Chapter 11: Screams

Chapter 11:
Screams

 

AS THE BIZARRE CREATURE howled, Linus’s vision suddenly began to twist and blur.

“Connect.” “As one.” “You are me. I am you.” “Do not resist.” “Your sin is that you have lived.”

“Sacrifice.” “Sacrifice.” “Sacrifice.”

“Where you belong…”

In his moment of half-consciousness, Linus heard voices running through his head.

“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!”

He screamed in agony and dropped to his knees, holding his head tightly.

(Damn… What is this?? I’m… I’m being taken away!)

He felt like a third-party observer, watching his body be dragged along. This had to be the work of the creature’s sonic blast.

Resist. He tried to tell himself to resist and fight back, but he was no match for the creature’s sheer force of will.

“Maria…!”

He thought of the woman he loved with all his heart and soul. The memory of her gave him the strength to dampen the noise that threatened to bury his mind and wipe away his consciousness.

“Gya…uaaaagh!” Linus drew his blade from his waist, aiming it at Mute. The closer she got to him, the more powerful the energy emanating from her became, though the memory of Maria was enough to help him hang on to his sense of self.

“Oooooooaaaaaah!” He grew more ferocious in his attempts to defend his own existence, stabbing her.

Clink. The blade stopped at the surface of the raw, twisted muscles covering her body.

He was armed with a Legendary-tier short sword of the finest material. Combined with his fine-honed swordsmanship, he could dismember any monster with the ease of a knife through butter. And yet, Mute’s skin stopped his blow with ease. Judging by the pressure on his blade, it felt as if he hit something soft, but still, it didn’t yield.

However, the moment his strike landed, Mute’s screaming and the assault on his brain ceased. What had once been her face turned toward Linus.

“Ooou?” She cocked her head to the side in a gesture that seemed to imply it was the first time she’d ever seen him before. She waved her hand and the street was cast in shadow, like something had blocked out the sun.

Linus noticed the massive boulder hovering above them.

“Whoa, hey, now, calm down for a moment. We’re still in the middle of the city, ya know!” He turned on a heel and started to run for all he was worth. “You’ve completely lost your mind! No one can stop that!”

“Oooooouuu…”

Yet another strange, ominous cry.

A tornado whipped up in the space between Linus and Mute. It grew faster and faster until Linus felt it drawing him in.

He threw his arms over his head and held his ground. The tornado tore its way toward him as the floating boulder began its rapid descent.

“You can do all that and air magic all at the same time? Don’t tell me you have a rare affinity! Dammit… In that case…Sonic Raid!!” A protective barrier of wind surrounded Linus as he took off.

As the name implied, the raid spell usually allowed its user to move at incredibly high speeds and close the gap with distant opponents. It felt like an insult to its power to use it to run away, but Linus had few options left.

GWAFWOOOOOMF!

The boulder crashed into the street, leveling houses on both sides of the road.

Even though he got out from under it, he still had to contend with the cloud of shrapnel rolling off the impact. Each piece was large enough to deliver a fatal blow.

Linus leaped into the air, landing effortlessly on a rooftop. Looking back, he surveyed the destruction. “That’s…awful.”

It seemed hard to believe that Mute could have escaped such devastation. Obviously, he doubted that she meant it as a suicide move, but he also couldn’t see any sign of her. He focused all his senses but still came up empty.

“Ou…”

There.

Goosebumps sprang up all over his skin as he heard a faint voice flitter across his eardrums. It was close. Turning his head ever so slightly, he caught sight of a red spiral.

“Hyaaaaaagh!” He lunged straight toward it, his sword at the ready.

Even the most gifted S-Rank adventurers would struggle to sneak up on Linus, and yet this creature completely obscured its presence.

“…Aah?”

Despite having thrown everything he had into his strike, Mute batted it away like it was nothing.

No—more precisely, he just happened to hit her hand as it moved, and she had no real concern about the attack in the first place. He didn’t get the impression she’d actually been trying to defend herself.

Even knowing that it was all for naught, Linus drew his second short sword and launched into a frenzied attack.

“Fah…hyaaah!”

