"O leopard man, O leopard-headed man."
The Black Earl's voice was muffled, like a winter wind blowing through the treetops of a dead tree.
"I'm amazed you've made it this far through Shem's siege. And brought the Paro twins safely with you. I owe you a thank you for that."
Guin did not answer. He sheltered the twins behind him, his eyes glittering, his huge mouth partly open with white, ferocious fangs peeping out of it, grasping his long sword and glaring at the Count.
"I ordered the Black Knights to bring you to the Black Tower, but it was already too late and the foul apes had taken over the Main Tower and even entered the White Tower. I was afraid. I feared that you, my precious warriors, for whom I would have paid as much as the weight of your bodies in gold, and Paro's two pearls, which hold the secret of Paro, might be lost in the hands of those vile pre-humans."
"Let Suni go. There are Shem outside. Let her go and make peace with Shem!"
Linda screamed. The armored warriors in front of her were frightening, but when she saw Suni hanging in the chamber, tied to a strange machine, struggling to stop crying at the sight of them, her small heart forgot its fear.
"Little Queen of Paro, do you know what this machine is for?"
Count Vernon sneered in a crusty voice.
"This is the only medicine that will cure my chronic disease, the Black Death, which is to squeeze warm, fresh human blood from every last living victim."
"Vampires!"
Linda cursed out loud.
"So many of Shem's innocent barbarians, and you--! It is only by Janus's approval that Castle Staphorus will burn to the fires of Shem's wrath today."
"Fresh, sweet blood is the only thing that feeds me every day."
Ignoring the princess's anger, the Count continued.
"And after I've drained the blood, I shave the raw flesh of the sacrifice over the affected area. This is what has kept my disease from progressing.
If such a fortress should fall, let it fall. If that is the pattern Yarn has set. If Yarn had any mercy he would not have left me alive as this creature. I have no faith in Yarn who ordained it, nor in Janus who sanctioned it. Rather, I have made my very existence a curse and unleashed that curse on my homeland of Mongol, sprinkled that curse of mine on the face of Janus, the weaver of Mongol and the whole of the Central Plains, and smeared that curse on the face of old Yarn, and smeared that curse on his providence. "
"It's Count Vernon."
The one who suddenly interrupted the Black Count's exuberant and poisonous long and wide tongue was Guin, a Leopard who had not spoken a word until then, and who was watching the lord of Staphorus Castle with eyes that glowed with a strange yellow light.
"A very fine curse word, one that would please a doll. But you're forgetting one thing."
"What's a leopard-headed beast to say?"
The Earl raised his hand awkwardly and said.
"If I open this armor, you and the Paro twins will become cripples like me on the spot. Know that and speak to me with all your heart."
"Why don't you try it?"
Guin said and stepped out with a grimace.
"Guin! Don't come any closer!"
Linda screams.
Regardless, he took two, three steps forward.
"I will unleash the black death! Get away from me, you vicious half-man, half-beast! My hand will soon be able to open this armour and bring ruin and judgment to the whole castle, where the fires of Shem are but a child's play!"
The Black Count rasps. His hand rose slowly to his breast. The children screamed to stop him, but Guin did not care, he raised his long sword and drew near.
"You, you, you, you're not afraid of the Black Death, are you, Leopard?"
"I'm afraid of karma, too."
Guin said.
"But I told you you were forgetting one thing. That's this - why don't you tell me for sure that you're not Vernon ... the Black Earl of Mongol!"
Horrible screams came from the mouths of Linda and Remus. But even that was drowned out by the sudden outpouring of a tremendous scream of despair.
The screams that followed were again those of Linda and Remus. The twins stood still, staring in disbelief at the contents of Guin's cut armor.
I was afraid that a cripple would fall down and spread death and disease...
"Guin! N--nothing!"
"This is the true identity of the "Black Count" that was nesting in Staphorus Castle."
Guin ranted. He leapt over the halved remains of the armour and hurled the Shem girl away from the horrible bloodletting machine.
"He's just an evil spirit. He's not the Black Count."
