Chapter 100 - Anilis - 4

The instant Bera’s sword swept forward, Anilis felt that fleeting moment stretch endlessly.

The mass of spell formulas she had fired, the apostle’s approaching sword, and the world beyond them all seemed to stand still.

Space warped and tore apart from the tip of the apostle’s sword. A ripping crackle rang in her ears. The sword, moving ever so slowly, swept through her spell.

'Ah...'

Within it, Anilis beheld the natural order.

She could see it in the infinite void beyond the torn fabric of space.

The spell was drawn in. Her thoughts were drawn in. The fury that had burned in her heart, the longing she had harbored all her life, and then her very existence.

Everything was being sucked into the void before her.

CRACKLE!

She reached out. Her outstretched hand was drawn into the rift. Her arm was severed. Her chest was split apart. Her shoulder crumbled.

Still, she reached out.

A fragment of what she had sought her entire life lay before her. She could do nothing else.

Then—

CRACKLE!

She felt the sweeping blade cleave her body in two. A moment later, the endlessly slowed world returned to its proper speed.

SPLAT!

Her view sank. The world spun.

Anilis realized a moment too late that her head had been severed. The world must be spinning because her fallen head was rolling.

Anilis wept.

'Why?'

Why had the natural order been granted to an ignorant butcher like him, rather than to her, who had craved nothing else her entire life?

RUSTLE!

It was the sound of the garden, reduced to ash, being crushed underfoot.

Anilis turned her eyes toward its source.

The apostle.

“Where did you get the serum?”

What an idiotic question. Anilis answered in a voice steeped in despair.

“You vermin.”

Whether it was tears or drops of blood running from the corners of her eyes, Anilis did not know.

No, perhaps it was both. She was sad.

“Boy, you don’t even understand what you’ve just done.”

It saddened her terribly that someone who held a fragment of the natural order could fail to understand the greatness of his achievement and instead ask such trivial questions.

“Stop talking nonsense and answer me.”

Bera’s expression tightened. He was in a hurry.

Since restraining her intact had been impossible, he had cut off her head. He needed an answer before the old hag died. He had to discover who owned the serum—the unforeseen factor behind this terror attack.

With that in mind, he ground her head beneath his foot and continued questioning her, but—

“You ignorant fool.”

All he received was mockery.

Bera’s face contorted.

A sneer rose on Anilis’s face.

“You will never understand. No, you’ll understand only when that day comes. What a terrible mistake it was to kill me. How unstable and precarious this world is.”

Madness overlaid her sneer. The muscles of her face tore and twisted in every direction. It was grotesque and hideous, but even Bera could recognize the broad smile her expression had become.

“Destruction will come. The primordial land will come. What will you be able to do before it?”

Bera flinched, his body trembling. Horror rose on his face.

Destruction.

That word immediately brought something to mind.

“... The Demon King.”

Anilis’s eyes widened. Then her smile grew broader.

“Is that what you’ll call it?”

CRUNCH!

Bera’s foot crushed the bridge of Anilis’s nose.

“Tell me what you know. Who gave you the serum. Everything else you know.”

“Why should I?”

Anilis cackled.

Bera’s expression grew fiercer.

'She knows.'

She knew about the Demon King. No, she knew about the Demon King’s origins.

Bera’s thoughts raced onward.

'The master of the Magic Tower didn’t discover this herself.'

Nothing like this had happened in his previous life. Until the Demon King rose, no one had known of its existence.

Bera’s thoughts raced onward.

The reason the master of the Magic Tower had learned of it in this life.

Something came to mind.

Gilli and Gartea, who had already been on the move even though the Demon King had yet to rise. And now this incident.

'It’s the same person.'

That person was behind every incident. The Demon King’s agent—that would be the right description.

Bera stared at Anilis with gleaming eyes.

“Who gave you the serum?”

He pressed her again. Removing his foot, he bent down and seized both her cheeks.

Every other question vanished from his mind. That one alone dominated his thoughts.

If someone else was connected to the Demon King, learning about that person had to come first.

“What does he know? What did you hear?”

“Kh, khahaha...!”

Anilis cackled as she looked at Bera’s frantic face.

“Go on. Struggle.”

