Chapter 43: Two Monsters Made for Each Other
Anger filled me to the brim, and I did my best to keep it in check while, already, the other heroes were questioning one another.
"What happened?" Evelyn asked.
It was Seorin who answered.
"The hero of the north is dead. Not a single demon managed it — he’s the one who killed him."
A silence, the time it took to sink in. Then the colossus, Gabriel, sneered.
"Tch... all that theater you put on, all of it just to end up like this."
No, Kuro. Let it slide. He’s just a clown, there’s one everywhere. Nothing good will come of it if you answer.
"Dictating what we should do like you’re the best of us."
The anger rose. Isaiah, the vision of Anthonius, Lazaüs — my hand slid toward Laia, despite everything I kept repeating to myself over and over in my head.
Then he added the one thing he shouldn’t have.
"Swanning about everywhere with your little slut who su—"
He never finished.
Before anyone had time to react, my blade was drawn, a thread of water had left it, and the colossus’s head came away from his shoulders under the stunned stares of the other heroes. It rolled a few meters before coming to a stop.
Then the world flowed backward.
[ Mission: Rewrite the tragic history of the fall of Akhartenzia, and the death of one of the great heroes. ]
[ Loop completed: 3 ]
He was on the ground again, on all fours, retching.
Around him, panic broke out. The other heroes had all started talking at once, shaken by what they’d just seen.
"What the hell was that?!" Leon had stepped back, pale. "Have you lost your mind?!"
"You just decapitated him—" Evelyn stared at the colossus on all fours, then at me, her eyes wide. "He was dead, he was really dead, and he—"
"Put that blade down." Yanshu, calmer, but his hand already tight on his weapon, his voice taut. "Right now."
Only Alice said nothing, a small smile on her lips. And Seorin had fallen quiet, her gaze fixed on me, trying to understand.
The colossus got back up, rage on his face, and charged straight at me — and once again, before anyone could react, his head slid across the ground.
The world flowed backward.
[ Mission: Rewrite the tragic history of the fall of Akhartenzia, and the death of one of the great heroes. ]
[ Loop completed: 4 ]
And this little routine went on for a few more rounds.
With each loop, the other heroes seemed to panic a little more — but none of them would stand directly against a blade they couldn’t even see leave its sheath, so they turned their eyes from what was playing out, unable to intervene.
Then, at some point, all the hatred drained from Gabriel’s face. It gave way to terror, to the bare understanding of his utter helplessness, after trying everything, several times, and giving it all for nothing.
[ Mission: Rewrite the tragic history of the fall of Akhartenzia, and the death of one of the great heroes. ]
[ Loop completed: 7 ]
"Finally..." I said, walking toward him as he stammered.
"No... nooo... it’s fine, stop... I’m begging you." He raised his hands in front of him, like a frightened child.
I drew my blade and drove it into the ground right beside him. He shuddered.
"Next time, I won’t stop."
Then I slid my saber back into its sheath.
It felt good to blow off some steam, now and then. All the anger I’d stored up had drained away, and I could be grateful to him for that, in a way.
I turned then toward the other heroes, plainly ill at ease after witnessing all of that.
"The high demon in our sector is on another level." I swept my gaze over them. "He killed our hero with a single spell, without even slowing down. But we’ll find a way — to buy time, or to bring him down. And you, on your sides, how does it look?"
A moment passed before anyone answered. They were still shaken by what they’d just seen, their eyes flicking toward the colossus, still trembling off to one side — but all of them had understood we didn’t have the luxury of dwelling on it. The city was going to fall, again, and we had to move forward.
It was Evelyn who pulled herself together first, her voice still unsteady.
"We found our hero too, and a high demon appeared over there as well. But he’s nowhere near as fearsome — with the hero’s help and the army’s, we manage to hold him. By attrition, we could bring him down, if we had more time."
"I see. And you?" I asked the hero who’d been with the colossus.
Leon took a moment to tear his eyes from Gabriel before answering.
"Same on our side, except ours stakes everything on his defense. I’m not sure we can take him down alone. You’ll probably have to join us, once you’re done with yours."
