The unmanageable number of deaths that Alice expected did not occur.
It wasn't because the scouts' report had been wrong, nor because the Narkals had shown them mercy. It was simply that they were focusing on something else.
With bloodshot eyes, they kept converging on something in the center.
When they encountered the army, they merely swatted them away like annoying flies before running back toward the epicenter.
Some of them could be seen being flung away, many with injuries, but they returned all the same.
The army moved like they were walking on pins and needles among them.
If it wasn't for the fact that they would never survive if they scattered now, most of them would have probably deserted. But since the faintest chance of staying alive rested on them banding together, they had no choice but to do so.
By now, most of them were cursing the ringleaders who had brought them to this position.
Finally, everyone on the frontlines bore witness to the 'thing' that made the Narkals behave in such a frantic manner.
It was a black silhouette.
From head to toe, the human-looking silhouette was draped in the blackest black.
He moved like a phantom amid the Catastrophes, evading, blocking, and counterattacking from every direction without respite.
Soon, they assessed his condition and had to wonder if he was even alive, or if he was merely a zombie moving beyond death.
What's more, it turned out that the blackness wasn't due to any supernatural phenomenon. It was simply the accumulation of so much blood that it had ended up that way.
Alice was also among the spectators, and she instantly recognized him.
She would never mistake those golden orbs, shining with such intensity and will to live.
Those were the eyes of her man… the one she had longed to see for so long…
"Ashen…!"
Alice felt like he would die at any moment, seeing the strikes he let through become more and more frequent.
Most of all…
She was sensing almost no mana radiating from him, aside from a foul, corrupted mana that was the signature of the Narkals.
"No… n-no!!!"
She made her horse move forward almost unconsciously, and when she reached the very front, she pulled an orb from her pocket.
It was her last hope.
CRACK—!
She crushed it without hesitation.
She honestly did not know if it would change anything, but she had to try. She wasn't about to give up just like this after coming all the way here, only to see him die with her own eyes.
The crushed orb's remains scattered through the air, and nothing happened for a brief moment…
vrrrrr—
But then, the quality of the air changed.
It felt more charged, as if heralding the arrival of a being whose presence was too large for this reality.
A circle manifested in the air, and from within it, a green-haired woman walked out in slow, lazy steps.
Thud-thud-thud…
Despite her high heels, her height did not reach more than a hundred and sixty centimeters. But her smallness did nothing to diminish the aura of authority radiating from her.
Yet, as if insisting that there was nothing harmful about her, she wore a small dress that did not reach past her thighs.
It looked more like sleeping clothes than anything else. Her sleepy eyes gave that conjecture more credence, anyhow.
She used those same eyes to look at the battlefield the same way she looked at her bedroom.
Until, finally, she turned toward her summoner and spoke.
"Is it him…?"
Only now did Alice notice that everything had strangely gone silent.
The Narkals had all stopped and were looking in this direction. She couldn't decipher the meaning behind their expressions, but she had the distinct feeling that they were frozen in fear.
Finally, she looked toward the most likely cause of this phenomenon with a frozen expression of her own.
She saw the woman pointing one slender finger toward Ashen's direction, and could only manage a nod amid her deep shock.
"Ok."
The woman, Astrid Arde, uttered those two letters in acceptance and started walking slowly toward him.
Her walk, if anything, looked almost too sluggish. As if she had spent three sleepless nights in her room and was forced to leave on the fourth morning to buy groceries.
The Narkals' eyes followed her. They did not dare to run, nor did they dare to attack.
But when she had made it halfway to the half-dead man, one with the most menacing aura among them somehow managed to break through its instinctual fear and lunged.
"GWAAAH!!"
Its claws shot forward with unprecedented speed and savagery toward the woman. The person in question appeared not to have noticed the aggressor.
She only looked at it when the claws were almost upon her.
Bam!
Contrary to what everyone had silently expected, Astrid reacted with visible fluster that soon morphed into fear.
The claws struck her with enough force to send her flying. She finally landed on the blood-drenched earth with a whimper.
"Aiiyee…"
Small hiccups escaped her as she looked up with a wronged expression at the monster that had attacked her.
Despite not being wounded in the slightest by the strike, she massaged the struck area with a pained expression.
"…"
"…"
The human army's faces paled. Their small figment of hope had been dashed.
As for the Narkals, no matter how much their instincts screamed that their deaths were assured if they provoked that entity, the sight before them was enough to override whatever fear they might have felt.
"RAAAHHH!!!"
With that cry, the horde rushed toward the helpless woman.
Astrid, being none the wiser, was still massaging the red spot on her arm with a hurt look.
Just moments before they reached her, she spoke with another whimper.
"It hurts…"
Tsssssss—
With that single sentence, one of her Path Skills reacted on its own. As if taking pity on its host's plight, it activated outward in a fan shape, covering all the Narkals.
When the mana passed over them, bodies suddenly dropped in droves.
Thud… thud… thud…
A wave of lethargy struck them, and one by one, every Narkal fell to their knees.
Some resisted after a moment, managing to stand back up, but another wave hit them, forcing them back down.
