Chapter 192 : The Northern Front (4)
Having awakened my Mindscape, I walked toward Myu.
My steps were heavy. The soles of my feet screamed as if treading on broken glass, but I paid it no mind.
In fact, the pain felt right.
With every step, the landscape changed.
A hill of crosses rose from the earth.
The path of penance for pilgrims who died for the Goddess.
Golgotha.
That sacred path, once only a myth, now unfolded with my every step.
I don’t know why the Goddess chose me… but she must have had her reasons. Therefore, it is my duty to live up to her expectations.
A pain that flayed the flesh. A torment that scoured the soul.
I embraced it and continued.
My Mindscape surged forward, beginning to devour the domain of the Red Moon. Ash scattered on the wind as a rain of white flowers descended from the sky, a blessing upon a ruined world.
“…What is this?!” Myu shrieked.
I ignored her panic and continued to pour out my Aura.
“You’ve been killing knights as you please,” I said, my voice calm. I raised my hand, conjuring an arrow from the air. A colossal arrow. It multiplied endlessly, a forest of white spears soaring into the sky.
“Now, it’s time to pay the price.”
A soft sound echoed as the arrows streaked toward the center of the Red Moon.
The result was immediate.
“N-no…!” Myu’s voice trembled as a hairline fracture spiderwebbed across the crimson eye in the sky.
I knew, with a certainty that chilled me, that the Red Moon was the eye of the Demon God. For it to be pierced… for a high priestess like her, it was the ultimate blasphemy.
Just as I thought.
“It’s not too late…!” Myu desperately reached a hand toward the sky, as if to shield it.
But it was too late.
With a final crack, the Red Moon shattered, its demonic energy scattering like dust.
“Noooooo!”
Myu flailed, trying to catch the falling fragments. But the pieces vanished, transforming into pure white flower petals before they could touch the ground.
“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
She shrieked, tears of blood streaming down her face. It wasn’t physical pain. It was the agony of seeing her god wounded.
Predictably, she turned on me, muttering like a madwoman.
“TheDemonGodiswoundedunforgivablekillkillkillkillkillkill.”
She spoke at a speed I could barely comprehend. Then, in an instant, she was upon me.
Her dagger flashed. Normally, I couldn’t have reacted to such speed, but now, I felt no fear.
This was my Mindscape.
I had its power.
<Thorncrowned>
I activated a technique etched into my very soul.
The dagger cut deep into my neck, yet only a shallow wound remained.
Instead, it was Myu’s neck that erupted in a fountain of blood.
“So this is the ability,” I murmured.
The Grand Duke and my master had both said it: once I awakened my Mindscape, I would naturally understand its power.
They were right. Knowledge of its techniques flooded my mind.
The Halo spun faster, whipping the air around it.
Within this Mindscape, I can never die.
No matter the pain, no matter how I might beg for death, I cannot die here. Furthermore, any wound I receive is reflected back upon my enemies, amplified a hundredfold.
A suffering saint.
That was the nature of my Mindscape.
“…But it’s not just a counter-attack.”
I savored another technique that surfaced in my mind and grasped a new arrow.
<Divine Beast Invocation>
As I invoked the technique, power began to coalesce and take shape. But where a divine beast should have appeared, something else manifested.
A low growl rumbled as a black beast manifested. An ominous, shadow-wrought creature fixed Myu with an immense, murderous intent.
“Tear her apart,” I commanded.
The black beast lunged with a terrifying roar.
“Dieeeeeeeee!” Myu screamed, her eyes bloodshot as she swung her dagger at the beast.
But it was useless.
Her dagger struck with a sharp crack but failed to leave a scratch. In fact, just as before, the impact inflicted an even greater wound on her own arm.
“What is this damn thing?!” Myu roared, her eyes blazing.
The black beast opened its maw with a sickening crack. A sinister energy, completely different from demonic power, poured from its jaws. It was a force so malevolent it could only be called a curse.
The ominous energy wrapped around Myu’s arm, staining it black, consuming her very existence. The blackened flesh crumbled to dust and was swallowed by the beast with a single gulp.
The black beast growled, a vicious smile on its face. Myu’s arm was gone, as if it had never existed.
