Hiltina followed close behind Rast as he stepped out through the side door.
The side entrance of the main estate opened into a modest stable. Despite the chaos that had shaken Deep Blue Harbor that dawn, the horses inside were calm, still lazily chewing their feed.
"You mean to gather every Iron Cross infected in the harbor… and destroy them all together?" Hiltina asked.
Rast nodded. "That's right. Even if the Outer God can descend through the Iron Crosses tainted by its aura, it still needs a certain number of them."
"A scattered few can't possibly bear the power of divine descent."
He stopped before the tallest horse—a magnificent creature with a mane as bright as flame. "So if we wipe out most of the Iron Crosses in this city, we can shatter the very foundation that allows the god to manifest."
The horse was fierce; the instant Rast reached to touch it, it reared on its hind legs. But as if he'd anticipated it, Rast sidestepped fluidly and mounted in one seamless motion.
The crimson stallion kicked and bucked in fury, yet Rast sat firm as stone—unshaken, utterly steady.
Watching him handle the wild beast so effortlessly, Hiltina asked, "Eradicating all the Iron Crosses in the city? How exactly do you plan to do that?"
"I mentioned before—Deep Blue Harbor doubles as a military facility. That's why a royal naval unit is permanently stationed here."
He stroked the stallion's red coat, and within a few breaths, the once-defiant creature had calmed under his hand. "That cargo ship that rammed into the docks earlier wasn't a merchant vessel—it was a disguised munitions carrier, loaded with over four thousand tons of gunpowder, shells, and nitroglycerin."
"Right now, that volatile cargo is scattered throughout the harbor after the crash, mixed in with the port's own armory and the steam boiler factories. If we plant charges at the right points and detonate them in sequence, the chain reaction from thousands of tons of explosives and steam boilers will annihilate everything in the harbor district."
"The harbor district only?" Hiltina asked. "What about the Iron Crosses in the other parts of the city?"
From their brief battle earlier, she already understood how terrifyingly resilient those creatures were—Iron Crosses didn't die even when their hearts were blown apart. The shockwave of a distant explosion wouldn't be enough to kill them.
"That's where our next task comes in," Rast said. "We'll draw their hatred. Gather them all. Lure every Iron Cross in the city to the harbor, set the timed explosives by hand… and send them straight to hell."
Holding the reins in one hand, he drew from his coat a small lead box—sealed and heavy. He flipped it open to reveal the bound, humanoid metal idol within.
Rast pressed his right heel into the horse's side. The red stallion, understanding at once, trotted forward to the stable doors where Hiltina waited.
"The idol of the Outer God attracts the Iron Crosses—but not enough to make them abandon nearby prey. So we'll need a little extra bait."
He glanced at Hiltina. "May I borrow your sword?"
Without a word, Hiltina tossed the gleaming Morning Star to him.
Rast rolled up his sleeve, then shoved the stable door wide open. As daylight spilled in, he drew the silver blade across his own vein.
Blood burst forth in a crimson arc, splattering across the black iron idol.
Ssssss—
Smoke rose where the blood touched. Red sigils began to crawl faintly across the idol's surface like veins of light under the skin.
At that same moment, the raucous noise and hysterical laughter outside abruptly died. The silence that followed was so deep that even a falling pin would have been deafening.
In that deathly stillness, every Iron Cross froze. Whatever prey they'd been chasing or tormenting was forgotten. Their heads turned—every one of them—toward the manor's gate.
More precisely, toward Rast on his crimson horse.
The stallion stepped slowly out into the street, and all across the city, the Iron Crosses turned in unison, like a field of sunflowers following the sun. Only these "sunflowers" bore shattered, ash-white faces, their cracked mouths twisting into ghastly grins, their pupils burning with red fire.
"Rast… they seem to find you rather appetizing," Hiltina murmured. Even with all she'd seen, the sight of countless eyeless, starving gazes fixed upon them made her skin crawl.
It reminded her of getting lost in the wilderness as a child—of green wolf eyes glowing in the dark. If the adults hadn't found her in time, she might have ended up in their bellies.
"Mm. The Iron Crosses treat my blood like a delicacy," Rast said calmly, biting off a strip of bandage and tying it around his wrist. "I don't know why. My experiments suggest it doesn't work with anyone else's blood. But now's not the time to theorize—get on."
"What?"
"On the horse. Before they lose what little sanity they have left." He extended a hand to her while keeping his other on the reins.
"I know you're faster than any racehorse alive, but to cover all five districts of Deep Blue Harbor and herd the Iron Crosses together, we'll need to conserve as much strength as possible."
Hiltina took his hand—it was slender, not powerful, but the grip was sure—and vaulted smoothly onto the horse behind him.
"To them," Rast said, "we're basically walking down the street with five wanted stars over our heads."
"So you'll need to keep that Night Blade of yours active the whole time—don't hold back. Bullets could come from any direction in this city. In my previous loops, more than half my deaths happened at this stage."
"Hold on tight."
The moment he felt her grip his shoulders, Rast spurred the horse.
The crimson stallion neighed sharply, fearless before the army of monsters watching. Clearly, Rast hadn't chosen it by chance.
With a powerful leap, it cleared the fence and tore down the sunlit street—charging toward the horizon.
Behind them, the Iron Crosses stirred as one, trampling over each other in a frenzy to give chase—like a black tide racing to swallow the last light of day.