Chapter 105: Ashes and Wind

"No matter how thick the darkness hanging over us becomes, Helux lights my path, and through me, salvation shall be wrought."

Alaika, still enveloped in Dawn's Glory, did not wait for the creature to finish emerging from the portal. She gripped her lance, transformed into a ray of light, and shot straight at it.

"It's useless," Rovena said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

Sure enough, the ray of light struck the creature, unleashing an explosion of energy, but it was Alaika who was sent flying by the shockwave.

"Alaika!" Jeanne exclaimed, gripping her sword. But she could not afford to turn her back on Carthos.

Carthos, however, had largely lost interest in the battle. It was almost as though Rovena's summoning had been a signal that everything was about to end.

!!

At that moment, the creature unleashed a deafening roar and, while still inside the portal, extended one of its gigantic arms. It struck the still-dazed Alaika, sending her crashing violently into the floor.

"And I did say no one was getting out alive… didn't I?" Rovena yawned as she snapped her fingers.

At her signal, the creature brought its hands together. Between them, a dark sphere formed, with small arcs of energy circling its surface.

"That thing can use magic?!" Jeanne asked, taking a step back.

"I wouldn't call it magic. It's more like a concentration of pure energy," Carthos replied with a carefree smile and a shrug. "Though if I were you, this would be the time to start seriously worrying."

Jeanne did not have time to ask him what he meant. In the very next instant, the sphere of energy burst into hundreds of dark rays.

The unexpected attack wreaked havoc throughout the cathedral, destroying columns, walls, and even the dome above their heads.

Whether by luck or design, the Enlightened One emerged unscathed, but the priests trying to reactivate the teleportation circle had either disappeared beneath the rubble or been erased from existence outright by the black rays.

Two of the attacks shot straight toward Jeanne, but she managed to deflect them with two precise swings of her sword.

"After all, you're on a completely different level from the rest," Carthos said approvingly, resting two of his sharp metal claws against his chin.

"Surge!"

Ignoring the remark, Jeanne activated one of her skills and launched herself into a superhuman leap, deflecting a third and final ray of black energy headed for a spot dangerously close to the rest of her party.

Carthos let her move freely, admiring her determination as he nodded to himself.

"This girl could definitely cause trouble later… It'd be a shame to finish her off now when we could have a legendary fight someday!"

Rovena, who had been watching the scene from a distance, shook her head.

"Carthos, why is everyone on your side still alive? Are you trying to end up like Tortigor?"

"If you don't tell Kamira, she'd have no reason to know!" Carthos protested. "Besides, I was only warming up when you went and ruined all the fun by inviting that thing to the party… Even if I don't do anything, this place is going to be reduced to rubble."

"This 'thing' is one of my finest… creations," Rovena replied, covering another yawn with one of her long sleeves.

"No…! Don't think you've won yet, spawn of darkness!"

The Enlightened One interrupted their conversation from where he lay on the floor, having been knocked down by the explosions and tremors caused by the creature's attack.

After struggling back to his feet, he raised one arm. The sleeve of his now filthy and torn golden robe slid back, revealing a bracelet set with four round gemstones, three of them blackened.

"Black magic isn't the only kind that can make use of sacrifices!"

With that, the Enlightened One took hold of the only gemstone that was not blackened, pulled it free from the bracelet, and held it in his palm, where it began to glow brighter and brighter.

"Ah… aa… aaa… AAAAAAAH!"

Alaika was still embedded in the cathedral floor, and the light surrounding her had vanished after the creature's blow. Now she began to glow again, screaming uncontrollably as she brought both hands to her face.

"Your Grace! What are you doing?! Can't you see Alaika is suffering?!"

Jeanne rounded on the Enlightened One as soon as she realized that the light surrounding Alaika was identical to the glow emanating from the gemstone in his hand. He ignored her completely and began laughing frantically.

"This is why they're called the Four Lights!" the Enlightened One exclaimed as he hurled the gemstone onto the floor in front of him.

"Alaika!" Jeanne cried.

Alaika let out one final, heart-rending scream as her skin became deeply wrinkled and her hair turned white. Finally, she collapsed lifelessly to the floor.

"Well now, they've completely drained her vital energy," Rovena observed, this time without yawning. "I have no fondness for the Church of the Sun, but to think they can be this despicable even to one of their own…"

Carthos merely whistled with his hands behind his head.

"Your Grace! What have you done?!"

Jeanne was hardly an ally of Alaika, not after everything that had happened, but that did not make watching her die that way any easier. She struggled to understand what she had just witnessed.