Linda and Remus took each other's hands and stared, shaking. There was something strange and disgusting lingering on the floor.
A black fog with life... or should I say. Or, perhaps, it is as if the darkness has taken on a curious life of its own, and has become an amoeba, slumbering and amorphous.
In a sense, it was not true that there was nothing inside the armor. The darkness that lay there, roiling, had some kind of clear will, some kind of life, and somehow even had the intelligence to impersonate Count Vernon. A life, a vague emptiness, a void in motion! Linda felt nauseous.
The girl's white fingers hurriedly cut the sign of Janus and performed a spell to ward off the curse, but her hands froze in the process.
"Guin!"
Linda exclaimed.
"No, no, no, no! Come here!"
Guin looks back.
What he saw was a nauseating scene in which the moving darkness, which should have been cut in half, began to tremble and shake as it gathered together, somehow forming what seemed to be a human shape.
Through the dark jelly, he could even vaguely see Paro's displaced twin. Finally, Guin grabbed Suni's hairy arm, lunged toward her, and slashed the disgusting creature of darkness again, three times.
"No, Guin!"
Linda screamed again. The monsters shuddered, and only a moment after being cut by Guin's sword did they scatter, but they quickly gathered together and took shape, changing each time into a more human form, but their infernal will was unquestionably alive, But the will of Hell alone was unquestionably theirs, and it was coming to the warm-blooded humans.
"No!"
Guin barked.
"He's a dead spirit... the same kind as the ghoulish demon from the Rude Forest! He's the one who attached those human bones while they were still alive! Run, quickly!"
Without warning, Linda, Remus, and Suni ran back down the aisle and toward the stairs.
Guin took the role of a guard and retreated with his sword, slashing at the monster again and again. It only served to stifle the monster, and while it was by no means a blow that would suffocate it, it at least bought him some time. Guin shouted at him, splitting the living darkness as it tried to gather.
"Don't go up there. They'll catch up with you. You have to get out through the passage below."
"Guin!"
I heard Remus scream from the corridor, he was already on the stairs.
"No, no, Guin! The Shemites have the tower!"
"The Semites will break down the door below. I can hear them!"
"Below, the Semites; behind, the spirits of the dead!"
Guin yelled.
"Kind Yarn, you're going to give us a taste of all that's wrong with this world. All right, all right, run on up!"
"Yeah, Guin!"
But Linda and the others did not go up the stairs as they had been told, but waited at the top of the stairs, fearing for Guin. The sound of a hammer against the door could be heard from below,
"Eeeeeee!"
"Aye!"
"Aieee!"
A few of the fort's soldiers seem to have survived the high-pitched victories of the Semites,
"Save you! Protect the lord of the castle!"
and the desperate clashing of swords.
"Ei, don't they know that the person they're trying to protect is a cannibalistic death spirit?"
Guin scolded him, but when he saw that the door was finally broken down, he stopped trying to prevent the spirits of the dead with his sword and urged the children to run up the stairs.
"The spirits of the dead don't move so fast."
Out of breath, Guin screamed.
"If Shem and the others are faster than us--"
"Shem has found the monster!"
Suddenly there was a great commotion at the bottom of the stairs. The spirits of the dead had found a quicker source of live bait than Guin and the others.
It was like releasing a snake into the midst of a pack of wolves. Immediately Shem's screams and the sounds of battle erupted. The spirit of death did not choose its food.
"It's an opening. Just run."
Guin urged them to hurry. But when they had climbed another four floors, they found themselves in the same slumber as in the White Tower, and the heavy doors of the tower's small rooms barred them.
"Damn, I just had to do the same thing in another tower."
Guin was angry. Remus asked, gasping for breath.
"Ah--what is that monster? If that thing was pretending to be Count Vernon, what happened to the real Count Vernon?"
"If I'm not mistaken, it was the real Count who was eaten first."
Guin replied.
