Two priests. Each had lost an ankle and an eye.
It wasn’t an injury that couldn’t heal.
Although the Veil of Mercy wasn’t exceptionally skilled in regeneration, it wasn’t completely incapable either.
But even so, it would take several seconds at the very least.
During that time, they were relatively vulnerable to attacks.
This fact was known by both the priests and the knights.
Thus, those who rushed in showed little hesitation in their eyes.
Though there might be emotional fluctuations, there was no hesitation.
With a deep breath, one knight hurled his spear.
The spike-studded spearhead, used for hunting wild boars, was launched towards the girl priest.
With the sound of piercing thick ice, the spearhead impaled the girl priest’s abdomen.
“Ugh, aaaah!”
The unfamiliar pain struck her. The girl priest instinctively curled up from the pain before swinging her arm violently.
The swinging arm seemed like a futile act of resistance but carried an extraordinary force.
Krrrraaack!
“Ugh…!”
Breaking the spear, she crushed the arm of the knight who held it.
Though there was no follow-up attack due to the blind swing, the knight retreated, clutching his torn shoulder joint.
He dropped to the ground, spilling hot blood.
The flowing blood was dark and sticky, gifting pain to any comrades who passed nearby.
He was going to die.
They all probably would.
Yet, despite this awareness, they didn’t stop. Their inertia propelled them forward.
Though called inertia, it wasn’t something they couldn’t halt.
It wasn’t as if they were in a mass collision.
The inertia driving them was a mental one.
“Aaaaah!”
With a shout, the knights charged past their dying comrade toward the priest.
Every ordinary attempt to kill would be thwarted.
The priest had enough stamina for that.
So they inflicted wounds, whittling her down.
Even if they were to die, or even after death.
For these two goals, they staked their lives.
If their lives weren’t enough, they vowed to accomplish it even in death.
The knight who lost his arm, feeling the impending death moment by moment, still grabbed the broken spear and lunged.
“I am Coleman, the strongest spearman of Leton!”
The voice reached the blind girl priest, who reflexively swung her arm.
The trajectory appeared random.
Yet, the wind screamed as it changed direction, showing its immense power.
A hit meant death. But they did not dodge.
Dodging would mean a perfectly healthy comrade would be hit.
Their lives could still be used.
His life, however, was meant to end here and now.
Kraaack!
The spear pierced through the girl priest’s stomach again, and the body holding the spear collapsed, losing its head.
“Ugh, it hurts! Aaaah!”
The girl felt the stabbing pain, twisted her body, and swung her arm.
The corpse dangling from her arm split into two pieces and scattered.
As the limbless, torso-less, headless corpse tumbled, the knights witnessed its horror yet pressed forward.
Even knowing their fate awaited them, none turned their backs to flee.
Without exception, they charged toward the priest like moths to flame.
However, the sentiments each harbored were undoubtedly different.
Unlike Coleman, the spearman who just died, someone else wanted to live.
His name was Damon. He wielded an axe.
Rarely, he hailed from the Northern Empire.
Through twists and turns, he eventually became a mercenary in the southern continent.
Of course, he had a reason worth sacrificing his life for.
There was a refugee among them—his lover.
Thus, he now raised his axe against the priest in this moment.
Perhaps after swinging this axe, he would soon die. He knew it well, yet he swung anyway.
Still, regret didn’t entirely escape him.
He hoped otherwise.
He wished to survive this fight, return to his lover, and live together on the newly acquired estate.
After completing the relocation, the estate would surely need plenty of wood. With his axe skills, he could earn enough to sustain them.
Then, without hardship, they could raise the child she carried within her.
He also planned to build a large logging camp when his son or daughter grew up.
Living like that, enjoying a long life, and passing away peacefully—that was the future Damon, the axeman, dreamed of.
But that future wouldn’t come. He knew it.
Carrying that future with him, he swung his axe now.
Swinging it as if chopping wood, the heavy double-handed axe precisely struck the girl priest’s neck.
Kraak!
“Guuh… Pray tell!”
Crash!
The axe broke, and the girl priest’s fist came straight for him.
He regretted.
Maybe it would have been better to flee with his lover or hide.
Maybe it would have been better to decline Regyn Solis’ proposal when it was offered.
But despite such regrets, his legs and arms didn’t stop.
The right foot moved forward, crossing over the left.
Changing stance, he tightly gripped the handle slipping out of his hand, including the frozen metal fragments, and struck the priest’s head.
Kraack!
The top of the girl’s skull shattered and scattered.
Yet, she didn’t fall. Her fist approached as planned to finish Damon.
He was going to die.
There was no way to avoid it.
Crash!
His head broke apart easily, like an overripe fruit.
But just before collapsing and his head shattering, he remembered his duty before any regret.
If he was to die, let it be helpful.
Thus, he clung on.