Boasting strength and agility stats in excess of 3,000 and 8,000 respectively, Linus could put up a fast and furious offensive that would cut any normal person—nay, even the most powerful of monsters—to ribbons. It didn’t hold true for the creature standing before him. Linus slowly let up his assault as he came to that depressing realization. Once he did, Mute reached out and placed her hand on his chest, giving him a light push.

“Gyahauu!”

It felt like he was hit head on by a charging bull; it threw him back at such speed that he worried his body might fly apart. Even his wind magic failed to slow him as he continued along his path until he crashed through the wall of a nearby building and out its far side, finally coming to a stop on the opposite street.

The only thing that saved his life was the fact that he fought his way through his fading consciousness to cast an air cushion around himself. Even that wasn’t enough to prevent the pain from erupting in his chest and radiating through the rest of his body. He figured he’d broken at least a few ribs.

He could breathe, so his lungs weren’t punctured. The pain was still so extreme that just moving was a challenge.

“How in the hell…”

In all his years of pitched combat, Linus had never experienced anything quite like that. Muttering curses to himself was about all he could do. He pushed himself to his knees and then back into a standing position. His legs wobbled uneasily beneath him.

And then, he noticed something peculiar.

“The people, they’re all dead… Wait, no. Are they just unconscious?”

Dozens of people lay around with their eyes wide open. Their chests rose and fell with each breath, suggesting that all of the people out there on the street had passed out in unison.

“What is this? What’s going on here?!”

Linus clenched his hands tightly around his blades as he screamed and searched frantically for Mute.

Fwoooo.

He felt a cold breeze brush past his legs.

Linus bounded off the ground and dove away, watching as the place he was mere moments ago froze over. He clicked his tongue in annoyance.

Landing, he let out another sigh. But he wasn’t quite out of the woods yet.

Zwooooomf!

Hundreds of flaming rocks rained down unannounced. He only managed to escape by using his sword to bat rocks out of the way and diving to the side. Several fireballs landed on the people collapsed in the streets, turning them into living pyres. None of them reacted in the slightest. It was like they were already dead.

Once Linus got back to his feet, he took off again. He had no idea where Mute was, but her attacks were all landing right on the mark. She had to be watching him from somewhere. The ground beneath his feet began to freeze over, so he took to the air to avoid it again. When he landed, he saw the ground flex under his weight. His feet sank into a thick, black, tar-like substance.

“She can use magic with the darkness affinity, too?!”

It seared his skin. Linus conjured up a gale to carry him free. The reprieve didn’t last long; he looked up to witness a boulder as wide as he was tall bearing down on him.

“Gwaugh!” He crossed his swords, sparing himself the full force of the blow, but the shock still sent him flying backward…right toward a cluster of rocky spikes jutting from the ground. Unless he did something fast, this would spell the end for him.

“Hnnnnggaaaaa!” Linus twisted in the air and hurled one of his swords. Once it hit its mark, it released all of the wind magic he’d stored in it as a powerful blast of air. Repeating the same with this second sword, the spikes were reduced to rubble. Almost immediately after landing, he was met with a barrage of flaming spears. Linus jumped back to evade the new threat, only to find blades of light waiting for him.

As if that weren’t enough, another massive boulder appeared overhead, and countless black tendrils wrapped around his feet.

“Mastery over all six affinities?! I’ve never known anyone but Jean who could do that…!”

He just knew Jean would fly into a rage if he’d heard about this. Truth be told, Mute already outclassed him. Jean could only utilize four affinities.

Did she gain this power through the second core, or was there something else going on here? Linus didn’t have the luxury of contemplating it. He was blocked on either side by buildings, while magic attacks loomed in from above, below, behind, and directly ahead.

But just as it all began to look hopeless, a relaxed grin came to his lips.

“You really underestimated just how stubborn I am, kid.”

No, “relaxed” wasn’t the right word. An unyielding strength would be a more apt description.

“Sonic Raaaaaaaaaaaid!!”

He eyeballed the incoming flaming spears and took off in their direction.

