Shalltear and Albedo's laughter braided with the brief screams and the wet rip of torn flesh, composing a hair-raising symphony of death.
Fast—too fast.
From the moment Rei Ao gave his indifferent order to the moment Albedo and Shalltear stopped moving, the whole thing was so brief you could hardly call it a "battle." "Cleanup" or "erasure" would be closer to the mark.
Ten seconds? Maybe less.
A heartbeat ago, a dozen elite members of the Sunlight Scripture had swaggered forward with an army of angels and a superiority in numbers, seizing the initiative. Now they—and every angel they had summoned—were gone from this world.
In their place, the plain was strewn with mangled, unrecognizable remains and chunks of meat. The once-fresh air was wholly conquered by a thick, rust-like stench of blood that made one retch. The ground underfoot had been dyed a dark red, as if a brief, localized blood-rain had just fallen.
"…"
Silence. A deathly silence.
Even the wind seemed to detour around this patch of earth. Only the heavy reek of blood stubbornly lingered, proof that the brief horror just now hadn't been an illusion.
Gazef Stronoff—battle-scarred veteran, a man who had climbed out of piles of corpses and seas of blood to claim the post of Warrior Captain through brilliant merit and relentless effort, hailed as the strongest warrior of the Re-Estize Kingdom—now stood rooted in place as if frozen by a binding spell.
He clutched his beloved sword. That national-treasure greatsword which had drunk the blood of countless foes could not lend him a shred of safety. His thick, powerful arms trembled, just a little—unbidden.
It wasn't fatigue. It was the oldest, rawest fear, welling up from the depths of his soul.
His pupils had shrunk to pinpoints. The firm lines of his face had been wiped away, replaced by disbelief and terror cut to the bone. A cold bead of sweat slid from his temple along his cheekbone; he didn't even feel it.
What had he just witnessed?
That wasn't a fight. That was monsters butchering mortal ants.
They hadn't even used a tenth—no, a hundredth—of their power.
Like swatting a few bothersome flies.
In the space of a casual breath, they erased a special-operations unit of the Slane Theocracy—one capable of breaking thousands of the Kingdom's elite on an open field and sending countless strong men to bitter graves—together with its proud, faith-forged summons. Nothing left.
It was a trampling from a different plane, a different tier.
Every brutal battle he'd lived through—valor, technique, tactics—looked pale and laughable now, like children's games. The ceiling of power that had framed his world all his life shattered in an instant. Before him opened a wider reality—darker, crueler.
Beyond fear came a vast, helpless bewilderment as his entire framework of understanding caved in.
Rei Ao, from beginning to end, had not spared the carnage so much as a glance. He issued an order; the two of them carried it out perfectly. Ignoring the spreading blood beneath his feet and the broken bodies around him, he walked toward Gazef, whose muscles were cinched tight and who stood rigid as a statue.
His steps were unhurried as he crossed pools of blood and heaps of gore, yet not a speck touched him—an invisible force seemed to keep all filth at bay.
His calm gaze swept over Gazef, as though it could see through the metal of the Guardian Armor, catch the faint glow flowing through the Amulet of Immortality, and weigh the power housed in the Gauntlets of Endurance, before settling on the face gone pale with shock and fear.
"Gazef Stronoff, Warrior Captain of the Re-Estize Kingdom."
Rei Ao's voice was flat, uninflected—yet it carried a penetration that seemed to lay everything bare and echo straight through to the soul.
"Gauntlets of Endurance, Amulet of Immortality, Guardian Armor, Razor Edge… With those four heirloom relics and a measure of your own courage and skill, you are called the Kingdom's strongest warrior.
"Born a commoner, you rose by talent and unremitting effort—won the title after defeating the then-rising Brain Unglaus at the Royal Tournament—and you enjoy your king's trust."
The calm recitation detonated in Gazef's heart like thunder. The man before him not only knew his equipment by name—he even spoke of particulars like his bout with Brain Unglaus as if he'd been there.
This wasn't ordinary intelligence work. It felt closer to an all-knowing gaze. All the more proof that the being before him stood on a level beyond anything he—or the whole Kingdom—could imagine. In front of such an existence, he had almost no secrets at all.
Rei Ao paid no mind to the storm in Gazef's chest. He went on:
"Lead the way, Warrior Captain. I intend to meet your king."
No question. No negotiation. Not even a reason. Few words, yet brooking no refusal. Not a request, but a declaration.
"…"
Gazef's throat felt as raw and dry as if he'd swallowed sand. He forced down a gulp that did nothing to help. He looked at the unfathomable man before him—beneath that serene gaze lay power enough to command life and death and overturn nations.
From the corner of his eye he glanced at the two women behind Rei Ao, fresh from their sanguine work. Albedo was lazily smoothing nonexistent wrinkles from her sleeves, a languid, sated look on her face. Shalltear licked the corner of her lips, as if savoring the slaughter just past. Their casual expressions set against the hellscape around them made for the most terrifying contrast of all.
A helplessness like icy surf surged over Gazef and drowned him in an instant. He had no doubt that if he let a single "no" pass his lips—or even showed the slightest hesitation—his fate in the next second would be no different from the Sunlight Scripture shredded into meat behind him.
Death itself was not the worst of it. The worst was a gap so absolute it strangled even the thought of resisting.
This moment was the turning point of the Kingdom's fate.
~~~
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