By the time we arrived at the village, the moon had reached its zenith. Its silvery rays illuminated a scene of carnage, faintly touching upon a sea of blood and bodies.
The bodies wavered unsteadily, neither dead nor truly alive. Hosts to a parasitical species of homunculus, they had all been transformed into hideous monsters. An entire army swayed where they were, almost as if they were basking in the pale moonlight.
Stella and I watched the scene with grim expressions, unable to conceal our fury. As my knight had reported, there were no survivors. Mikhail did not discriminate between age and gender. Even the young children had been cruelly butchered by the gleaming golden spear that he now held in his hands.
"So you've finally arrived, huh? I've been waiting for you."
The tide of monsters parted to allow their master to stroll to the front. The mage smiled, his stolen face as handsome as it was fake. Even his hair had been dyed blond to replicate the color of Herman's hair.
Mikhail, the lover of Miranda. He had chosen to show himself.
Once again, I was reminded of how much of a splitting image of Herman he was. Even his voice had been modulated to sound exactly like Herman's (so if there is ever an anime adaptation of this trash, the voice actor for both characters would be the same).
Even so, there were noticeable differences. Mikhail's build was a lot slighter and smaller than Herman's. Furthermore, the Hero Herman was a renowned swordsman who had fought many battles with a sword. He was therefore more physically imposing, muscular and bigger. Mikhail was a lot skinnier and diminutive. If the two of them would to stand side by side, the difference would certainly be a lot more visible.
But it wasn't just their build. Right now, Mikhail was glaring at me with bloodshot eyes, his borrowed features contorted in hatred.
"Yeah, sorry for taking our time." I placed a hand on Stella's shoulder. "You injured my comrade quite a bit, so I decided to treat her. Besides, you told her that you'll be waiting for us, right? So we didn't think we needed to hurry."
"Such insolence!" Mikhail roared and raised his right hand to point it toward me. "I'll silence you forever!"
Above him, a hundred blades – each of them made from wind – manifested in the air. Vibrating rapidly, they hovered for a moment before their master launched them forward. The hundred or so wind blades filled the space between us, slicing lethally toward me.
"Be careful," Stella warned as she raised her sword to cut them down. "These spells are impossible to evade. They have some sort of homing function that allow them to pursue you relentlessly, no matter how fast you are."
I recalled the injuries she had suffered earlier. These must be the spell that hurt her. Feeling rage build up within me, I stepped in front of her.
"Get back."
"But, Klein…!"
I ignored Stella's protests and continued to shield her. Uncurling the chains that I had pilfered from Miranda, I swung them about and struck the wind blades.
The spells immediately dispelled upon contact with the Chains of Void. Even those that I had missed, the moment they curved away before homing in on me, they were nullified by the Chains of Void that was on my body.
"That chain!"
Mikhail's jaw dropped and fury blazed in his eyes. He pointed an accusing finger at me.
"Not only did you cripple Chairwoman Miranda, you even stole one of her most successful experiments! Unforgivable! I will never forgive you!"
"I never needed or wanted your forgiveness," I replied coldly. "And besides, with Miranda's current condition, it's not as if she can use these chains. I might as well use them in her place."
"I'll kill you!" Mikhail hollered and pointed his spear at me. "I'll definitely avenge Chairwoman Miranda!"
Yeah…I heard that threat before. Like a hundred times. Not wanting to bother arguing, I threw the chains at him. Mikhail immediately retreated by jumping a few steps back and smacking the chains aside with his spear.
"Kill them! Kill them all!" he shrieked. At his command, his monsters began bounding toward us with hisses. I felt disturbed when I saw the clacking mandibles that their lower jaws had become. Taking a deep breath, I swung the chains a few times before whacking them aside. Beside me, Stella slashed at the approaching mutants, her crimson sword glowing brightly as she cleaved them apart.
To my lack of surprise, I could see that the Chains of Void didn't have any effect on the mutants. I didn't know what I was hoping for, exactly. Perhaps the magic nullifying field to reverse the hideous mutations? Maybe the creatures might keel over and die if the parasitical homunculus inside them was dispelled? The control that Mikhail had over them vanish?