But everyone's attention soon shifted to the spot where the gemstone had fallen. A pillar of light suddenly erupted from there, rising toward the sky through one of the holes the creature's attack had torn in the dome.

"Praise be to the sun!" the Enlightened One cried out. "The mere presence of the solar avatar born from the power of the great Helux will be enough to reduce every enemy of the light to ashes!"

An armored humanoid figure wreathed in flames emerged from the pillar. With every step it took, Jeanne felt the temperature around her rise. Simply being near it would probably be enough to burn her.

The young adventurer turned her gaze toward her fallen companions. A battle between the two summoned beings would surely not leave them unscathed. But could she really get them far enough away with Carthos still watching her so closely?

!!

That was when a sudden explosion pulled her out of her thoughts.

"What…?! What in Helux's name just happened?!" the Enlightened One exclaimed.

And with good reason. The avatar's head had just exploded.

But it was not an isolated event. Another six explosions rocked its body: one on each arm, one on each leg, one at the pelvis, and the last in the chest. The attacks had struck every part of its body, completely disintegrating the solar avatar.

"How… can this… be possible?" the Enlightened One gasped before collapsing to his knees.

"Comets?" Jeanne asked, turning her gaze toward the entrance to the chamber.

Indeed, the blasts had not been spontaneous explosions at all, but comets of energy that had slammed into the Enlightened One's summon at astonishing speed.

"The grudges amassed during a siege are on an entirely different scale from those that accumulated in my humble tomb… But even that is nothing compared to the gift from my god!" A skeleton clad in sumptuous ceremonial robes emerged from the entrance to the chamber, two brilliant green flames burning within his eye sockets. "My skills have reached incalculable levels. Even I cannot imagine the limits of the power wielded by the lord of eternal peace!"

"Even you? Seeing him once hardly makes you an expert on our god, Kayrus…"

Rovena chided him as she snapped her fingers again, sending the creature she had summoned back into its portal before making the portal itself disappear.

"Exactly!" Carthos agreed, siding with Rovena for once. "Though I admit I'm jealous!"

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound so full of myself. As you can see… I'm actually quite empty!"

"…"

"…"

Jeanne kept watching, never taking her eyes off them. The vampire progenitors were already on a far higher level than she had ever imagined, yet her instincts told her that the skeleton who had just appeared stood even above them.

There could be no doubt. The figure now crossing the ruined chamber as though it belonged to him was none other than the famous Lich King.

Kayrus stopped in front of the adventurer, prompting Jeanne to tighten her grip on her sword. Behind her, Darien, Sorales, and Kiel were still lying unconscious on the cathedral floor.

But the Lich King merely brought one hand to his chin and nodded quietly to himself, alternating his gaze between Jeanne and her sword.

"This is an occasion for celebration. I'm not in the mood for a fight to the death…" Kayrus declared. To Jeanne's surprise, he simply continued on his way.

He did not stop again until he stood directly before the kneeling Enlightened One.

"You… you're…"

The Enlightened One could barely stammer out the words. The light had left his eyes along with his last hopes when the solar avatar disintegrated.

"No, no. 'I was.' You're the one who 'is' now, Deraphon III, heir to the name of Deraphon I, founder of the Church of the Sun, master of the Cult of Light, and the man who defeated me centuries ago." Kayrus leaned his skull closer to the kneeling man and looked him up and down. "To think this is how the Church of the Sun ends, with its leader here on his knees, simply waiting for his own end… I can't help feeling somewhat… disappointed."

Kayrus straightened to his full height and held his skeletal hand before his face. The green flames in his eye sockets suddenly burned brighter, and several embers flew toward his palm, kindling a new flame there.

"Go to Nereziel, Deraphon III, last Enlightened One of the Church of the Sun. You'd better hope your stay in the Deeps isn't too long."

"Your Grace!"

Jeanne felt no affection whatsoever for the Enlightened One, nor could she forgive what he had just done. But that did not mean she could simply stand by and do nothing.

She tried to rush toward him, but Carthos stepped into her path with a smile, mockingly wagging one of his long, sharp metal claws from side to side.

Kayrus lowered his flaming hand and placed it on Deraphon III's head, his ceremonial hat having fallen off when he was knocked to the floor.

The scene resembled a strange mural: a skeleton absolving a kneeling man of his sins.

"Ah…"

The Enlightened One did not even have time to realize what was happening before green flames engulfed his entire body.

Before he could even feel pain, the leader of the Church of the Sun had already been reduced to ashes.

