As Merraid's heirs, the Oarburgh assassins had received the finest education in the art of killing since childhood.
Hand-to-hand combat, swordsmanship, staff techniques, throwing techniques—Merraid had trained them all to an extremely high level.
For an assassin, defeating an enemy did not always require raw combat power. Sometimes, other methods worked just as well.
Poison, for example.
And hypnosis.
As long as Merraid opened that black umbrella toward an enemy, she could place them under hypnosis before they even knew what had happened.
Seeing Gozuki's awareness scatter, Merraid did not rush to attack.
Instead, she slowly walked toward him.
After all, if her bloodlust became too obvious, it might wake him up.
The distance between them shrank step by step.
Nine.
Eight.
Seven...
When only five steps remained, Merraid suddenly wiped the smile from her face. She used an insect like a throwing knife and hurled it at Gozuki's face.
Just before it struck, Gozuki suddenly moved.
He cut the insect down with one slash, then grinned and said, "Tch, you're way too cautious. If you'd come two more steps closer, I could've cut you down in one strike!"
As he spoke, Gozuki charged toward Merraid.
Merraid sneered back, "Your acting was terrible."
She used the black umbrella in her hand to clash with Murasame.
The umbrella's frame was extremely sturdy, and its surface could withstand blades.
But against Murasame, it clearly was not enough.
Cuts began appearing across the umbrella's surface, and Merraid immediately realized she was at a disadvantage when it came to weapons, so she leapt backward.
Gozuki was about to press the attack when the twin-tailed maid charged in with two swords, tying him down and making things troublesome.
If it was only that little maid, he could deal with her quickly.
But with Merraid supporting her from the side, fighting two against one made it difficult for him to bring out his full strength.
More importantly, if he used one of his trump cards to kill the maid, he would be put on the back foot when he had to face the real boss afterward.
'Damn it.'
'What the hell is that brat Guy doing?'
Gozuki's swordsmanship was superior to Cassandra's, but Cassandra had four arms and could perform all sorts of unbelievable defensive moves, allowing her to hold on again and again.
"Are you some kind of modified human? This is my first time fighting someone with four arms." Gozuki tested her with his words while secretly adjusting his position.
He decided to take one of them out before he was worn down.
Clang!
Gozuki deliberately parried from an unstable posture and was forced back by Cassandra.
In that instant, she noticed a slight sense that something was wrong.
But such a rare opportunity was hard to give up.
Her instincts pushed her forward, and she rushed in decisively, ready to deliver a fatal blow.
The moment Merraid saw this, she sharply sensed the abnormality and immediately controlled her insects to stop her maid.
But at that same moment...
Gozuki's leather shoe suddenly burst apart.
A blur shot straight toward Cassandra's throat.
Cassandra saw the strange attack too, but with her current momentum, she could no longer block or dodge.
Her blade could not reach Gozuki either.
She could not even force a mutual kill.
Cassandra's eyes widened.
This man had calculated everything before baiting her into attacking!
Gozuki wore a smug expression, certain the battle was already decided.
But the next scene made his expression twist sharply.
A black wall rose instantly, cutting him off from Cassandra.
Only then did Cassandra react a beat late and collapse onto the ground, shaken with lingering fear.
Merraid stepped forward and warned her, "Be careful, Dora. The Four Rakshasa Demons are monsters who can freely control their bodies. Even their toenails can become hidden weapons with killing power comparable to bullets if they use the muscles around their toes properly."
Cassandra swallowed hard.
She had almost been killed just now.
Gozuki stared at the black insect wall, his brows locked together.
He had already heard from Noah that the enemy leader's ability was to control insect-type Danger Beasts, but after actually fighting her, he realized that this power was even more troublesome than he had imagined.
Insect-type Danger Beasts sounded weak, but they were still Danger Beasts.
Even one of them could be deadly.
And this woman could command so many of them. The number of tactics available to her was almost absurd.
The insect wall split open.
Half of Merraid's face appeared through the gap.
A sinister smile hung on her face, the corner of her mouth slightly raised, as if she were toying with prey.
"Master, I'm sorry I was careless just now. Please let me—"
"No, Dora." Merraid said to the twin-tailed maid, "That man was deliberately showing weakness just now. His strength is far beyond that. If I hadn't been here, you would have already been cut down."