The barrier of wind surrounding his body made quick work of the black tendrils at his feet as he pushed ahead at inhuman speeds. He wasn’t so much running at this point but shooting through the air like a human arrow. His newfound speed let him slide between the spears.

Switchk!

Something slashed at his leg, but he was too focused on the task at hand to even register pain. Making it through to the other side, Linus landed atop a nearby building and bounded from rooftop to rooftop in an attempt to shake off the blades of light.

The sound of the boulder’s impact rang in his ears, but he was long gone. Just as he figured, yet more magical attacks began to pour down on him.

“Hail?!” Linus drew his bow and fired a volley of arrows into the falling chunks of ice, leaving puffs of snow with each interception.

He finally felt his spirits begin to rise. “Haah…haah…so you thought…this was enough to stop me?!”

Mute appeared some twenty meters ahead.

Linus came to a stop and nocked an arrow. Mute simply raised her hands in the air.

“Okay, I got it, that was a pretty impressive display of overpowered magical abilities all at once. But you must be running low on magic at this rate. Once that happens, this battle can only go in my favor. You know that, right?”

Continued use of overpowered magical abilities drained one’s reserves at alarming speeds. As long as he could continue to avoid her attacks until she ran out of magic, he would then be able to kill her at his leisure.

Linus had pushed himself on in anticipation of that moment.

“Ooooooouuuu…”

Mute ignored his warning and began to cast her next spell. An enormous sphere of water formed in the air, followed a moment later by giant balls of stone and fire in the same orbit. Next came a whirlwind of air, a ball of light, and an immense darkness—all conjured with the sole purpose of killing him.

“…You’ve got to be kidding.” Linus was stunned into silence at the sight.

She brought the full force of her magical might to bear, flaunting every rule he’d ever known. Mute slowly, deliberately moved her hand through the air and pointed at Linus.

The six spheres shot off like comets, all in unison.

“Now listen here, I am not gonna die today!!” Linus drew back on his bowstring. Even in the face of such unstoppable might, he refused to stand down, no matter how fruitless it might have been.

 

***

 

Cyrill’s sword clashed with Maria’s blade of light in a gout of sparks. The young girl glared at Maria’s rigid mask as they locked swords.

“Do you really want to fight me?” asked Maria.

“You’re my enemy.”

“That’s true. But countless more will be lost if Mute isn’t stopped. As a hero…”

“That has nothing to do with this!” Cyrill shoved Maria back and brought down her blade.

Maria clenched her hand tightly around her conjured sword and met the strike head-on. Even with the power of the Origin core supporting her, however, she was still a mediocre duelist. Cyrill knocked Maria’s blade aside and landed a blow to Maria’s chest with her second slash. Maria threw her hand over the wound and cast a healing spell as she stumbled back. She hopped out of the way of Cyrill’s strikes, her white robes flapping in the wind as she stayed only a hair’s breadth out of range.

Finally, she brought her hands together and summoned up a bright burst of light, blinding Cyrill. With the younger woman forced to fall back, it was Maria’s turn to drive forward with her light sword.

Ultimately, though, Maria had no desire to kill her opponent. She tried her best to avoid inflicting any mortal wounds and was conscious of where she aimed, though none of her spells could pierce Cyrill’s Epic-tier armor—the most powerful in the country. Given to her in preparation for slaying the Demon Lord, the armor could easily resist most attacks without its wearer suffering so much as a scratch.

“You say none of that matters, yet here you are using everything given to you to better play the hero.”

“Enough wordplay. You’re the one who tried to give me that core. You knew it’d turn me into a monster!”

The battleground expanded as Maria fell back on her magic to avoid getting pulled into another close-quarters exchange—a situation that would prove disadvantageous to her—as Cyrill closed in.

“Of course I did. I wanted to make you the same as me.”

“What in the hell for?!”

Maria ducked Cyrill’s enraged strike. She wore a bright, confident smirk on her face.

“To join Origin in killing every living being that inhabits this world,” Maria said.

“B-but why would you…” Cyrill didn’t know how to respond. Her swings went wide and Maria’s barrage started to push her back. “No…more importantly, how do you plan to pull that off?!”

“I suppose there’s no harm in telling you. You’ll learn soon enough anyway.”

