Chapter 28 - ARC IV: CHAPTER: IT WAS HARD TO BE A MAN (FINAL CHAPTER)

The stone floor was a mirror of frost and crimson, a merciless surface where heat fled from bodies.

​??? : "Ghhggg... ! Again..."

​Cold. Hot. Damp. Frozen. Inflamed. A symphony of contradictory shivers and a bitter satisfaction embedded themselves under his skin, that same skin pressed against the clammy stone. The man on the ground was nothing more than a dismantled silhouette, encircled by a scarlet tide that refused to stop. His limbs, once instruments of precision, no longer responded. Lying on his stomach, the taste of defeat and iron in his mouth, he felt his eyes, usually so sharp, slowly lose their spark of life.

​??? : "...."

——— ​Why so much suffering? What had he committed for reality to lash out so relentlessly at his bones and nerves? His face was a map of agony: his lungs burned, his skull seemed crushed under an invisible press, and his half-open mouth let escape a network of fresh blood that drew abstract patterns on the tiling.

​Was the world this unjust? Was this the price of his sin of Pride? The seventeen-year-old young man knew, in the depths of his flickering consciousness, that this wasn't the first time he had traversed this tunnel of pain. Was it out of kindness, to save those who mattered, or out of pure Pride, to refuse defeat in the face of fate? The question remained a blurred shadow, an enigma he did not yet have the luxury of solving.

​??? : "Death is only a pause..."

​If death was only a pause, then how many times had he already suffered it in the corridors of this cursed mansion?

​Before him, two silhouettes loomed over him with the passivity of judges. One was a woman with long braided black hair covering her back. Her eyes, usually of an abyssal calm, were wide with the shock of adrenaline and an unhealthy ecstasy. Her black clothes, lacerated by the exchange of blows, bore witness to a fight to the death. A predatory smile stretched her pale lips as she gripped damaged kukris. Her regeneration was at its limit, but her madness was intact. It was the famous Elsa, the Bowel Hunter.

​elsa: "Trizz-sama... all this for me? I love you so much... but it would be even better if I could finally see the color of your insides!"

​Beside her stood another woman. Her hair, a bright strawberry pink, cascaded down her back. Her blood-red eyes and white dress contrasted violently with the room's macabre decor. Her skin was livid, her face ravaged by sweat, showing that she too teetered on the edge of fainting. It was Lyra, the elite assassin of the Cult of Lust.

​Lyra: "Elsa, calm down... we agreed. We must keep him alive for Mama-sama."

​The black-haired woman crouched, ignoring orders, and placed her bloodstained hands on the broken young man's face.

​Elsa (cheeks crimson): "Then our dance will not be the last, Trizz-sama..."

———​Trizz understood that the plan had failed. Was it the third time? The tenth? The hundredth? He no longer knew. Repeating the same patterns for six days, on a loop, had led him to the brink of a dementia that even his intellect could no longer contain. The reset was near, inevitable.

​Suddenly, desperate footsteps echoed in the corridor, heading toward them. Leith was busy outside, so who? Another assassin? A cultist? The answer was even more bitter.

​A boy appeared, his shoulder displaced, unable to function correctly, his once bright black and orange tracksuits now darkened by hemorrhage.

​??? : "—..."

​The newcomer stopped short, his eyes wide with a horror he nonetheless knew too well. But this time, he did not collapse. His survival instinct, boosted by pure adrenaline, kept him standing. He stared at the assassins with helpless hatred before turning his gaze to his dying friend, an immense guilt gnawing at his features.

​??? (Whisper): "We will soon reach the end of this hell..."

​The moonlight filtered through the broken stained-glass windows of the mansion, casting silver lances onto a floor strewn with debris and purple-soaked carpets. The boy in the stained tracksuit stared at the broken shadow on the ground, his heart pounding. It was no longer about saving what could be saved, but about taking in every detail, every breath of this failure so that the next loop wouldn't be a new ordeal.

​The killer with the black braids stood up with reptilian elegance, her purple eyes shining with a predatory glow as she wiped a drop of blood from her lip.

​Elsa: "Trizz-sama... you still burden yourself with this man? It seems you have an unfortunate resilience to protecting the weak... even the most useless ones."

​The boy in the tracksuit looked away, beginning a desperate run to flee this carnage. Why was all this happening? Why had that clown Roswaal orchestrated such chaos for a woman who was but the architect of her own misfortune? He hated this mage with the painted smiles, this monster of manipulation hiding behind a mask of stupidity. Fate was but a cruel farce.

​The assassins didn't seem to give chase. To them, he was but an insignificant nuisance, a notorious incompetent. That was the masterstroke of his dying friend: having analyzed and presented him as a being so mediocre that he became invisible. A perfect camouflage born of Trizz's mind. A bitter smile stretched the fugitive's lips.

​Subaru: "We'll pull off this plan... no matter the number of loops. Everyone will survive, Trizz. I swear it to you."

​The sound of his sneakers echoed against the charred woodwork. The air suddenly became heavy, saturated with a smell of burning and ozone that stung his throat. Ahead of him, the corridor seemed to lead straight into a furnace. The little beast tamer was nearby.

​Around a corner, a childlike silhouette appeared, sitting nonchalantly on the back of an abomination. The creature was a nightmare three meters long: a headless horse body, topped with an atrophied human torso with a smooth ivory skull, sporting a gaping maw from which an unbearable heat emanated.

​Meili (eyes wide with false innocence): "Scary-eyed Onii-san is still alive? Is Onii-sama still with Elsa...? He prefers Elsa's blades to my own hugs... don't you find that unfair?"

​The boy took a step back, terrified by the monster's stature. Yet, thanks to the side effects of Trizz's influence (Pride buff) which boosted his resilience and regenerated his nerve fibers, he held firm. His voice did not tremble.

​Subaru: "Trizz... Yes, Trizz seems to have a very complex and... very adult relationship with Elsa. He probably prefers to keep you, your innocence, safe, far from all that!"

​The beast tamer frowned, clearly stung. The temperature around the Mabeast rose sharply, the air beginning to vibrate under the power of this creature from the sands of the tower.

​Meili: "Onii-sama sees me as a child?! I can be much more useful to him than Elsa! And besides... I don't need comments from a scary-eyed Onii-san!"

​Subaru: "Wait! What I mean is that if Elsa handles the complicated adult stuff, Trizz prefers to spend quality time with you, Meili. With you, he doesn't need to talk much because... unlike the others, you're the only one who truly understands his strange theories."

​The little girl's mood seemed to soften for a moment, though danger remained palpable in every spark escaping from her mount's maw.

​Meili: "If you say so, scary-eyed Onii-san. But know that Onii-sama doesn't say strange things. They are ultra-complex theories that only I can grasp."

She moved her beast forward, passing the boy with sovereign contempt. He wondered for a moment how did Trizz manage to attract so many psychopaths obsessed with him? It was the last coherent thought he managed to formulate.

​Meili (turning back with an angelic and sickly smile): "But tell me, Onii-san... If Elsa is busy with Onii-sama... we can play together while we wait for them to finish, can't we?"

​Subaru: "What...?"

​Before he could decipher the glimmer of madness in the little girl's round eyes, a sphere of pure fire erupted from the monster's maw, instantly transforming the corridor into a blaze. The pain was absolute, erasing the world in a roar of flames as he was burned alive.

​[ time skip... ]

​The air had become a solid mass of heat and soot, a blanket of burnt carbon that gnawed at the lungs with every breath. The thick, toxic black smoke transformed the mansion's corridors into an infernal labyrinth where the walls screamed under the bite of the flames.

​In the heart of this blaze, Trizz sat against a section of wall which, by some architectural miracle, had not yet ignited, though the stone radiated the heat of a furnace. His legs were stretched out, his cultist attire reduced to charred tatters. His back was nothing more than a raw wound, the stigma of a detonation he had triggered himself, using his own handcrafted fire crystals in a final gesture of desperate sabotage.

​Trizz: "Is Leith dead...?"

​His voice was nothing but a gravelly whisper, his eyes staring at the incandescent debris. His hand, soaked in blood that was not his own, rested on his forehead. It was the blood of Lyra, whom he had executed by surprise while she was cornered by Garfiel.

​Trizz: "The most dangerous one has finally fallen... but at what cost?"

​Suddenly, the curtain of flames blocking the door shattered. A silhouette emerged from the gaseous chaos, draped in an aura of madness. The woman's black hair floated like ebony snakes in the furnace, her purple eyes shining with an unhealthy ecstasy. Elsa. In every loop, she returned, tireless, leaving lost battles to hunt her one and only obsession.

​Elsa: "You are so splendid like this, sitting in the middle of this disaster, Pride-sama... These flames surrounding us... don't you think they resemble our eternal love? And your scent... it intoxicates me more than blood."

