When the horde of Sarkaz raiders heard Jeanne's bone-chilling voice, a cold dread seized them. It was a voice that sounded as though it had crawled back from the deepest recesses of the underworld, causing them to instinctively shudder. Yet, despite the tremor of fear, they instantly readied themselves for combat.
In their eyes, the adversary barring their path was merely a slender, delicate young woman accompanied by a small child who seemed like nothing more than dead weight. It was a laughably fragile pairing.
Even so, not a single raider dared to underestimate her. For a person to willfully step into the open and intercept a force of their size, she had to possess some manner of hidden leverage or a trump card she believed could crush them.
In an instant, the restless murmuring within the raider ranks died away. A heavy, suffocating silence blanketed the wasteland, broken only by the crackle of the flames devouring the dry earth. The two sides locked eyes, watching each other with intense, unwavering vigilance.
On her side, Jeanne was meticulously evaluating the hostiles arrayed before her. While their armaments were by no means top-tier military grade, such equipment was considered exceptionally formidable for marauders operating in this sector.
She couldn't help but feel a touch of pity; had these men chosen to channel their resources into forming a legitimate mercenary company rather than orchestrating highway robberies, they could have carved out a respectable living. Why did they insist on inflicting such cruel misery upon others?
Jeanne kept these thoughts to herself, her expression remaining entirely detached as she looked down upon the rabble. It mattered little what historical grievances or desperate circumstances had driven them down this blood-stained path; the moment they crossed her path, their luck had officially run out.
"Well now, what brings a young lady like you out to these parts? Judging by your entrance, it seems we walk the same line of work!"
The Sarkaz leader strode forward, offering a booming greeting. He flashed a smile so radiant and enthusiastic one might have thought he had just run into a beloved childhood friend he hadn't seen in over a decade.
"What do you say to a little partnership? We strike the town together, and when the dust settles, we split the plunder down the middle—fifty-fifty. Sound fair?"
The leader's proposition triggered an immediate wave of restless agitation through the ranks behind him. The raiders muttered in fierce dissatisfaction, utterly bewildered as to why their commander would volunteer such a massive percentage of the spoils to a single outsider.
Yet, despite the boiling resentment rippling through the horde, not a single mercenary possessed the courage to voice an objection aloud. They knew their commander far too well to take his jovial demeanor at face value.
To mistake him for a soft-hearted leader was a fatal error. Beneath that warm smile was a ruthless monster who took immense pleasure in meticulously flaying the flesh from those who defied him, transforming his insubordination problems into snacks to accompany his wine.
His current compliance was nothing more than a calculated ruse. He intended to placate this dangerous interloper with sweet promises, biding his time until her guard dropped so he could systematically eliminate her.
Or perhaps executing her wasn't even necessary. Taking her alive seemed a far more lucrative alternative; the girl possessed remarkably striking features, and keeping her as a personal prize wouldn't be a bad outcome at all.
Even the little girl standing beside her showed promise—to remain standing in the face of such a terrifying host proved she possessed an uncommon baseline of raw courage. If they brought her into the fold, they might just cultivate a phenomenally capable enforcer for the syndicate.
"There is no need," Jeanne interrupted smoothly, cutting his elaborate pitch short. Her patience had officially evaporated, and her voice carried a freezing blend of absolute boredom and profound disdain.
She didn't need to be a telepath to discern the foul machinations churning in his mind.
Yet, she felt no real anger. Given the situation, it was entirely beneath her dignity to waste emotional energy on a dead man's theoretical fantasies. She merely needed to ensure they departed this world post-haste.
As for whatever excruciating torments awaited his soul once he descended into the afterlife, that was fundamentally outside a living person's jurisdiction. Jeanne possessed absolute faith that the true denizens of the underworld would provide him with an unforgettable reception.
Was there any risk of harming an innocent bystander among them? Jeanne could guarantee with absolute certainty that if she were to line this entire horde up and execute them on the spot, there wouldn't be a single miscarriage of justice. The sheer volume of hatred and unresolved malice clinging to their souls had grown so dense it was practically manifesting as a physical aura.
She was entirely certain that this man had never harbored a noble thought in his life. He was a cancer upon this world, the accumulated weight of his victims' agonizing resentment wrapping around his form like a heavy, suffocating shroud.
How many lives had this monster extinguished to manifest a spiritual stain of this magnitude? For the unavenged dead to coalesce into a visible miasma, the body count had to number in the thousands at least.
Confronted with an abomination of this scale, Jeanne's operational protocol was beautifully simple: bypass all useless dialogue and erase his biological signature from the face of the earth. It was the only proper conclusion he deserved.
"You..." The leader's visage twisted violently, the pure disdain dripping from Jeanne's voice shattering his fragile pride. He felt a searing wave of humiliation wash over him in front of his entire crew.
In an instant, the carefully cultivated mask of the reasonable businessman shattered, replaced by a hideous, snarling distortion of pure rage as his authority was compromised.
