Chapter 104: Two Sides

The sounds of battle echoed beneath the dome of Galen's cathedral. On one side, Jeanne, Darien, Sorales, and Kiel were doing everything they could to withstand Carthos's assaults, a task made all the more difficult by the skill he used to travel through shadows.

But their enemy was not the only thing worrying Jeanne. Right beside her, things looked even worse.

Dozens of creatures of different shapes and sizes began gathering around Alaika. Yet every last one of them thirsted for the same blood.

But the paladin of the Church of the Sun did not flinch.

"No matter how many monsters you control, spawn of the night who have never known the true warmth of the sun." Alaika straightened to her full height and, gripping her lance with both hands, drew it close to herself. "That very warmth will put an end to your miserable existences."

Alaika raised her lance high above her head. A moment later, she brought it down, slamming the butt of the weapon into the floor with tremendous force and unleashing a sudden explosion of light.

Just as visiare who wished to join Mirror had to learn to create a barrier that allowed them to blend into their surroundings, anyone seeking to be invested as one of the Lights of the Church of the Sun had to be able to use one particular skill.

"Dawn's Glory."

Had Nerez been there to witness the scene, the sight would have reminded him of Helux, for Alaika's entire body began shining with an intense light of its own. She looked as though she were the true Enlightened One.

Rovena did not linger to admire the spectacle. She promptly pointed one of the long sleeves of her dress at the paladin, giving the order to attack.

"Judgment."

But Alaika swung her lance, releasing a blinding light that immediately disintegrated the first wave of creatures.

!!

Or so it seemed.

When it came to races of a greenish hue, goblins and orcs were usually the first creatures that came to mind. Different as they were, both were still humanoid. The same could not be said of the two purple races present in the cathedral, which could hardly have been more different from one another.

What had previously looked like an enormous wart on the body of an urtac was actually a bedir that had leapt into the air at the exact moment its mount was vaporized by Alaika's skill.

But it had not jumped at random. The bedir had deliberately hurled itself toward the paladin and was now plummeting straight down at her.

Clang!

Despite the crude weapons they carried, bedirs could cut through a tree trunk with a single swing of a sword.

!!

For that very reason, the small, wrinkled creature could not hide its surprise when it realized its attack had not so much as tickled Alaika, who remained completely still when the sword struck her shoulder.

Before the bedir could recover from its surprise, a powerful flash from Alaika's own body disintegrated it.

A second flash transformed Alaika into a ray of sunlight that streaked instantly toward a gigantic wolf-shaped monster. The creature did not even have time to make out the paladin's figure before her lance was buried in its head, causing it to burst into flames.

"Just what you'd expect from one of the Four Lights..." Rovena remarked, once again covering a yawn with her sleeve.

Only Jeanne noticed that every time one of Rovena's monsters died, an ominous black sphere appeared behind the vampire progenitor.

"Eyes forward!" Carthos called out as his claws passed mere millimeters from her neck. She had dodged just in time.

"Thanks for the warning," Jeanne replied as she slashed at him. "But I have good peripheral vision!"

Clink!

This time, however, Carthos blocked the slash with a single razor-sharp metal claw, his expression suddenly turning serious.

"This sword...!!" The vampire never finished the sentence, for the blade of Jeanne's weapon had also begun to give off a light of its own.

But before that light could be released in an attack, Carthos had already stepped onto his own shadow and reappeared in the shadow of a nearby pillar.

"You have quite an interesting sword, young lady," Carthos remarked, examining the section of his metal claw that had melted. "I'd like to know more about it... Whoops!"

At that very moment, he had to dodge a fireball from Sorales.

And that was not all. Darien charged him head-on immediately afterward, while Kiel tried to catch him off guard from behind.

"Excellent combination!" Carthos laughed as he effortlessly dodged and deflected their attacks. "But you're still a few decades short on experience!"

In one smooth motion, Carthos spun around and struck both adventurers with the metal backs of his claws. The force of the blows sent Darien and Kiel spinning through the air before they hit the ground unconscious several meters away.

"Darien! Kiel!"

Jeanne tried to rush to their aid, but Carthos leapt directly into her path, landing in front of her so suddenly that she nearly lost her balance.

"Now then, getting back to that sword..." Carthos began. At that moment, however, the vampire tilted his head, letting a beam of energy aimed at him skim past. "But first..."

Carthos stepped backward, placing one foot on his shadow, and reappeared behind Sorales.

!!

Sorales did not have time to react before a precise blow with the side of one of Carthos's metal claws knocked him unconscious as well.

"Sorales!" Jeanne cried out as yet another of her party members fell.

"Relax, they're not dead," Carthos assured her as he approached with unhurried steps. "If they were, you wouldn't be in any condition to answer my questions... Though my first one is this: why are you in a party with them?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're clearly on a higher level than the rest of your little adventuring party..." Carthos pointed out, looking at the three unconscious bodies around him. "I went to the trouble of holding back enough to keep them alive. You could at least do me the favor of answering, don't you think?"