​Trizz stared her down, mixing contempt with deep annoyance. She had just crossed a hell he had designed to consume her, but he saw the flaw: her wounds were no longer closing. Her regeneration was coming to an end. She was no longer a professional; she had become a fanatic whose entire world had shrunk to a grotesque fantasy centered on him.

​Trizz: "Look at yourself, Elsa. You are no longer the Bowel Hunter I met in the capital or during our missions against the Cult. You're nothing but a delusional wreck. You are pathetic."

​Far from offending her, the insult seemed to act like a whip upon her senses. Her cheeks flushed a feverish red, her hands clutching her own chest in a gesture of twisted devotion.

​Elsa: "Me, pathetic, Pride-sama? I am but the product of your cruelty, nothing more and nothing less. We are bound by the red thread of fate, destined to tear each other apart until only dust remains. A marriage of ashes!"

​Trizz stood up with painful slowness, his hand reaching for the hilt of his light sword abandoned on the floor. To him, this loop was already a logical failure, a dead branch of reality he was preparing to prune.

​Trizz: "Let's end this, Elsa."

​She brandished her kukris, her arms trembling with a carnal excitement that sent shivers down the spine. Her gaze was that of a prey that has finally found its ultimate predator.

​Elsa: "Show me your insides, Pride-sama!"

​[ time skip... ]

​The frost had claimed everything. The walls, the ceiling, every corner of the mansion was now but an extension of a merciless crystal tomb. The windows, once open to hope, were sealed by tears of ice. In the middle of this petrified landscape, statues of flesh and frost stood eternal guard Garfiel, Frederica, Petra, Otto, and even Rem... all frozen in their final moment of struggle, prisoners of an absolute zero.

​At the center of this disaster, a silhouette stood upright. The man was wrapped in a golden aura, the Yang buff "El Aka" crackling around him like a final rampart of heat. Yet, his hands were shaking. It wasn't the cold, but a dull frustration, a boiling nihilism that threatened to consume everything. How many loops had he gone through? He might be the Architect, but he had only managed to strike down that cursed mage five times, despite countless attempts.

​He had orchestrated the end of Meili, Elsa, and Leith more than a dozen times. But she... Lyra was the unique variable he couldn't integrate. She dismantled his plans with an ease that bordered on insult.

​Trizz: "Damn it...!"

​Facing him, six meters away in this corridor that seemed to stretch toward infinity, stood a young girl. She looked to be between seventeen and nineteen years old. Her strawberry pink hair cascaded over her shoulders, and her eyes... blood-red pupils that cruelly recalled Felt's. She displayed a feigned shyness, a slight trembling in the middle of her own carnage, which annoyed the man to no end.

​Trizz: "How is this possible? Your teammates are down, and you... you refuse to bend out of simple greed? All this to send me to Capella? Truly, your organization is the dumping ground for every form of dementia!"

​The young woman avoided his gaze, staring at her own white boots scratching the ice on the floor.

​Lyra (with a crystalline laugh, as fake as a lead coin): "... Astonishing, isn't it? And here you are, stopped in the middle of all this frost with me, while you claim to be nothing but the brain of your little group."

​Trizz: "And you, I bet you hold the same position in your camp? But who are you really, to waste your life in this sect? With such talent, the mages of the Lugnica court would have welcomed you with open arms..."

​Lyra: "Let's just say that a young woman who wandered for months in Vollachia without any support ends up accepting the hand that reaches out... even if that hand belongs to Lust. Leaving it today would be my death sentence."

​The man observed her from a new angle. Thinking back, she had never tried to execute him. She only aimed for neutralization. She wanted to deliver him alive. A collector of talents on behalf of her "Mama."

​Trizz: "I'm starting to understand. You're keeping me alive to throw me to Capella like a new toy? Know that I would prefer a definitive end a thousand times over becoming the puppet of your idiot mother."

​The atmosphere suddenly became heavy. A deathly silence settled in the frozen mansion, disturbed only by the cracking of the ice under the pressure of the golden aura.

​Lyra (tears beading at the edge of her red eyes): "Wait... so you still haven't understood? Don't you see that I was doing all this for you?"

The man's face twisted in confusion. All this for him? Throwing him into the clutches of Lust would be an act of kindness? She was sinking into a madness far deeper than he had imagined.

​Lyra: "Does this mean you still don't recognize me, Trizz? Lyra... it's just a pseudonym. You remember, don't you?"

​A pseudonym? He searched his memories. He knew no one by that name. Aside from the nicknames he gave himself—Barusu, Foxy for Anastasia, or Blood Eyes for Ram—he had no connection to this girl.

​Trizz: "Remember you? Is this another of Lust's manipulations? Know that your mind games have no hold on me."

​Lyra: "You idiot... Always hiding behind your intellect to avoid facing the slightest intimate relationship. That's just your style, isn't it, Mr. Genius?"

​Trizz remained paralyzed. How could she know that? How could she speak of his emotional barriers as if they had spoken hundreds of times? She stepped toward him with a supernatural calm, the sound of her footsteps on the frost echoing like a death knell.

​Lyra: "You really don't place me? Wait... Did that Pride Factor I studied at Capella's end up erasing your memory of me? Lyra... The constellation of Lyra. Vega. Alpha Lyrae, located twenty-five light-years away... You are the one who named me that, once upon a time."

​Trizz: "..."

​The frost covered everything, transforming the grand mansion into a glittering, silent necropolis. In the middle of this absolute zero, the man with crimson eyes stared at the figure with strawberry-pink hair. The revelation floated between them, even chillier than the ambient air.

​"Star?" The man's thoughts derailed. He had always believed himself to be the sole anomaly of this world, a calculation error thrown randomly into the gears of fate. But before him, this woman was manipulating the codes of his own past.

​Lyra: "That name, TRIZ... I'm the one who gave it to you. Teoriya Resheniya Izobretatelskikh Zadatch. The Theory of Inventive Problem Solving. Developed by Genrich Altshuller as early as 1946... Do you finally remember? We gave each other those pseudonyms when we were kids. It was our secret code, our pact against boredom."

​The Architect took a step back, thunderstruck. That name he wore as both a burden and a point of pride was not an invention of this world, but a relic of 1900, a theory of games and logic that followed him like a shadow.

​Trizz: "If that's true... Why? Why want to send me to Lust like some vulgar trophy?"

​Lyra: "It was a cover, you fool. I couldn't let you get slaughtered by Elsa or Leith. By placing you under my wing as an elite, and with your Pride Factor, even Capella wouldn't have dared lay a claw on you. You bear the name of the mother of all vices, Trizz... It's diplomatic immunity in our world of monsters."

​Trizz observed her, short of breath. Every loop where she had avoided killing his allies, every retreating movement... everything was calculated. His own Witch Factor had locked away his memories to protect him, but the truth was fracturing everything.

​Trizz: "So... you know this place? You know the future, like I do?"

​Lyra played with a strand of her hair, a hint of embarrassment piercing through her killer's mask.

​Lyra: "To be honest, I only knew Arc 3 of the anime... the one you forced me to watch on repeat. But now that we are reunited, imagine what we can do. The duo of science and logic against this world of archaic magic!"

​The Architect made a move, his hand reaching toward the one he had forgotten. But suddenly, an unimaginable pain, an invisible claw, lacerated his heart muscle. The world tilted. He saw Lyra's eyes widen in horror, her blood-red pupils drowning in tears as he collapsed onto the frozen tiling, his own blood drawing a scarlet flower on the ice. Then, total white.

​[ Time Skip — The Fifth Day ]

​The midday sun pierced through the forest canopy, bathing in harsh light an army of human automata dressed in black, daggers in hand and orange wrists, motionless as omens of ill-fortune.

​Four silhouettes stood out from the group. A child sat enthroned upon an abomination of ivory and muscle; a massive man with golden eyes overflowing with latent frustration stared at the horizon; a woman with pink hair monitored the sun's path, and another, with dark braids, toyed with a blade on a branch.

​Meili: "Say, Elsa... are we attacking that noble's mansion and that naive half-elf soon? Do you think they'll be fun to cut up?"

​Elsa: "If they've associated with Trizz-sama, there is a good chance their entrailles will be... fascinating to behold."

​Lyra: "Elsa, please. We just finished eating, have some decency in front of everyone."

​Leith let out a grunt, tightening his grip on his axe.

​Leith: "Hmph... Lyra, it's a lost cause with those two. And for mercy's sake, stop ringing my ears with this 'Mr. Perfect'."

​Meili slid off her mount with childish grace, a mocking smile on her lips.

​Meili: "Onii-sama is much more interesting than you think, Leith. He slaughtered the entire Cult in an afternoon. You, meanwhile, spend your days staring at Lyra and Elsa's cleavages, you big pervert!"

​Lyra remained stoic but shifted imperceptibly to put distance between herself and the warrior.

