“Attack! Quickly, kill her!”

  A rge number of knights surged towards Veridith, who was cloaked in white. Yet their efforts were in vain.

  Faced with Veridith, who had reached the very essence of her soul and possessed the ability to manipute the world’s rules to some degree, it was clear that the knights stood no chance. Even among the dragonkind—arguably the most powerful race in this world—she was considered a prodigy. As such, the knights were nothing more than grass being mown down by her unrelenting power. Some were flung into the air, others fell, poisoned and motionless on the ground.

  As a result, the remaining knights paid no attention to Cortana and the children, all their focus on holding off Veridith' relentless onsught. If they didn’t, they feared she would soon wipe out their entire force single-handedly.

  “This is bad... At this rate, we’ll be wiped out.”

  As the knight captain mented, someone suddenly patted him on the shoulder.

  “Brother, don’t worry. Watch this.”

  “You...?”

  The knight captain turned to see who had spoken, his eyes locking onto the figure standing beside him, then noticing the object in his hand. It all clicked immediately.

  “...That damned girl up ahead, stop right now!”

  “Hm?”

  Veridith, currently sweeping through the knights with ease, paused for a moment, her attention caught by a voice that was starkly different from the fearful shouts and cries she had been hearing.

  “If you don’t stop right now, don’t bme me for acting!”

  The knight, suddenly raising his hand, revealed what he had been holding.

  It was a young girl with long bck hair. She was badly injured, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth.

  “Jaya!?”

  The moment Cortana, the children, Misako, and even Veridith saw her, they all recognised the girl instantly.

  “Well done.”

  Upon closer inspection, the knight holding the half-unconscious Jaya was the very one who had visited the orphanage yesterday, the leader of the small band of knights. A malicious grin spread across his face as he held a sword to Jaya’s throat.

  “You wouldn’t want this woman to die, would you? Then…”

  “What have you done to Sister Jaya!?”

  “Shut your mouth, brat!”

  The knight was momentarily interrupted by a child’s shout, and in his rage, he struck Jaya once more, his fist nding brutally on her already battered abdomen.

  “Cough!”

  The knight was stronger than a regur soldier, and as the captain of a small unit, his blow made Jaya cough up blood, her body trembling from the impact.

  “You...!?”

  “Oh, I just wanted to see this kind of expression—the mix of rage and helplessness!”

  The knight’s grin twisted further, his madness becoming apparent. It was as if he were no different from the so-called ‘heretics’ the Holy Light Church spoke of.

  “...Farkonia.”

  “Mm.”

  At this point, both Misako and Farkonia could no longer sit idly by. They had initially intended to let Veridith practice a little longer, but they had not anticipated such a reckless individual appearing. It seemed there were all kinds of people in this world, and they had never encountered someone quite like this before.

  Seeing their friends suffering right in front of them, they knew they could no longer hold back.

  “Alright, where’s the other woman with bck hair? I’m going to…”

  Before the deranged knight could finish his sentence, a loud ‘boom’ rang out as something crashed from the sky, striking the ground with such force that a gust of wind spread across the area. Even the knights closest to the impact had their eardrums shattered.

  “...Looking for me?”

  The new arrival, a girl with the same bck hair as Jaya, stood amidst the chaos. If not for the differences in their faces, they could easily have been mistaken for sisters.

  “You... it’s you…”

  “Hm?”

  Seeing the bck-haired girl, the knight’s fists clenched in fury. Meanwhile, Jaya, who was still clutched by the knight, let out a painful gasp.

  “Only a few years, and now you’ve grown into something like this?”

  As soon as the knight finished his sentence, everyone felt their vision blur, as though time itself had been briefly distorted. The shift sted only a moment.

  But in that moment, Jaya, who had been held in the knight’s grip, vanished without a trace.

  “What!?”

  He spun around, only to see the previously injured Jaya now in the arms of the bck-haired girl, her wounds completely healed.

  “...Yverantheia...?”

  Jaya, her consciousness slipping away, gazed up at the girl holding her, and with a weak voice, whispered the name.

  “...Tch.”

  The bck-haired girl’s expression shifted from surprise to a look of mild annoyance.

  “Rest now, injured ones.”

  In an instant, as though a yer of the world had been erased, the bck-haired girl disappeared and appeared beside Cortana.

  “Leave her to you.”

  Without further words, she handed Jaya to Cortana and vanished once again, the entire sequence of events taking no more than a second.

  “She... Can’t be Aris, right?”

  “Mm.”

  Both Misako and Farkonia, who had been moments away from intervening, now recognised the identity of the girl. It was clear by the expression on her face, filled with unmistakable anger, that this was no ordinary individual.

  “No wonder she hasn’t appeared until now... she was either asleep or swapping control.”

  After saving the Eclipse squad’s Manlino, Aris and Arymm had taken turns switching control of their bodies. Just now, it seemed that Aris had been asleep, while Arymm had surfaced from the shallow depths of her consciousness, taking control at the right moment.

  “What... What did you just do!?”

  The knight, still clutching at the air where Jaya had once been, now shouted, his voice trembling. But Arymm did not respond. Instead, she scanned the remaining knights coldly before speaking slowly.

  “Have you all made self-destruction your life’s goal?”

  “You…!?”

  Before the knight could finish his words, his body, along with his armour, was twisted like a rag. Blood spurted upwards, reaching a height of seven stories.

  “...”

  The true horror, however, was that despite his body being contorted in such a way, the knight still remained ‘alive,’ twitching weakly on the ground.

  “W-What’s going on!?”

  “I didn’t come here for this! Let me go!”

  The atmosphere turned nightmarish. The knights, who had once thought they could overpower their opponents through sheer numbers, quickly realised that all hope was lost.

  It was already too te.

  With a single motion of her finger, Arymm erased the remaining knights from existence. Only the knight who had been beating Jaya remained, trembling in terror.

  “You... stay away from me!!”

  Lying on the ground, the knight’s body emitted a strange heat from between his legs, and his face was covered with strange liquid.

  “You think you’re tough, huh?”

  “I...”

  Before the knight could protest, Arymm snapped her fingers. A moment ter, his body exploded in a burst of gore.

  However, in the very next moment, his body was restored to its original state.

  “Ah…”

  Before even a second could pass, the knight was once again reduced to a bloody pulp, crushed by some unseen force.

  He lived through the agony of dying, over and over, each moment an eternity of excruciating pain. His death repeated itself, every time more agonising than the st, as the cycle of suffering continued without end.