In her eyes, terror finally dawned.
“…Impossible. Why is this…?” She spoke as if she recognized the beast, her body trembling as she stared up at it.
The black beast roared.
A wave of sinister energy rushed out, consuming Myu’s entire body.
“N…o…!”
With her last ounce of strength, she activated some kind of escape technique.
But it was too late.
The beast’s jaws snapped shut, and her life was extinguished.
For the Demonkin known as the Countess of Slaughter, it was an utterly anticlimactic death.
* * *
Gasping for breath, Myu fled with all her might far from the northern lands. She had used her last reserves to create a clone. Everyone would think she was dead.
In reality, just before the black beast consumed her, she had sent the clone in her place, preserving her life. She possessed less than a hundred-thousandth of her original power, but it was enough to use her Abyssal Realm to escape.
I have to get away from here…!
As far as possible from that monster. For the sake of the Demon God’s revival, she had to survive.
I have to live… I have to live…!
Myu repeated the words like a mantra.
The memory of that black beast still sent shivers down her spine. How could a mere human wield such a power? To shatter the Red Moon granted by the Demon God himself. To match her speed. And that beast…
She shuddered as a chill ran down her spine, and she glanced behind her.
It was a calamity. A disaster no mortal could ever hope to oppose.
…Those born as Demonkin can never be his opponent.
To fight him, one would need to be both human and demon. Someone like the Marquis of Envy might stand a chance. Otherwise, any other Demonkin would be unable to land a single meaningful blow.
Worse, that monster was constantly embracing pain… he probably wouldn’t even react to ordinary agony.
Myu trembled, trying to banish the thought. Fortunately, the monster didn’t seem to know she was alive; there was no sign of pursuit. A small mercy. Today was not the day she would die.
I will survive. And one day, I will kill him.
Myu forced down her fear and made a vow. To do that, she had to share what she knew. If the Twelve Nobles put their heads together, they could surely devise a way to kill him.
Just as Myu turned her steps toward the Imperial Palace.
“Phew. Thought I was going to be late.”
A voice spoke from within her shadow.
“…?!”
Myu looked down, her expression one of utter confusion.
Without a chance to react, Myu’s life was cut short.
Her head landed with a dull thud and rolled uselessly across the ground.
Death.
She, who had escaped even Louis, had died in a single moment. To a single swing of a dagger.
Myu’s killer hummed a little tune as she emerged from the shadow.
“Ah, that’s a relief.”
The figure, the Veilwarden of Death Veil, stretched and muttered to herself. With a light movement, she grabbed Myu’s head and smiled brightly.
“Honestly, you idiot. What kind of assassin doesn’t check their own shadow?”
The Veilwarden casually tossed the head aside.
“Well, thanks to that, my job was easy.”
She smiled again, pulling a red jewel from her coat.
A moment later.
With a soft tinkle, the jewel in her hand crumbled to dust and scattered into the air.
Simultaneously, the dust rushed into Myu’s corpse, coalescing near her heart and forming a new gemstone.
With a sickening crunch, a grotesque, raw stone materialized in Myu’s chest—a dark red gem, fused to her flesh, veined as if connected by blood vessels.
With a wet rip, the Veilwarden tore the gemstone free. She examined it and smiled with satisfaction.
“That’s one secured.”
The Abyssal Realm ability possessed by the Twelve Nobles. The jewel containing that very power had just been created. She’d heard from the Duke that the Countess of Slaughter possessed the Abyssal Realm of Assassination…
“Hmm… The Red Moon, was it?” the Veilwarden muttered, looking at the crimson moon reflected within the dark red jewel.
It was a shame she’d missed the fight, having hidden in the shadows just before it began. Witnessing the battle between that man and the Countess would have been excellent intel.
“Tch… well, it must be good. I can just ask the Duke about the ability.”
The Veilwarden shrugged it off and tucked the jewel into her coat.
“They won’t die, will they? The Duke seemed to want them alive…”
She shrugged again and shook her head.
“Well, they’ll figure it out.”
In the distance, she could see the Demonkin army marching toward the North, but the Veilwarden paid it no mind and walked away.
Her objective was singular.
This jewel alone.