​Leith: "... That's not true! Meili, you're just a kid, you shouldn't even be thinking about stuff like that! I'm not staring, I'm analyzing the environment! They just happen to be... in my visual axis of defense!"

​Elsa: (a contemptuous smile on her lips) "You look like a pig, Leith. Wanting to compare yourself to Trizz-sama is an insult. You are but an insect that Mama forced us to drag along."

​Elsa's words hit the warrior harder than any blade. If this "Mr. Perfect" was so exceptional, he would take great joy in crushing his skull with his axe, just to see if his brain was truly made of gold or mud.

​The undergrowth was bathed in a greenish gloom, where the scent of humus and resin mingled with an almost palpable electrical tension. The ancient trees seemed to stand a silent guard over the group of executioners. But the gaze of the colossus with the axe lingered, with growing suspicion, on a silhouette sitting apart against a gnarled trunk. It wasn't the black garb of the organization that bothered him, but the individual's absolute, almost supernatural calm. With hands joined in geometric precision, the figure seemed lost in a reflection so deep it became disturbing.

​Leith: "Elsa, look at that guy over there... doesn't he seem strangely suspicious? Maybe he's a spy, or worse, «Mama» in disguise having fun testing our nerves."

​Meili (a cold shiver running down her small shoulders): "Leith... don't speak that name here. If she heard you comparing him to a simple, motionless fanatic, she'd turn you into something even the earth would refuse to bury."

​The imposing warrior fell silent. In this group, every word seemed to be a double-edged blade. The assassin with the dark braids, for her part, no longer took her eyes off the mysterious individual. Her purple pupils, usually so cold, began to fill with that feverish glow that only the scent of exceptional prey could provoke.

​Elsa: "Meili... that way of sitting, that aura of quiet superiority despite the total immobility... does that not wake a memory in you?"

​Meili (observing the silhouette with a fascination mixed with concern): "Elsa... now that you mention it, that posture looks furiously like Onii-sama's. Onii-sama has never known fear. Do you think he's come to brave us face-to-face, hiding his true power under that disguise?"

​Elsa (licking her lips with a predatory impatience): "We will know soon enough. Trizz-sama would never be reckless enough to come alone, unless he has already calculated that we have no chance against him, even all together."

​The giant's face twisted with anger and disbelief at what he considered a collective psychosis.

​Leith: "By all the gods, your demigod isn't here! It's just a Cult member who seems to have kept a bit more sense than the other demons. Stop your delusions!"

Ignoring the warning, the killer left the support of her tree. The sound of her heels crushing the dead leaves echoed like a macabre countdown. Her gait, with the elegance of a predator, betrayed an excitement bordering on madness.

​Lyra: "Aren't you exaggerating a bit, Elsa? Even for him, it would be mathematically absurd to expose himself like this. Logic dictates that he is entrenched behind his traps at the mansion."

​Meili: "We know nothing of his logic! Onii-sama loves playing with people's minds. Who else would have the audacity to settle directly in the middle of his enemies to observe them without blinking? He already wiped out the Cult from the inside that way!"

​The warrior and the mage felt their own certainties waver. If this man was truly capable of such psychological infiltration, they were perhaps all already doomed without knowing it.

​Elsa (stopping a few centimeters from the motionless silhouette): "Trizz-sama... could you be lost in this forest? Or have you already planned the exact moment we all stop breathing?"

​The silhouette did not answer.

​Meili: "Look how he stays stone-faced... He must have a backup plan. Elsa, if we touch him, will a trap go off to vaporize us? If so, back away!"

​Elsa's hands were shaking, not with fear, but under a surge of pure adrenaline. With a sharp movement, she pulled back the individual's hood. Meili's and Elsa's eyes widened in amazement, Lyra searched for a rational explanation in the void, and Leith struggled not to explode with laughter at the ridiculousness of the situation.

​Under the hood hid neither a brilliant architect nor the Archbishop of Pride. It was a young woman of ethereal beauty, almost surreal. Her skin had the delicate paleness of porcelain, and her long white hair flowed over her shoulders like a river of lunar silk.

​Elsa: "But... it's not him!"

​The killer's cry of disappointment pulled the young woman from her trance. She startled, revealing eyes of a bright crimson red, similar to those of the man they were tracking, but devoid of any malice. She appeared to be sixteen or seventeen years old, standing about 159 cm tall.

​The Cultist: "H-ha! Elsa-sama? What can I do for you? Has the assault on the Sanctuary already started? I was meditating to calm my nerves before the battle!"

​Meili, dejected, let her arms drop, her enthusiasm evaporating instantly. Elsa wore a look in which frustration and cold anger against herself were mixed. Trizz-sama would never let himself be caught in such a trivial way.

​Elsa (turning away with disdain): "No, nothing... I apologize for disturbing you in your... reflections. Get ready, the time is approaching."

​Leith: "I told you... Your obsession with this 'Mr. Perfect' is eating away at your psyche. He would surely be quite disappointed to know you mistook him for a simple girl from the Cult!"

​[ time skip... ]

​In the heart of the forest surrounding Roswaal's mansion, the shadows were thicker, permeated with the smells of damp earth and wild beasts. Sitting nonchalantly on the back of a nameless abomination—a creature with an equine body, a deformed human torso, and a smooth, pearly head devoid of eyes—Meili mechanically stroked her blue braids.

 Sitting nonchalantly on the back of a nameless abomination—a creature with an equine body, a deformed human torso, and a smooth, pearly head devoid of eyes—Meili mechanically stroked her blue braids

​Meili (to her mount, her voice trembling but resolute): "We will not fail. Even if we have to cheat. If he's ten steps ahead, we'll have to strike so fast that he won't have time to move the next pawn..."

​She stroked the beast's horn, her emerald eyes staring at the distant lights of the mansion with a terrifying devotion. The contract was signed. The massacre was about to begin. But in her broken little girl's heart, she desired only one thing a front-row seat in Trizz's VIP symphony.

​Suddenly, the earth began to shake. It wasn't the natural rumble of a seismic fault, but a dull, nauseating vibration that traveled up the legs of her mount to her own spine.

———​Meili frowned, pulling on her blue braids. She knew this trembling. She understood who could generate such tension, but she didn't grasp the cause. Why? Why now? And above all... why were her Mabeasts, usually so docile under her authority, going mad?

​Beneath her, the equine abomination let out a shrill cry, not of terror, but of pure rage. The creature reared up, uncontrollable, seeking to attack something Meili could not yet see.

​Meili (screaming, pulling on the reins): "Stop! You stupid beast! You're going to ruin my surprise!"

​She wanted to impress her Onii-sama. She wanted everything to be perfect. But nature had decided otherwise.

​The frail silhouette was pinned to the ground, fingers clutched in the loose earth. Before her, an abomination of muscle and fangs prepared to pounce, its gaping maw exhaling a foul breath. The young girl, paralyzed by visceral terror, closed her eyes, waiting for the final impact that would crush her short existence.

​Suddenly, a shrill hiss tore through the air. A trail of golden light, bright as a lightning bolt, mowed down the gloom. With a dull sound of cauterized flesh, the beast's head shattered, vaporized by intense heat. A smell of burnt fur and petrified meat filled the little tamer's nostrils.

​The shockwave propelled Meili backward. Rolling in the loose earth, she suffocated for a moment, a sickening smell of ozone...

​Meili: (Voice trembling) "Elsa...? Is it you?"

​She knew her sister was formidable, but Elsa did not wield light. Slowly raising her head, she met a gaze that froze her more surely than the fear of the monster. Towering over the scene at 178 cm, the man stood there, his face like marble and his silhouette outlined by the last reflections of the moon. His dark hair seemed to absorb the darkness, while his eyes, a deep crimson red, burned with a cold authority.

​Meili: (Stammering, her heart pounding wildly against her ribs) "Oni... Onii-sama? Is it really you? D... did you know? Did you come for me?"

​The individual stepped forward with a slow, measured, almost mechanical step. The dead leaves didn't even rustle beneath his soles. He crouched at her level, his coat brushing the soiled ground. He observed the little girl's pitiable distress with a strictly clinical curiosity, devoid of the slightest ounce of empathy, like an entomologist studying a wounded insect.

​Trizz: "Meili, what are you doing here? I thought you were busy in the capital with your usual little assassination business."

​Meili: (Breathing short) "But... Onii-sama... don't you know? Do you really not know what's going on here? Nothing at all?"

Trizz: (Frowning slightly) "Nothing of what? Aside from having to eradicate half the monsters in this forest to carve a path through this botanical chaos, I see nothing unusual."

​The girl's throat tightened. If she confessed that her goal was to eliminate him, would his gaze turn to contempt? Would she become a traitress in his eyes? Yet, the silence weighed like an insult in the presence of the one she worshipped.

