There is no way for humans to resist death.
This was an obvious truth, a universal truth accepted on both sides of Earth where Geladridion and Aslan lived.
Therefore, they had no hesitation.
After all, they were humans who had transcended death, humans who truly served death.
No, perhaps they were no longer human.
As the man and woman approached the fortress, they tightened their grips on their weapons.
The combat hammers and long pole hammers they held gleamed eerily under the setting sun.
They were priests who served the Veil of Mercy.
Though their positions differed, they served the same deity and had set out on this journey together under the command of a noble figure.
But they were only comrades in name; in reality, they were distinctly different beings.
One was an ancient hero.
He was a skilled warrior who wielded a combat hammer in one hand and magic in the other.
Though not quite a legendary hero, he was a figure of complex interpretations whose name was recorded in history.
In a sense, he was a specter.
At the same time, he was a priest.
Though not particularly advanced, he was content with his position.
The other priest, however, was a hybrid of sorts.
She was the daughter forcibly conceived by a priest of the Veil of Mercy, and naturally, she too became a priest of the Veil.
She was proficient in handling divine power but clumsy with weapons.
But it didn’t matter. No matter how much a human trained, they generally couldn’t defeat a priest.
In the face of overwhelming power, skill tends to fade.
Thus, the two priests approached the fortress without hesitation.
Though they shared no sense of kinship, they had a mutual understanding to watch each other’s backs in times of need.
“Isn’t that the fortress?”
The priest who appeared as a girl suddenly spoke, and the middle-aged priest nodded.
“Yes, that’s the fortress.”
Before them stood the fortress of the betrayers.
The fortress stood resolute amidst the death sown by the Veil of Mercy.
As if making a declaration, it stood tall in the face of descending death, awaiting the two priests.
The fortress itself was an impressive structure.
For ordinary soldiers to breach it, they would need at least three times the defending force.
Boom, boom, boom!
But that was by human standards.
That formidable fortress was no match for the priests.
Whether those inside the fortress knew this or not, they rang the bells in panic.
Under the tolling bells, people scurried about.
Soldiers rushing inside, others grabbing defensive weapons from above, and some tripping as they hurriedly carried arrows.
The hero sneered indifferently at the crude soldiers and equipment, while the girl priest giggled.
“Strange fellows. They’d be better off biting their tongues.”
The girl spoke, and the hero agreed.
It was truly a meaningless resistance.
They all knew it well.
It would be as simple as yawning.
Both the girl and the hero thought this as they approached the fortress.
With each step, fear etched itself onto the soldiers’ faces, and that fear gnawed at them.
But they did not stop.
They felt no pity for the pitiful humans, for they had a purpose.
They needed to capture this fortress, find the path to the sanctuary, and join those who had already crossed the sky to reach it.
They had been warned to proceed carefully, for something unknown awaited them inside.
Moreover, they had been threatened with execution by their own hands if they failed.
Even if they felt pity, they had to fight to survive.
Recalling those cold, beautiful eyes that held the universe, the hero shuddered, while the girl forced a laugh, barely pushing the thought from her mind.
Was such caution truly necessary? The hero agonized briefly but didn’t dwell on it.
After all, it was his duty.
As the girl and the hero approached the fortress, the main gate of the fortress slammed shut with a thud.
Thud!
The ground shook, and fine dust rose and settled.
The hero rested his combat hammer on his shoulder as he watched the dust.
What should he do?
The fleeting thought quickly passed.
Normally, he might have used magic or infiltrated, but given the power he now possessed, there was no need for such measures.
He could simply blow it away.
The hero nodded to the girl, who, more adept at handling divine power than him, grinned.
Her white twin tails swayed as she raised her hand high.
What gathered in her hand was divine power.
The death of the universe itself, the being that had destroyed countless universes.
Likewise, the transcendent being that had birthed countless tragedies, including the Devourer and all manner of evil deities.
The Veil of Mercy.
Her divine power.
After a slow, deliberate buildup, a massive projectile, resembling a siege ram, formed.
As the heavy projectile settled onto her slender arms, the girl leaned back and then sprung forward.
“Whoosh!”
With an awkward sound, she swung her arm, and despite the sound, space itself froze eerily as the projectile flew.
The target was the entirety of the fortress’s front.
Blow it away and enter.
Along with an utterly crude plan, an equally crude force flew in.
Bang!
For a moment, a thunderous collision echoed.
Boom!
The sound of a massive bell being struck reverberated, and from the main gate to the entire front of the fortress, something spread circularly.
What followed was destruction beyond comprehension.
Crash!
The walls built by humans and the forged steel gates shattered, turning to dust and scattering.
A deathly coldness that could kill time itself and devour space descended, erasing existence from the ground.