"It's not much of a mystery." Jeanne tightened both hands around the hilt of her sword. "They were the first people I met in this wor... on this continent. I came from very far away, and they helped me get settled."

"You came from another continent?!" Carthos asked excitedly, bringing his metal claws together. "How interesting! I tried to visit the underworld once, but Erebion wouldn't let me pass the gates that lie before the fields of Elysium. He told me it wasn't a place for mortals... Do vampires still count as mortals, I wonder? Then again, I got to meet Erebion! The legendary Erebion!"

"I see..." Jeanne replied, never taking her eyes off Carthos's claws.

"You don't seem very excited... It's Erebion! The one who developed the shadow skills and the rest of the dark magic vampires use! An actual titan!"

"To be honest, I don't know much about religion on this continent..."

"What a boring reaction... What's the point of traveling if I can't brag about it to other people?" Carthos complained with a shrug. "Anyway, I'm curious where you got that sword. If I'm not mistaken, I'd say it's an artifact, and one capable of killing a god at that."

Jeanne looked down at the sword in her hands for a few moments, then shook her head.

"It was a gift... That's all I can tell you."

The sword had been given to her by the goddess who had brought her to Eryndea, but even Jeanne knew that meeting a god was hardly an everyday occurrence, even in a world of magic and fantasy. That was why she kept the details to herself.

What she did not know, however, was that she had stayed at an inn with a pair of gods, both of whom she had in fact greeted almost every day.

"A gift, you say?" Carthos gave her a crooked smile and crossed his arms. "That sounds like a very deliberate choice, to be honest..."

"Whatever the intention behind it was, it's definitely better than yours."

Jeanne readied her sword once more.

"This is too much!" Carthos covered his face with one of his clawed hands and burst into laughter. "Do you actually think you're fighting on the side of the good guys?! Ah! Is it because the skin has fallen off most of our troops' faces? Didn't anyone teach you back home not to judge others by appearances?"

"That's not why...! Actually, yes, it is!" Jeanne snapped. "Aren't you the ones who disturbed the dead?! Aren't you the ones using them to start a war?!"

"First of all, young lady, all of our undead are volunteers... There are exceptions, of course, like the souls the god of war kidnapped," Carthos replied, casually combing his spiky hair with one of his claws. "But in general, yes, they're lost souls. The Church of the Sun did everything it could to keep them from reaching the underworld. It can hardly complain now that those souls have risen in rebellion."

Jeanne looked confused for a few seconds.

"I... Like I said, I'm no expert on the religion of these lands. I don't know exactly what the Church of the Sun is doing now, or what it may have done in the past..." The uncertainty, however, soon disappeared from her face. "But what I do know is that your army is the one wreaking havoc across the kingdom, and right now you're laying siege to a city full of innocent people."

"As I understand it, they're the same gods on every continent... But anyway, whether they live here or end up in the underworld, what's the difference to them? I didn't get to see Elysium myself, but I'm sure it's the better option." Carthos flexed his metal claws, and a reddish glow began to emanate from them. "Well then... I think it's about time we both showed our true strength. Don't worry, I'll make sure your sword doesn't cause any trouble once it's mine."

"Thank you very much, but I have no intention of parting with it," Jeanne replied before nodding toward the battle beside them. "And I think you're the one who should start worrying."

Carthos turned to watch the last of Rovena's summoned creatures fall. The poor beast had literally melted after Alaika stabbed it with her lance, imbued with the power of the sun.

"My collection... Do you know how many years it took me to put it together?" Rovena asked, though her tone showed little real distress. "Oh well... I suppose this is a good opportunity to try something new. I made all the preparations, after all."

Despite what Jeanne had just told Carthos, she was the one who began to get a bad feeling. The sheer number of ominous black spheres gathered behind Rovena did nothing to ease it.

Carthos, on the other hand, did not seem particularly worried. Quite the opposite: the reddish glow around his metal claws began to fade.

"If Rovena's the one who's going to get serious, I guess there's no point in me adding to the chaos," Carthos remarked, looking disappointed.

"What do you mean by that?" Jeanne asked.

She did not have to wait long for an answer.

As the magic circles in Rovena's eyes began to glow, the black spheres moved into formation above her.

Lines of magic quickly connected them to one another, forming a gigantic circle in the air.

"That... Is that...?!"

The Enlightened One, who had spent the battle trying in vain to hurry the priests along, watched in alarm as the black spheres above them were absorbed into the magic circle that had formed.

"It's changing shape..." Jeanne said as her fears became reality.

The center of the circle stretched open, creating a portal in the middle. A black, ominous portal, much like the spheres it had absorbed.

First one gigantic hand emerged from the portal, then the other. Together, they pulled the opening wider, and the head of a gigantic humanoid creature emerged between them. It had no eyes, but its immense fangs were each as large as a man.

"Very well..." Rovena began, only for a yawn to interrupt her. "Shall we move on to the second round?"