Evidently, the Chains of Void – and this most likely applied to the Blood Spear of Longinus as well – only had the ability to dispel actual magic spells and not the aftereffects caused by them. The biological transformations to the bodies of these poor Gensies, while wrought about by magic and alchemy, were no longer considered magical once they were completed. While both the Chains of Void and Blood Spear of Longinus could dispel a fireball that was being thrown at their wielder, they couldn't do anything about the burns or scorches that occurred after the fireball already taken effect. They could prevent a subject from being healed by spells, but if the subject had already been healed by those spells, picking up the Chains of Void or Blood Spear of Longinus wasn't going to make the injuries reappear.
If this was the case, and because I couldn't reach Mikhail with the chains, I decided to discard them. Dropping them on the ground, I then cast my ice magic and froze a dozen mutants that were pouncing on me. Backing me up, Stella whirled about and cut apart a couple that had gotten past my ice spells. Her sword was a crimson blur, parrying claws and spiked tails, and forcing the creatures back. A few of them were even dispatched by her skill.
But there were more coming at us, threatening to swarm our position.
"Now!" I shouted.
At my command, several dozen spells arced from the forest and descended upon the tightly packed cluster of mutants. Fireballs incinerated monsters, lightning fried them and sent their charred corpses into spasms, and wind blades cut them apart into pieces. Vines and tendrils burst out of the ground, entangling the poor creatures and restraining them.
"The deserters!" Mikhail snarled. "I should have known they were with you!"
He began backing away, turning to run. More of his monsters loped past him, determined to overwhelm us with sheer numbers.
"Stella, I'll leave these creatures to you. Protect Chris and the others. Don't let any of them reach them." Turning my head to Chris and the others, who had taken cover in the forest as per my instructions, I raised my voice. "You guys! Please support Stella as much as possible! Help her exterminate these mutants!"
"What are you going to do?" Chris asked, noticing a deviation from my original strategy.
"Pursue Mikhail before he gets away," I replied and drew Blood Angel and Night Fang. "I'm going to end this once and for all."
One hand wielding a sword and the other a whip, I smashed through the formation of approaching mutants. Swinging my left hand, I allowed my black whip to curl around the head and body of one of the creatures. Tightening my grip, I sliced the poor thing into pieces with the razor-sharp whip. While I did so, I simultaneously swung Blood Angel and cleaved a second mutant in half.
Exhaling, I cast a blood spell and several hundred small but deadly blood stakes burst out of the ground, impaling the rest of the mutants. I decapitated one of them as I ran past, but left the others to my comrades. Chris and the others didn't hesitate, immediately bombarding the impaled monsters with elemental projectiles. They writhed and squirmed, breaking the blood stakes with sheer force, but not before a volley of fireballs, webs of lightning and a storm of wind blades consumed them.
Without looking back, I knew that the enemies were destroyed.
More spells exploded on either side of me or in front, taking out monsters or causing them to stagger. I lashed out with my sword and whip to take out a couple of mutants that were directly in my path, but for the most part, I didn't bother getting embroiled in a furious melee with them. I left my back to the four mages and Stella, focusing solely on the running Mikhail.
"You're really persistent!"
The mage snarled and spun around to strike my whip away with his spear. Finally standing his ground, he confronted m before delivering a few strokes. I retracted Night Fang and drew Nocturne, crossing both of my swords to parry his attacks. Like Stella said, he had gained incredible strength thanks to his spear's ability.
"You're nothing but a vile murderer! You're evil! I'll definitely defeat you!" Mikhail screamed as he struck again and again with his spear, practically frothing at the mouth. "How dare you crush the dreams of my beloved? I'll never forgive you, you evil thief!"
Flames exploded around him, a trail of blazes following his every thrust and swing. However, I froze his fire with my ice spells. While trading blows, I hammered him with a hail of icicles, but he deflected them with a wall of wind.
I wondered briefly if I should have stuck with the chains, after all, but knowing Mikhail, he would have prepared a countermeasure against them. After all, he was the one who assisted Miranda in creating them.
"You evil bastard! I will take revenge for my beloved Chairwoman Miranda! The greatest mage in Havan! A member of the strongest Hero Party!"
I sighed and parried another thrust before retaliating with a riposte that forced him to withdraw. "You know, I'm not going to deny that I'm evil…and that I'm a murderer and a thief. But it never occurred to you that your beloved Miranda tried to kill me first? She was the one who betrayed me and leave me for dead."