What?
That man had actually been holding back while facing her earlier onslaught?
Cassandra would never doubt Merraid's words.
That was precisely why she was shocked that the enemy possessed such strength.
"Hey, little miss Four Arms, can you give that sword back to me? That belongs to my daughter." Gozuki stopped pretending and suddenly showed a confident expression as he stared at the Kiriichimonji in her hand.
Merraid took Kiriichimonji from Cassandra's hand.
She lowered her head to examine it, then shook her head.
"It's a good sword, but compared to the one in your hand, its beauty is lacking."
Gozuki raised an eyebrow and asked, "Is that so? You seem to know your weapons. Want to compare which of us has better swordsmanship?"
"Unfortunately, I'm not the type to get fired up that easily, so I'll fight in my own way." Merraid swung one arm, pointing the blade at Gozuki, and murmured, "Go."
The insect swarm rose into the air.
Countless Crawling Ones blotted out the sky, twisting through the air like a black tide.
Gozuki immediately retreated.
At the same time, he took a flask of liquor from his trouser pocket, poured it all into his mouth, and pulled out a lighter.
He sprayed the alcohol from his mouth toward the lighter.
When the liquor mixed with flame, bright yellow fire rushed toward the insect swarm and swallowed most of them.
Insects should be afraid of fire.
Even if they were Danger Beasts, that should still be true.
Scattered insects fell out of the fireball.
Seeing that, Gozuki felt his guess was correct.
But Merraid showed no reaction.
Even when her insects were burned, her expression did not change in the slightest. She remained calm.
Then she raised her hand, aiming at the insects inside the flame as though she were a puppeteer controlling marionettes.
In the next moment, several black stag beetles flapped their wings and flew out of the fire.
Those insects were terrifyingly fast.
The moment they escaped the flames, they charged toward Gozuki.
Their speed startled him, and he hurriedly dodged.
One after another.
The insects actually formed a killing formation, gradually forcing Gozuki into a corner.
At that moment, Gozuki's gaze sharpened.
He swung the cursed blade with frightening precision, instantly slicing apart the flying insects that appeared as nothing more than faint afterimages to the naked eye.
It looked like a single slash, but in reality, three slashes had overlapped.
In midair, three stag beetles were cut down almost simultaneously.
The fireball in the air dispersed.
Only then did Gozuki realize that the insects burned to death had only been a very small portion of the swarm.
The remaining insects actually had fire resistance!
And these insects were fast!
Seeing Gozuki still dodging without taking any injury, Merraid praised him.
"Impressive. You can actually evade insects under my direct control."
Against most enemies, she only needed to release her insects and the battle would be over.
Even highly skilled fighters could usually hold out for only a minute or two at most.
Once she personally controlled the insects, their movements and reactions were on an entirely different level from before.
The insects attacked Gozuki in formation, leaving him exhausted from dodging and unable to counterattack.
By contrast, Merraid was merely commanding insects to fight.
Whether mentally or physically, the drain on her was insignificant.
Looks like he had to get serious too!
Gozuki snorted coldly, then suddenly stopped under Merraid's surprised gaze.
He spread out his body.
In the next instant, all the hair on his body began moving as flexibly as tentacles.
Not just the hair on his head.
Even the beard on his cheeks and the hair on his arms were under his control, extending wildly.
In the blink of an eye, he had turned into a grotesque creature covered in countless white tails of hair.
Strands of hair twisted together into thick cords.
Like thousands of tentacles, the white hair spread under Gozuki's control, piercing through the insects attacking him or binding them in place.
Cassandra was stunned by the bizarre technique.
"Wha—what is that?!"
A human?
No matter how she looked at him, he was a monster.
Did the Empire not have any normal people?
Merraid was also shocked when she saw Gozuki could even control his hair freely.
"Hahaha! What's wrong? Speechless after seeing a real monster?!" Gozuki laughed loudly as he controlled his hair to strangle the insects.
No matter how many insects there were, how could they compare to the number of hairs on his body?
"Take this!"
Gozuki stayed rooted in place while his hair extended madly, lashing out like countless whips.
When they struck the ground, they cracked the bluestone tiles.
If those strikes landed on a person, there was no way they would come out unharmed.
