Lazy Salvation

The members of the Final Custodian Order were not speaking for the sake of idle words. They were buying time.

After all, they were facing a variable that had strayed wildly from the path they had laid out for it. None of them knew what other surprises might still be hiding beneath the surface. So, while they indulged the mad vampire in conversation, every member kept their detection abilities at full power, searching for anything that might threaten them.

And soon enough, they found nothing they could not deal with.

The man was as weak inwardly as he appeared outwardly, heartless as he was in the most literal sense. As for the woman... what could a newborn, however primordial she might be, possibly accomplish? To make any real use of even one percent of her newfound power would already be a monumental feat, let alone pose a threat to them.

"So be it..." the leader sighed. "You may be saner than anticipated, but it matters not. It is enough. We will proceed with the next phase."

At his words, he stepped forward, and the others behind him changed at once, shedding their earlier nonchalance in favor of cold, impassive faces.

Ashen saw it and only smiled.

'You're buying time... but who says I'm not? They really think I'm harmless just because I'm a little crazy? Fuck them.'

As for what he himself was buying time for... Ashen glanced back at his 'knight'.

Seraphine's eyes had been glazing over and clearing again in intermittent waves since earlier. It was obvious her mind was elsewhere, but Ashen wasn't worried. She was merely processing his last 'gift'.

Ancestral Bloodline Manifestation was at work, assimilating all the memories, techniques, and instincts he had cultivated throughout his life. He had branded everything into his blood before passing it on to her.

Step.

When the leader took another step forward, her trance finally began to recede.

'Hehehe... now all my pieces are in place. I'll leave it to you, my sexy knight~'

*

Ever since Ashen had given her his heart, memories had begun to surface in her mind as images, one after another. Seraphine was certain that if not for her newly gained vampiric physique, she would have been overwhelmed at once. But the concepts she had inherited made the process possible.

So even as she spoke, cried, and ran... the scene playing at the back of her mind never ceased.

And along with those scenes came their emotions.

She saw a child named Ashen and felt his love for his parents; she felt his pride at being exceptional. Then came his loneliness as he grew older. She felt his depression, his despair, the first time he began to glimpse fragments of his future and found life growing stale. Then came the hope he felt when he met Alice and his uncle Dorian.

After that, she witnessed his abnormal descent into apathy, and the crushing melancholy that followed.

Then she saw him deceived, turned into a slave, and thrown into a merciless war where he was remade into a killing machine.

She saw him torture himself to reach for his love. She saw him break himself to save her life in another fragment.

And she felt all of it again.

All the pain, all the misery, and the ruin that followed it.

But what truly crushed her was what came next.

She saw him under a rock, tortured without meaning for years, decades... and then a century.

And with it, of course, came the usual despair.

Seraphine almost gave up there and then. But she persevered.

This was what he had felt. This was what he had endured. She deemed it an obligation to at least accompany him through it, even in this distorted form.

It was the least she could do for the man she had proclaimed herself willing to love above all else.

But that resolve soon crumbled when she reached the scene of her own death.

Seraphine felt as though she were going to die of sorrow alone.

"Depression? I have depression! Anxiety? I have anxiety! Fear. Despair. Doubt. I have all of it!!"

His voice reverberated in tandem with the visions, making everything a hundred times more painful.

'No... no... stop it!!!'

The second death.

The third.

The fourth.

And just when her mind threatened to fracture entirely and collapse into a numb shell for self-preservation, the visions abruptly stopped.

The concept of Ancestral Bloodline Manifestation adjusted itself to protect its new host's mind.

And so… the next scene contained only his mastery of spells, the spear, and the art of killing.

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...

…

When her eyes regained focus, the first thing she honed in on was him. Despite his miserable state, he stood protectively between her and them in a nonchalant posture.

"Are you ready?"

He asked with a smile.

"...Yes."

She was more than ready; she was out for blood.

Seraphine glanced at their enemies, and her eyes shone with bloodlust. The earlier emotions were still running high in her system, and she needed an outlet.

Fortunately for her, and not so much for them, the outlet was conveniently present before her.

"The former primordial is worthless, kill him and move to seal the woman."

""Yes, leader.""

Those words were the signal for the start of the massacre.

BOOM—!

The dragon man opened with a fist that turned into a tsunami of concentrated mana aimed at the couple.

Ashen did not react to it, merely reaching into his HourVault and grabbing two spears. One he threw toward Seraphine, and the other he twirled in his hand before settling into his most familiar stance.

The supersonic blast slowed down until it came to a complete halt before reaching him, and right after, from behind him, a blurry gold-and-red silhouette passed by.

Seraphine attacked the man with draconic features with a spear thrust identical to the ones he usually threw. The leader blocked with claws that abruptly elongated from his nails, but that was a mistake.

On the tip of the spear, a magic circle bloomed.

He only got to hear the loud ringing of something compressing and collapsing on itself before a detonation swept him and everyone behind him.

Behind her, Regina had reached Ashen by cocnealing herself, but when her daggers threatened to cut off his head, a glance from Seraphine made the space around them stagnant, with only her and Ashen being able to move freely.

That was all he needed to dodge her strike and counterattack with a spear cut of his own.

"Ahhhhh!!!"

