The square burned with silence. The two gold-ranked Crows lay twisted in blossoms, their bodies no longer their own mere stalks for Rosaria's roses. The hundreds of bandits stood frozen, their leader the only one to step forward.
Emerald power flared from him in a suffocating wave. The cobblestones cracked beneath his boots, the very air warping with heat and pressure. His mantle of crow-feathers whipped wildly in the aura, his shadow stretching monstrous behind him.
This was what separated an Emerald from the rest. To the villagers cowering in windows and alleys, it felt like a god of slaughter had descended into their midst.
Even Ethan, hidden at the alley's edge, hissed softly. "Tch… so this is Emerald. I can barely breathe in it."
The villagers nearby clutched their chests, some fainting outright.
And Rosaria?
She stood unmoving, veil untouched, her habit flowing gently as though in a spring breeze.
The leader sneered at her stillness. "You killed my men like they were worms. Fine. But I am no worm." His voice boomed with the weight of his aura. "I have broken knights, slain sorcerers, and crushed beasts bigger than houses. Every scar on my body is a tale of survival. Do you understand, witch? I am war made flesh!"
Rosaria tilted her head, as if humoring a child. "So loud. So proud. All I hear is a boy afraid of the dark."
His eyes narrowed into slits. "Then drown in it!"
He lunged.
The ground exploded as he moved, cobblestones spraying like shrapnel. His fist came like a thunderbolt, aura crackling around it. The shockwave alone sent Crows sprawling, shattering windows and blowing out torches.
Rosaria did not step aside.
His strike landed squarely on her open palm.
The earth groaned. Cracks spiderwebbed beneath her feet. But Rosaria only smiled behind her veil, her arm unshaken.
"Is this your war?" she whispered.
The leader snarled and pressed harder, his muscles bulging, aura roaring brighter. The pressure was titanic like a mountain pressing down on a single woman's hand. Sparks flared, stone buckled, villagers screamed.
And yet Rosaria stood calm, her veil dripping rivers of blood that hissed when it touched his aura. Roses bloomed at their feet as if nourished by his struggle.
He ripped his fist back and swung again, this time his whole body twisting into the blow. A gale of force followed, tearing banners and shingles from roofs. The fist struck her ribs with the weight of a charging bull.
Rosaria turned slightly with the motion, catching his arm like a mother seizing a child's wrist. "Hush now."
Her thorns erupted, wrapping his arm, trying to pierce. His aura flared, scorching them, burning vines to ash.
The crowd gasped her thorns had been unstoppable, but here they sizzled faintly, blackened under his power.
Rosaria chuckled. "Oh… how delightful. You actually resist."
With a roar, he twisted, throwing her across the square. Rosaria's form blurred, her heels gouging lines in the stone as she slid to a graceful halt. The wall of thorns behind her shivered, then closed again like jaws.
The leader flexed his arm, burned thorns falling away. "See that? I am no plaything. Your tricks mean nothing before me!"
He slammed his hands together, his aura condensing. A pulse erupted outward, a dome of light that blasted back Rosaria's vines for dozens of feet. The thorns shrieked, some even snapping under the pressure.
The villagers ducked, covering their ears from the sound. Ethan muttered under his breath: "He's burning mana like a furnace… That's the kind of output that razes armies."
The leader advanced, each step a quake. "Bow. Kneel. Or I'll show these worms what your corpse looks like when torn apart!"
Rosaria's voice was calm, almost soothing, carrying even over the roar of his aura.
"Little boy," she said, smiling beneath her veil. "Do you know why your power fails?"
He spat, charging again. "Fails? You haven't seen me serious yet!"
Light blazed. He swung both fists, each strike a hammer that collapsed stone walls, tore chunks of earth, and sent bandits screaming as they were thrown aside by stray shockwaves. His aura howled, emerald fire wreathing his body until he looked less man and more living weapon.
Every punch Rosaria caught. Every strike slowed by her palms, her thorns, her calm. She did not flinch, did not grunt.