​Meili: (Lowering her eyes to the ground strewn with dead leaves, tears threatening to well up) "If I told you the true reason for my presence... would you be angry with me? If I confessed that Elsa is looking for you at this very moment with her blades ready to strike, would you reject me? Would you abandon me in the dark?"

​The man's face remained stoic, perfectly unreadable, the fading moonlight accentuating the severe and merciless angles of his features.

​Trizz: "Speak. I will not get angry. It is illogical. I have just saved your life from a beast that had become uncontrollable, have I not? Consider that you owe me an absolute debt. A debt of truth."

​Meili: (Clinging to those words like a lifeline) "Do you promise? Promise, promise not to hate me?"

​She thought she saw his gaze cloud over for a tiny instant, as if he were internally sealing an invisible pact whose true clauses she did not know. Taking a long, trembling breath, she offloaded the weight of her secret in a jagged, desperate whisper.

​Meili: "Elsa and I... with Leith and the others... we came to massacre all the inhabitants of the Sanctuary and the mansion! We have to kill the half-elf and the maids! It's not my fault, Onii-sama! I swear! It's Mama... it's the Archbishop who forced us to accept this contract! I didn't want to hurt you!"

​She closed her eyes, expecting an explosion of fury or an appeal-less condemnation. She already imagined her savior's features twisted by disgust. But instead, she felt a familiar and surprisingly warm pressure on the top of her head. A hand rested on her hair with a tenderness she had never received, even from Elsa. Opening emerald pupils dilated by surprise, she saw a thin smile stretch the lips that had once been so cold.

​Trizz: "So, that was all that terrified your little mind... Let me think for a second. I am going to put a definitive end to all this disorder. And to reassure you, I will bring Elsa back to you alive. Albeit half-dead and unable to move... but knowing her pronounced penchant for pain and her obsession with me, she won't hold it against me at all."

​Meili: (Face illuminated by a demented hope) "Onii-sama... you're really not angry with me? But... how can I help you? Tell me! I want to make it up to you! I want to be useful for your plan!"

​He stood up slowly, his gaze already scanning future probabilities. He pointed an imperious finger toward the west, where the forest's topography slumped into misty marshes, far, far from the mansion.

​Trizz: "A promise is a promise, Meili. You are spared. But if you truly want to prove your utility in my equation, use your Blessing. Gather the majority of the bloodthirsty monsters you still control and direct them with all your strength in that direction. To the west. Cut off their escape lines. As for the rest, the human variables, I will handle them personally. Go hide in the shadows. I will find you later, when Elsa's blood has stopped flowing."

​Without adding a single word of justification, Trizz pivoted and began to vanish into the woods. His dark silhouette merged almost instantly into the gloom of the ancient trunks, swallowed by the darkness as if he were its sovereign master.

​Meili remained sitting on the cold earth, motionless, her heart fluttering at a frantic pace. Her face flushed with feverish excitement, a sociopathic and blissful smile distorting her childish features. She was no longer a target. She was no longer collateral damage. She finally felt recognized, validated, invested with a sacred mission. She was worthy of walking, even from a distance, in the shadow of the one she considered the greatest genius, the only true monster of this world.

​In the silence of the falling night, the ghostly voice of her idol still echoed on a loop in the girl's fractured mind: "Chaos, Meili, is a symphony. And I am the conductor."

​[ time skip... ]

​Flames licked the ancient woodwork, transforming the once majestic corridors into a labyrinth of embers and soot. The smoke, heavy and opaque, billowed through broken windows while the heat caused the stone walls to crack. This mansion, once a warm home, was now nothing more than an arena of monsters where every piece of debris on the floor became a deadly obstacle.

​At the center of the stairs collapsing under the weight of the blasts, the terrace had become an apocalyptic zone. In this chaos, steel clashed with unheard-of violence, tearing metallic screeches from the ozone-saturated air. Bursts of sparks intermittently illuminated the faces of the combatants, while fragments of glass scattered under the moon like a rain of sharp stars. Rugs flew in tatters and the masterpieces hanging on the walls were nothing more than charred confetti.

​???: "Beautiful, isn't it? But let's end this... I'm looking for someone much more entertaining than you to conclude this dance."

​The individual of colossal stature blocked an attack with an agility that defied his mass, his eyes bloodshot with pure adrenaline staring at his opponent.

​???: "Someone more entertaining than my Incredible Self? No such creature exists in this world, gorgeous."

​He threw a devastating punch with his right arm, his arm-shield grazing the woman who dodged with a reptilian movement. The attack slammed into the wall in a crash of broken masonry. Without giving her a moment's respite, he used his arm pinned in the stone as a pivot, spinning himself in mid-air to deliver a powerful left backhand.

​???: (the woman whispered in a honeyed voice) "It would be wiser to stay still and wait for your death."

​???: "Shut up, vampire!"

​The feminine silhouette dodged the blow by a hair. But before she could bring down her curved blade, the young man wrenched his right arm from the wall in an explosion of rubble to strike again. Using her momentum, she performed a dizzying backflip at the precise moment the blow passed under her feet, sending the rest of the room flying in splinters of wood and plaster.

​The young man was merciless. He struck relentlessly, aware that he had to break this obsessed psychopath as quickly as possible; outside, his sister needed him. He unleashed a fierce hook that the assassin blocked with her kukris. The blades snagged for an instant in the grooves of the shield.

​???: "Do you really think this kind of rudimentary trap would work against me?"

​The assassin's plan was crystal clear: slide her blades to pierce the young man using his own strength against him. But her opponent possessed a musculature and bone density far superior to what she had anticipated. With a roar, he pivoted violently to break one of the kukris, but she disengaged with inhuman suppleness.

​???: "Well played, little boy... Your name is Garfiel, isn't it? Is it Trizz-sama who taught you this choreography?"

Withdrawing a third concealed kukri instead of counter-attacking, she stepped back, her heels crushing the shards of glass littering the charred floor.

​Garfiel: "And you, you're Elsa Granhiert," Garfiel spat, returning to his stance. "You're even crazier than the Boss (Subaru) described to me. To answer you, my amazing self perfected this combat pattern after training you couldn't even imagine. But what does a madwoman like you hope to cultivate here?"

​Elsa tilted her head, a demented smile stretching across her pale lips.

​elsa: "To see Trizz-sama's entrails... I simply want to check if they are as magnificent as his brain."

​This declaration struck Garfiel like an insult to common sense

​This declaration struck Garfiel like an insult to common sense. Disgusted, he lunged at her again, forcing her back. While he unleashed a barrage of heavy blows, one question obsessed him: how could this woman be crazy enough to attack the mansion alone, abandoning her allies, just to satisfy her fixation on Trizz?

​[ Outside, east of the forest ]

​The forest, once a sanctuary of peace, had been transformed into a scene of surgical desolation. Ancient trunks, sliced clean as if by a divine blade, lay on the ground while the verdant foliage was nothing more than a charred memory. A snow of ash, gray and suffocating, floated in the dust-saturated air, becoming the new horizon of a profaned nature.

​Suddenly, the earth itself revolted. Walls of rock rose brutally, shredding the flowery terrain, while mineral spikes shot toward the sky before falling back like vengeful arrows, plowing the ground to pierce anything breathing in the impact zone.

​???: (hidden behind a protective earth dome): "If you calmed down for even a second, you'd notice all the opportunities you've wasted to crush me..."

​???: "I am perfectly calm, you masked clown!"

​The man in the iron helmet blocked another volley of earth with a simple flick of his wrist, a stone rampart rising just in time to deflect the axe grazing him. Deactivating his wall in a breath, he swung his heavy sword, the Seiryuto, taking advantage of the opening. The blade sank deep into his opponent's chest. A Dona spell flared, and telluric energy literally made the attacker's body explode from the inside.

​The heart, liver, and entrails spilled onto the ground in a scarlet detonation. Yet, despite this carnage, the helmeted man did not lower his guard. The information provided by Trizz was clear: this fight was only beginning.

​???: (emerging from the edge of the woods with a perfectly intact body): "Aldebaran, is that it? Behind your failed jokes, you're damn cruel for the little lapdog of some old bitch serving as your mistress."

​Aldebaran nonchalantly wiped his blood-stained sword. Through the slits of his helmet, he observed this resurrection mechanism which, though different from his own, seemed linked to a strange manipulation of the temporal flow.

​Aldebaran: "A victory is still a victory, no matter the method. Tell me, Leith, how many times are you going to sacrifice your second-rate soul to travel through this forest? An old wise man once told me 'There is an end to everything.'"

​Leith: "What that old fool told you doesn't concern me

​Leith: "What that old fool told you doesn't concern me."

​Aldebaran (taking his stance, body tense): "Oh, but that old man will soon come to claim his due."

​With a sharp hiss, Leith lunged into close combat with an agility bordering on the inhuman. Aldebaran wondered for a moment if each death filled his enemy's body with new energy. But he had no time to philosophize; Trizz's orders were crystal clear: kill him, again and again, until his arrival.

