“Why, why are you doing this… I-an has done nothing wrong… It’s all my fault. I’m the one who is lacking… I’ve committed a mortal sin! So, please!”
It was a howl wrung out with all her strength.
The sincerity contained within it held a persuasion beyond logic. The saint standing on the battlefield, the judges on the steep cliffs, and the throngs of people numbering in the tens of thousands.
The reason they couldn’t utter a single word was likely related to this as well.
“k*ll me, k*ll me! Instead, hang me up, throw stones, then burn me alive! That’s what you all want, right?!”
By the end, it was a plea that turned close to a scream.
Panting for breath, the Virgin Saint closed her eyelids sadly, draining all the air from her lungs.
Drop, drop.
Clear dew droplets fell.
“So, please let I-an go… Why must that person suffer… Huh, uh…”
Silence.
The saint did not respond.
It was then that the man groaned and writhed. His fingers twitched as if electric current had passed through them, and he slowly began to rise.
The saint’s gaze turned forward again.
The lady saint thought as she watched the scene.
No.
“…Impossible.”
With a pop, bl**d and flesh splattered once more.
“Ah, ah… Aaaaah! I said no… I told you to stop! How can you still call yourself a saint?! Can you claim to be a servant of the Heavenly Deity!”
“Then who are you?”
It was a solemn question.
The saint’s voice contained a mystical power. Though the lady saint was already not in her right mind, that question momentarily left her speechless.
Who am I?
In the past, she would have confidently declared it.
“I am the Virgin Saint,” she would have said.
But now?
Due to her heightened emotions, bl**d flowed from her clenched fists. The marks of her nails digging into her palms were evident.
“Are you also a servant of the Lord?”
“I, am… Well…”
The pale pink eyes that had sunk into bewilderment flared up once more with intensity.
Fragments of fierce emotion surged like a rapid current through her clenched teeth.
“If I am not a servant of the Heavenly Deity, then what do you mean by that? Even now, I am following the Lord’s will!”
“The Lord’s will, you say.”
“You abandoned me!”
It was a condemnation soaked in resentment and disbelief, blunt to the point of being primal.
“I’ve believed in you my whole life… I’ve lived for you! I’ve been cast aside like a worn-out shoe, so I say that I’m to be forsaken! I’m willing to be obedient! I can be the one cast aside… But why do you want to take away my most precious person…?!”
“Is that so.”
The man flinched, and tremors passed through his body once more.
The saint turned her head away indifferently again.
“Then sit there and obediently submit. Isn’t this also the Lord’s will?”
“Oh, no… Wait…!”
With a pop, the man’s life again flew into the void.
“Ah, ugh, aah… Aaaaah! Stop, stop! Please, please… I was wrong. I wasn’t enough, I beg you! Just once, just once have mercy… At least on I-an, at least on I-an!”
“It is a path you chose for yourself.”
The saint’s tone was so expressionless it felt cold, lacking any highs or lows.
The depths of her intent were impossible to fathom.
“Unnamed one, how dare you interfere with another’s fate? You do not have the right.”
“It’s my fate!”
With bloodshot eyes, the lady saint poured forth her earnest plea.
“I have to bear it, even if it’s burdensome! I-an has committed no sin…!”
The saint no longer even responded.
Pop, pop, pop!
He butchered the man like a machine. Each time, a rending scream echoed, and the lady saint exhausted every means she had.
Pleading, threatening, negotiating, whatever it took.
If he told her to d*e, she would willingly accept it. If told to stand in that place instead of I-an and be killed from dawn till dusk, she would gladly accept that, too.
If only she could save I-an!
Eventually, the lady saint shifted her plea to I-an instead of the saint.
“I-an, I-an… Please, please stop… Huh, uh… I feel like my heart is being ripped apart. It feels like I’m going to go insane! You know that it’s absolutely, absolutely impossible… So please!”
But the man’s eyes only glanced at the lady saint.
The next moment, he unerringly gripped the sword and began to rise. How many times had he lived and died like this?
