Before Malina joined her siblings she listened to Osian's warning exactly as it was, and hurriedly left the scene without looking back.
That sight was so unexpected that even Sabrina found it puzzling.
"Don't tell me she's running away leaving you behind? Malina's personality is completely dead. Of all things, leaving behind a comrade she came to rescue."
Sabrina knows Malina's personality well.
Her heart is too soft to become an assassin. Should I say she has too much unnecessary compassion? That's why she was even more harsh and cruel when teaching her.
Because for an assassin, emotion is poison.
Despite that, her stubbornness was incredible - no matter how much she tried to suppress her own ego, she never yielded. The reason she tried to give up her coveted talent and kill her was for that reason. Knowing she would never yield in the end, she wanted to just finish it here.
Naturally, she thought Malina would also fight her with everything she had. In fact, even after seeing that this side had gained power beyond her prime, didn't Malina keep charging to kill her?
'But she retreats like that after just one word?'
'What on earth could it be?'
Sabrina stared at Osian, the knight who had inflicted pain and wounds on Cardinal Zaxilos. Naturally, she knew he was a person requiring extreme caution.
But even so, isn't he just a master of personal combat who cuts down enemies one by one with a single sword? How many corrupted beings and Dead Dagger assassins are gathered here right now?
If they maintain distance and persistently engage in hit-and-run tactics while clinging to him, Osian wouldn't be able to move.
She doesn't know how sturdy that white armor is, but could it even block the shadow blades that penetrate through the gaps?
Thinking this, Sabrina discovered that Osian's armor was changing. The white color was being dyed yellow, then blazed with a golden color like the midday sun.
At the same time.
"……!"
Sabrina felt chills running through her entire body.
This sensation. She had felt it before. It was a sensation she often felt when she was young, during the time she killed the most people in the field.
The eerie feeling of death brushing past her neck. Every time she felt this, she had actually fallen into danger, and at the same time, she was able to survive thanks to this sensation.
It was an instinctive sensation she had practically forgotten after her rank rose and she commanded subordinates.
She doesn't know why it's raising its head again now. Moreover, now that she had gained skills far beyond her prime, there was no reason for her to feel such deathly eeriness.
Nevertheless, Sabrina's judgment was quick. No matter how rationally she thought and judged, she couldn't understand it, but she wrapped her body in shadows and distanced herself from Osian.
At the same time, she gave orders to the others.
"Kill him! Right now!"
The Dead Dagger assassins and corrupted beings who received that command all charged at Osian at once.
Front, back, left, right, and even the ceiling and ground. Everything in the world was trying to kill Osian.
Even watching this, Sabrina couldn't feel relieved because the sensation of death had been continuously growing stronger since a moment ago. The sensation dulled as she increased the distance, but she still couldn't let her guard down.
Soon after, Sabrina was able to witness the reason for her urgency.
Because a tremendous radiance began to swirl around where Osian was standing.
────!!!
It vaporized all the black-clothed assassins and bright red corrupted beings. The creatures that had been charging couldn't last even a second and vanished on the spot.
And simultaneously, along with an enormous heat storm, bright yellow flames began to spread, burning the entire passage.
In this red world where everything was twisted and only crawling horrors were scattered.
The sun had risen.
As soon as Krollakia saw the bright yellow energy surging from beyond the passage, she hoisted Senaka onto her shoulder and ran straight toward the rear.
Malina followed alongside her.
The bishop who had been fighting them couldn't immediately accept Krollakia’s sudden change in attitude. Rather, the massive force surging from beyond caught his attention.
Kieeeek!
He could feel the corrupted beings and believers he had positioned in the distance falling with screams. Soon it became visible to the naked eye. The surging golden flames burned everything they touched.
No, should this be called burning? If something burns in ordinary fire, it turns black and becomes ash. But this changed things it touched into a form that could be described as grinding them down.
This meant that the temperature contained in those flames exceeded imagination.
"How dare some bastard do such a thing!"
The bishop stepped forward boldly. He too was one who handled the power of fire. He didn't know what kind of bastard was wielding such hot flames, but he didn't think this side would lose.
The eyeballs sprouting all over his body stared in unison toward one direction. It was where the golden wave was surging. The moment the pupils of the rolling eyeballs contracted to a single point, bright red beams shot out long.
It was a heat ray that shot compressed high-temperature flames in a straight line. Such heat rays were fired from every eye on his body. At the same time, the bishop opened his three-layered mouth wide and breathed out flames.
Blood-colored flames and heat rays shot toward the golden wave in a single point.
-Paaah!
The moment they touched, they disappeared far too easily, making their momentum seem colorless.
"This……."
The bishop was about to say "What is this," but was immediately swept away by the wave of flames and vanished as if evaporating on the spot. For one who wielded the power of flame, it was too one-sided and futile an end.
The breath of the sun that had devoured fire continued to spread widely without any sign of stopping.
Zaxilos looked at Basilio and Delford, who hung in front of him like dried meat.
Despite their desperate escape, they couldn't shake off Zaxilos' persistent pursuit. Eventually, they ended up bound by tentacles and suspended in mid-air like being tied in cocoons.
"I'd like to punish you for troubling me this much, but I suppose I must endure."
These guys are valuable materials. The damage from this battle will already be enormous, so it would be troublesome not to prepare countermeasures for the aftermath.
The reinforcement of reduced forces had to be newly supplied with these guys here. If he did that, his authority and power would become stronger than before.
"But before that, I need to see your memories."