She whispered, almost motherly, each time she intercepted him:
"Too wild."
"Too sloppy."
"Too desperate."
And with each correction, vines grew back faster. Roses bloomed thicker. His aura burned them, but she was learning his rhythm, weaving her thorns like a seamstress threading a tapestry.
Finally, he drove his fist downward, aiming to smash her into the earth itself. Rosaria caught it in both hands, her veil inches from his twisted, snarling face.
"Child," she whispered sweetly, "you fight like a man who believes the world owes him victory. But heaven does not reward tantrums."
The ground beneath them split wide, a forest of black thorns erupting, impaling through stone and dirt. Vines wrapped his legs, piercing flesh. His aura burned bright, flaring hotter, cutting through dozens, hundreds of vines yet for every one he destroyed, ten more took its place.
He roared, veins bulging in his forehead. His aura flared so violently the night sky above warped, stars blurring. "I WILL NOT BE BOUND!"
His body exploded with emerald light, a sphere of raw mana blasting outward. Dozens of houses collapsed. Bandits screamed as they were thrown like leaves. The thorn-wall trembled but held.
For a heartbeat, Rosaria was gone in the flare.
When the light cleared, she stood still before him. Her habit singed, her veil dripping rivers of blood, but her posture unchanged. Calm. Motherly.
She lifted her hand. In it was something small, delicate a single thorn, piercing through the back of his hand.
The leader looked down. His breath caught. His body trembled.
From the thorn, roses began to bloom. One on his wrist. Another on his forearm. Another bursting from his shoulder.
His aura flared desperately, burning them, ripping them away. But each flower returned, faster, deeper, crawling into his veins.
Rosaria's voice was quiet, almost tender.
"Even emeralds crack."
The leader fell to one knee, roaring in denial. His aura still burned, still fought, still shook the village to its bones. But his body betrayed him, collapsing beneath the weight of black roses blooming from within.
Rosaria cupped his chin, lifting his face gently toward her veil. "Do not be afraid. Your agony is beautiful. And beauty… is salvation."
He screamed half rage, half terror as roses burst from his mouth, his chest, his eyes. His aura flared one last time, then winked out like a candle smothered.
When his body finally toppled, it was no longer a man.
It was a sculpture of thorns and roses, towering in the square, his last roar frozen in petaled bloom.
Rosaria turned slowly toward the hundreds of bandits left standing.
Her voice carried calm finality:
"Now then… who else wishes to play?"
For a heartbeat, silence reigned.
Then the Crows broke.
Fear, black and choking, swallowed whatever courage had kept them upright. The entire swarm of them turned at once, their boots hammering against cobblestone as they fled into the night.
But none escaped.
From the cracks in the street, from the walls, from the roofs and alleys, thorns surged like a tide. They slithered along the ground, catching ankles, piercing boots, twining around calves and thighs. Dozens fell, then hundreds, their screams splitting the night.
"No! No, please!"
"Cut it off! CUT IT OFF!"
"Gods, it's inside me it's! aaagh!"
The vines did not strangle quickly. They wrapped slowly, cruelly, constricting ribs until bones cracked, piercing flesh in tiny barbed bites that dragged out agony second by second. Roses bloomed wetly from punctures, each flower feeding on shrieks, drinking from terror.
The entire square became a garden of agony.
Rosaria watched, her veil tilting gently as though considering the shape of her work. She touched her lips with a bloodied finger, whispering to herself.
"…It is time to end this."
And so the thorns answered her will.
They thickened, darkened, their growth quickening until the bandits were little more than silhouettes writhing within nests of roses. The square pulsed with cries that no longer sounded human only raw, tearing sound, despair carried on the night air.
The villagers hiding in their homes covered their ears, tears streaming, unable to block out the symphony of torment.
The entire village became a single, suffocating chorus of agony.
And above it all, Rosaria stood serenely, her shadow stretched long against the burning torches, her veil dripping blood like holy oil upon the flowers.