…

Jeanne tightened her grip on the hilt of her sword. The city had almost certainly fallen, but that was not all. The entire Church of the Sun would collapse from its foundations, not so much because of its leader's fall as because of what those responsible for it represented.

It was the first quest she had ever failed, and it could hardly have been a more important one.

"Now then…" Kayrus slowly turned toward Jeanne, the green flames in his eye sockets flaring brighter. "What are we going to do with you?"

!!

But before anyone present could do anything, a dozen figures suddenly materialized out of nowhere, surrounding both Jeanne and her fallen companions.

"Who are you?!" Rovena exclaimed. She had neither seen them approach nor sensed them.

"Oooh," Kayrus said, his hand once again on his chin.

Carthos, meanwhile, clapped in surprise.

All of them had sky-blue hair and wore black-and-white uniforms and masks covering the upper halves of their faces, leaving only their brilliant magenta eyes visible.

"You're… visiare?"

Jeanne had not even managed to process what was happening when two of the visiare grabbed her, one by each shoulder. The rest, moving in groups of two or three, did the same with the fallen members of Farbound.

"What are you doing?!" Jeanne asked.

But no answer came. Instead, a blinding flash filled her vision. In the next instant, both the visiare and every member of Farbound had vanished from the cathedral.

…

"Teleportation… But it's not as though I was born yesterday. They won't catch me off guard twice," Rovena declared as she turned toward the other two. "I can sense roughly where they reappeared. It's not very far from the city. Should we follow them?"

"Follow them? Of course not!" Kayrus burst into laughter.

Rovena tilted her head slightly, while Carthos merely shrugged.

"You heard the adventurer. They were visiare," Carthos explained. "Visiare don't do anything in the mortal world unless it's in the god of death's interest."

"Now that you mention it…" Rovena nodded, fighting back another yawn as her drowsiness returned now that everything was over. "But don't start boasting just because you've been to the underworld. I plan to go there too. It's just that I can't collect creatures there or it would be an offense to Nereziel."

"But yes, Carthos is right. I saw it with my own eyes: a small visiare who did not hesitate to defend our god without the slightest regard for her own life." Kayrus raised both arms enthusiastically. "I have no doubt they are acting in his name now as well. Therefore, we have other matters to attend to. We must celebrate the birth of the new metropolis of the undead!"

The green flames within his eye sockets seemed to burn even brighter as he surveyed the remains of the cathedral.

"And afterward, of course, we shall offer it to Her Imperial Majesty Mireia."

"I find it hard to believe the prince would agree to hand such an important city over to the empire," Carthos said.

"At this point… he probably isn't a prince anymore," Rovena cut in, covering the yawn that finally escaped with one sleeve. "He's probably overthrown his father and become king by now. Jubile is at his side, after all. Only Kamira or Sabador can do something about her."

"Of course he'll agree!" Kayrus struck the floor with the base of his staff. "This entire kingdom is going to become part of the empire! Young Valerius and I have exchanged dozens of lengthy letters on the subject… and about how magnificent the mother of necromancers is!"

"I see… Well, we can celebrate and all, but I think we dropped the subject of those adventurers a little too quickly," Carthos said, resting both hands behind his head again. "Why would our god want them?"

"Surely he has greater plans for them," Kayrus declared with absolute solemnity, raising his gaze toward the sky visible through the cathedral's ruined dome. "Plans far beyond what insignificant mortals like us could ever comprehend…"

Carthos also raised his gaze toward the sky.

"But that girl and her sword still intrigue me. Something tells me she didn't show how dangerous she really is…"

"I think you've gotten soft," Rovena retorted with a mocking look. "Either way, I'll tell Kamira you let that whole group get away…"

"That's not fair! And they didn't even get away, we just established that! I'll tell Sabador on you!"

"I haven't done anything you can report me for!"

"You're doing it right now!"

Kayrus, for his part, watched the exchange, arranging his skeletal fingers around his jaw in a rough imitation of a smile.

"The race my lord created never ceases to entertain me! Truly fascinating!"

***

Some distance from Tirelia, Nerez, Ily, and Cerys were making their way along a small dirt road leading farther and farther from the city.

"So, what are the plans now?" Cerys asked, leaning out from beside Nerez.

"Of course, the plan is to get away from Phatar as quickly as possible," Nerez replied. "I've already realized I'm never going to get a vacation in this place."

Ily raised her head, her side ponytail swaying.

"The breeze is stronger than usual…"

…

Some distance away, a woman watched the three of them in silence.

An instant later, her body dissolved into wind and vanished.