A mannequin made of muscle fibers without eyes, nose, or mouth approached Basilio. Basilio tried to counterattack using the diagram he had hidden in advance, but it couldn't even pierce Zaxilos' skin.
When his last resort was futilely thwarted, Basilio let out a groan.
Regardless, Zaxilos raised his index finger and brought it directly to Basilio's black mask.
He planned to pierce the guy's forehead with his finger, then penetrate to the brain to read those memories.
"I need to scrape out every corner to find out exactly where you got that power. Well, I roughly guess where it originated from."
According to Zaxilos' speculation, Basilio was likely made this way by Bishop Fedilac. Originally a black magician, he was able to rise to that position thanks to the experiment he participated in.
Of course, Bishop Fedilac wasn't the one who led that experiment.
He was merely one of the chief researchers of the experiment at the time, and the person responsible for leading that experiment was not Fedilac but his superior. An archbishop one rank higher than bishop. Among the few archbishops, the youngest blood who most recently ascended to the archbishop position.
"I'll have to ask Archbishop Phillis."
"Phillis?"
Basilio flinched and reacted to that name.
"You, what did you just say? Phillis? Why do you know that name?"
"Hmm? You're showing a strange reaction all of a sudden."
"How do you know that name! Archbishop? What are you talking about!"
It was the first emotional reaction Basilio had shown, who had been trying to probe this side somehow until now. Though he had vaguely expected it, this man was definitely made this way by Archbishop Phillis.
"You seem to have had a connection with Archbishop Phillis."
Zaxilos smiled slightly.
"But I don't need to tell you that. I just need to read your memories."
Zaxilos' finger touched the forehead of Basilio's mask with a tap. It seemed the mask had magical treatment, but it was only minor resistance at best.
It was the moment he was about to pierce through the mask and invade the brain with his finger.
"Uweeek!"
Zaxilos involuntarily dry heaved.
Beyond just dry heaving, the tentacles holding Basilio and Delford also writhed. Taking advantage of the weakened restraints, Delford tore apart all the tentacles with his claws.
Basilio, who had successfully escaped, stared at Zaxilos, who was suddenly dry heaving, with wary eyes.
"What's wrong all of a sudden?"
Just as he was about to read this side's memories, Zaxilos suddenly began complaining of pain. After dry heaving several times, Zaxilos soon raised his head.
There was a black mark on what could be called his abdomen. As if someone had burned it with fire.
"This, this damn bastard!"
Soon after, he spewed rough anger toward some unknown opponent. But before that anger could even end, he had to feel tremendous pain in his abdomen once again.
The kind of pain where his internal organs were continuously being seared with hot fire.
"Keep breaking through! Any contact with the inside?"
"Not connected yet!"
"Damn! What the hell are those tentacles!"
Outside Trinity Building, the battle between people trying to break through the entrance and tentacles desperately trying to defend that entrance was in full swing.
The tentacles disappeared as soon as they appeared, cut down by bullets, but the giant mass of flesh blocking the entrance continued to multiply and wouldn't allow entry at all.
Since it was obviously an act to buy time, the external supervisor's expression was not good.
Contact with the people who had entered inside was cut off. That was definitely the work of heretics. The inside of Trinity Building had become a world where completely different rules applied than this side.
But at the same time, he couldn't shake this thought. What if all the people who had already entered were annihilated?
They tried to break through somehow, but it wasn't easy. They tried to break through the building's exterior windows and storm in, but the building didn't budge.
Rather, the damage only grew due to pincers and tentacles sprouting from windows everywhere.
Grenades were fired and the area around windows up to the 5th floor was engulfed in flames. No matter how sturdy a building is, it would have to be affected if this much firepower was poured into it.
Naturally, a large hole was opened and the red masses of flesh inside were nakedly exposed. But no one stormed in there. This was because they had already attempted to storm in several times before, and contact with the people who entered was abruptly cut off.
'There's not enough firepower to destroy all of that.'
Not only that. Rather, the building that had revealed its true nature began to corrode the surroundings, dripping sticky red liquid from the first-floor lobby.
'If we can't do anything and time drags on like this, that's when the main force of the district defense army will step in.'
Since this was District 17, called the hub of finance, they tried to handle things as simply and without damage as possible for now. But if the situation gradually worsens, then they won't be able to worry about such considerations.
'We might have to erase District 17.'
That's when it happened. Someone wearing a gray hood appeared on the battlefield fallen into chaos.
"Who are you!"
"Don't move!"
At the sudden appearance of the gray hood, some soldiers' gun barrels turned toward him. The reason they didn't fire immediately was because the opponent's build was small, appearing to be about a boy.
Instead of speaking, the boy kindled a golden light on his palm. It was such beautiful divine power that just looking at it made one feel reverent. Even some of the writhing tentacles noticeably shrank when they touched the light of that divine power.
"A paladin?"
Not just any paladin. If those terrible masses of flesh would be intimidated by just light alone, he must be someone of considerably high rank.
"Who are you? Which religious order do you belong to?"
The field supervisor immediately approached and asked. To those words, the boy with his hood pulled deep replied nonchalantly.
"I am nothing. Just call me Ash."
"What do you mean……." "
Isn't it more urgent to think about how to deal with those wicked beings first?"
At the words of the boy, Martinez, the supervisor nodded with a stern face.
"We're grateful that you're helping, but it's something that just won't break."
"You don't need to worry about that."
Martinez's eyes, approaching the giant mass of flesh blocking the entrance, were dyed golden. At the same time, a giant mace and cross made of sacred gold were held in both his hands.