"So the problem is the north," Seorin concluded. She paused, her expression grave. "The high demon has terrifying striking power. And on top of that, the giant always ends up appearing — probably a high demon too."
"No." I shook my head. "From what I saw, he had seams all over his body. My guess is he’s a creation of Lazaüs, not a demon in his own right. His epithet, among the high demons, is the Fleshweaver."
"I see..." Seorin said, while the others nodded, understanding at last.
"All right." I took the lead again. "Let’s divide up the tasks for this loop. You lot, try to locate the fourth hero, the one we still haven’t crossed paths with. Meanwhile, the three of us will try to work out a combination of spells strong enough to bring down the giant before it reaches the wall."
"Works for me," said Yanshu.
The others nodded their agreement.
Finally, we’re getting somewhere. The show with the colossus had helped move things along, I suppose — no one felt much like arguing with my proposals now.
I turned back to the girls to work out our plan on the magic side, and that was when I saw Alice.
Her face flushed, her eyes bright with a barely contained rapture, she looked ready to burst, holding her emotions in at the very limit of what she could bear.
And she burst the moment my gaze met hers.
"Kyaaah...!" She threw herself at me, in full view of all the heroes. "You were so attractive when you got angry to defend me!"
I set a hand on her forehead, like last time. She kept coming anyway.
"You were so strong they were all scared of you, it was so sexy, you’re so sexy, Kurooo~~ Come here and let me kiss you."
Embarrassed by the eyes around us and by what she was blurting out, and wanting to shut her up at all costs, I lifted my hand from her forehead — which released all at once the force she was pushing against me with. She lunged, and I caught her by the arm to pull her against me, and I kissed her.
Her lips melted into mine, burning, and she answered in an instant with a hunger that swept away everything else. Her tongue sought mine, twined with it, while her arms locked behind my neck and she pressed against me with her whole body, her curves molding to mine as if she wanted to melt into them. I could feel her breasts crushed against my chest, the heat of her skin through the fabric, her breath quickening between kisses. The din of the city, the stares, the mission, all of it vanished at once.
When our mouths finally parted, a thread of saliva still linked them. Her cheeks red, her eyes drowned and veiled with desire, she murmured in a trembling voice, out of breath.
"If you kiss me like that... I’m not going to be able to hold back much longer."
But she didn’t hold back. She came right back for my lips, more feverish still, and I let myself be swept along in turn, caught in the same fever. A hand slid down to her backside to press her harder against me, the other rose along the nape of her neck, and she let a small stifled moan escape against my mouth, her fingers clenching on my shoulders — surrendering completely, as if nothing else in the world existed but this contact—
"Uhh... stop that!"
Seorin’s voice, the only one still left with us, cut us off cold. Her cheeks scarlet, her gaze fleeing, she’d thrown it out in an exclamation where embarrassment vied with resolve.
"We don’t have time for this sort of thing!"
"Looks like our little Seorin is jealous." Alice wiped her lips with the back of her hand, a smile at the corner of her mouth. "But careful now — Kuro belongs to me."
Seorin waved her hands in front of her, redder and redder.
"That... that... that’s not it at all! Not at all!"
"She’s just teasing you, we both know it." I stepped away from Alice with a sigh. "Come on. We’ve got a spell to invent."
But as we headed for the north, a thought stuck in my throat, and it had nothing to do with the spell we were about to put together.
A spell strong enough to bring down the giant was one thing. But Lazaüs remained. That demon had wrung a shiver of dread out of me just by raising a finger, and he’d killed Isaiah — a monster of power — without so much as slowing. We had to find a way to survive him, too.
And that idea led me to another, more unsettling still.
During the real fall of Akhartenzia, the ancients had lost only one of their own. A single hero dead, where we fell in a loop without even coming close to the end. How had they done it? What had truly happened, that night, for them to stand against Lazaüs and lose only one life to him?
I hadn’t the faintest idea. But something told me the answer to that question was the key to everything — and that we wouldn’t get out of this loop until we’d found it.