༺ Gathering (2) ༻
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Albrecht woke up, feeling a pain in the back of his head.
What he saw was a red ceiling.
Then, he felt a pressure on his ankles.
“Ugh…”
“Have you awakened?”
Hearing the voice, Albrecht raised his head.
“…Archduke?”
What he saw was Hegrion, dragging him by his ankles, and Theresa beside him.
Albrecht was bewildered.
“What the… No, you have to escape…!”
“We escaped and came back. Do you remember what happened?”
Hegrion stopped walking.
At that, Albrecht frowned and shook his head.
His mind felt foggy.
Hegrion’s words implied that a considerable amount of time had passed, but his memory ended at the moment he was trying to lead the advance party out.
“…Not at all. My last memory is frantically swinging my sword.”
Hegrion let out a long sigh and spoke to the confused Albrecht.
“After the escape, we re-entered with a small group. Elia’s group, me, Miller, and Friede.”
“Where are the others?”
Albrecht got up, touching his head.
Hegrion shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t know. We went separate ways as soon as we entered.”
“Then it’s dangerous…”
“It’s not.”
Albrecht tilted his head.
This time, Theresa stepped in.
She smiled and answered Albrecht’s question.
“The movement of the flesh has stopped. Even the laughter of the spirits is gone. It seems like someone in the other groups did something.”
“Ah…!”
“Do you see that?”
Theresa gestured to a patch of flesh.
Albrecht’s eyes widened as he followed her gaze.
“An arm is…”
It was decaying.
“It’s been like that for several hours. I don’t know who it is, but someone among those who entered seems to have found a solution.”
Albrecht’s face brightened.
“That’s great! Let’s go help them quickly!”
Theresa smiled even more at his quick recovery.
“Yes. But first, our goal is to find the advance party that wasn’t able to escape.”
“How many are there?”
“Approximately two hundred. How are you feeling? I’ve treated you, but are you feeling any discomfort?”
Albrecht felt around his body, then shook his head with a bright smile, showing his neatly aligned teeth.
“I’m perfect! Thank you for your kindness.”
“That’s good.”
The atmosphere brightened as Albrecht woke up.
Hegrion observed their conversation and hesitated.
There was only one reason.
He wanted to express his gratitude to Albrecht for helping him reach the realm of Intention.
However, it was not easy.
The first reason was that it was difficult to thank him now after expressing his displeasure for so long.
The second was…
“Phew, I look like a mess. If I keep moving like this, my skin will get damaged…”
That consistent personality was the problem.
No matter how much he tried to see it positively, Albrecht’s particular narcissism seemed repulsive and made it difficult to speak.
Hegrion’s expression soured.
Albrecht, unaware of it, flicked off a speck of dried blood from his hair.
Theresa, who noticed Hegrion’s mood a bit late, just laughed.
‘This is a good time.’
She thought that there was something magical in the friendship of young men.
***
Vera wrapped his body with divinity.
‘The deathly aura is getting stronger.’
The deeper he went, the thicker the deathly aura became.
It went from a level he could just tolerate to a level that made him frown, and to a level that directly affected his body.
In the now dangerously dense deathly aura, Vera looked at Camilla.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, yes…”
Camilla was looking more and more frail.
His golden divinity shielded her, but it wasn’t enough; her complexion was becoming more pale and sickly.
“Let’s, let’s go…”
Yet, she didn’t collapse.
Her next step was full of desperation, as if she was determined to find her sister.
Vera bit his lip at the renewed surge of bitterness and nodded.
The entirety of the castle was deplorable, but the center was particularly nasty.
First, old people with their flesh peeled off were nailed to the walls.
They should have been dead, but they shuddered and trembled, signaling that they were alive.
Then, there was the overwhelming deathly aura and corruption, and something else that set off Vera’s alarm.
‘No one else is here.’
Apart from the old people, there was no sign of anyone else.
No guards, not even the apostates who must have brought the old men and children here.
It made no sense.
It felt even more dangerous that there was evidence of people but nothing upon entering.
Vera readied his posture to draw his sword at any time and moved on.
After what felt like an endlessly long time,
“Wait…!”
Vera stopped.
Camilla caught her breath and looked up.
Then, she gasped.
The sight before them had brought out that reaction.
“That… that is…”
Her voice trembled.
Despair began to fill her eyes.
What filled the enormous room was a graveyard.
No, it was a strange scene that resembled a graveyard.
There were tombstones, and behind them was soil, with inverted crosses rising from it.
Hanging upside down from the crosses were…
“We… we have to go…!”
Camilla’s body bolted forward.
Vera lifted his arm to stop her and covered her mouth.
“Mmph!”
“Shh—”
Vera calmed her down, but his heart seethed with more rage than he had ever felt before.
‘…’
As expected, it was a scene of a sacrifice.
Even considering that, it was a repugnant scene he could not bear to look at.
Countless children were hanging upside-down from the inverted crosses.
Below them was a spell inscribed with blood.
Vera’s eyes flashed red at the scene that unfolded.
His voice was the most brutal it had ever been.
“…Stay here. I’ll check for enemies and come back.”
Camilla burst into tears.
The thought that her sister might be one of those hanging there made her body shake uncontrollably.
She barely managed to nod.
Then, Vera released her arm and slowly moved forward.
Thump.
Thump.
His heart raced violently.
His pupils constricted, etching the dreadful scene into his mind.
It was a gruesome sight.
