🌐 Language / 言語
🇺🇸 [English Edition]
🇯🇵 [日本語版]
Lightning—so fierce it could only be described as a celestial wrath—scourged the capital of Batlig. Black smoke billowed from the northern districts, where the shrines and fanes of the Aztla Covenant stood thick. Beyond the haze loomed a gargantuan Beast-Devil, wreathed in shimmering halos of azure light.
Inside the city, the Hierarchs of The Arbitrate did not stand their ground. As the sirens wailed, they scrambled like rats, three of them fleeing toward the subterranean vaults of the Vellam Sanctum—a fortress-armory designed for such a crisis.
Where are those damned Maidens? Arch-Hierarch Zakner cursed inwardly as he sprinted through the chaos. The Holy Maidens stationed in Batlig were occupied with the beast’s onslaught and civilian evacuation—duties the Hierarchs themselves should have spearheaded.
“And where do you think you’re going?”
The voice was bone-chilling, dripping with murderous intent.
The Hierarchs looked up, trembling. A woman hovered in the air, her eyes concealed behind a Vision-Seal, four massive greatswords floating around her like a halo of steel. She bore the unmistakable silhouette of a Holy Maiden.
“You! Guard us!”
one Hierarch shrieked.
“See us safely to the Sanctum and you shall be—”
He never finished. In a flash of steel, his head was parted from his shoulders. His body slumped forward, staining the cobblestones in a spreading pool of crimson.
An enemy? Is she not a Maiden of Ezaris? Zakner, consumed by panic, shoved the remaining Hierarch aside and bolted. A scream erupted behind him—the sound of his last companion being cut down.
Linkaje’s greatsword closed in on Zakner’s back. A violent clang of metal on metal rang out.
“Eek!”
Zakner let out a pathetic whimper as he tripped, curling into a ball on the cold ground, shivering in terror.
“Lord Zakner!”
A cry of pure agony pierced the air. It was Holy Maiden Lizleu, arriving just in time to intercept the blow. Without a single backward glance, Zakner scrambled to his feet and resumed his flight, abandoning his protector.
“You hide behind a woman’s skirt to save your skin?” Linkaje’s voice was thick with contempt.
Lizleu’s strength was enough to pin only one of the greatswords. A second blade surged forward, silent and lethal.
Lizleu lunged toward Zakner, shoving him clear of the trajectory. In the same breath, the golden blade tore through her slender frame. Blood erupted as she collapsed to the stones.
Bathed in the warm spray of Lizleu’s blood, Linkaje froze. Her goal was the ruin of Ezaris—specifically, the heads of the corrupt Hierarchs and the Sovereign, Vyzoa. She had expected collateral damage, but she had not intended to slaughter her own kind.
She could not fathom why anyone would throw away their life for a worm like Zakner. Yet, she saw it in the dying girl’s eyes: this Maiden was fighting for something she truly believed in. In that one, haunting regard, they were the same.
Then what separates us? Can I truly say my justice is absolute? Her resolve flickered.
Seizing that momentary lapse, Lizleu mustered the last of her Aether to hurl a knife—a dagger-type Blitz gifted by The Arbitrate. She didn’t expect to kill. She only needed to buy him time.
The strike was effortlessly swatted aside by a greatsword.
“Run… Lord… Zakner…”
Lizleu’s whisper trembled briefly in the frigid air, then vanished into the silence of the dying city.
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