RUMBLE!

The ground shook.

When Bera flinched, Anilis laughed still louder and spoke.

“Let’s see. The gutter was beneath Oriac, wasn’t it?”

Bera’s pupils dilated.

Her meaning was all too clear.

This tremor must be Oriac collapsing. The master of the Magic Tower must be bringing Oriac down to crush the gutter.

“You insane bitch.”

“Do you have time to waste here? Hurry down there and save the people.”

Cackling, Anilis shook, nothing left of her but her head.

“Isn’t that what an apostle does?”

Bera ground his teeth.

He had to question her. He had to secure a lead.

But if he kept wasting time like this, everyone in the gutter would die, just as she had said.

His expression twisted horribly.

Forced to choose, Bera released the cheeks he had gripped hard enough to tear, rose, and headed straight for the passage leading outside the Magic Tower.

Watching him leave, Anilis let out a long, long laugh.

* * *

After leaping from Oriac, Bera looked up at it as he fell.

'It’s collapsing.'

Everything from its outer walls to its interior was splitting apart into fragments. The debris still floated in the air, but once Oriac collapsed completely, it would fall to the ground and reduce the gutter to ruins.

Bera could not allow that.

It was not love for his hometown, or an aversion to seeing it destroyed. It arose simply from the thought that there were people below, and he had to save them.

The gateway to the divine realm still stood open in the sky. The Holy Sword was in his hand.

He had enough power.

Bera unleashed his divine energy and spoke.

“I make a vow.”

All his vows had expired with the end of the battle. He needed to make another.

“From this moment onward, by abstaining from all acts of physical combat, I gain corresponding magical and sorcerous capacity.”

Blocking falling debris with a sword was absurd. There was only one way to stop it: sacred arts.

“Should I break this vow, I will lose not only the ability to wield a sword, but all the magical and sorcerous capacity I possess.”

Divine energy seethed. Dense energy, compressed again and again, rose along the Holy Sword’s blade.

Using the Holy Sword as a medium, Bera began weaving spell formulas.

He needed defense. Something to soften the impact of his fall.

Sacred art: [Skywalk].

Sacred art: [Wing of Protection].

Golden divine energy enveloped Bera’s body. He stepped through the air with [Skywalk] as he descended.

Meanwhile, he spread the [Wing of Protection] and began pouring all his concentrated divine energy into it.

'I can do this.'

He only had to enlarge it. Enough to cover the entire gutter, so that Oriac’s debris would slide off without reaching it.

Fed with divine energy, the Wing expanded. From barely large enough to cover Bera’s body, it grew to the size of a building, then a road, then beyond that to an entire district.

Golden light swept outward, blanketing the gutter.

“Hhh!”

Landing on the ground, Bera drew a deep breath and drove the shining Holy Sword into the center of the gutter.

Divine energy flowed through the ground, then soared skyward and became an enormous golden barrier.

RUMBLE!

At that moment, Oriac shuddered, collapsed, and slowly began to fall.

Debris struck the Wing.

BOOM!

A thunderous crash, rightly called an explosion, rang out. It shook the entire gutter.

Bera clenched his teeth against the impact coursing through him and unleashed his divine energy. He held on.

Until every fragment had fallen. Until the shaking stopped.

Erasing every other thought, he held on for a long time with only one thing in his mind: block it.

He closed his eyes. He poured all his strength into the hand gripping his sword.

Divine energy descended from the divine realm overhead, was refined through the Holy Sword, and seeped into the ground.

Golden radiance shone brilliantly.

At last, after a long while, when the tremors had ceased—

“Wow...”

A small child’s awed voice tickled Bera’s ears.

Only then did Bera open his eyes and look around, panting. He saw the gutter’s residents, who had come out of their buildings at the sudden disturbance.

Everyone in the streets was staring up at the sky in astonishment.

Bera followed their gaze.

He saw a white sky, with a golden wing stretched across it like a curtain.

Only then did Bera realize he had blocked every fragment of Oriac, and he dismissed the barrier.

Cries of wonder erupted all around.

“It’s the sky!”

“The ceiling’s gone!”

Light shone into the gutter, which had been hidden beneath the Magic Tower for hundreds of years. The people standing there spoke with an emotion beyond description in their voices.