His men recognized that expression instantly. It was the exact same face he wore whenever he was about to systematically dismantle a rebellious subordinate—a predatory hunger to tear the flesh from their bones and consume it raw.
Yet, just as he prepared to bark the lethal command for his entire force to swarm the woman and take her alive for his evening entertainment, a variable materialized that completely transcended his comprehension.
Before a single raider could register a shift in the atmosphere, the earth beneath their boots ruptured. A massive thicket of jagged, pitch-black iron spikes erupted from the soil, impaling the mercenaries in a fractions of a second and hoisting them high into the air.
By some agonizingly precise design, the black thorns deliberately avoided every single vital organ. Not a single raider was granted the mercy of a swift death from blood loss or shock.
Instead, the agony was absolute. The iron spikes were lined with cruel, jagged barbs that tore deeper into their flesh with every involuntary spasm of their bodies, shredding their muscles further as a torrential rain of crimson saturated the parched earth below.
"Ah... Aaagh! My leg!!! My leg!!!"
The wasteland was instantly consumed by a discordant symphony of shrill, piercing shrieks. The collective agony was so grating that even Jeanne found herself wanting to cover her ears. She decided to simply let them wail for a moment; it wasn't as though they could be reasoned with anytime soon anyway.
"Fafnir, make them be quiet," Jeanne requested gently, tapping the young dragon who had wrapped herself tightly around her leg like a protective living accessory, her eyes locked onto the squirming mass below.
Hearing Jeanne assign her a task, Fafnir instantly electrified with excitement! She had been desperate to assist Jeanne throughout the entire journey, harboring a quiet frustration that she hadn't been permitted to unleash her power upon these wretched creatures.
In the subsequent heartbeat, Fafnir unleashed the ancient, terrifying majesty inherent to a true dragon. Her dark golden eyes locked onto the impaled horde, radiating the absolute, crushing aura of an apex predator looking down upon insects.
The moment that catastrophic, suffocating pressure descended upon the valley—condensing the very air into a leaden weight—the agonizing shrieks of the Sarkaz raiders died instantly in their throats. They strained their jaws wide, gasping desperately like fish pulled from water, fundamentally incapable of producing a single vibration of sound.
"Originally, my intention was to simply summon a wall of flame and grant you all a swift incineration," Jeanne murmured, her voice carrying a solemn weight as she drove the butt of her standard heavily into the cracked earth. She drew her gleaming sword from its scabbard, pointing the tip directly at the hoisted marauders.
"But the moment I looked into your souls, I changed my mind. Monsters like you deserve to be consumed by the very hatred of the innocent lives you destroyed."
Her voice rose, ringing across the wastes like a divine decree:
"Gather, O tides of accumulated sorrow, and manifest upon this ground! Let the lingering resentment borne by your victims ignite into the fires of absolute retribution. Here and now, let the flames of vengeance sever the chains of karma—"
"Roar, my fury!" (Gah, I am so incredibly pissed off!)
The pitch-black miasma of collective hatred and malice was abruptly ignited by Jeanne's authority. A dark, unnatural fire cascaded up the iron thorns, systematically enveloping the raiders in an inferno of pure agony. Their jaws stretched wide in silent, horrific screams as the flames began to slowly cook them alive.
This fire was engineered to deny them a swift release; it was a slow, agonizing burn designed to ensure they experienced the maximum threshold of physical torment before their life signatures finally collapsed.
Jeanne stood perfectly motionless, her eyes anchoring the grim spectacle until the raiders hovered on the absolute precipice of expiration. Satisfied, she turned on her heel, preparing to depart the battlefield.
To her surprise, however, the little accessory attached to her leg didn't move. Fafnir remained perfectly anchored to the spot, her hyper-fixated gaze locked onto the smoldering ruins of the enemy force, her body entirely rigid.
"Ruaaa—!"
Before Jeanne could even inquire about her status, a torrent of primordial draconic fire erupted from Fafnir's jaws. The stream condensed into a catastrophic orb of white-hot plasma as it cleaved through the air, detonating with apocalyptic force the moment it connected with the earth.
When the dust settled, the raiders who had been lingering on the verge of death were completely erased, their physical structures reduced to absolute nothingness within the epicenter of the blast.
"They tried to bully Jeanne!" Fafnir said, spinning back to face her guardian. Her lower lip quivered slightly, her tone laced with a mix of righteous indignation and childlike vulnerability, looking thoroughly aggrieved on Jeanne's behalf.
Jeanne instantly understood the underlying logic. Fafnir had unleashed that final destructive strike purely because she had sensed the malicious, predatory intent those men had harbored toward her. She had taken life simply to soothe Jeanne's perceived grievances.
"Yes, they certainly did try to bully me," Jeanne smiled softly, her heart swelling with profound affection as she reached down to tenderly stroke Fafnir's head. "But I have nothing to fear, do I? After all, Fafnir was right here to protect me. Come along now, let's leave this place and find somewhere to secure a truly wonderful meal!"