Therefore, it was a sight that compelled one to question what it was for.
‘Is all of this really necessary?’
Woong—
The Holy Sword seemed to wail as if it would break.
‘Merely…’
Even though he didn’t completely understand her motives yet, the only thought that came to Vera was ‘merely.’
No reason could justify such actions, at least not as far as Vera knew.
No matter how evil someone was, there was a line that not be crossed.
‘Just for a mere…’
Mere personal greed led to this tragedy, and that made Vera furious.
Squelch—
Somewhere, flesh burst forth.
Vera’s gaze shifted towards the sound.
Bones protruded through the floor, muscles and flesh layering on top, and then skin.
All of it formed a pulse.
Thump.
Thump.
The corrupted pulse reached Vera.
The slowly forming figure was something he had seen before.
It was flesh shaped into the form of a child.
Ten horns erupted from its head, and six faces sprouted from various parts of the body below the neck.
The face that sprouted from the left chest spoke.
“Fal… se…”
The voice moaned as if screaming.
Kwaduduk—
“Fr-free… dom…”
Squelch—
The mass grew in size, forming arms.
Another sprouted face opened its mouth.
“Theee… eeeen…”
Vera’s expression crumbled.
It was because he saw something.
The legacy he wore, the eyes revealing the essence, the veil blocking corruption, and the binding connecting him to the opponent all told him how this being was born.
‘…Sacrifice.’
It was a sacrifice, a vessel for the Tenth.
It was a corruption made from the purity of children to contain the Tenth.
“Theee… eeenndd…”
The completed sacrifice crawled towards him, its mouth agape and screaming.
Thump.
Thump.
It pounced on Vera with its considerable weight.
Then, Vera reached out his hand.
Tap—
Despite the threatening movement, its attack was feeble.
It was truly an attack at the level of a child’s tantrum.
Vera let out a long sigh as he watched it struggle in his grasp.
Woong—.
The Holy Sword wailed.
Vera looked at the sacrifice with a deeply furrowed expression.
He looked into its eyes and into the howling souls trapped within.
‘How long…’
How long had they been wailing like this, trapped inside?
Since the Age of Gods until now.
As he didn’t know how time flowed within the castle, it could be shorter or longer than that.
…No, time was not important.
What mattered was that Alaysia’s wrongdoing had resulted in this tragedy.
“Gaaa…”
The sacrifice’s mouth opened wide.
From inside it, a red tongue lashed out like a whip.
Divinity burst out from Vera, repelling the tongue.
Wooong—
The Holy Sword resonated softly.
“…Alright.”
Vera answered and turned his right hand towards his waist.
He gripped the Holy Sword.
“It’s time to let you rest.”
His voice became choked with emotion as he spoke.
It was an indescribable feeling.
He simply felt sad and hollow.
The sacrifice’s eyes moved.
It stared directly at Vera.
True to someone’s saying that eyes were windows to the soul, the shining eyes held the light of the tortured children.
Vera knew.
This sacrifice was the source of the world he was trapped in.
The moment this sacrifice met its end, he would wake up.
The flesh would entirely dissolve in the real world.
Clang—
The tip of Vera’s sword pointed towards the sacrifice’s forehead.
His gaze never wavered from its eyes.
Speaking as if promising never to forget the scene that he saw at this very moment, he opened his mouth.
His stigma flared.
“I promise.”
Having no way to save those who’ve suffered for so long, Vera made a request to the one who could.
“All of you will be saved. You will go to a place free of pain, sorrow, and resentment. The one who watches this promise will surely fulfill it.”
His fair God would surely grant this request.
The price he offered was well worth it.
“I will wield my sword and make those responsible for your suffering pay. That is my promise…”
Vera’s words paused.
With a cloudy, pained smile, he finished.
“…Rest now.”
Whoosh.
The pure white blade of his sword sank into the center of the sacrifice’s forehead.
The sacrifice’s body spasmed for a moment and then stopped.
“Ah…”
His voice trailed off.
The expressions that had been hovering above the seven faces vanished.
Then, the burning light within its eyes began to lose its power.
Like melting ice, the sacrifice melted away.
Just then, something strange happened.
Swoosh—
Vera’s head tilted back.
Camilla was looking at him with a confused expression, her gaze unsteady and her lips trembling.
“Ah…”
Her trembling arm rose to cover her mouth.
Numerous expressions flickered across her face.
There was shock, and there was sorrow.
Despair came next, followed by emptiness.
A faint smile was at the end of those cascading waves of emotion.
“…So I’m already dead.”
Everything around her crumbled away.
Without any shock or vibration, it simply vanished like a mirage.
Her body, too, was slowly turning into ashes and disappearing.
Vera stood still, watching her.
Camilla looked at her own hands, then at the children scattering on the inverted cross, and finally at Vera.
“…Is it over now?”
“It’s over. All of it.”
Vera responded as such, capturing the sight of everything vanishing before his eyes.
He was the only one left to remember them, so he missed nothing in his effort to memorialize them.
“You can rest now. Your sister…”
Vera placed his hand over his heart.
Within it was a new promise, shining golden above his dark, somber soul.
“…You’ll meet her again. Lushan has accepted my vow.”
Camilla’s head dropped, seemingly dazed.
With half of her body already gone, she lifted her head and responded with a small smile.
“Yes…”
Vera’s consciousness began to blur within the crumbling world.
He faintly heard her last words.
“…Thank you.”
