The Girl Who Stitched Monsters

The witch-hunters stood still.

The older witch-hunter’s brows twisted into a knot. In a low voice, he warned, “Just make it look convincing. Don’t overdo it.”

“The Holy Court isn’t blind.” Hervin turned his head, his gaze landing directly on Colin. “You do it.”

Colin jerked his head up. “Me?”

Hervin said, “Out of everyone here, you should be the one who wants to hit me most. Boy, chances like this don’t come often.”

The moment those words fell, something Colin had been holding back finally cracked.

He strode forward and slammed his fist hard into the side of Hervin’s face.

The impact made a dull sound. Hervin’s head turned, and the corner of his mouth split at once.

Colin’s hand froze in midair, trembling slightly.

Hervin tilted his head, spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva, and raised a brow with a trace of mockery.

“Are you trying to tickle me?”

Colin clenched his teeth. His second punch was much heavier than the first.

Several witch-hunters beside them wanted to step in, but Hervin forced them back with a look.

Fists landed on his stomach, ribs, shoulders, and back. Colin avoided the vital spots, but the injuries were ugly enough to look real.

The veins at Hervin’s temple stood out.

By the end, Colin drove one last punch into his cheekbone, then ended up panting first as if he were about to run out of air.

Hervin half-kneeled in the snow. Bruises spread across his face, half of it swelling high. Blood seeped from his temple and slid down his cheek before dripping into the snow.

Isolde watched for a moment. If this went on, he really would be pushed into dangerous territory.

“Enough,” she said.

Colin stopped, but his hand was still shaking.

Hervin lifted his eyes to him, his voice low and hoarse. “If you’re done hitting me, put your tears away and act like a man.”

Colin snapped his face away and sniffed hard.

Isolde walked over and looped a thin Holy Court chain around Hervin’s wrists. Then she pressed a judgment clasp taken from a corpse over the rope knot.

She had already damaged the clasp’s inner mechanism with Soul Thread. As long as Hervin used force, he could break free at any time.

Hervin lowered his eyes and watched her work, his breathing heavy.

“You’re very practiced.”

“Weak people pick up odd skills if they want to survive,” Isolde said without looking up.

“You look young.”

Isolde raised her eyes while her hands kept moving. “Captain Hervin, a face doesn’t tell you everything.”

Hervin looked at her thin, young face. The cut at the corner of his mouth pulled slightly, revealing a complicated expression.

“True.”

Once everything was ready, Isolde took the chain and dragged Hervin toward the side gate of the monastery.

Colin suddenly shouted from behind them, “Captain! Bring my brother back alive!”

Hervin was silent for a moment. He did not turn around and kept walking.

“Silverfrost bear witness. What I swear, fate cannot break, and no god can take. I do not fear the long night. I do not kneel to holy light. I will never betray my oath.”

Colin instinctively recited the latter half in a low voice. His eyes filled with a firm pride as he watched the two of them disappear from sight.

Isolde remembered that the Northlanders worshiped a deity known as the God of Silverfrost.

They valued loyalty and oaths. Once they swore in the name of the God of Silverfrost, they would spend their entire lives fulfilling that oath, and sometimes the duty would even pass to their descendants.

It was said that anyone who made an enemy of someone bound by a Frost Oath made an enemy of the entire Frostspine Alliance.

Because of that, people often compared bearing a Frost Oath to becoming a demigod and argued over which was harder.

The argument usually went nowhere.

And because territorial grudges between the Frostspine Alliance and Whitehaven had existed since ancient times, conflicts large and small never stopped along their border. Both sides wanted to swallow the other, and neither looked kindly on the other.

Hervin walked slowly.

He was injured. Though no bones were broken, he had taken several punches to the abdomen, and his breathing was clearly pressed down by pain.

Halfway there, his body staggered slightly. He let out a muffled grunt.

“That brat really didn’t hold back.”

Isolde kept her eyes forward. “He didn’t kick your leg bones. That already counts as filial restraint.”

Hervin looked at her while breathing through the pain. “You are… very good at comforting people.”

“I usually only comfort people who are about to die.”

“So I’m not qualified yet?”

“I doubt you want to hear it.”

Hervin gave a low scoff, but it pulled at his wounds, and his expression immediately darkened further.

The two of them crossed the snow one after another, moving closer and closer to the monastery’s side gate.