"I heard that it was good for a chronic disease to bathe in human flesh and blood, so I took advantage of the fact that I was sent to a remote area to try to cure it. I took a human who was possessed by a ghoul in the Forest of Ludes, not knowing that he was dead. The ghouls ate him and took over his body, then brought him back to the forest and devoured him one by one. Probably, when he ate the Count, he also acquired the Count's knowledge, so it's hard to believe that he knew that he could impersonate the lord of the castle and everything would be as he wished.
"So the real Count Vernon is ...".
"They'll be white bones before you know it."
Before Guin could finish.
"Aah!"
Linda screamed. They looked in the direction of the finger - and froze.
At the end of the dark corridor, a ghost appeared without warning.
It was no more than a ghost. Its outlines were dim, almost overlapping with the walls, and there was no sense of reality there, not even that of a living, dark, dead spirit.
Nevertheless, it had a strangely common appearance. It was a tall, vaguely aristocratic man, though his entire body was covered by a long black hooded cloak and bandages wrapped around him so roughly that it was almost invisible.
The skin of his face and body peeking out through the gaps in the bandages is sore and black, and white bones peek out painfully from between the slushy black boils and mottled boil-like flesh that have become carrion while he is still alive.
But even more frightening and compassionate than its horrible, rotting appearance was the bandaged, almost hairless head, with its throbbing eyes shining through the bandages.
It was white and it was obvious that it had lost its sight, but it was still a human eye - an eye that barely retained its intelligence and consciousness.
Linda hugged her chest and trembled, recognizing that the haunting figure was none other than the ghost that had suddenly appeared and suddenly disappeared in the small room of the White Tower.
"The Earl of Vernon: ..."
Linda shouted in a hushed voice.
"That's right--the real Count Vernon has long been devoured, and because of his cursed way of dying, he couldn't even reach Hades, so he must have been wandering around the castle in his pristine form, trying to somehow let people know that the one who now presumes to be the lord of the castle is a dead spirit from the Forest of Ludes. It must have been."
Guin muttered as he looked away from the sight that was too much to bear.
"Poor Count Vernon."
Linda said in a tearful voice.
"What a horrible fate - to have one's body nibbled by a ludo-eating corpse, and to have to wander around in such a cursed form, both in life and in death."
"But at least now this man is no longer under the curse of karma."
Guin held out his left hand toward the ghost, pointing with a strange, somewhat spellbinding gesture.
"Count Black, Fort Staphorus is no longer under the control of the barbarian Shem and will soon be consumed in flames. The spirits of the dead in the Forest of the Rood will not be able to claim you as their prey and the flames will consume them too. Fire is all-consuming. Your chronic disease and the deeds of the monsters will be cleansed by the eternal fire of Staphorus Castle.
Therefore, return in peace to the Hades of Dole, wraith!"
Guin's voice cracked loudly.
The ghost raised its hand lazily. What the gesture was, Linda could not tell from its disfigured appearance, but she thought she saw in the eyes of the monster a glimmer of peace and contentment, a faint trace of human pride.
And Linda thought. The ghost that had appeared before Linda and Suni, reaching out to them and pouncing on them - the strange look of pleading and desire in its eyes was, without a doubt, a look of anguish, seeking salvation and telling them about the terrible disaster it had brought upon his castle. It was, indeed, a look of anguish, as if he were trying somehow to tell her about the terrible disaster he had brought upon his castle. Linda felt a burning sensation in the back of her nose.
"I wonder what kind of sinful deeds made Yarn think he deserved such punishment."
Linda shook her head and said challengingly.
"I cannot conceive of such a sinful deed."
"Because your soul is still asleep, Princess. I'm sure I can think of something."
Guin was about to make fun of him, but he soon became sure,
"No, wait-- they're coming, they're coming up. Shem!"
I screamed.
Below, the ever-present sound of battle was drawing nearer--however many of Shem's men had been bitten to death by the spirits of death, it had not deterred them, and perhaps the spirits of death had increased their threat by devouring the living. Shem's poisoned arrow and stone axe would not have been fatal to him. How could arrows and swords be used against one who had only a temporary life of darkness?
