"Those who wish to desert... let them go," Seraph stated, his voice a flat, emotionless rasp. "Many are no longer in a condition to wage war. Their presence on the field will serve only to inflate the tally of the slain."
The assembly fixed their gaze upon him, sensing the unspoken intent. Though his words were as frigid as a winter frost, every hunter understood that Seraph was shielding those whose spirits were already broken.
"That's an impossibility!" Mordant countered, his voice straining with refusal. "Military law cannot be subverted! I grant them my pity... but we cannot permit the collapse of Arkflame simply because of an overabundance of compassion."
"Laws are the inscriptions of men," Seraph replied with glacial composure. "Therefore, they always admit of exception."
"What are you suggesting?" Mordant questioned, his eyes narrowing.
"I'll stand in the stead of those who withdraw," Seraph declared, his words carrying the finality of a death warrant. "I am confident that I can purge all five hundred Crawlers myself."
"You are confident? Are you truly certain of this?!" Mordant asked, his tone betraying a profound disbelief at the magis's audacity.
"At the very least, do we not possess detailed intelligence on our quarry?" Seraph reasoned, his logic as sharp as a scalpel. "At the very least, do we not have the Ragguard garrison as a rearguard? And at the very least, we are not trapped in a lightless forest alone... I can only hope the Goddess will not be too unkind to me."
"Understood..." Mordant finally conceded, the weight of the magis's presence breaking his military rigidity. "I will defer to your counsel, Seraph, for this singular instance... I will turn a blind eye should any contender vanish before our hull scrapes the stones of the battlefield—"
He paused, his features darkening into a mask of serrated steel as his voice regained its lethal edge.
"But let this be etched into your marrow: once you set foot upon the Ragguard front, there is no retreat! I hold the mandate to execute any soul who deserts the heat of the Great Demon War! On this point of martial law, I brook no exception!" the Captain thundered, his tone a jagged blade.
He swept his gaze across the assembly, branding the decree into the minds of the remaining nine hundred and fourteen.
"My thanks... though I must say, this 'luxury cruise' lacks the charm the Arkflame recruitment posters promised," Seraph remarked, a sliver of gallows humor his only way to cut through the suffocating air.
Dant offered the young man a ghost of a smile before striding from the Great Hall. The hundred wardens withdrew their mageia spears in a silent, rhythmic motion, following their commander into the gloom of the corridors. The bulkhead doors remained ajar; a yawning invitation for any who wished to claim their freedom and forsake their pride.
The heavy, retreating echo of Dant's boots faded into a hollow silence, leaving a cacophony of unspoken grief and fractured resolve in its wake. This muster of elite hunters, once ten thousand strong and brimming with high affinity, was now reduced to a pittance. Only the heavy, ragged breath of fewer than a thousand survivors filled the air.
Their pulses hammered in erratic, frantic rhythms. Their eyes were wells of terror, indecision, and a rot of despair. They stood in a daze of confusion—caught between the instinct to flee and the grim compulsion to march toward a gate where the Reaper stood in patient welcome at the threshold of the spirit realm.
Some cast their gazes toward the magis, Seraph, with eyes heavy with unspoken gratitude. Others could do no more than fix their stares upon the deck, bowed by a suffocating mantle of shame. A few collapsed against the bulkheads, clutching their knees as they wept without a shred of pride, while others wore twisted, jagged grins—a grim acceptance of a cruel and unyielding fate.
Yet some, Seraph among them, possessed eyes of tempered steel, fixed and absolute. The young man understood with cold clarity that this was no longer a mere contest nor a ritualised hunt. This was a total, existential war between man and demon—and they were the vanguard standing between life and the abyss.
✧ . ✶ . ❂ . ✶ . ✧
Ten hours bled away into a sharp, biting chill.
The airship cut through the frozen firmament, surging Northwest with predatory velocity. A blizzard was gathering its strength; the sky was a bruised, cerulean expanse, and the gales lashed the upper decks with enough fury to hurl the unwary into the void.
Following this prolonged transit, the majority of the demon hunters had finally succumbed to a deep, restorative slumber. These hours had granted them the reprieve necessary to replenish their mana reserves and reclaim a measure of their former stamina. Though they had not yet ascended to the zenith of their potency, they were a far cry from the fractured husks who had stood trembling in the Great Hall.
Now, the airship was alive with the rhythmic tread of hunters pacing the corridors. The air was thick with the low hum of tactical discourse and the forging of battle-plans. The frantic terror and cacophony of the briefing had withered; in its place, a cold, clinical lucidity had taken root.
Once the warriors had mastered their nerves, they reconvened to broker a fresh compact among themselves—
Those demon hunters whose sinews had been frayed by injury, rendering them unfit for the coming storm, alongside those who harboured the cold realisation of their own inadequacy, chose at last to withdraw from the Bloody Hunting.
Yet, even in the shadow of war, it was the season of the hunt. Across every hamlet and fortress, the culling of demons remained a macabre festival of necessity; the Ragguard Fortress itself had long served as a teeming hub for those who made a vocation of slaughtering the abyss.
Thus, a new consensus was forged. Ragguard was even now issuing desperate bounties for additional blades to secure its ramparts and purge the swarms festering at its gates—foes that extended far beyond the Crawler packs. The hunters who had renounced their standing in the Bloody Hunting decided to descend upon the city alongside their more resolute peers.
They pledged to facilitate the exodus of the civilians and to engage any Crawler or demonic entity that managed to breach the inner sanctum of the fortress. By accepting these local mandates, they could bolster their coin while serving the realm, ensuring that their blades did not remain idle even as they stepped out of the official competition.
This was the most prudent path for all. Although the ranks of the official challengers were halved by this exodus, the spirit of the mission remained unyielding. The Bloody Hunting was, at its core, a contest—but their presence as a support vanguard was a boon that could not be disregarded.
In this grim age, a strategic retreat was itself a facet of valour. By preserving their pulses and growing in potency with each passing day, they ensured they could continue to reap the demonic harvest for years to come. It was a far nobler end than to be extinguished in a fit of futile bravado, for a dead hunter slays no demons.