Maria spoke with the certainty of one who knew the future. The arrogance rubbed Cyrill the wrong way, but she decided to listen to what Maria had to say.

“Origin is sealed away under the Demon Lord’s castle.”

“A god…is sealed away?”

“Origin wants to bring peace by wiping the world clean of everyone but itself. With no one to fight with, only peace will remain. For this, the ancients decided it had to be contained.”

“The ancients” was an oversimplification, but it got the point across. In reality, it had been the humans and demons created by the planet to resist Origin, but it would be a waste of time to try to explain all that right now.

“So you mean that I was called upon to be a hero to release that seal?”

“That’s correct.”

Cyrill felt disappointment wash over her at Maria’s curt response. Why did she have to suffer so much? Why had she carried such a burden? She had never once asked for the immense pressure that came with the title of “hero” that had been thrust upon her.

All she ever wanted was to live out a tranquil life in her village—that was enough. And now she knew she was called upon not to save the world but to assist in its destruction.

“There’s…there’s no way…!”

“And yet some idiot decided to kick Flum out, dooming the party and bringing the grand design to a grinding halt.” Maria let out a sigh of annoyance.

She was clearly referring to Jean.

“So you planned on giving me that core to force me to break the seal?”

“How insightful.”

Maria had planned to see Origin’s original plan through at the time. She was confident that even a smaller party could topple the Demon Lord, as long as they had the cores. Unfortunately, things didn’t go nearly as well as she’d planned. Cyrill refused to use the core, Maria discovered she’d been betrayed by Echidna, Linus came to find her, and now here she was with her plan in shambles.

“Why would you do that??” Cyrill demanded.

Maria was astonished by this reaction. “We’ll all end up that way eventually.”

Since she planned to see to the destruction of all life forms other than Origin, she no longer needed a reason for anything else. That was the extent of Maria’s logic. Origin had shared nothing more with her, in spite of its plan to kill them all. Of course, Cyrill and the other people who’d been unwillingly dragged into this plan weren’t as willing to accept this lack of answers.

What little reasoning Origin did provide would hardly convince anyone with real attachments to the world. Perhaps Maria even knew that, which is why she made no attempt to discuss the matter unless she was asked.

“My hometown was wiped out by a demon attack.”

She still remembered the day the blue-skinned creatures fell upon her village and began to kill everyone in sight. Up until that day, the world was happy and the future was bright. From her family to her friends and even the other villagers, she was surrounded by kind people and had not a care in the world.

“My family was wiped out. The demons used their magic to choke, melt, or even crush them with falling rocks. I watched them all be reduced to nothing more than torn chunks of flesh and muscle.”

No one could question why she hated demons.

“As if by a miracle, I was left alive. The church found me. They took care of me, realized my potential, and raised me as a nun.”

Maria had been the only survivor by the time help had finally arrived. This just added to the mystique that surrounded her, making her even more valuable to the church.

“Okay, then, maybe I can understand why you hate demons, but there’s no reason to kill us humans!”

“That’s right. I’m eternally grateful to the church for saving my life and, through their teachings, have learned to love my fellow man from the bottom of my heart.” Her voice filled with gentle affection and then suddenly drained of all emotion. “Until two years ago.”

Cyrill felt a chill run up her spine at the sudden change.

“That was when I learned that the church and the demons were connected. In fact, the very church that had cared for me was the one who ordered the demons to assault my village.”

A dark flame smoldered in her heart as she spoke. The anger at being robbed of her family…the hatred for the church’s deception…the sadness of betrayal. A throng of grudges coursing through her came together to block out the light and engulf her in darkness. Bloody tears seeped through her mask, a physical manifestation of what was happening in her heart.

Cyrill could sense the sheer power that stoked her fury and backed up a few steps.

“The church taught the people to hate demons, wiped out all other religions, took every child with potential for themselves, and abducted humans for use as test subjects. They had too much to gain to even consider anything else.”

The destruction of Sara’s hometown was carried out for exactly the same reason.

“The people who saved me, the people who raised me, and the pope who was so kind to me…they all know. They killed my family and then tried to take their place.”

