"Ah! How could I have forgotten to list those ones?" Lucius thought to himself suddenly, remembering the fact that he forgot to name two abilities that he possessed.
One was his ability to create dark cloaks—both for himself and his subordinates. He had tried to create something else with the same power, but it seemed like clothes were the only thing he could make.
And… they were all dark.
'I'll call it [Death Cloak].' He decided with a slow nod. 'And as for the second one… I'll call it [Dead Safe].'
By [Dead Safe], he was referring to the special storage space that he had. He still didn't know its full storage capacity, but at the moment he knew of the limits of the kind of things he could put inside.
'I can't place living things inside, and I also can't put in anything that I can't carry with one hand.'
That limited the possibility of the ability, but that didn't make it useless. There were still a ton of things he could use [Dead Safe] for, and it was his duty to explore those possibilities to the fullest.
'I wonder what everyone else is up to now.' He thought to himself with a smile, crumbling on his bed as he stared up at the ceiling. 'I'm sure they're all working hard… just like their Lord Mors.'
His mind went to Legion and Luca, his grin slowly turning wry.
'They won't overdo things… right?'
**********
"Ahh… that took longer than expected." Legion whispered, standing amidst a sea of corpses as their hand tightly held the head of the last of the Cathars.
It was one of the women dressed in black overalls, and she was squirming in his grasp, begging to be spared with all of her might. Tears gushed out of her exposed eyes as she begged for even a modicum of compassion, but Legion showed her none.
Ignoring her screams, they went ahead to crush the woman's head in a single moment with their bare hand, causing a mic of bone and entrails to mix, pouring into the damp soil as they let her go with disinterest.
'At least Legion made her death quick…' Luca told himself as he watched all of this horror from the sidelines. 'That's more than I can say for most of them.'
His gaze traveled all over the clearing, and all he could see was carnage—the bloodied corpses of hundreds of human beings. They were killed in all sorts of ways, and the only one who committed all of the murders was the Death Knight themselves..
Luca had only watched, cheering his comrade on from the sidelines.
At least, that was how it appeared externally.
But…
'Is this really okay?'
… Deep down, Luca was experiencing a bit of a crisis.
'I pretty much killed them, since I was the one who suggested that we go back and attack rather than wait for them to come to us.' He told himself. 'Was that the right thing to do?'
If he hadn't said anything, there was a chance that the Cathars would not have pursued any further, and all of this death could have been avoided. At most, only Marla would have come after them, and she would have met her well-deserved end.
'So… by coming here… didn't I doom everyone else? I… NO… no, I can't think like this.' Luca bit his lip as he shook his head.
'There's no guarantee that they still wouldn't pursue us. Besides, killing Marla was always going to spark conflict between our Cult and theirs. Besides, if you look at it another way… it's the fault of the Cathars for sending their people after us, to begin with.'
In essence, weren't they liable for their own deaths?
'The ones who died were only acting acting in accordance to their faith, but that doesn't change the fact that they considered us enemies and had malicious intent towards us. If we let them be… they could have caused even more harm.'
Luca looked at Legion, who was cleaning off the blood that had stained their hands. 'Legion would have probably been okay, but there's a chance I would have died if things went awry and we weren't prepared.'
Hence, what he did was an act of self preservation.
'It's not my fault… so don't hate me too much.' His gaze traveled through the bloody mess and he spotted the battered face of the Lady Deacon who was some help to him.
She had been a bitch to him, but he still didn't think she had to die.
"What's that?" Legion's voice interrupted Luca's thoughts, causing the boy to swiftly snap out of his daze.
"Hm? What's what?!"
He tried his best to hide his unease, but something told him that Legion could see right through him. Still, the Knight didn't address the troubled expression on his face and simply pointed at his right pocket.
"That. Your pocket is glowing…"
"O-oh! It's something that the Cult Leader gave me." Luca quickly brought out what appeared to be a quartz ruby, one that had several runic inscriptions on it.
The stone warbled, glowing brighter and brighter, while also dimming at certain intervals. It almost felt like it was alive—that there was something within it that was begging to come out. The whole thing freaked Luca out a little, but he did his best to hide it while holding the stone in as much reverence as possible.
It was given to him by the Cult Leader Lili, after all.
"Hm? Did she tell you why?"
"No. She just told me to keep it as close to me as possible and make sure it was protected no matter what." He scratched his head, trying to remember her exact words. "Ah… she also told me to return it to her when we get back."
"I see… hmm…" Legion watched the stone for a few seconds, silent as the night.
It seemed they recognized it, but also felt confused by the sight of the stone. After saying nothing for a while, Legion finally shrugged and nodded slowly and smiled.
"It's fine. Return it to your pocket and give it back to her when we return."
"O-okay! Hope everything is fine."
Legion chuckled as they heard Luca's nervous question. "Indeed! It seems tonight's bloodshed might not be that much of a waste, after all."
Luca still didn't understand, but he chose to save his curiosity for later. Without speaking any further on the matter, he returned the quartz ruby to his pocket and followed Legion and awkwardly climbed on Legion's back as they journeyed back to the Cult's headquarters.
Neither of them bothered looking back to see the carnage they had wrought.
*********
"My God…" A whisper danced in the air, filled with both compassion and horror.
It belonged to a pretty lady clothed in pure overalls—with a similar design as a nun—her blue eyes resting on the sea of corpses that spread out before her. Beside her were a few other comrades of hers, all with various expressions that could be taken as their way of grieving.
One of their colleagues—a fellow Deacon—had passed away, along with hundreds of devout followers who were in the army of God. How could so many members of the Cathars perish in one day, and in such a horrible manner?
"Oh, good God in heaven… grant your faithful followers rest in your eternal bosom. They are now free from the trappings of the evil God in this world, and will forever enjoy bliss in your presence." The lady clasped her hands and prayed.
"May their souls—"
Before she concluded her prayers, she suddenly paused… shocked by what she had noticed.
The rawness of the carnage before her had been so grotesque that she must not have noticed it until now. However, the moment she did so, her eyes widened with even more shock and sheer disbelief.
'Oh no…' Her legs moved on their own until she walked among the very corpses that now stank.
The pure white dress that once shimmered with ethereal luster was now dyed in blood, but that didn't faze her in the slightest.
There was something urgent... desperate... about her movements.
Her eyes darted around, frantically searching for something as the squishing sounds of her legs stepping on innards or crushing dead flesh echoed in the air. The lady didn't notice any of these, though, instead tears now flowed down her eyes as she frantically searched for, but couldn't find even one of the hundreds that should have been present.
"Souls… they aren't here." She cried out, wailing at the center of the dead bodies, knowing fully well that without the purification of their pure, sexless essence, these brave ones would not join the rest of their comrades in eternal bliss.
However, no matter how hard she searched, the lady was unable to find them.
"Where… WHERE ARE THEIR SOULS?!"