The protective magic array flickered in and out before them, its light falling over the Holy Lamp in Isolde’s hand.

The flame inside the lamp trembled softly, as if responding to the array. Then the formation opened a gap, allowing the two of them to enter.

Isolde lowered her eyes, adjusted her breathing, and actively strengthened her disguise ability so anyone with lower intelligence than hers would lower their guard.

Hervin noticed the subtle change and asked quietly, “You’re using a spell?”

Isolde was slightly surprised. She had not expected Hervin to notice.

Considering his vigilance and the way he had examined her earlier, his intelligence was probably not low.

“A little trick to stay alive.”

“Does it work on me too?”

“If you want to shout for help right now, you can try.”

Hervin sneered and said nothing more.

He only felt that the woman in front of him looked young, yet was strangely calm.

Soon, two Holy Court knights guarding the gate noticed movement. Their spears crossed before the door as they shouted, “Stop!”

Isolde halted. The lamplight illuminated her pale face. She spoke between breaths, her voice hoarse as if she had been running for her life.

“Something happened. The outer patrol captured this intruder, but then we were attacked by something unknown. Many people died.”

The two knights’ expressions changed. One of them immediately looked at Hervin.

“He’s the intruder?”

Isolde tightened her grip on the chain, forcing Hervin to stumble half a step.

“Yes. A Northern Witch-Hunter.”

The other knight stepped closer. Under the yellowish light, he studied the old scar on Hervin’s face and sharply drew in a breath.

“He looks like Hervin Hartmann!”

At those words, Hervin slowly raised his head. Even with half his face bruised and swollen, his eyes were still like steel blades soaked in ice.

The two knights were forced back half a step by that powerful pressure.

One of them looked at Isolde and asked, “Where is your patrol badge?”

Isolde’s heart tightened.

She did not have a patrol badge.

The corpses had the Holy Lamp and outer robes, but no patrol badges.

The Black Tower people had probably taken them. Or perhaps the badges had fallen into the snow, and they had missed them.

She lowered her head. Her shoulders shrank slightly.

Then she saw her shadow flicker under the light and blurted out, “Swallowed by the shadow.”

The knight frowned. “What?”

Isolde raised her injured palm.

Under the Holy Lamp’s glow, the burned marks revealed faint traces of holy light damage along the edges.

“My badge and the shadows of two monks were swallowed by that Black Tower warlock. I only managed to take back the Holy Lamp and this prisoner.”

The knight looked at her hand.

Their fear of Black Tower shadow arts clearly caught their attention more easily than the suspicious behavior of a low-ranking monk.

Hervin suddenly laughed hoarsely.

“If those Black Tower bastards hadn’t ambushed me and left me badly wounded, when would trash like you ever get credit for capturing me?”

“Shut up!” the knight shouted angrily.

Hervin’s smile grew colder. His shadowed eyes locked onto them.

“You want to kill me? Go ahead. The moment you do, my vengeful spirit will crawl into your throats, rot you from the inside out, and turn you into walking corpses dripping pus.”

The intimidation worked extremely well.

The knights’ faces turned livid. Neither of them dared deal with Hervin Hartmann on their own, especially since he was the son of the Witch-Hunter Chief.

There were also rumors that after witch-hunters died, their souls would not easily disperse because of their oaths. They would continue fighting for their faith.

A person this important could even trigger a war if handled poorly.

His final fate had to be decided by a Silver Robe’s judgment.

One knight turned and called to the people inside.

“Take the prisoner to the Disciplinary Hall. I’ll report this to the Silver Robe.”

The two knights held Hervin from both sides.

Hervin did not resist. As he passed Isolde, his shoulder bumped her without drawing attention, as if venting the irritation of a “prisoner.”

In that instant, a small bottle of recovery potion slipped from Isolde’s sleeve and landed precisely in his bound palm.

Hervin’s fingers curled almost imperceptibly, hiding the vial in his hand.

“Good work.”

As one knight walked past Isolde, he tossed the words out casually. “The Holy Court will remember your contribution.”

Isolde lowered her head obediently, her tone reverent.

“May the holy light bear witness.”

It was a short prayer she had seen in a small booklet taken from one of the corpses.

The knight looked at Isolde and pointed in the opposite direction.

“You just returned from the edge of death and have been touched by corruption. Now go receive cleansing.”