The moment Maria learned this truth, all her warm and happy memories of the church were suddenly rendered meaningless. It set her on the path to becoming the Maria who stood here now, covered in dark, oozing blood.

“Aah, it looks like I’m leaking again. How disgusting… I hate this, hate it all, I hate everything! I refuse to let such awful creatures walk the earth any longer!”

“Maria…”

“I won’t allow it. The demons, the humans, those who raised me…they all must be wiped out!”

The memories of kindness she’d once known, the life she lived as a nun, and even the future she’d once dreamed of—they were all tainted now. It was as if the ground crumbled away beneath her, leaving her to sink into a deep, dark, bottomless swamp. She was now well beyond saving.

“So that’s why you want to destroy everything?”

Maria chuckled. “Have you finally come around, Cyrill? You know, looking at it from the right angle, you and I really aren’t all that different.”

“You may be right…” Cyrill looked as if she’d swallowed something foul.

“But there’s one thing I want to make crystal clear.” Maria’s voice was completely devoid of emotion. “I hate everything about you.”

It sounded out of character for Maria, but it was clearly what she truly felt.

“Jean may have been the instigator, but it appalled me that you could turn your back on Flum and hurt her like that.”

As someone who had also been betrayed by those she loved dearly, it was hard to watch it happen to Flum. She thought about saving Flum so many times, but her position didn’t allow her to do so.

“I…I know.”

“I can tell you’re already aware and suffering for it. But that doesn’t change the fact that you did nothing. Here you are, running away from your problems and acting like a victim, all the while making no attempt to go and find Flum, wherever she’s been cast off to in her life as a slave!”

“I know that, all right?!” Cyrill let her anger take over and struck, knocking the blade from Maria’s hand. As soon as it dissipated, however, Maria quickly generated a new one.

Pointing out where someone had erred was the most direct way to make them aware of their own sins. But all it served to do was cause Cyrill yet another wave of grief. She was growing tired of it.

“So what? What do you want me to say?! That has nothing to do with this!!” She let the burning rage take over.

“First off, you’re the one acting like a victim here! Look, I get it—you were betrayed, it hurt, and you’re angry! But you have no right to drag everyone else into your desire to murder all humans and demons. If you want revenge, then go put your own life on the line! Leave other people out of it.”

“Big talk from the person who hurt Flum and then protected a serial killer!”

“My own failures don’t disqualify me from calling out your wrongdoings! Besides, if you’re out to remove the seal and kill all humans, then why are you traveling with Linus, huh?! You can’t even commit to your own plan, and yet you talk so easily of murder!”

Maria was at a loss for words. “That’s…”

Cyrill took advantage of her hesitation and cleaved deep into her shoulder. Maria growled in pain and began to heal her wound, but Cyrill pressed the attack.

“If only I met him earlier, things would be different!”

“Like I said, you can’t even commit!”

Their roles reversed, it was now Maria who was forced to contend with a painful truth she’d rather not confront. There was simply no way that she could unseal Origin and also be together with Linus.

Cyrill’s words struck deep, and they filled Maria with resentment. Unable to deny anything Cyrill said, she was left with no other option than to return fire.

“After all the running away you’ve done, you’re hardly in a position to talk to me about making up my mind!!”

This emotional argument wasn’t about to convince either of them. It was clear to Cyrill that Maria was her enemy at the present moment, and she saw no end to this conversation outside of one of them falling in the course of combat.

BWOOOMF!

An explosion shook the capital. Both women stopped, looking toward a bright flash of light.

“Linus?!” Maria ducked past Cyrill and charged in the light’s direction.

“Ngaah!” Cyrill took off after her, but Maria already had a lead. She could probably keep up if she wanted to, but what she saw ahead of her was not the demon hellbent on revenge but a woman in love. She couldn’t work up the will to stop her.

She stopped her pursuit and looked at the palm of her hand.

“Mute…”

Cyrill knew what Mute had done. Maybe she should use her abilities to join the fight. But could she really bring herself to fight by Maria’s side and hurt Mute?

She felt helpless. All she could do was stand there, alone, staring into the distance.