Regina allowed the strike to land, simultaneously reaching forward to trade injury for injury, trusting her regeneration to bail her out, but the moment the spear touched her, an all-encompassing pain struck her.

She hastily jumped back and glanced down at her injured side. It was marred with dark spots that still sent jolts of pain through her nerves.

She looked back and found him smiling and waving at her innocently.

"You probably don't know this," he said lightly, "but I spent a full year figuring out the most efficient way to make you suffer."

His grin widened, almost boyish. "I may not have enough mana for anything flashy… but this?"

A soft chuckle. "More than enough."

"DIE!!!"

Enraged at the fact that she was getting overpowered by the hands of a half-dead man, she pounced once more.

BOOOMMM—

The other side of the battlefield wasn't as peaceful as their fight. Ashen dared a glance, and what he saw made him smirk in satisfaction.

The tigerkin had his head already blown off, the elf's legs were evaporated, and the dragonkin's entire torso was burnt to cinders.

Seraphine stood in the middle with a spear brandished and hundreds of magic circles floating above her like gates of death.

Though the fight appeared one-sided, it was much closer than it looked. All thanks to the sole human in this group of demihumans.

He stood protected by a bearkin that wielded a giant shield, muttering prayers in a pious pose, and every few seconds, golden light left the metallic orb nestled between his hands.

And whoever the light touched, they were rapidly healed.

*

The priest was the axis around which the entire fight rotated. Seraphine did not take long to recognize this as she mapped the battlefield.

Every member who fell rose again within seconds of that golden light touching them. The elf's missing legs knitted back. The tigerkin's severed head reattached with a nauseating crack. She could reduce them all to ash and it would mean nothing as long as that man continued to breathe.

So she stopped trying to finish them.

Instead, she moved like water finding its lowest point, threading through the gaps between attacks, letting the living wall between her and her target exhaust itself on empty air. They lunged; she sidestepped, letting momentum carry her foe past, and drove a magic circle against the spine of the closet one in her range. The resulting compression folded him into the earth.

She didn't look back at the consequences.

A ripple in the air at her flank — the elf, reconstituted, drawing on wind mana. Seraphine's free hand traced a half-circle and a stagnation field bloomed outward, catching the blade mid-swing.

'Ashen…'

A glance told her enough. Regina had escalated, the daggers coming faster now, her rage making her reckless but also more dangerous for it. He was holding. Barely. His skill was impeccable but the body executing it was running on borrowed time.

A healing formation left her fingers, trailing after her as she kept moving. It found him on its own.

The priest was close now.

The bearkin shifted to intercept, shield raised. Seraphine feinted high and dropped beneath the rim, driving her spear through the gap between the shield's base and the earth. The bearkin buckled.

She was already past him.

The priest's eyes found her. His prayer did not stop; his discipline was admirable, she supposed.

Three magic circles stacked above her spear tip as she closed the final distance.

Then the nine-tailed fox entered the edge of her vision.

She had been there since the beginning. Seraphine realized it all at once. the careful positioning, always just outside engagement range, always watching but never interfering…

Suddenly, she remembered what she knew about the fox race's mastery of the mind arts.

'Fuck.'

Seraphine knew the state of her own mind better than anyone alive. One well-placed psychic strike and she would be gone from herself entirely for the next couple of seconds.

And that was enough….

More than enough for them to do as they pleased. She was willing to bet that whatever 'seal' they spoke about was bound to follow right after.

But her mind didn't linger on her possible sealing.

Her eyes slid to Ashen.

...No.

Her spear completed its arc.

SHRRRK—

It tore through the priest's heart without pause or pity.

Seraphine braced. Every cell of her new body pulled inward, waiting for the inevitable unraveling—

It never arrived.

Instead, a low voice reverberated through the ruins.

"Salvation."

Not even a fraction of a second later, the foxkin woman's brain exploded in a shower of blood and gore.

Seraphine did not wait to process it. She already knew the aftermath of that attack.

Without looking back, she burst at the top of her speed in his direction, and just when she caught him in a hug, a dozen poisoned daggers hit her back like porcupine quills.

"Haha~ we are so in sync, love, that was neat!"

Seraphine gave him a reproachful glare as she saw blood pour down from every extremity of his broken body.

She knew from his memories that he had enough mana in his HourVault for more attacks of that nature, but she also knew that his current body couldn't handle a single one.

How he had not dropped dead right now was a mystery of its own.

But now that he was in her hands, he wouldn't be dropping any time soon.

Mana formed a healing spell that mended the worst injuries. The remaining living Order members merely watched in silence.

It wasn't that they didn't want to retaliate; it was simply that they knew it was a futile effort now that their trump card had been neutralised so absurdly by the man they had underestimated so much.

But leaving them alone did not mean they would be left alone in turn.

Seraphine turned slowly around, and her lips curled into a cold grin, showing her fangs.

"Have you said your last prayers? Haah… I almost feel bad for sending such miserable wenches to the Eternal, but it can't be helped."

"..."

"Sera baby… you're so cool. You should smile like that more often, huhuhu~"

"Shut up, baby, I'm trying to establish an image here… don't shatter it just like that."

"Yes, yes… anything for my Sera," Ashen nodded with a doting smile. "Hey! You guys have seen it, right? My Seraphine is the most villainous, coolest, most badass there is! You better believe it!"

"..."

"..."

"Mad bastards…"