A ten-meter-high, two-person-thick stake, scorched black by the raging fire, had appeared less than ten meters in front of Rin at some unknown point.
The three-meter-high pyre had clear, large burn marks and ashes around the base of the stake. What was even more shocking to Rin was that on the stake, there was clearly a charred black humanoid figure with all four limbs bound by chains!
With a body leaning forward and bowed low, it was clear from the posture that it was a young girl, but her skin, hair, clothing, and features had all been carbonized and burned away in the flames, leaving behind only a charred black remnant of a body.
This… is… Joan… of Arc!
So-called heroes… so-called saints… in the end, is this all that remains?
No matter how many times she had read history books, how many historical accounts she had seen, even knowing that she met such an end, to witness firsthand the ultimate fate of the hero who once saved France… this is the fate of a so-called hero.
"Joan of Arc—!!!"
A wail of grief drowned out all the chaotic screams, rising from an open space not far from Rin. When Rin turned to the source of the sound, she couldn't help but exclaim immediately:
"Marshal C?!"
His smooth, youthful face showed prominent skull lines, making him appear unusually gaunt and strange. His exposed eyeballs were as large as incandescent light bulbs, as if they had no eyelids to cover them, and his brown face, which suited him well, made one think of Munch's paintings. His clothing was also very peculiar and strange; he wore a wide, old, long robe stained with blackened blood, with a thick collar around his neck.
Gilles de Rais, the French Marshal who went mad over Joan of Arc's death and fell into black magic.
"God! Why didn't you save her?! She was so sacred!… So devout! Why did you abandon her?!!!…"
"Joan of Arc… you were abandoned by the France you saved… they betrayed you! The damned king gave up on you to spare a little ransom! Joan of Arc!…"
"France betrayed you… God didn't save you either… Why is this? Why did this happen?!"
"God! This is your joke, isn't it?! You stand high in the heavens, looking down and toying with these faithful humans! God doesn't love humans at all, because humans are nothing more than God's toys! You mock those who pray to you in suffering, watching them cry out and still mumble 'God bless'—you must be very happy!!! Very amused!!! How pathetic they are!"
"Revenge! I will have revenge! For Joan of Arc, against this France… against these foolish humans… against God… against the entire world!!! Joan of Arc! Watch me! God! I, Gilles de Rais, hereby willingly descend into hell, transforming into a demon, to drag you down from heaven!"
"Joan of Arc! With me, let us take revenge on France, on humanity, on God!!!"
He cried out in hoarse despair, screaming with a broken heart, driven mad by overwhelming grief, hating everything with a furious intensity. Rin watched Marshal C, running and wailing like a madman before Joan of Arc's pyre, shouting for revenge for Joan of Arc, against God, against the entire world. This act was foolish, but so foolish it left no room for laughter.
Viewing Joan of Arc as his everything, his dream, his wish, his life, his faith, Gilles de Rais was willing to fall into hell for Joan of Arc. His only wish when answering the Holy Grail's summons in the Fourth Holy Grail War was for Joan of Arc to be resurrected.
However, whatever Gilles de Rais was like in the real world, at least in this Nasuverse, he was a pathetic man who had gone completely mad for love.
Given this, that wisp of negative emotional obsession, rootless yet persisting for centuries, must have been left behind by Marshal C when he wept and cried out for Joan of Arc here all those years ago. This illusory world, now materialized, should be the Third Magic re-enacting the deepest scenes from the soul's fluctuations, thereby solidifying the soul and manifesting it in the present world.
Marshal C left behind the obsession, so the one being summoned by the current ritual is—
It seems it can only be Marshal C… Rin was dumbfounded… Marshal C, although his devout and mad love for Joan of Arc was not fake in the slightest, in terms of combat power, this guy is severely unqualified!
He himself had no Magus talent or formal training. The reason he was summoned as a "Caster" was entirely due to his possession of the Italian translation of the grimoire "book of the abyss of the spiral labyrinth (codex of the spiral city)" created by the Magus François Prelati, that grimoire bound in human skin. It could summon and command Sea Monsters and possessed the ability to act as a magical core, capable of activating high-level Magecraft and ritual curses regardless of the caster's own magical power.
But his own combat power was truly pathetic. Although he summoned a huge servant in the original plot, which was horrifying, that thing had no practical use whatsoever. Rin wasn't a perverted serial killer like Ryunosuke.
"Stop it!!!"
The Third Magic, coveted by all Maguss, summoned such a madman! Rin instantly broke down, her wails even louder than Marshal C's cries!
Unfortunately, the entire operation of this ritual was left by the future Rin, and Rin only had the ability to activate it and, ultimately, contract as the Master. So once the target was confirmed and the ritual activated, it could only proceed to completion.
Just as Rin was considering whether to directly break the contract once the magic was complete, an unexpected change occurred in the sky…
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