Sae and those with him fixed their gazes like spears at the ancient being looking down on them from above, 『Haijan』. Of course, the ominous trembling leaking from beneath some of the soldiers’ armor was the only proof of the deep fear inside them.

  Sae pointed his sword at 『Haijan』 and the man beside him. His voice was colder, more emotionless than even the sharpest winter frost.

  Sae: 『Explain yourself before I rip your head off. What do you want?』

  This cold threat would have been enough to freeze the blood in an ordinary mortal’s veins. However, 『Haijan』 didn’t even flinch; he didn’t break that fixed, irritating smile on his face for even a second. The massive, shadow-like blond man beside him grinned openly, clearly provoking them.

  Baro: 『Hahah! Try it, you runt! When I separate your head from your body, will you still be able to play the tough guy, huh—』

  『Haijan』 suddenly raised his hand, cutting Baro’s voice off like a knife.

  『Haijan』: 『Shut up. I’m trying to speak right now.』

  However, Baro’s insolent outburst had already ignited the fuse of anger among the 300 soldiers. With the false confidence granted by their numerical superiority, they began to shout.

  Soldiers: 『Hey! Who do you think you are, huh!? We don’t care about ancient beings or whatever! Can’t you see we outnumber you!? Are you tired of living!?』

  As the shouting echoed through the air, Sae took a deep breath. His sword was still aimed at 『Haijan』’s throat like clenched teeth.

  Sae: 『I don’t want to listen to your nonsense. Just… die.』

  Just as Sae was about to lunge forward, he hesitated at 『Haijan』’s strange, meaningless smile. Kurumi felt that something was terribly wrong, that even the moisture in the air had changed. Kurumi, Hu, Taka, Aryu, Mika, Jhun, Takamura, and Chuya were positioned a little farther from the soldiers, in a vulnerable spot.

  『Haijan』 grinned.

  『Haijan』: 『Are you sure, Sae-chan? Really… with this many creatures around, is this what you want to do?』

  Sae instinctively looked around. But there was nothing. The forest was silent, empty. Was 『Haijan』 just bluffing?

  Sae: 『There’s nothing around! Are you spouting lies to save yourself, you freak!?』

  『Haijan』 responded to this defiance with a single motion.

  Snap.

  Right behind Sae, a blinding yellow light flashed. When Sae turned around, he struggled to grasp the reality of that moment. Three hundred soldiers… with a single finger snap, they had turned into gigantic, mindless masses of flesh, 10–15 meters tall.

  Kurumi: 「ーー~ha!」

  Kurumi watched this nightmare in shock.

  『Haijan』: 『Heed my warnings… from now on.』

  As 『Haijan』 vanished into that ominous yellow light, a lightning bolt struck Kurumi’s mind. This light… it was exactly the same as the light from the attack Rex had experienced. But there was no time to analyze it now. Three hundred comrades-in-arms were now mindless monsters.

  “ーーーー”

  Even though 『Haijan』 was gone, Baro was still there. Perched atop the massive trees, he watched the dying humanity below with delight. Kurumi had only one option left—the one thing weak people could do.

  Run.

  When she locked eyes with Hu, they understood they shared the same desperation. Hu shouted the order.

  Hu: 『Run back toward the houses in the Shogun district! If we get inside the houses, they won’t be able to catch us!』

  Kurumi, Hu, Aryu, Mika, Taka, Takamura, and Chuya began running until their lungs felt like they would burst.

  Kurumi: 「Haa, Haa……!」

  Chuya had drawn his weapon with trembling hands, but he couldn’t pull the trigger. His conscience wouldn’t allow him to shoot the people he had once fought alongside. What had happened to them wasn’t their fault. The only way was to escape without harming them—but those creatures no longer remembered mercy or old bonds.

  While running breathlessly, Kurumi felt something was missing. Her heart felt like it would leap out of her chest.

  Sae… Sae was still among those creatures.

  And Baro had fixed his eyes on Kurumi and the others from above. The hunter was impatient to chase his prey.

  Sae was only staring at the blood-soaked ground beneath him. He gripped his sword with such fury that his knuckles turned white, the metal itself seeming to scream. The massive, clumsy piles of flesh around him… those eyes that once looked at him with admiration, as if at a savior, now shone with nothing but hunger.

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  Sae didn’t move a single muscle against the sharp teeth and drooling mouths coming toward him. With that familiar closeness to death, he only watched.

  「Haa, Haa……!」

  Kurumi and the others kept running without daring to look back. With every step, the ominous feeling tightening her breath grew stronger. Leaving Sae in the middle of that hell, surrounded by countless teeth… was that right?

  When Hu noticed the chaos on Kurumi’s face, he glared at her. He didn’t have a single word to calm the storm inside her—because he was drowning in the same darkness. This suffocating air was briefly broken by Chuya’s trembling whisper.

  Chuya: 『Don’t worry… Sae will handle it.』

  They finally reached the Shogun district. Kurumi, Hu, Taka, Chuya, Takamura, Aryu, Mina, and Jhun rushed into the first house they found.

  “ーーーー”

  Planning in the heavy silence inside the house was the only rational refuge for now. Kurumi felt an indescribable anger toward herself for running away from everything. Chuya, meanwhile, was crushed under the weight on his shoulders. The unit he had led had turned into monsters right before his eyes—and he had done nothing.

  Kurumi swallowed. Sae’s unmoving figure in the middle of those creatures still burned in her mind. Fear had won—but now that fear was being replaced by a searing shame. Kurumi suddenly stood up.