The pure white light Renée had summoned enveloped the gutter.

Its people examined their bodies and began to weep.

“It doesn’t hurt...”

Looking at the pure white sky and the gutter rats beneath it, Bera felt the strength drain from his entire body.

He sank to the ground and spent a while catching his breath.

SPLASH!

Someone approached Bera, splashing through muddy water.

“Mister.”

Bera lifted his head.

Before him stood a very small child, thickly caked in grime.

“What is it?”

“Did you do that, mister?”

The child pointed at the sky.

Bera looked at the sky shining pure white and murmured softly.

“The Saintess did that.”

How remarkable she was. For some reason, he felt aggrieved that Renée had told him never to overexert himself, only to go and do something like this.

“The Saintess is amazing.”

Because of that feeling, Bera gave a faint laugh at the child’s words and replied,

“She’s amazingly unfair.”

Was this her way of getting back at him for what had happened in the mountains?

That thought was crossing his mind.

* * *

With only her head remaining, Anilis stared at the sky.

Where Oriac should have been, there was now only a white sky.

'If only they’d all just drop dead.'

Thinking that only her own home had been destroyed made her feel as though her stomach, which no longer existed, was twisting.

As she cackled at that—

“Hmm-hmm~.”

Someone was humming.

SPLASH. SPLASH.

She heard footsteps splashing through the mud.

Anilis rolled her eyes toward the source.

“... Aleisia.”

Long, straight pink hair swayed. A pure white frilled dress ending above the knees danced to and fro.

At the end of her gaze stood a beautiful woman with an exceptionally gentle appearance, looking at her with a broad smile.

“What happened to you?”

Her clear, sweet voice rang out, as though it could brighten the whole world.

Anilis answered with a cackle, her face hideously twisted.

“Isn’t this what you wanted, bitch?”

“Why would you think that? I’m so sad.”

Aleisia’s eyebrows drooped. Anilis found the sight revoltingly false.

“You filthy bitch.”

“No bad words.”

Aleisia approached, lifted Anilis’s head, and hugged it tightly to her chest.

“You should have listened to me. Why did you act on your own?”

“I’d rather die than follow you around.”

“Mm-hmm. I see.”

A blush spread across Aleisia’s cheeks.

“You know, I’m so excited.”

“You’ll fail.”

“I only made a mistake last time because it was my first try. This time I’ll definitely succeed.”

“Your whole body will be torn to shreds and left lying around as dog food.”

“I’ll be praised, won’t I?”

“Ah, yes. Your lower half might survive. Dogs in heat will take turns using it and amuse themselves for quite a while.”

“I’ve waited so, so long that I don’t think I can bear it anymore.”

“Mm. What a pity I won’t get to see it.”

The long, long conversation continued, each saying only what she wished without listening to the other.

With eyes full of bitter venom, Anilis stared at this source of evil.

“Eat me, whore. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

“Ar will hold me tight.”

“No. It will resent you.”

Aleisia stopped abruptly. At Anilis’s last words, the bright smile of the woman who had been chattering away froze.

Feeling a deep surge of satisfaction, Anilis looked at Aleisia.

Within those eyes, she saw her own reflection, wearing the exact same face as Aleisia.

She grinned, and the Aleisia reflected in those eyes smiled.

“It will curse you. Tear you to death. Reject your very existence and leave not even your soul—”

SMACK!

Aleisia slapped Anilis’s cheek. Unable to withstand the blow, Anilis’s jaw was wrenched loose.

“No.”

Feeling her half-severed jaw dangling, Anilis grinned.

She thoroughly mocked the foolish ancient species that believed it would surely succeed.

“You’re a liar. Liars are bad.”

As Aleisia said this, she opened her mouth wider than any human jaw could possibly allow.

Watching that pitch-black throat loom over her, Anilis cursed inwardly.

'Fuck.'

She felt hollow.

Was this how it ended after all? The thought sent irritation surging through her.

'Let them all go to hell.'

This was all that stupid apostle’s fault.

He had ruined her plans and cut her down. Everything that happened from now on would be his fault.

With those thoughts, Anilis met her end.

CRUNCH.