Guin took back his sword. His hands and his sword were caked with blood, blackened and smeared with blood from the many battles he had fought. If he fought on like this, one day Shem's arrows or his axe would sap his strength, and he would die on the top of this dead-end tower, hobbled by fatigue. There is no way out but down. Even if there are Shem's hordes, the spirits of the dead, and - as the crackling and the smell of smoke reminded me - fire.
Guin barked and picked up his sword, waving his tired arm a few times.
And then--
Linda grabbed his arm and snapped him to attention.
"Look!"
Guin turned and looked.
The figure of the ghost is about to disappear.
While doing so, the ghost is slowly pointing at the ceiling with an eager gesture.
Again and again, the ghost pointed to a point on the ceiling. Then, as if blending into the wall, the last figure of Count Vernon, a nobleman of the Black Death, disappeared completely.
"It's the ceiling. There's something up there!"
"Thank God that's a loophole."
Guin shouted angrily and suddenly stretched out his hand to the ceiling, where the ghost had indicated, and pushed.
For a while, there was no response, as if nothing was there. However, when Guin's sword touched some mechanism, a hole immediately appeared in the sky, and a blue-purple sky peeped out with a fresh evening breeze.
The twins - and even Suni - cheered.
"Climb."
At that moment, as if suddenly approached by sword fights and the voice of time, the first band of the Semites finally reached the floor of the heavens, unhindered by the spirits of the dead.
Guin barked and swung his sword, cutting down the Shemites left and right.
"Guin! Quick!"
"Guin, are you okay?
I hear the twins screaming from above.
"If you can get away, get away first."
Guin shouted back and fought for a while in the narrow corridor, taking on the Semites with all his might.
They jumped into the cave.
With his strong arms, he kicked away the monkeys that rushed to him hanging at the edge of the hole, and went through the hole with an agility that did not match his huge frame.
His exceptionally broad shoulders clutched at the hole. As soon as he managed to extricate himself, he let out a deep breath.
It was the roof of a black tower made of stone.
It is almost time for the deadly day to end in mortal combat. Beneath your gaze, the castle of Staphorus is filled with corpses, and the black smoke of catastrophe spews from every corner.
From there, I could see the glittering, dark, and deep river Kes below me. I could see the forests of Rood and Talos, the mysterious violets of the mountains, and the desolate fields of Nosferus beyond the river.
And the setting sun, now a giant dark orange sphere, cast its sublime light on the castle, and Guin stood with his back to it, sword in hand.
Linda, Remus, and Suni - the three of them watched him with tightened breaths. Against the backdrop of a red disk bordered by a huge corona, a warrior with a majestic physique and the bizarre head of a Leopard stood with a bloodstained sword in his hand.
It was like a strange, yet supremely beautiful statue that could be either Silenos, the half-breed god, or a depiction of Lure, the god of war. His well-developed muscles glistened in the sun, and he looked as if he had been baptized in blood.
He stood erect with one foot on the bannister at the top of the tower and the other hand, not holding the sword, stretched out on the pole on which the banner was hung.
"Guin!"
Linda cries out in warning. Without pausing, the Leopard-headed warrior leaps up and cuts off the head of the barbarian who had tried to climb out of the cave to the courtyard far below. He kicked down the next one that came out,
"There's no end to this."
Say it like a growl,
"Hey, kids, and Suni, you're just waiting to die. I'm going, you follow me?"
"Where to? Where in the world can you go from this cornered tower?"
"There it is."
Guin pointed.
The deep, mysterious flow of the River Kes.
The children gasped.
"If you jump from here to there, you might die. And the sun will be up soon. You'll spend the night on a dark river on the frontier, possibly unconscious. But if you stay here, it's certain death."
"Okay."
It was Linda who answered.
"I'm coming. Take me with you."
"Me, too."
"Good."
He took off his belt and tied the three children to his waist as if they were his back. By then, the number of Semites trying to come up from below was too much for Guin alone to resist.
"Close your eyes, cover your head, and hold on tight to me."
Guin said. And he flew like a giant Leopard-headed bird. Freedom and--
And towards destiny.