be splitting in half, its contents flowing down. It resembled a spherical chocolate melting from heat before splitting, but the flailing black mana oozing out was far from appetizing.
Of course, as I observed from above the wall, the magic points still had a long way to go. We’d merely eliminated the most visible and largest one.
However, the difference in numbers of beasts and demons pouring in should prove significant.
“Let’s continue moving forward!”
Clara shouted that.
“Advance!”
A knight echoed her words. “Advance! Advance!” As if to convey the command, it spread among the knights, and they began forming ranks around those still mounted.
“Charge through!”
The knight order advanced toward the now significantly reduced hordes of demons and beasts. The evil forces they encountered were summarily crushed.
Clara followed closely behind.
“Huh.”
Rina gazed at that scene with incredulity and let out a light chuckle.
“It seems you’re no longer feeling any sense of strangeness.”
Muttering that, Rina trembled her body once before chasing after Clara.
A sense of strangeness, huh.
I thought to myself that the sight of Clara, donned in white blessed armor with a backpack, certainly felt quite strange, but that wasn’t the point.
Perhaps Rina trembled, fearing that she might one day naturally come to accept her own circumstances, like Clara did now.
…If she heard that, she would definitely freak out.
*
A relentless advance.
It was a battle that fit that term perfectly. The enemy, having lost the largest forces, was easily crushed by the knight order.
The demons and beasts spawned from the magic points differed in both numbers and types due to the size of the point. After we dealt with the largest magic point, the giant beasts and demons no longer appeared. Though the crowd density was lower, it became much easier for each knight to handle individually, so our rate of advance sped up significantly.
As a result, we were closer to the magic point, and it became easier to destroy the smaller magic points.
However—
“…There are no high-ranking demons.”
Just as Rina murmured, we hadn’t encountered a single high-ranking demon thus far.
There were claims of a level exceeding double digits, yet despite pushing deeper and deeper, we hadn’t met even one.
“Let’s focus on the task in front of us for now.”
“I know.”
When I dealt with another group of demons and beasts using my Holy Power, Rina responded abruptly, releasing her own power. Her strength was undeniably fearful. Any creature caught would surely be perforated regardless of its species, right?
And indeed, things were already being pierced.
…But even while advancing effortlessly like this, I had a bad feeling.
This was indeed the furthest I’ve ventured, even in the most formidable frontline, yet my gut told me something was off.
And then—
“Speak of the devil and he shall appear,” they say.
While we smoothly continued onward, suddenly something exploded beneath me.
No, it wasn’t an explosion. Something just shot up, kicking up dirt. At least my body was intact, so that much I could tell.
“Oh—”
As I struggled to respond adequately—
“Clara!”
I could hear the voices of two people calling for me.
Something grabbed my foot.
When I looked down, a rough hand burst from the ground and seized my leg.
“Eek!”
Startled, I pulled my foot away, but the hand seemed to get drawn up with it, then it sank back down. My ankle sank deep into the ground.
Panicking, I poured Holy Power towards the mysterious hand, but it remained unscathed.
A high-ranking demon.
…Had it been hiding in the ground?
Wait, before that, how was a tunnel beneath intact despite bombardments?
As those thoughts crossed my mind, the ground beneath me crumbled.
With my foot ensnared, I began to plummet down, down into the abyss.
I thought I heard someone calling out to me.
*
“Wow, I can’t believe this would actually work.”
Such a voice echoed around me.
From the low tones, it seemed to belong to a male, but it was deeper and had a strange resonance compared to an average human voice.
As I regained consciousness, everything appeared upside down.
“What? If the enemy doesn’t expect it, anything is possible.”
A similar voice came back.
“Ugh.”
Having hung upside down, things inside my stomach felt like they were dropping. No, that wasn’t it. It wasn’t that.
The smell.
A putrid odor wafted around. It resembled a violently amplified scent of something I knew to be dirty.
I blinked, trying to secure my eyesight, but it seemed something was covering my face.
“Can’t we just eat it first?”
“Are you crazy? The amount a host can take in at once is limited.”
“That’s true.”
“And besides, doesn’t ‘father’ want it? I’d like to live long since I was born too.”
“Oh, if lives are at stake, I guess there’s no other choice.”
They chuckled lowly.
What the hell are they talking about?
I struggled, finding my movements restricted, as if bound. My feet seemed to have been tied together, and my arms secured behind me. I could feel the armor I wore, but it didn’t seem to be the worst situation yet.
“Whoa, I broke it.”
“Sturdy indeed. I banged my head a few times while falling.”
Yeah, my head feels sticky for some reason. Is all this blood mine? The pungent smell is definitely coming from my head, isn’t it? No, it doesn’t seem to be coming just from there.
“Anyway, do you think it’s okay to rummage through her bag? It’d be all ours anyway.”
“Is there anything worth taking?”
Their composure was astonishing even while restraining me.
“Well, nothing special. What’s this? A ring?”
“It sparkles, so it seems to have Holy Power. Aha, could it be something brought for the injured?”
That’s wrong.
“Is this a device you personally devised? It’s really fitting for a saint to consider the injured on the frontlines.”
“For the sake of future children, you should treat them well!”
Someone patted my backside. What the hell, you little shit!
I gritted my teeth and focused my mind.
“Oh, Holy Power, Holy Power. But what do we do? This won’t work against us.”
“Hey, can I keep this? It could be quite useful in real combat.”
“If you give me one, I’ll let it go.”
“You’re such a miser.”
Ah, that’s not support gear, you know.
I concentrated the Holy Power within me and released it.
I’d seen the holy sword resonate before. In that case, I could make that ring resonate just the same.
“Hey, wait a second! This is getting hot—!”
The sound of the ring clattering to the ground echoed, but it was too late.
That’s not for healing purposes.
Well, it does have healing functions, but…
It’s primarily made as a restraining device.
It’s an item packed with the Holy Power of both Ariel and Baal.
So, it’s safe to say—
One inevitability is enough, right?
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