​Aldebaran (internal): Bro, I hope you know what you're doing. Your reputation as a genius of chaos is seriously starting to make me doubt your true intentions...

​Heavy steel and stone axe clashed. The shrill sound recalled a piano out of tune in a haunted mansion. Aldebaran retreated abruptly, creating space after casting a new spell, as Leith's agility was becoming problematic.

​Aldebaran: "Dona!"

​The ground liquefied, turning into thick mud. Accustomed to unstable terrain from his past, Aldebaran remained stable while Leith sank, slowed down. Seeing his disadvantage, Leith created an improvised earth bridge, leaping into the air, his axe aimed at the masked colossus's skull.

​With superhuman instinct, Aldebaran blocked the downward attack with his sword, but the impact threw him deeper into the mud. He walled himself in defense, waiting for the next move. Leith, true to his ferocity, gave him no time to breathe and launched four earth spikes before lunging himself in the wake of the projectiles.

​Aldebaran erected a makeshift wall and sprinted toward a massive tree to avoid the rocky points. Leith attacked with cold rage, but Aldebaran dodged the axe by a hair.

​Aldebaran: "El Dona!"

​The earth beneath his feet projected him violently backward, out of reach, just as Leith was about to strike. The shockwave caused a four-meter-high tree, already weakened, to wobble and fall right onto the attacker.

​Leith: "Huh?!"

​The trunk crashed onto Leith, crushing his chest and legs. Trapped under tons of wood, he spat out a stream of dark blood, his lungs torn by his own broken ribs. Without losing a second, Aldebaran pointed his hand toward the dying man.

​Aldebaran: "Dona."

​An earth spike shot from the ground and shattered Leith's skull, scattering pinkish brain matter over the ash frost.

​Aldebaran: "That was close, man..."

​He turned his gaze back to the shadow of the forest. He could feel Leith's anger boiling, reborn, more and more predictable.

​Leith (reappearing, voice trembling with fury): "But... how do you counter all my attacks?! What is it, a Divine Protection?!"

​Amid the charred trunks and dancing shadows, the clash of weapons echoed endlessly, disturbing the deathly silence that had fallen over the estate.

​Aldebaran: "You know, it's getting really tiresome fighting you over and over again. Don't you ever get tired, Leith?"

​The fierce warrior lunged again, his axe cutting through the smoky air with intact rage. The man in the steel helmet met him head-on with his heavy blade, parrying the blow in a shower of sparks. Despite this perfect parry that neutralized the assault, the helmeted colossus remained anchored on the defensive. The opponent before him moved with abnormal, almost suicidal vivacity; attempting a frontal counter-attack under these conditions would have been a fatal error.

​Using the earth beneath his feet, the masked man suddenly slid to the right, narrowly dodging a plunging attack that should have crushed him. Capitalizing on his telluric momentum, he cocked his arm to bring down his sword. But before the steel could slice flesh, the assassin blocked the blow with a savage instinct reminiscent of the bloodiest predators of the Vollachia jungles. As the helmeted fighter prepared to shift stances to react, the ground began to rumble, bringing the duel to an abrupt halt.

​Aldebaran: "I reckon the old man has come to claim his due sooner than expected. Now, accept your fate, kid."

Suddenly, without warning, the earth beneath the one-armed colossus's feet rose violently. A thick pillar of rock shot from the ground, propelling him six meters into the air and nearly toppling him, though the stone surface was as wide as a castle turret.

​From his makeshift perch, he sat down and looked below. A horde of abominations—nightmarish creatures born of miasma, possessing atrophied equine bodies, deformed human torsos, and smooth, pearlescent heads totally devoid of eyes—surged through the woods at a terrifying speed. Unlike him, safe in the skies, the enraged immortal was pinned to the ground, directly in the pack's trajectory.

​Seeing the tide of monsters crash upon his enemy, the helmeted man understood. Had he served as a mere decoy to group these beasts and crush his opponent in a loop? This inspired no resentment in him. Having relived this fight perhaps seven lives in a row had purged him of all frustration, leaving room only for amused curiosity.

​Aldebaran: "Fascinating... To think a kid I picked up in a filthy alleyway in the capital is masterfully controlling all this chaos. That title 'Genius of Chaos' really wasn't just for show, as Anastasia so aptly put it."

​A few beasts blindly struck the base of his pillar, but the helmeted man repaired the cracks with a simple surge of mana. Settled like a VIP spectator, he watched the assassin be dismembered, trampled, and crushed by the horde. Once the number of mabeasts dwindled and the deadly wave had passed, the earth pillar began to descend slowly toward the ravaged ground.

​Aldebaran: "Well, time to head that way. Naturally, bro is already over there, pulling the strings."

​Sheathing his weapon with a certain weariness, he stepped into the ruined forest. Beneath his boots, the leaves were nothing but lukewarm ash. A persistent thought accompanied him: the terrifying efficiency of his ally. He had eliminated half of the Cult and an Archbishop, but the most chilling detail remained the battle against the White Whale. Despite the thousands of soldiers and mercenaries deployed, the casualty count had been ridiculously low—a minority of wounded, and barely two or three dead. A logistical miracle impossible without perfect manipulation.

​Aldebaran: "Bro, you're going to get yourself into serious trouble if you keep being this formidable... Even if you give Subaru all the credit for the victory, many already suspect you played the crucial role in the shadows."

​He continued to follow the tracks left by the mabeasts. Letting a few clues filter through regarding the true identity of the architect behind these victories was perhaps part of his grand design. A plan undoubtedly far too complex, whose depths the one-eyed warrior preferred to ignore.

​Amidst the ashen mist, a silhouette stood motionless, staring at the ground. The helmeted warrior approached, thinking he had found his ally, but a detail made him pause: the height. This person was far too small to be his usual companion. He quickened his pace, intrigued.

​Aldebaran: "... Hey, you there. Are you lost?! "

​Before him stood a young woman of almost ethereal beauty. Her long, moon-colored hair cascaded down her back. Her eyes glowed a vivid red, pure and fresh like new blood, contrasting with naturally captivating carmine lips. She stood barely five-foot-two, but it was her skin—a porcelain paleness—and her disturbingly perfect features that made the colossus's blood freeze. She reminded him excruciatingly of the descriptions of a certain Witch of Greed.

​Aldebaran (slowly drawing his blade and pointing it at the girl): "Actually... is reincarnating into this world not enough for you? It seems death is your only true home, isn't it?"

​The young woman slowly turned her head toward him. Her gaze, of an abyssal coldness, instantly spiked the armored man's hostility.

​The Girl: "In fact, Aldebaran, are you going completely mad or are you just blind? Lower that weapon. It's me, Trizz."

​The colossus nearly dropped his sword, his breath taken away by the absurdity of the revelation. The mind of this man—ordinarily five-foot-ten with black hair and dark crimson eyes—now resided in this ethereal body. It was his absolute antithesis.

​Aldebaran: "Wait... What? Bro...? But... you're actually a woman now?! You're not 'bro' anymore, you're 'sis'... By all the gods, how did you manage to change your appearance this much? What kind of madness is this?!"

​Trizz: "I understand your confusion. The variables have changed. I will explain the details later; now is not the time for pleasantries. First, let's take care of the rest of the plan."

​The air reeked of upturned earth and hot iron. In the center of this clearing, devastated by successive clashes, a man lay in a pool of his own blood. Both his legs were cleanly severed, his arms were nothing more than a mass of crushed bone and bruised flesh. His face, hideously torn, revealed a fractured jaw missing several teeth, while his only working eye stared at his executioners with fierce hatred.

​Coldly watching this pitiful spectacle, a young girl with long white hair and crimson eyes stood tall. Her orange and black dress, the insignia of the Witch Cult, trailed carelessly in the scarlet puddle.

​Leith (spitting out a clump of blood): "So it's you, the little rich brat... You were hiding with us from the start, lurking in the shadows like a fucking rat!... You absolute bastard!"

​Trizz (superbly ignoring the insult, gaze turned toward the helmeted colossus): "Do you see this man on the ground, Aldebaran? To understand the exact mechanism of his resurrection, one must first admit one thing: he is not human."

​Aldebaran (scratching the back of his steel helmet): "Wait, what? 'Not human'? What do you mean by that?"

​The ethereal silhouette leaned down slightly toward Leith, observing him with the coldness of an entomologist facing a wounded insect.

​Trizz: "You've likely noticed that he never reincarnates directly before your eyes, but always out of your line of sight, at a good distance from the combat zone?"

​Aldebaran nodded slowly. The information was sinking in. If he wasn't human, was he a new kind of mabeast?

​Trizz: "In reality, he fashions new bodies from scratch to reincarnate into. Unlike the Archbishop of Sloth, who parasites and steals existing physical shells, he creates them."