The fantastical sight of a horde of monsters kneeling before a crying woman continued unabated.
Yet the more perceptive among them were able to notice something.
More and more Narkals were beginning to resist whatever they were being subjected to.
It was logical.
Astrid was a First Step Pathwalker, but her powers rested almost entirely upon a single Path Skill as their core.
The Law Of Diminishing Effort.
The more idleness she indulged in, the stronger she became. Alternatively, the more she used that strength, the weaker she became.
For someone like Astrid, who had never planned on moving in the first place, the Skill was a convenient tool with no apparent weakness.
But now, that weakness was rearing its ugly head.
In truth, if someone else possessed her current Skills, they would be able to kill the horde with two moves at most, even with The Law Of Diminishing Effort in place.
The Skill was one of slow accumulation, and in reserve, the loss of power was equally slow. All they had to do was finish everything cleanly in one or two strokes.
But who was Astrid Arde? A slothful being of her stature had never known combat. As for training? It was a concept she would never acknowledge.
The strike she had just endured was the most hurtful experience of her life, and she was far too busy feeling wronged to think of anything else.
Thankfully, she wasn't alone.
"This is our chance! Kill them while they are incapacitated!!! Attack!!"
Alice had finally suppressed her shock and ordered the army to seize the opportunity.
"HAAA!!"
The thunderous answer was the prologue to the terrible volley of spells that rained down upon the kneeling Narkals.
Even while they stood still, killing them was an arduous effort, but with their numbers, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility.
Alice did not care much whether they lived or died right now. Thoughts of the aftermath had also been cast aside by her normally calculating mind.
All she could see was the silhouette of the man standing on the horizon.
And seeing that he was no longer moving, she grew even more frantic.
"Lapis!!"
Calling to the most trustworthy person on the frontlines, she did not even need to spell out her order for the other to understand.
A white phantom broke through the ranks and raced forward in Ashen's direction.
Honestly, she would have preferred to send Sabrina, but the latter was far more useful culling the Narkals and preparing for their retreat.
What would be the point of reaching Ashen if all of them ended up dying in the end?
Astrid was clearly not much more reliable now, either, even if she had proven to be far more useful than Alice had initially anticipated.
'Bring him back… please!!!'
Alice's hope had finally reignited, and she was not ready for it to be dashed away.
◉◉◉
'Beautiful.'
That was all that was on his mind as he saw the crying woman.
What he found beautiful was not her outward appearance, even if it objectively was, but the concepts surrounding her.
As a fellow Sloth Pathwalker, he could feel it.
A Sloth so pure that it bordered on personification.
Ashen would not have been able to refute it if he were told that the woman before him was Sloth itself, given form.
But all of these thoughts were distractions.
Right now, after getting a brief respite, his body had finally relaxed.
But that fact brought upon him the inevitable.
He was dying.
The corrupted mana he had kept at bay for so long through some miraculous act of will was finally making its presence known, raging in vengeance at having been suppressed for so long.
And he could not do anything about it.
His mana was nil. The veins in his brain were ruptured. And whatever scattered will he needed to put the lid back on the corruption refused to gather.
He was feeling loose.
Even the constant pain was leaving him.
His thoughts became simple, and his attention kept catching on random things, with none of them offering a way to save himself.
Because there was none.
"At least, they can survive…"
He couldn't even hear his own voice. He didn't know if it was his vocal cords failing him, or simply his hearing.
His blurry vision blurred even further, and the dark spots within it started multiplying.
Before long, he would be engulfed in total darkness.
But before that happened, his eyes landed on someone. Someone precious.
Someone he longed to see, but never here.
"Sister…"
Thud—
Before he could react, she was already hugging him, and finally, he had something to lean his weight against.
A gentle smile graced his lips.
"You have become so strong… I'm glad…"
"Brother!!!"
Lapis wanted nothing more than to take him and run away, but the moment she touched him, an instinct froze her in place.
She felt like if she moved him even slightly, his heart would stop.
That was how fragile her brother felt in her arms.
"Hic… haah… no… why… you promised… so why…"
Seeing her weep so tragically in his embrace, Ashen's smile turned bitter.
'Right… I promised to return.'
'I promised to live.'
The intensity in his eyes, contrary to his sluggish thoughts, hardened.
'So why?'
'Why do I have to die?'
'I refuse…'
Now, they were glowing with a strange yellow hue.
'Get down.'
He pressed down on the corrupted mana with whatever fleeting intent he had managed to gather, but it was little more than a cloud amid the sky.
'Get down…'
'Get. Down.'
'This is my body… so STAY DOWN!'
The glow was now bright enough for Lapis to notice.
She raised her head, and her tear-filled eyes reflected a face so intense that it made her tears stop.
'Live… live… I want to live…'
shaaaaaaaa—
The glow was no longer merely a glow.
It morphed into a vast luminescence that engulfed everything.
"Ah."
BEHOLD—
That was the last thing he heard before all the corrupted mana was sucked into the Beholder's eyes, devoured like prey by a greedy, gluttonous monster…
.
.
.
☽⟲✧⸸✧⟲☾
Volume 6: A Journey Through Hell
END.