Exhausted from crying, the lady saint’s voice was hoarse, unable to scream properly anymore. She merely repeated questions, as if she could not truly grasp her situation.
“Why, why… Why won’t you give up? Why do you keep getting up?! It must have no meaning, it must have no meaning at all…!”
“Well.”
The answer flowed unexpectedly from an odd place.
It was the saint. He continued in a plain tone without even glancing at the lady saint.
“How do you see it?”
“It seems foolish…”
Tears streamed down her face as the lady saint let out a soft sob.
“And that’s why it’s so precious… Because there is only one person like that in this world…”
Only then did the saint’s glance flicker towards the lady saint.
The sound of sobbing that the lady saint had been expelling ceased in an instant.
As if remembering something.
“…Wait, did you say that I have no right?”
“Perhaps.”
“What is that ‘right’?! What must I do to make you stop this…!”
“Prove it yourself.”
It was a cruelly fundamental response.
The lady saint’s complexion turned haggard, but the saint’s tone remained as unfeeling as ever.
“Only you can answer who you are… The path has always been there. It’s simply that no one has ever walked that path before, so it is not called a ‘path.’ Kneeling and begging does not create a path that isn’t there.”
“What does that mean…?”
The question could no longer continue.
The man’s body twitched, signaling something.
And then with a pop.
The lady saint’s nightmare began anew.
“Aah, aah… Aaaaaaaaah! No, stop… Please… Don’t do this, how many times…!”
With that, the lady saint desperately struggled.
What must I do, what must I do?
What are you asking me to prove?
Who am I?
I’ve even forsaken my name to fit the facade of ‘Virgin Saint!’
It was a relief that both hands were tied. Otherwise, she might have chewed off all her fingers in panic and despair or recklessly pulled out her hair.
No, she might have even scratched her own face with her nails out of desperation.
How much time like eternity had passed.
The man was slowly losing his consciousness. He lay motionless for several minutes.
It was a mental d*ath.
No matter how infinitely the body regenerated, it was the end if the mind died. And this was the conclusion the lady saint feared the most.
No, she gazed at I-an’s figure with a heart filled with evil.
Please, please don’t do this.
You must survive. Even if I d*e, somehow you must…
At that moment.
The man twitched, and for the first time, the saint’s body stiffened.
As the boundary between life and d*ath blurred, the sea of the unconscious overflowed.
Where is this?
She could not distinguish between dream and reality. Walking along the clear scenery, she found herself arriving at a familiar place.
Her eyes, once void of light, scanned the surroundings.
She had been here a few times before.
In a dark and desolate plain, all sorts of corpses lay scattered. Starting with monsters, there were grotesque beings and humans forming a low hill.
It was a bizarre sight no matter when she looked at it.
She was idly observing the corpses when a thought suddenly crossed her mind.
Should I just sit down here?
After all, outside would only bring more pain. If she settled here, promising never to dream of the outside world again…
The desire to do so was strong.
Yet, still she was moving her feet for some reason.
She had already forgotten the reason. The hazy consciousness couldn’t piece together fragmented words into sentences.
But there was something she must not give up.
Even if it hurt and tormented her, there was a path she could not yield.
So she walked.
Step by step, even as she sweated profusely from the effort.
She stumbled forward.
It was difficult. It was so hard she felt she might d*e.
She had to go on. She would not stop.
Because, because…
“Stop.”
At that soft voice, she jolted and regained her senses.
It was a sensation of a prickling current traveling up her spine.
The consciousness that had been floating in dreams returned to its place in an instant. Before she could grasp where this was, her eyes turned toward the source of a booming sound.
There sat a man with jet-black hair.
Perched on a rock, his indifferent golden eyes crossed hers.
“You’re far too early for this, kid.”
Unbothered by the man’s harsh criticisms, she hesitated not to get straight to the point.
“Leave it to me.”
His voice held no highs or lows.
As if stating an obvious truth, he declared it with a tone free of any doubt.
“…I will bring victory.”
The man and the man faced each other.
Standing upon the land of corpses and shadows.