​Aldebaran: "So, it's a variant of body-snatching... a spell that every mage in the kingdom has forgotten for ages. But how can a low-rent assassin know such complex magic?"

​Trizz (shaking her head gently, her lunar hair brushing her shoulders): "It's not exactly that. This guy is an earth spirit. I don't know by what miracle—perhaps thanks to his Archbishop's Authority—but he manages to model bodies from mud and rock. That is precisely why he never uses high-level offensive spells like 'Ul.' Every new body creation drains a colossal portion of his mana."

​The one-armed warrior considered the mutilated enemy in a new light. He thought he was dealing with a rival, someone who perhaps shared the grueling exhaustion of dying over and over again. But no. The thing at his feet understood nothing of the psychological pain of time loops; it was merely wasting the magic of its environment.

​Aldebaran: "So, in short, this guy is nothing more than an autonomous golem. Is that it?"

​Trizz: "One could define it that way. Or simply as one more piece of trash left in the wake of the Archbishop of Lust."

Remaining silent, Leith painfully clenched his mutilated fingers against the dead grass of the forest. Humiliation burned hotter than his wounds.

​Leith (voice trembling with fury): "Trash of Lust...?! You don't even know what I had to go through to get here! It's always the same arrogant nobles who prefer to leave commoners in the gutters!"

​Trizz (raising an eyebrow, a hint of renewed curiosity in her voice): "Huh...?"

​Leith: "If you understood what it's like to see people you swore to protect die one by one from disease... To be beaten to death by knights who think they can do anything... To see a talented young girl be raped and thrown into prison by a noble only to end up as a slave—if you knew—!"

​The tragic speech was brutally interrupted by a sinister snap.

​Leith's jaw had just been dislocated with unheard-of violence. The white-haired girl stood with her leg extended, golden sparks crackling around her boots. The Yang reinforcement buff, Aka, still pulsed through her muscles with fearsome precision.

​Trizz (eyes completely devoid of emotion, showing only cold clinical analysis): "Blah, blah, blah. The eternal complaint of the villain telling us about his life of misery to justify his actions. I am not Subaru. Your tragic past does not interest me at all. You tried to destroy my possessions; therefore, you must be annihilated."

​Turning away from the assassin, who was mute with agony, Trizz fixed her gaze on her ally.

​Trizz: "Aldebaran, fashion me a light stone sword, then back away immediately and hide behind that massive trunk. I am going to destroy him completely. Even if he has no more mana, if his spirit is set free, he will eventually absorb the surrounding energy to recreate himself. Nothing must remain."

​Aldebaran did not attempt to debate the method. Concentrating his own mana, he levitated particles of earth that quickly coalesced, compressing to form a blade of raw, sharp rock. He handed the improvised weapon to Trizz, who gripped it with her frail arm.

​Aldebaran (retreating cautiously): "I hope you know what you're doing... Because if your attack fails, we're back to tracking him in loops all across the forest."

​Griping the sword firmly with both hands, Trizz stepped back. Golden sparks began to fly from the raw stone. Under the influx of energy, the rocky blade changed hue: it went from a dull gray to an incandescent red, then to yellow, and finally radiated a dazzling golden glow. Mana particles from the environment were violently siphoned into the weapon, shrouding her silhouette in a halo of blinding light.

​Trizz (in an implacable voice): "Now, join the void with your family."

​Leith's eyes widened at the inevitable heat igniting the air. A sharp, almost unbearable hiss struck Aldebaran's eardrums. From his hiding spot, the colossus expected a deadly telluric detonation. But instead, he saw an immense crescent of golden light slice through the air toward the heavens. The magic had struck Leith, disintegrating him instantly before continuing its path toward the clouds. The wave exploded at high altitude, raining down a magnificent shower of golden sparks over the night sky.

​Aldebaran (blown away by the power of the impact): "But... sis..."

​Trizz, whose stone sword was already turning to dust between her fingers, relaxed her posture.

​Trizz: "I intentionally avoided hitting the ground. If I had, the explosion would have killed us all, and I have no desire to start an uncontrollable fire here... But damn it, Aldebaran, carry me. Casting a Jiwald that concentrated just drained half of my mana."

​Aldebaran (coming out of his hiding spot, scratching his helmet frantically, visibly uncomfortable): "Uh... But bro, look at yourself for a second... Imagine if my mistress Priscilla found out I dared to touch another woman with such familiarity... She'd kill me on the spot!"

​Trizz (letting out a slight sigh): "Look at me as a man, not a woman. Let's get to the mansion quickly; I have urgent business to finish."

​[ Time skip... ]

​The fire devoured the mansion with insatiable hunger, turning the battlefield into a veritable crematorium. The fight between the young warrior and the pitiless killer was far from over. The shields attached to the boy's arms were cracked, on the verge of shattering, while the woman's clothes, once macabrely elegant, were now nothing but charred rags stuck to her soot-covered skin.

​Deprived of the advantage of the walls, which were now too fragile and hot to lean on with agility, the woman was forced to opt for frontal assaults. The young man, aware that he had to manage the little endurance he had left in this furnace, charged straight at her. He raised his left arm to take the lightning strike of one of the kukris, tearing a shower of sparks from the twisted steel of his shield.

​Noticing the tiny opening left by this parry, the killer spun the blade in her left hand and struck treacherously toward her opponent's exposed flank. The boy had neither the time to raise his right arm nor the space to dodge in this debris-saturated corridor. He had only one option left, as savage as it was instinctive.

​Elsa: "...?"

​The woman let out a sigh of ecstasy at this desperate move. The boy violently thrust his head forward.

​His sharp fangs clamped shut with colossal force, stopping the blade's trajectory dead just millimeters from his skin. Blood began to bead at the corners of his lips, as the cold, metallic taste of steel flooded his palate.

​Garfiel: "Is that all? Your attack is pathetic!!"

​Clenching his jaws until his teeth nearly shattered, the young warrior burst the blade into pieces. He spat out the sharp fragments in a bloody spray while launching a devastating kick at the woman, who was still off-balance from her own attack. The force of the impact should have pulverized her skull; in a last-second survival reflex, she interjected her arm to take the blow.

​The dull thud recalled the sound of a wet laundry bag being violently thrown against a wall. A scarlet spray repainted the charred tapestries of the corridor. The boy wiped the blood dripping from his chin with his sleeve and let out an annoyed snort through his nose as he observed the result.

​The woman stood a few meters away, huddled in the ash. She had escaped certain death, but the price to pay was heavy multiple fractures extended from her wrist to her shoulder. Her left arm hung lamentably, twisted at an unnatural angle.

​Garfiel: "You made out pretty well by only sacrificing an arm. But damn, you ruined my jaw with your toys!"

​Elsa: "... Hehe, thank you for the compliment. Ahh... it hurts so much. It throbs with such exquisite pain. I feel so, so alive facing you."

​Garfiel: "Huh? You're completely insane. Not only do you get off on slaughtering others, but you also jubilate when you're mutilated? It's a pathology that my extraordinary self refuses to understand. And to be honest, it just makes me want to puke."

Blood dripped down the arm of the woman who wore a fierce, demented smile. Disgusted, the boy violently clashed his shields together in a spray of sparks.

​Garfiel: "Gkh! Die!"

​Before she even had time to begin the regeneration process of her destroyed limb, the warrior transformed his own right arm. His flesh swelled, covered in thick golden fur, becoming a gigantic tiger paw where each claw rivaled the sharpness of a saber. With a lightning-fast movement, he smashed the killer's face. Off-balance and unable to parry, she was thrown with incredible violence through several partitions and a mound of flaming rubble.

​The demi-human took a second to catch his breath, his lungs burned by the toxic smoke. How could he definitively cut down this madwoman? She always got back up, again and again, defying the laws of life. It was then that the icy words of the Architect echoed in his mind: "Strike, crush, break, and destroy. Over and over again. Her regeneration is but a facade, an illusion of immortality. With every fatal wound, her body wears out and tires a little more."

​Garfiel: "I really hope your calculations are right, nerd... Even if I still don't get why everyone trusts you so blindly."

​He lunged into the cloud of dust and ash kicked up by the impact. Outside, he knew Frederica and the others were holding firm, while the strategist had to handle the most dangerous variables. He had to finish his opponent as quickly as possible.

​But as the smoke cleared, he froze. In the middle of the mansion's smoking ruins, a silhouette stood perfectly still. A man about five-foot-ten, dressed in an impeccable cultist robe that contrasted sharply with the surrounding apocalypse. His jet-black hair seemed to absorb the light of the flames, and his dark crimson eyes immediately settled on the boy. There he was, in the heart of the blaze, without a single scratch.

​Trizz: "I see you have done excellent work so far. But... your role in this equation is now finished."

