"MELISSA—!!!"
Rage, despair, terror — gnawing at Klein's sanity like venomous insects. His heart felt as though an invisible fist had crushed it to pulp. Agony and the urge to destroy everything flooded his body, blackening his vision until all he could hear was the roar of his own blood boiling.
He kicked off the ground and hurled himself at the one-eyed man. Nighthawks, protecting Tingen, the spawn of an evil god — he didn't care about any of it. The only thing in his mind was killing this man.
Ince Zangwill withdrew his arm with cold indifference. Melissa's body, bereft of support, crumpled silently like a leaf torn apart by a storm. He didn't even glance at her, tossing the lifeless shell aside with one hand and catching the bone-ash box as it slipped from her slack fingers with the other.
At that moment, Megose's body spasmed, mustering one final flicker of life force, and lunged at Ince.
Ince merely smiled coldly and stuffed Melissa's heart — still scalding, still twitching — into the frigid box.
Woo! Woo! Woo!
A nightmarish wail rose to a piercing shriek, carrying suffocating malice as it surged toward Megose. Countless cold, black threads coiled and constricted with frenzied abandon, bringing an absolute, existence-erasing stillness that forcibly tore the "infant" from Megose's distended belly — crushing it, annihilating it into nothingness.
When the last trace of the "infant" vanished, Megose's body detonated as though packed with explosives, erupting into a scattering of charred, reeking meat. She was dead.
"I'll kill you!!!"
Watching Klein charge at him, Ince Zangwill's lips curled into a cold, amused arc — like a man admiring a moth throwing itself at a flame. He strode forward to meet the rush, his single eye glinting with cruelty, ready to crush this insect who'd gotten in his way one too many times.
But just then, Klein vanished — melting into a shadow and disappearing. The next instant, he emerged from the shadow behind Ince Zangwill.
Ince's pupil contracted. Shock flooded his mind: Klein is a Sequence 8 Clown — how can he use Shadow Jump?
He twisted to dodge, but Leonard was already rushing in from another angle, Blood Vessel Thief gripped tight, relentlessly trying to steal this man's abilities while firing shot after shot.
Ince swept a hand out, about to open his Underworld Gate, when a wave of drowsiness crashed over him — Dunn, clinging to his last reserves, had activated Nightmare once more.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Though the forced sleep lasted only seconds, Klein seized the opening from the shadows behind Ince. Three bullets, without warning, fired into the back of his skull.
Pfft! Pfft!
Ince jerked awake and tried desperately to dodge, but only managed to shift his head aside. Two rounds punched into his back, sending up twin sprays of red, and by dodging backward he'd left his front open — Leonard's bullet caught him in the chest.
As a Sequence 5 Gatekeeper, the three shots hadn't hit anything vital, but the tearing of flesh still wrung a hissing snarl of pain from him. He instantly kicked the charging Leonard away, then seized Klein by the throat, hoisting him off the ground. His five fingers clamped down, about to snap his neck.
But Klein only stared, unblinking, into Ince Zangwill's eye, and spat a single word in Hermes:
"Light!"
The Flaring Sun Charm, covered in mystical patterns, instantly turned white-hot — as though it had become a miniature sun.
"!!!"
Ince Zangwill roared in fury: "How do you have a second charm?!"
Through the Quill, he'd confirmed beyond doubt that Klein only had one Flaring Sun Charm today!
He hurled Klein away without hesitation, simultaneously retreating at full speed and opening the Underworld Gate within his body, intending to use the spirits he'd cultivated to weather the blast — but to his shock, the relevant Beyonder ability had suddenly vanished.
Leonard, clutching his cracked ribs where the kick had landed, forced himself upright. His eyes locked onto Ince Zangwill, and he activated the Corrupted Words he'd stolen with Blood Vessel Thief: "Sluggish!"
Ince's retreating figure slowed without warning. At the same instant, the Flaring Sun Charm erupted. Blazing, blinding light swallowed everything once more.
Klein shifted into shadow the moment it detonated, but the blast's heat still caught him — even ducking into darkness couldn't spare him entirely.
"AAAAGH!"
Ince Zangwill felt every inch of his skin and flesh searing in that instant, the extreme heat seeming to penetrate through to his organs and roast them from within. The metal bone-ash box, superheated, fused to his skin like a branding iron.
But this wasn't the end. It was only the beginning.
With no time left to finish off those in front of him, Ince frantically pulled out the quill and scrawled on the notebook — which the quill itself had protected from the flames: "A passing spirit, friendly to Ince Zangwill, extended a helping hand…"
Almost simultaneously, a rift split open in the space behind him. Several tentacles seized him and yanked him through into the spirit world, where he disappeared into a kaleidoscope of colours.
"NO!!!"
Klein fought through the burning pain wracking his entire body, scrambling to his feet and lunging forward — only to grasp at empty air.
Seconds later, the reality hit him. He half-crawled, half-stumbled to Melissa's side, gathered her into his arms, and screamed in panic: "Captain! Leonard! Hurry! Come help me save Melissa! HURRY!"
"..."
Leonard's face was ashen. He looked at the dead Melissa, at the Captain lying legless in a pool of blood, at Klein who'd lost his mind — and his hands clenched tight. He stood there, dazed, consumed by self-blame. This was the second time. The second time he'd watched a comrade die right before his eyes and been able to do nothing.
"Hurry! What are you standing there for?! Save Melissa! Save her!"
Leonard staggered over to Klein and said softly: "Klein. Melissa is dead."
Klein went still. The hope in his eyes guttered out. His head dropped, gaze falling on Melissa's eyes — still wide open. A searing pain struck, and his consciousness began to blur.
As darkness swept in, he lost all awareness.
...
After entering the spirit world, Ince Zangwill used the quill to commandeer spirit-world creatures and flee in a panic. Only once he was certain he'd left Tingen far behind — left Loen entirely — did he exit.
He was in a village near the capital of the Feysac Empire. Given the longstanding enmity between the Church of Evernight and the Church of the God of Combat, he'd chosen this place to lie low.
The moment his feet touched ground, he staggered several steps and collapsed face-first, his charred, bleeding fingers clawing into the dirt.
"They… will all… DIE!!!"
Every inch of scorched skin and flesh screaming with pain, Ince Zangwill's fire-twisted, barely recognisable face was a mask of venom.
Everything today had been going according to his script. He'd used the evil god's spawn to flush out Saint Selena's Ashes. He'd been this close to wiping out those meddling pests once and for all.
And yet — why?
In the space of half a minute, one impossible thing after another had happened.
He, a Sequence 5 Gatekeeper, wielding a Grade 0 Sealed Artifact, had been wounded to this degree by one Sequence 7 and two Sequence 8s.
Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!
"I will make you suffer… a hundred times what I feel right now!!!"
With that thought, he looked down at the quill and notebook — and his pupil contracted. There, at the end of the notebook, were several paragraphs of text that had been written without his knowledge.
To be continued…
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