Thrown forward more than falling, his body lacking a head clung onto the girl priest.
“Ugh, what, what is this?! Get off meee!”
The recovery of her vision coincided with Damon’s corpse obscuring the girl’s face.
The girl panicked at her obstructed sight and grabbed the corpse covering her with both hands, tearing it apart.
Kraaaack!
A storm of blood splattered. Torn remains of a comrade. Another knight swung his sword.
Kraak!
“Ahh?!”
Accurately piercing through her recovered eyes, splitting them apart.
Stealing her vision once again.
Terrified by the returning darkness, the knights charged en masse like madmen.
Ignoring their lives, ignoring their emotions.
Some regretted.
Kraaack!
Some feared.
Udduck!
Some raged.
Gaaaaahh!
And some found it unreasonable.
Among them, there was none who didn’t wish to flee.
Everyone desired it.
Yet, none did.
While shedding tears, screaming, contorting their faces in pain, and even as their hearts stopped, they kept attacking.
Only to kill the priest, fulfill their vow, and protect the people.
Tearing flesh and bone, breaking through spines while penetrating.
“Wuup, stop it! Together, stab!”
As a knight ran forward and got impaled by the girl’s arm, he spat out a mouthful of rising blood and shouted.
Answering the call to use even his death, his comrades faithfully complied.
Realizing this was their chance, the knights drove swords and spears into their dying ally alongside the enemy.
“Uuuuuugh, it hurts, it hurtsaaaah!”
Ignoring the girl’s cries, they stabbed deeper. The comrade pierced through the heart, lungs, neck, and head was already dead.
Over his body, iron maces and arrows rained down like rain.
Thud-thud-thud, the arrows stuck into the girl priest’s body brought pain, and the girl priest felt fear.
She was afraid.
Of their mad actions and blind attacks.
And of the conclusion awaiting at the end.
What she had mocked as mere insects moments ago were trembling with fear yet trying to kill her.
“Don’t do it, stop it pleaseeee!”
Panicking, she raised her arm high.
Her vision hadn’t returned. So she swept widely.
The authority coalescing at the raised arm had the power to do so.
The power of the Veil of Mercy. Cosmic death.
Summoned here and now, annihilating everything in range.
That would resolve it.
The girl genuinely believed so and thus quickly despaired.
“Huff!”
Someone leaped up and cut off her arm.
Kraak! The severed arm fell to the ground, dissipating the gathered authority.
The sword that swung was the same one-handed sword that initially stole her sight: Regyn Solis’ blade.
“Ah.”
She couldn’t use her authority.
“Aaaaaah, aaaaaaah!”
The girl screamed in terror, flailing her remaining arm wildly.
The swinging arm possessed enough power to kill someone easily.
Regyn Solis couldn’t allow that swing to land. Another knight thought so and shoved his commander aside with his shoulder.
And lifting his heavy shield, he tried to block it by force.
Instantly, he was crushed along with his shield.
“Commander.”
As the subordinate exhaled his last breath, Regyn Solis gritted his teeth and stepped back.
The pivotal figures in this strategy were Ereta and Regyn.
If these two died, the operation would fail.
Without their strength and skills, it wouldn’t succeed.
Thus, the knights sacrificed their own lives.
Their precious lives, given for a greater purpose.
Counting even their own lives, they advanced solely towards victory.
No matter how much regret, pain, and death descended upon them.
None of the 31 knights retreated.
They fulfilled their duty.
They were the knights of traitors.
Memories and times spent with those traitors pushed them forward.
“Ughh, don’t, don’t do it…!”
At the end, the girl’s eyes were gouged out.
An arm was severed.
Her ankles were stabbed, making her hobble.
There was no time to recover or attack. The knights burned their lives and charged toward the girl priest.
The one who lost an arm drew a backup sword and joined the fray.
The one who lost his legs threw darts, javelins, or throwing axes, or shouted to draw the girl priest’s attacks toward himself.
Those who lost half their faces ignored the pain, swung their weapons, and clung to the girl priest, hindering her.
They only truly stopped when they collapsed dead.
“Don’t, don’t do it, pleaseee!”
The girl screamed in terror as blades repeatedly violated her body.
Flailing wildly, she swung her remaining arm randomly.
The swing was fast. Fast and strong.
It wasn’t surprising that someone couldn’t evade in time.
Kraack!
The precise power tore and shredded her lower jaw.
The knight struck directly by the attack rolled his eyes back.
Losing his jaw, his tongue hung out, and blood dripped heavily.
But the knight didn’t stop.
Straightening his rolling eyes, he placed his weapon under his ribs and stepped into the swinging arm.
“Aaaaaah!”
Due to the missing jaw, the emitted sound was a scream.
Yet, the intent was conveyed.
Seizing the opportunity, he grabbed the girl’s arm that had pierced through his chest.