"SHUT UP!" Mikhail roared and swung his spear with such strength that I was knocked back a few paces. He jabbed his spear toward me, forcing me to deflect the deadly tip away from my chest. "Who cares?! If she betrayed you, you deserve it! She's the greatest mage in Havan! Everyone else is unworthy next to her! You should be honored that she chose to sacrifice you! Just like all the worthless villagers! You exist only for us to perform experiments on, for us to progress the development of magic! You should be happy that you have the honor to die at her hands!"
Yeah, this guy was seriously deluded. He was a fucking lunatic. Either that or he was a bloody troll. I decided not to waste my precious time arguing with him.
However, he was a crazily strong lunatic. Despite my vampire physique, I found myself pushed back and outmuscled by him. He was overpowering me with his clumsy but strong blows. My hands began to feel numb from receiving the repeated impacts. Unfortunately, it wasn't just his brute strength and godlike reflexes. While we dueled, he continued to hammer me with fireballs and slash me with wind blades from above. I continued to counter the spells with my ice magic, freezing the projectiles before they could reach me.
No wonder Stella wasn't able to defeat him despite her superior sword skills. Even if I had taken the chains to neutralize his magic spells, I would still be overpowered by him in the end. The only reason why I could hold on right now was because I was simultaneously casting blood magic to temporarily augment my physical strength, and use my regenerative abilities to recover from the wounds that he dealt to me.
The Chains of Void would have nullified my regenerative power, unfortunately.
Fortunately, unlike Stella, I had a second arsenal to call upon. I might not be able to match her in terms of swordsmanship, but I was unrivaled in magic. Icicles continued to emerge from the ground, catching fireballs or freezing wind blades, and they forced the distracted Mikhail back. He continued to pummel away, using his newfound strength to pulverize the ice, but I replaced them with blood stakes that tried to impale him.
Mikhail's reflexes allowed him to evade, but even so the blood stakes left scratches on his skin. Blood dribbled down his arms, legs and body, grazes that he sustained when trying to dodge them.
"So you're a vampire too?" he snarled. "The same as your red-haired girlfriend? You monster! You sold your soul to the demons!"
"I wonder who the true monsters are." I rolled my eyes and glanced at the mutants. My friends were still striking them down with spells and sword, and their numbers had thinned out. "I'm not the one subjecting innocent people to horrific fates worse than deaths."
"Shut up!"
Screaming almost incoherently, Mikhail swung his spear fiercely. There was a huge explosion and I was hurled several meters back. Reversing the grip on my swords, I stabbed them onto the ground to arrest my momentum. Heaving, I waited to let my wounds – most of them being mild burns – heal.
Instead of pressing on with his attack like any ordinary spearman would (though, to be fair, he was a mage and not a proper warrior), Mikhail raised both hands and lifted his spear above his head, almost in rapture.
"Please watch me, Mistress Miranda! I will now take revenge on the man who hurt you so badly! Who destroyed your dreams and stole your research! This is the proof of my love! I'll be sure to send it to you, Mistress Miranda! I'll definitely bring his head back to you, Mistress Miranda, and we will be together forever!"
The deluded moron was murmuring passionately. He was now staring blankly at the heavens, and I wondered if he was hallucinating. Nonetheless, I tossed a bunch of icicles at him, but a wall of wind rose to deflect them.
What the hell…even though this guy was losing sight of reality, his magical defenses remained as solid as ever.
"When I defeat this man, please reward me with your love, Mistress Miranda! Reward me with plenty of your love!"
The guy was literally drooling right now as he fantasized over the sort of loving rewards that Miranda would give him. disgusted and entirely crept out, I sent blood stakes bursting toward him from below, but he quickly brought his spear down to shatter them while giddily dancing away with godly reflexes.
"Ah, Mistress Miranda! My beloved! Ah!"
Good lord…what the hell was the matter with him?
A second later, Mikhail snapped out of his fervent delusions and delivered a hail of fireballs, which I froze in an instant. Then he came crashing through the ice, smashing apart the glacial wall between us in a single vicious stroke, and thrust his spear forward.
"Ugh!"
Crossing my swords, I deflected the spear to the side and managed to just preserve my head. With a chuckle, Mikhail then swung the spear with enough force to hurl me to the side. I grunted and hit the ground with a roll before springing back up to my feet.
"It's over," he sneered as he turned to me and slammed the blunt end of his spear against the ground. "You've lost!"