​Garfiel: "What are you talking about?! This nutcase is still breathing! I have to finish her off right now, or else she might—"

​The man in black raised a hand to cut him off. Behind him, the killer had just pulled herself out of the rubble. She paid no more attention to the tiger boy. Her violet gaze was entirely, fanatically fixed on the newcomer, like a devotee finally finding the idol of her personal cult.

​Trizz: "Outside, Frederica and Aldebaran urgently need your strength to repel these abominations. If you persist in staying stuck here, many of those you seek to protect will die needlessly."

​Garfiel: "But I can't leave you alone in this inferno! Against that crazy woman, you'll get slaughtered!"

​Trizz: "My plan has worked perfectly up to this moment. It is up to you to take over and look after your true family. Besides, you should know... despite my appearance, I am far from being as vulnerable as you think. I promise to return in one piece, exactly as Petra expects of her hero."

​The young warrior clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white. The intellectual wasn't wrong. Outside, everyone was alive. Some were injured, certainly, but not fatally. His place was now with his sister and his people.

​Garfiel: "Damn... The Boss warned me you were stubborn, but you're way worse than me this time. Fine. Do what you have to do... General."

​Trizz: (widening his crimson eyes ever so slightly, a hint of surprise piercing his usual coldness) "General...?"

​Without adding another word, the boy turned on his heel and bounded through the gutted carcass of the mansion, escaping the arena of fire.

​Now, the red-eyed man was left completely alone with the black-braided killer. The final battle of his long list had just begun.

​The heat had become a physical presence, a suffocating pressure that made the air vibrate. In the middle of this blaze, Elsa stood up with a sensual slowness, ignoring the soot marking her alabaster face.

​Elsa: "Finally... you are here. I knew you would never abandon our precious bond, Pride-sama. Look around us... these flames licking the walls, my body quivering with exquisite pain, and you... so calm, so impeccable. Is this not the most beautiful of wedding nights for the two of us?"

​Trizz: "Elsa, please, spare me your delusions. I am not here to fuel your degenerate fantasies, but to close a case that has dragged on for too long."

​Elsa regained her balance with a snicker. Despite the blatant slowness of her regeneration—a fact meticulously noted by the Architect—she seemed to prefer surrendering to her ecstasy rather than protecting her vital limbs. Her left arm, still twisted, was only just beginning to snap back into place with the sound of crushed cartilage.

​Trizz: "Seriously, Elsa, is it impossible to talk normally with you, even for a second? No matter... let us do as you wish. After breaking you physically, I suppose you will be more inclined to listen by force."

​Elsa: "A promise of love through violence?... I gladly accept!"

​In a desperate and fluid movement, Elsa lunged forward, her kukris aimed at Trizz's abdomen, where she dreamed of seeing his entrails. With a swift motion, the man invoked his magic.

​Trizz: "Dona!"

​A wall of compact rock shot up from the scorching ground, stopping Elsa's assault dead and throwing her back under the impact. This brief respite allowed Trizz to draw his sword with mathematical precision. Seeing the obstacle vanish, the killer used the left wall, devoured by flames, to spring like a coil toward her opponent's face. In a calm breath, Trizz placed his blade in opposition.

​Trizz: "Shamak."

​A cloud of absolute darkness exploded between them, a sphere of sensory vacuum that instantly deprived Elsa of her sight, her hearing, and her orientation. But, true to her predatory nature, she relied on her wild instinct to track her prey through the black mist.

​Sensing the snap of a twig beneath a boot, Elsa pivoted and launched herself like an ebony arrow toward the source of the noise, certain she would find the Architect's throat.

​Elsa: "What?!..."

​Her blades met only emptiness. In Trizz's place, she found only a small black sphere that suddenly lit up. The light turned from pure white to bright orange, then to deep crimson in a silent detonation. Elsa felt her body tilt into the abyss as the floor gave way beneath her. A burning beam and a sharp piece of debris pierced her back and skull during her fall.

​She crashed heavily onto the lower floor, in the mansion's great parlor, which had also been transformed into an inferno. Her vision was now tinted red due to massive internal hemorrhaging and multiple fractures that would have killed any living being. Only her agonizing regeneration kept her in this world, enduring the exact damage Trizz had calculated to neutralize her without yet finishing her off.

​Elsa, on the ground, was nothing more than a broken doll, but her violet eyes shone with a sickly devotion.

​Elsa: (Voice cracking with pain and pleasure) "To wound me so... to break me to make me feel the full force of your design... It is magnificent, Pride-sama"

Trizz slowly sheathed his sword. He had drawn it not out of necessity, but as bait, playing with Elsa's impulses to better blind her. Everything, from the duel with Garfiel to this collapse, was merely a solved equation.

​Trizz: "I broke you, Elsa. Your allies are neutralized, and it isn't your pitiful state that disgusts me most... it's the fact that you abandoned Meili to seek this end here. You truly are pathetic as a sister."

​Elsa remained on her knees, her legs fractured, her cheeks still flushed with the excitement and adrenaline saturating her senses.

​Elsa: "For your information... Meili and I are not related by blood. I grew up in Gusteko, a country where the cold spares no one. But I don't need to describe that place to you... you are Pride-sama. You surely already know every darkest corner of the world."

​Trizz: "Is that where you developed your obsession with entrails? That country is a landfill of neuroses. The majority of madmen I cross today originate from there."

​Elsa: "You already know everything... without me even having to speak, you see right through me. You are perfect, Pride-sama!"

​Trizz stepped forward and crouched to meet her level. His crimson gaze plunged into the killer's demented violet pupils.

​Trizz: "Elsa, I have a proposal for you. Become my blade. The one who will protect me in the shadows, where no one else can go."

​Elsa: "Your blade? Oh, Pride-sama... You know I already belong to an organization. Despite all the love I bear for you... I must decline your offer."

​Trizz: "The Organization of Lust? Do you truly prefer Capella? That Archbishop whose sadism borders on stupidity?"

​At the mention of "Mama," Elsa froze. Even for a Bowel Hunter, the name Capella evoked a monster better left unnamed.

​Trizz: "If you return there after this third failure, do you really think she'll let you live? And Meili? She is the real leverage, isn't she? Her danger is there, not here."

​Elsa did not answer. For the first time, she looked away, staring at the charred wood on the ground. Suddenly, a soft, almost protective warmth enveloped her. She looked up, surprised by the aura emanating from the man before her.

​Trizz: "I am the Archbishop of Pride, Elsa. I am asking you one last time: become my blade, and Meili shall be my tamer. I will do everything in my power to keep you alive. I would stake my own existence on it if necessary. That is my proof."

​A heavy silence settled, disturbed only by the crackling of the fire. Then, a metallic sound echoed on the stone floor. The kukris—those blades Elsa had never let go of throughout her entire career as a killer—now lay in the ash.

​Trizz: "Meili is also a little sister to me. You helped me destroy the Cult. And in the forest... admit it you recognized me in my female form thanks to my scent, and yet, you did not denounce me. Choose me, Elsa."

​Sensing that the mansion's structure would not hold much longer, the Architect did not wait for the killer's formal response. The main beams groaned above them, ready to collapse in a deluge of embers. Without another word, Trizz leaned down and delicately lifted her in his arms, bridal-style. He instantly activated his Authority's buff to decuple his own speed. This time, the aura enveloping him did not take its usual crimson hue but a nearly transparent, furtive glow as he lunged through the flaming debris.

​Elsa: "What a bloody fairy-tale ending... where the distraught princess falls in love with her jailer, right after he smashed half her bones."

​Trizz: "A macabre ending indeed. But to be precise, let's say instead that a psychopathic, predatory princess falls in love with her prey, simply because he defended himself with a bit too much force."

​Elsa let out a crystalline laugh, a pure and terrifying sound reminiscent of shattering glass. Trizz ignored this manifestation of morbid joy, his gaze fixed straight ahead, cutting through the thick curtains of fire to find the exit before hell closed in on them.

​[ Somewhere in the dark forest... ]

​Amidst the dense and partially charred vegetation, a young girl with blue braids busied herself nervously. Forehead beaded with sweat, Meili pulled with all her might on a long, heavy branch with her small, frail hands. She dragged it painfully toward a makeshift campfire she had just set up.

​Her large emerald eyes rose for a moment toward the pale moon, praying silently that her big sister would make it out. She had seen horrible things with her own eyes; she knew that even a broken neck wasn't always enough to kill Elsa, but doubt gnawed at her. Once, she had naively believed that the Archbishops of the Cult were invincible monsters by nature. But her certainties had shattered.

​Meili: (Whispering to herself in the night) "Onii-sama defeated and humiliated the Great Archbishop of Sloth before my eyes... just with a complex plan. If he can do that, Elsa is in real danger against him..."

​But her Onii-sama had made her a solemn promise. He had sworn to bring her back alive.