At that moment, Regyn Solis sprang forward like a spring.
Drawing his one-handed sword, he swung it to the side.
The target was the neck.
In one stroke, he beheaded her.
“An, guuh!”
The hero, the specter priest, tried to intervene but was blocked by Ereta and the knights, unable to help the girl.
Whoosh! Dodging the surging flames, Ereta’s flaming double-handed axe intercepted him.
The fire was peculiar.
Strangely, it burned the divine power within him and the frost he emitted.
From the start, his ankle was severed by the fiery axe, and it hadn’t healed until now.
“Don’t interfere!”
Embarrassed, the hero attacked. Swinging his war hammer, Ereta extended her axe horizontally to block it.
Clang!
“Ughh!”
Though pushed back due to the disparity in brute strength, Ereta wasn’t finished before the knights charged.
Kraak!
A spear pierced into the hero’s spine.
Sshh!
A cleaver barely retrieved mid-recovery slashed his regenerating ankle.
In retaliation, the hero swung his hammer once, killing both knights, but Ereta closed in and swung her axe again.
Whoosh, Zzzzang!
As the swung axe struck the hero, tearing his arm, he realized he could do nothing.
His compatriot was going to die.
Realizing this, he heard it.
Crash, Kraaack.
The sound of cutting through solid ice.
Kraack!
The final sound of severance.
At the edge of the hero’s turning vision, his compatriot lost her head and collapsed.
“No!”
The hero was startled.
Startled, his defense was inadequate, and Ereta didn’t miss the gap.
Reflexively pulling the mace from her waist.
A small-sized war hammer, blazing with fire.
It soared and crushed the hero’s jaw.
KRAANG!
Striking with full force, the hammer sent the specter priest flying, and the instant his body slammed into the ground, the girl priest’s severed head hit the floor simultaneously.
KRAAAANG!
Regyn Solis’ sword broke too, but the girl priest was dead.
The only one left was the specter priest.
Regyn Solis clenched his teeth looking at the fallen, pitiful corpses of his subordinates as he turned toward the hero.
To finish him off and complete his subordinates’ duties.
The once-hero specter priest crawled on the ground, trying to escape.
“…Disgusting.”
Regyn Solis felt the absurdity that knights had to die to capture such a creature.
Even with a broken sword, slashing the neck a few times would suffice.
Approaching without hesitation, step by step.
“You’re scared now, aren’t you, priest!”
Calling out to the hero, he firmly grasped the broken sword.
“Fleeing disgracefully won’t change anything! You will die here today…!”
Only when Regyn reached close to the hero did he realize the hero wasn’t afraid of them.
It was more like bowing deeply before an overwhelmingly superior existence.
A humiliating act of prostration to preserve his life since he couldn’t escape.
Regyn Solis’ impression was accurate.
Unconsciously raising his head, he saw the figure standing near the hero.
It was a being straddling the ridge between a girl and a woman.
Long white hair tipped with lavender, eyes imbued with cosmic hues that seemed to pull in whoever looked.
Clearly non-human at first glance, almost naked.
Her feet wore no shoes, revealing bare feet, and the cloth around her shoulders was nearly transparent, exposing her skin beneath.
Her attire hardly served its function, and yet there stood the being amidst the battlefield.
Behind her back hovered a faint halo, and in her hand rested an unfamiliar spear.
Appearing without any noticeable presence despite her strange appearance.
Yet, upon seeing her, she radiated an overwhelming aura.
Subtle enough for no one to notice until she arrived, yet powerful enough to make anyone catch their breath just by looking.
That presence was death itself.
Everyone present stopped breathing as they stared at her, and the humbly crawling hero began to cry.
Proclaiming he had done his best, apologizing, promising it wouldn’t happen next time.
That’s what he tried to say.
“Sin…”
Krrrrrrr.
The moment the hero opened his weeping mouth, his body crumbled into icy powder and collapsed.
Crack! The fractured body turned to ice and scattered across the ground, making everyone realize.
The sensation and fear they felt now was akin to a prey encountering its predator.
Even though they didn’t know her name or ever seen her form, they understood.
Except for Ereta.
She recognized the figure before her.
“Harbinger of the Veil.”
High Priestess of the Veil of Mercy.
Harbinger of the Veil.
The First Hybrid.
Ash.
She was death incarnate, and death lifted her head to see Ereta calling her name.
“Who are you again?”
Then she grinned.
Simultaneously, the halo behind her flared up.
Kraaak!
The enveloped earth, time, and space froze solid and shattered altogether.
Corpses lying on the ground froze completely and disappeared, erasing all destruction and history within.
Ereta instantly realized upon seeing the sudden appearance of the high priestess.
These two priests weren’t merely preparing entry routes separately.
They were clearing the path for their master.
Upon realizing this, Ash’s expanding halo engulfed the space.