  Kurumi: 『I… I’m going outside and bringing Sae back!』

  Hu: 『Don’t be stupid, Kurumi! The outside is crawling with monsters. Even one is more than enough to eat you!』

  Hu was right. Kurumi was weak, inadequate, sometimes even just a burden. But she no longer wanted to wait in a corner like a timid pawn. However, this resolve was cut short like a blade by the loud, arrogant voice coming from outside.

  Baro was walking between the houses with his massive body, searching for them like insects.

  Baro: 『Hey! Where are you, kids? What are you going to do? If you kneel at my feet and beg, maybe I’ll kill you more painlessly!』

  While spewing his threats, Baro smashed his fist into a house he thought they were hiding in. With a single blow, the house collapsed like a pile of paper. Chuya abandoned the idea of going out to fight in that instant. This power gap… it was absurd.

  It was only a matter of time before Baro found them. Kurumi grasped her magical bow, 『Zaronseilus』, with trembling hands. If they could shoot him in the eye while he wasn’t paying attention, maybe they’d have a chance. Maybe… they could kill him.

  Kurumi pulled the bowstring, but her fingers couldn’t bring themselves to release it. There wasn’t even the smallest fragment of confidence in herself. She handed the bow to Chuya, placing all responsibility—all their fate—into his hands.

  Chuya understood the immense desperation in Kurumi’s eyes. He took cover by the window, drew the bow, and held his breath.

  「ーー~hf!」

  The arrow fired from the magical bow shot like a beam of light straight toward Baro’s eye. But at the last moment, Baro raised his arm with a predator’s reflex. The arrow pierced deeply into his arm.

  Baro: 『I see… So that’s where you are.』

  Baro slammed the ground so hard that the earth shook. As the house began to collapse, the group rushed outside. There was nowhere left to run—they had to face this monster.

  Baro pulled the arrow from his arm without showing the slightest sign of pain and began walking toward them. As Kurumi looked around in horror, her eyes caught the roof of a building.

  “ーーーー”

  There he was. Sae.

  The ground around him had turned into a sea of blood; his white hair was completely dyed crimson by spilled blood. There was no trace of life left in those gray eyes—only an empty, terrifying darkness remained. From the rooftop, Sae looked down at his new target, Baro… like an angel of death.

  Kurumi pointed with a trembling finger at the blood-soaked shadow atop the roof. Her voice barely slipped out between the sobs stuck in her throat.

  Kurumi: 『Th-That’s… Sae! He’s alive!』

  Everyone turned their gaze toward that point, the center of the nightmare. But the scene they witnessed left thousands of unanswerable questions in their minds. Sae was covered in fresh blood from his cloak to his white hair. This meant only one thing: all the soldiers who had once fought beside him, who had just turned into monsters… he had slaughtered them with his own hands.

  Hu swallowed, the dryness in his throat burning.

  Hu: 『Sae… is he really himself right now?』

  When Kurumi turned to Hu, she couldn’t find an answer. Hu was right; Sae’s empty gaze looked like it didn’t belong to this world. Baro, on the other hand, couldn’t help but laugh at this horrifying sight.

  Baro: 『Hahaha! So the kid really is as Haijan said! You cleaned up all those creatures by yourself? Hah… are you really human, kid!?』

  Sae responded to this provocation not with words, but with lethal speed. He began gliding from roof to roof like a shadow, drawing an invisible circle around Baro. He was waiting for a single opening. Baro slammed his massive fists into the ground, turning every house he passed into a pile of dust, all while continuing to spew his venom.

  Baro: 『Soooo, Sae!? What happened to your soldiers? Did you kill them? Isn’t that a shame!?』

  “ーーーー”

  Another house collapsed with a thunderous crash amid Baro’s shouting. When the dust cloud dispersed, Sae was nowhere to be seen. The moment Baro turned around, he felt cold metal cut into his flesh.

  「ーー~ha!」

  Sae severed Baro’s arm first, then both legs at the knees in a single, flawless motion. Baro lost his balance and crashed to the ground like a falling giant tree. Sae placed the tip of his sword against Baro’s throat. But Baro… Baro was still laughing.

  Kurumi and the others froze at the bizarre laughter coming from a man standing at the edge of death. What kind of idiot laughed when his head was about to be cut off?

  Baro: 『Truly, Sae… do you think you can really withstand 『Aronlaus』?』

  The instant that name was spoken, Sae’s world stopped for a second. His rock-solid composure, which he always maintained, gave way to uncontrollable rage. Sae grabbed Baro by the throat and lifted him into the air with one hand. His voice was hoarse, as if it came from the depths of hell.

  Sae: 『What do you know about 『Aronlaus』!? Talk!』

  Kurumi stared at Sae’s violent reaction in shock. Normally, he brushed off even the worst insults like dust, yet a single name had made him lose control, attacking with madness. Sae tightened his grip on Baro’s throat.

  Baro: 『Haha… So we finally got your attention. But sorry… you won’t get a single word out of me.』

  Sae slammed him to the ground. Chuya whispered his name in shock.

  Chuya: 「Sae……」

  But Sae heard no one and cared about no one. He began striking his sword hard against a large rock beside him. The sound of metal hitting stone echoed through the ruins of the Shogun district. Everyone watched Sae’s strange behavior, this rhythmic madness.

  Aryu: 『Sae… what are you doing?』

  Had Sae truly gone mad? As he continued to strike the sword against the rock, the sudden calm in his voice froze everyone to the bone.

  Sae: 『A dulled sword… cuts quite poorly. This way, I can keep cutting you longer and more painfully.』

  For the first time, cold sweat dripped from Baro’s forehead. After dulling his sword enough, Sae leaned toward Baro. Slowly, centimeter by centimeter, he pressed the cold metal into his leg.

  Sae: 『You can’t even imagine… how many torture methods I know.』

  A very long time lay ahead of Sae—and for Baro, an endless agony.