Soldiers caught in it froze without even a scream, turning to dust, while most of the militia were swept away and died without a chance to escape.
Even those outside the range weren’t unscathed.
Less shattered, less engulfed fragments spread like shrapnel in all directions.
The countless stone shards flying back had enough force to kill a person, and people died in droves amidst the scattering power.
Thus, the entire front of the fortress, which had endured even after the kingdom’s fall, was blown away.
Amidst the scattering human corpses, countless others fell to the ground.
Through the gap, the priests approached.
“Boring!”
The girl-like hybrid shouted, and the hero silently approached the fortress.
Beyond the blown-away front of the fortress, countless people seemed to have been swept away.
Most were clearly dead at a glance, but some still had intact limbs.
Was the wall sturdier than expected? Perhaps the shock had killed their insides, rendering them unable to rise, but the hero approached cautiously.
Countless corpses and bodies lay scattered.
Grabbing the back of the girl who was hopping towards the fortress, the hero spoke succinctly.
“Make sure they’re dead. Unless you want to be attacked from behind.”
The girl-like priest grumbled but stopped hopping, and the hero and girl walked among the corpses.
“Yah!”
Thud! The hammer struck the militia member’s body, and the militia member vomited blood, eyes wide before dying.
As expected. The hero thought as he stabbed a seemingly intact body with the sharp tip of his combat hammer, and a female knight, pierced through her armor, vomited blood, white hair scattering as her eyes opened.
As expected. The hero twisted into a smile, and the girl, perhaps thinking she didn’t need to be cautious, started hopping again.
With each hop, a militia member died.
Thud, thud! Amidst the scattering flesh and blood, screams flowed.
As each stepped-on corpse screamed, the girl laughed with considerable delight.
A being who innocently killed humans. The hero frowned, uncomfortable with the hybrid girl, but then a sudden question made him scan the surroundings.
“Argh!”
Every body the girl stepped on screamed.
Without exception, every body did so.
The hero suddenly found the scene strange.
Looking up, many things seemed strange.
The girl, unaware of the strangeness, continued hopping over the militia members’ corpses, killing them, but the hero could not.
Part of it was because a knight was clinging to his combat hammer, but there were other reasons too.
First, the fortress was eerily quiet.
According to information obtained through ‘torture,’ most of the fortress’s inhabitants were ordinary humans.
Not knights or soldiers.
Yet now, only soldiers and knights were in sight.
There were no ordinary people.
Even the numbers heard through torture were quite different.
Moreover, for defense, they should have concentrated their forces on the front, yet they were here unscathed.
They hadn’t been swept away from the front.
Above all, too many were alive.
As if pretending to be dead.
The hero was about to call the girl to a halt.
“Wait! Too many of them are ali—”
As Ereta, who had been pretending to be dead, grabbed the combat hammer that had pierced her and swung a hand axe.
Thud! The flaming axe shattered the hero’s ankle, and the specter priest staggered.
“Huh?”
Then the knight who had been lying in front of the girl priest, Regyn Solis, quickly stood up and swung his sword.
A perfect synchronization of drawing and swinging, a beautiful sword strike.
A sword technique honed in real combat.
Of course, the sword was a one-handed sword. The wound wasn’t deep.
It wasn’t meant to inflict a deep wound.
The trajectory was simply fast, straight, and precisely aimed at the eyes.
Crack!
The girl’s eyes shattered, and ice fragments scattered.
And the girl, now blind, stopped speaking and staggered back.
Simultaneously, those who had been lying down, quietly awaiting death, all rose.
All those thought dead stood up, aiming their weapons at the priests and charging.
In the sudden turn of events, the hero, the specter priest, realized.
This was all a trap.
A trap laid with lives as bait.
As the two priests were stunned, Regyn Solis gripped his sword hilt.
He was a mercenary.
But not an ordinary mercenary.
He was a mercenary directly hired by the kingdom, a capable warrior.
Though not a knight, he was no less skilled.
Thus, he knew his weakness, the enemy’s strength.
He could assess the odds and use them.
Calmly, he knew he and his men couldn’t defeat the priests.
Even with resolve, the priests weren’t easy foes.
But if resolve wasn’t just to face death, but to use it, things changed.
‘We’ve drawn them in.’
Regyn Solis’s plan was one only humans, in their weakness, could choose.
To accept the deaths of comrades, even his own.
To use even that to hold and inflict small wounds.
To risk death, to fight to protect what must be protected.
To resolve to fight even in death, to step over the sacrifices of comrades.
That’s how to kill a priest.
A method even Aslan had to acknowledge, how an army could defeat a priest.
Regyn Solis, holding his shield and sword, stepped forward and shouted.
“Rise, knights!”
There is no way for humans to resist death.
“Fulfill your oaths!”
But they did not retreat.
The knights charged towards the approaching death.