​Meili: "I really hope you keep your word, Onii-sama..."

​She gave the branch a sharp tug and finally brought it near the fire. The crackling heat of the area chased away the freezing humidity of the woods. She threw in a few medicinal leaves with burnt edges; the acrid smoke they released was not toxic to human lungs, but remarkably effective at keeping away insects and parasites. It was Elsa who had taught her this survival trick during a cold night in Gusteko.

​Placing the branch across to consolidate an improvised mattress made of long fern leaves and thin wood, she tried to make the camp bed as comfortable as possible. Even if Elsa's ultra-violent and bloodthirsty behavior sometimes made her uneasy, the killer was the only person who had truly welcomed and protected her when Meili still lived like a wild beast amidst her pack of mabeasts.

​Meili: (Carefully adjusting the leaves) "Even if she seems very strange at times, she never hurt me... Once, she even let Mama torture her in my place, just because I had failed a mission."

​While Meili understood absolutely nothing of this sickly obsession with entrails, she knew she herself was full of flaws, lost, without knowing who she truly was. But when she thought of her Onii-sama... she could find no fault in him. He always seemed to be one step ahead, always so calm, dominating every situation from above.

​She thought back to that mysterious boy who had protected her secret identity from the villagers without demanding anything in return. Instead of turning her into a disposable tool as Capella did, he had raised her to the rank of an intellectual partner. With him, she no longer launched her mabeasts at random in stupid chaos; she directed them with fearsome precision to execute a perfect score. He had given meaning to her power.

​Meili: "Onii-sama is the only adult to see me as a true partner... not as just a broken toy."

​Sitting on a flat tree stump to catch her breath, she pricked up her ears. The sound of heavy but steady footsteps approached her direction, crushing the cold ashes. She knew instinctively it was them. Feverishly pushing aside a bush of dead leaves, her heart gave a leap.

She saw Elsa. The killer was covered in blood, her clothes in tatters, her body hideously mutilated, but she was being carried firmly in the arms of her Onii-sama. The latter, by contrast, was miraculously intact. Not a single scratch marked his skin, and his dark cultist robe remained immaculately clean, defying all logic after having crossed a mansion in flames and faced assassins.

​Meili: (Rushing toward them, her voice trembling) "Onii-sama! Elsa... is she alright?! She's bleeding so much!"

​Trizz stepped forward calmly into the flickering light of the campfire. He scanned the environment and immediately noticed the camp bed Meili had skillfully improvised. With unexpected gentleness, he knelt and laid Elsa's bruised body upon it.

​Then, he stood up and sat heavily on the flat tree stump Meili had just vacated. He passed a gloved hand over his forehead to wipe away an invisible fatigue, his crimson eyes rising toward the starry sky split by smoke in the distance.

​Trizz: "Calm down, Meili. Elsa is fine. Through the shock of my attack, I forced her body into an emergency state; she is currently in full regeneration. She is absolutely no longer in mortal danger. I have kept my promise, and you have perfectly kept yours with the beasts. We are even."

​Night had fallen over the devastated forest. Near the crackling campfire that chased away the biting humidity of the air, Meili sat close against Trizz. Their gazes were lost in the vastness of the night sky when, suddenly, an anomaly tore through the darkness. A bright pink light, almost blinding, sliced through the clouds at a dizzying speed, leaving a trail of pure mana in its wake. Her eyes wide with wonder and confusion, the young girl turned to the only being who seemed to always know everything.

​Meili: "Onii-sama... did you see what just happened? Look up there! Do you think it's a magic shooting star?"

​Trizz: "Meili, that is anything but a star. It's just the idiot Subaru and my former mistress, Beatrice. They have finally signed a pact. That light is the birth of their contract."

​Meili frowned, desperately searching for the logic in the actions of these strange inhabitants of the mansion. Her Onii-sama would make an absolutely perfect contractor! But that fickle Great Spirit had preferred to choose that boy with the scary eyes, a weak being devoid of talent. It was deeply illogical.

​Meili: "But Onii-sama... why didn't she choose you? You were her apprentice, you were the person closest to her! Unlike that Onii-san with the scary eyes who is totally incompetent and useless on a battlefield..."

​Trizz looked down at the child and let out a small, muffled laugh, his gloved hand delicately stroking the girl's blue braids.

​Trizz: "Exactly. I left my mistress to that idiot for a very simple reason as you so rightly pointed out, he is incompetent. Therefore, he has a vital need for someone very powerful to protect him daily. I won't always be there to watch his back."

​Meili still didn't understand. Why did her brilliant Onii-sama prefer to burden himself with the friendship of an impulsive boy and a far-too-naive half-elf? With his crushing intellect and his magic, he could make the entire kingdom of Lugnica kneel at his feet. Yet, he preferred to remain hidden in the shadows.

​Meili: "But Onii-sama, why do you stay with them? It's illogical! You are the greatest genius that Elsa and I have ever met, yet you prefer to stay in the mud with the weak instead of taking your rightful place."

​Trizz: "Meili, humans call that friendship. And to add a small clarification to your analysis I represent the sin of Pride, not Vanity. If I were truly greedy for light and power as you describe, how would you have been able to meet your Onii-sama today? It is somewhat thanks to my choices that we are gathered tonight, isn't it?"

​Her Onii-sama had once again shown her the subtle nuances of his worldview. And he wasn't wrong. If he were chasing glory, he would be parading with the nobles of the capital at this very moment, abandoning his allies as those arrogant knights she hated so much would do. She much preferred that her Onii-sama stay in the shadows... with Elsa and her.

​Suddenly, before she had time to react, a gentle but firm hand pulled her down, causing her to topple onto a surface that was both firm and comforting. She had just been placed on her Onii-sama's lap.

​Meili: (Trying to sit up abruptly, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment) "But Onii-sama... what are you doing?! I'm not a baby anymore!"

​Trizz: "Meili, calm down. You must rest now. It is pitch black and you have worked far too much today for a child of your age. Sleep."

​Unable to fight the benevolent authority of that voice, she let herself fall back against him. The warmth of his body was soothing, and her eyelids, heavy with fatigue, began to close on their own. The last image she saw, just before sinking into sleep, was that of her Onii-sama pensively clutching a strange black pendant in the palm of his hand. But her mind was too clouded to dwell on it.

​[ A skip in time and space... ]

​The grass was an unreal green, waving under a breeze that had neither temperature nor origin. The sun, frozen at the zenith of an absolutely blue sky, bathed the infinite hill in an eternal light. In the center of this world of dreams, an elegant tea table topped by a white parasol hosted two guests.

​The man with ebony hair and a dark robe was slumped in his chair, both feet nonchalantly resting on the table, his gaze lost in the immaculate sky of the Citadel.

​Trizz: "Echidna... how many times has it been now that Subaru and I have died? My memory is seriously starting to play tricks on me with all these loops intertwining at the moment."

​Opposite him, sitting with imperturbable grace, the woman with long lunar-white hair and eyes as black as the void delicately raised a steaming teacup to her crystalline lips. She observed him with undisguised amusement.

​Echidna: "No. You will say 'Mistress Echidna' if you want an answer. Consider it a modest penance for allowing yourself to humiliate me publicly before my sisters the other day, Frizz."

​Trizz: (Sighing loudly, placing a theatrical hand on his forehead) "I get it, you capricious girl... Mistress Echidna, do you have the signal honor of using your sacred saliva to deign to say how many times the miserable buffoon sitting across from you has bitten the dust?"

​Echidna: "That is much better. Twenty-one times. Including the last one where you deliberately killed Subaru with your own hands because you had finally found the perfect loop to force the signing of a contract with Roswaal. It is a magnificent method, don't you think?"

​A suspicious thought suddenly crossed the Architect's mind. He slowly took his feet off the table and sat up, staring the Witch of Wisdom straight in the eyes, his crimson gaze sharpening.

​Trizz: "Echidna... admit it. You've known for a while how I could finally kill that Leith golem for good, haven't you? But you chose to hide it from me just to watch me struggle?"

​Without a hint of shame, Echidna elegantly placed her porcelain cup back on the saucer. She crossed her hands under her chin and gave him a smile of a sincerity as radiant as it was sickly.

​Echidna: "Indeed. I figured out his secret around the fifteenth loop. To be perfectly honest, I was truly wondering how a mind as brilliant as yours could have failed to notice it sooner. It was fascinating to watch."

​Trizz: "So you knew and you let me die on loop for your own entertainment... You wicked Witch."

​Echidna: (Letting out a crystalline laugh, pressing her hands against her cheeks flushed with excitement) "Yes! I am a naughty and wicked Witch! And you are bound to me!"

​Echidna: (Letting out a crystalline laugh, pressing her hands against her cheeks flushed with excitement) "Yes! I am a naughty and wicked Witch! And you are bound to me!"

[ final chapter of arc 4... ]