Merraid continued controlling insects to rush at him.
Gozuki laughed. "It's useless. Don't you get it? No matter how many tiny bugs you throw at me, they won't change a thing!"
As he strangled the insects, he hid Murasame within his hair and carried it forward.
Once he was close enough, he would grip Murasame with his hair and deliver a lethal strike!
Murasame was a blade of certain death.
Even a tiny scratch would allow the curse poison to enter the body, guaranteeing death!
Merraid kept her expression blank.
Only when Gozuki had approached within several meters did she suddenly cross her arms and clench her hands into fists.
Faint sparks lit up within the mass of hair. Gozuki stared in shock at the glowing, heating insects that had somehow clung to his hair, and a bad feeling struck him.
"Damn it!"
Crackle, crackle!
The glowing insects exploded all at once, triggering a chain of blasts.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
In the castle garden, violent explosions continued for nearly ten seconds before finally stopping.
The ground shook from the impact.
Looking at the rolling black smoke before her, Merraid said disdainfully, "You do qualify as a monster, but unfortunately for you, not long ago, we ran into something far more terrifying."
She had used up all of her suicide-bomb insects in one go during her escape from Noah.
These new ones had been bred during the time she spent fleeing.
Because they were still larvae, their explosive power was much weaker than before.
"Mm?"
Merraid looked at the drifting black smoke and felt something was wrong.
Although she believed that level of power should have been enough to kill any target, for some reason, the complete disappearance of Gozuki's presence felt strange.
She commanded the insects to advance and gave them an order to devour the corpse.
But the insects found nothing.
Merraid's expression changed.
She ordered the swarm to disperse the smoke, and only then did she see a large hole in the ground that had appeared at some point.
The hole led deep underground, and for some reason, the soil around it had become unusually soft.
After examining it, she understood immediately.
Someone had rescued that man.
From underground.
"Could it be...?"
Merraid thought of something and hurriedly turned toward the wine cellar.
She pulled open the cellar entrance and saw countless insect corpses, while the cold-faced boy who had been locked up by the Crawling Ones had also vanished.
"Tch. I used too many insects against that man and ended up letting this side escape. As expected, they really do have someone capable of moving through walls."
Merraid had originally planned to trap them all.
But Gozuki's tenacity had exceeded her imagination.
Fortunately, only that boy had been rescued, and she had already planted insect eggs inside his body.
The next time the two sides met, she would be able to command those eggs to hatch.
The only question was whether the Empire had anyone capable enough to remove the eggs from the boy's body.
Either way, they could no longer remain here.
They had to leave immediately.
...
At that moment, roughly three kilometers away from the abandoned castle...
Guy, sweating heavily, set down Gozuki and Nahashu, whom he had been carrying on his shoulders.
Being attacked by insects in the wine cellar had drained a lot of his stamina, and he had been poisoned.
Fortunately, the number of insects had suddenly decreased midway through, giving him enough strength left to act.
Before escaping, he had worried that Father might have fallen into the same kind of trap, so he chose to wait for an opportunity.
In the end, he rescued both of them together.
"Cough, cough... I got careless."
Most of Gozuki's hair had been burned, and parts of his body were covered in torn, rotten flesh.
His shirt had been blasted into pieces.
Fortunately, his pants were still mostly intact, though they had been turned into ragged beggar shorts by the explosions.
"You did well, Guy. If not for you, things would've gotten ugly today." Gozuki's expression darkened.
"Damn Oarburgh! They really are something. No wonder Nahashu ended up like this."
He checked Nahashu's injuries and found that the boy was extremely weak and urgently needed proper treatment.
But that meant their combat strength had become overwhelmingly insufficient.
If Guy took Nahashu to the rear, Gozuki would have to face Oarburgh's insect user and that four-armed maid alone.
According to the intelligence, the enemy seemed to have one more person as well...
Troublesome.
At this rate, they would definitely escape.
But even knowing that, Gozuki had no way to stop them by himself.
And now the passive side had become them.
Their main mission had shifted from pursuing and killing the enemy to rescuing hostages.
He still had to save the children who had been captured.
Irritation welled up in Gozuki's chest.
'Damn it.'
'Those useless brats really know how to cause trouble.'