"Shut up!"

Hearing Muen’s mockery, Arthur flew into a rage. He shoved hard, ripping the blade out of his own flesh, then staggered backward, his face now deathly pale.

Whether that was from blood loss, the mental blow he had taken, or both—

probably both.

"Shut up... I haven’t lost... I haven’t lost yet..."

"Don’t even think about running."

Arthur had barely taken two steps when Ariel dragged Heavenfire forward and blocked his path.

"According to what that Bukadi guy said, you should still be targeting Liya too. Spill everything, now."

"Heh... dream on!"

Arthur spun around sharply. As the one commanding this plan, his strength naturally was not weak.

Even injured, he could still escape. As long as he escaped first, his plan might still—

Boom!

Steel condensed and sealed off his retreat.

"I’m not interested in that bug."

An stepped forward, face icy.

"But your so-called plan makes me very angry. I’ve already been irritated enough lately because I haven’t been able to clean up the vermin, and now you actually sent another bug to my door. It’s infuriating."

"..."

Arthur gritted his teeth. Bloody patterns surfaced across his body, and the aura that had withered from his injuries suddenly swelled. His figure flickered—

and vanished from where he stood.

But the very next moment... he was forced right back.

"I don’t think trash like you could handle Liya anyway. Also, An, that gaudy little seductress from before couldn’t have tempted me, so could you maybe put that forty-meter blade down first?"

Muen’s figure blurred too, then solidified again. His smile was calm and handsome, the pure white short blade spinning at his fingertips as if he had never moved at all.

But several more wounds had already opened across Arthur’s body.

"You!"

Arthur’s face was pale as paper.

"Even you’re that much stronger than the intelligence said... How is that possible? Just a few months ago, at the exchange tournament—"

"Then was then. Now is now. How can you use a few months ago to measure the present?" Muen spread his hands. "That’s the thing about intelligence. Miss by a hair, miss by a mile."

"..."

Arthur stared wide-eyed, his cheek twitching now and then, whether from rage or regret.

"All right, enough of that. Let’s talk business."

Muen fixed his eyes on Arthur.

"You and these people are all from the Salvation Society, right? What exactly is your objective? Was this really just another attack aimed at the Church’s Saintess?"

Attacking the Saintess was the most obvious answer, and it fit the Salvation Society’s usual methods.

But Muen almost instinctively felt the matter was not that simple.

The reason was obvious. If the Salvation Society had truly been determined to assassinate Liya and seize this perfect opportunity, they would never have sent only this handful of idiots.

Back in the Holy City, the Salvation Society had been willing to sacrifice two entire Seats just to shatter the Church’s authority in front of the world.

Compared to that, what they were doing now felt more like... their real focus was somewhere else, and assassinating Liya was nothing more than a casual side move, expendable either way.

In these troubled times, had the Salvation Society finally run out of patience and decided to make some major move?

After everything with Evil Gods stirring up chaos, Muen had long since become intensely sensitive to anything abnormal. Of course he would not let this chance slip by.

"Talk. Tell me everything you know, and on the Campbell name, I swear I can spare your life."

Muen flourished the knife and slowly advanced.

Ariel and An wordlessly moved into position too, sealing Arthur in from every side. The three of them completely surrounded him, cutting off every possible route of escape.

Only then did the furious, face-twitching Arthur finally show a glimmer of understanding after despair.

"So that’s how it is... I... I lost?"

It was as though the last taut string in his mind had finally snapped. He muttered like a madman,

"My plan... my perfect plan... actually failed?"

"Obviously. And at a time like this you’re still trying to talk tough? Your mouth’s even harder than someone else’s." Muen sighed.

"Exactly, exactly. A hard mouth like that’s going to make you suffer!" Ariel nodded along solemnly.

Good thing she didn’t have that problem.

"Can we hurry this up? The cleanup work left for tonight is already enough of a headache."

An never had much patience for anyone other than Young Master. She had long since been itching to swing her forty-meter sword, only held back because Muen had stopped her with a look.

"Answer me. Can you tell me everything you know?" Muen stared straight into Arthur’s eyes.

"I failed... I actually failed..."

"You only get this one chance. As you can see, not everyone here is as patient as I am."

"Failed... our perfect plan... my flawless plan..."

"I’ll ask one last time."

"My plan..."

"Looks like there’s no point talking anymore."

Muen closed his eyes, then opened them.

Within those pupils flowed a profound darkness.

"If you won’t talk, then I’ll have to use methods that are a little cruel."

Muen walked toward Arthur, who looked as though he had completely lost his mind, and raised a hand. Black flames danced at his fingertips.

"A plan that perfect... actually failed..."

Arthur seemed utterly oblivious to the death about to descend on him. He only clasped his hands together, and crystalline tears began streaming from the corners of his eyes.

"Yes. I failed. So now... now I can only begin to repent."

"Repent?"

Muen frowned.

Didn’t these people from the Salvation Society reject gods? Then who were they repenting to?

"N—no!"

Just as that thought crossed his mind, a pig-slaughter scream suddenly ripped through the still night.

Muen turned his head and saw that Bukadi, who had been hanging on by barely a breath, had suddenly gotten a second wind. He clawed backward on hands and feet, shouting at Arthur in mingled fury and terror,

"No, this isn’t what we agreed! You said you wouldn’t use this! That’s why we were willing to do this with you... You promised, Arthur! You promised!"

"If I had succeeded, of course I wouldn’t have needed it. But we failed."

Arthur pressed his clasped hands to his forehead.

"So now, there is only repentance."

"No, something’s wrong!"

Muen’s death warning shrieked in his mind. Without a moment’s hesitation, he raised his hand and struck at Arthur with black flames wrapped around it.

The black fire that burned and devoured all things was the safest way to kill Arthur. As long as he touched him successfully, then no matter how excellent a healing mage Arthur was, there would be no saving him.

But—

As some invisible ripple spread outward, Muen’s pupils contracted on instinct.

Arthur was still right in front of him, within arm’s reach.

Muen’s vision told him so. His perception told him so.

And yet no matter how he reached out, the black flames in his hand could not touch Arthur, so close and yet untouchable.

It was as if the distance between them had suddenly been stretched impossibly far.

"Arthur."

From somewhere in the night sky came a calm, gentle woman’s voice.

"Since you used this, that means your plan failed, didn’t it?"

"I’m sorry..."

Tears streamed down Arthur’s face.

"I had thought my plan could resolve everything without troubling you to take the risk of acting personally... but I didn’t expect it would still come to this in the end."

"You grew greedy."

The woman’s voice said,

"By clinging too hard to this filthy life, you bore such bitter fruit instead. There was a far simpler and more direct method available to you. All you had to do was cast aside this life that holds no value for the world... and then you would not have failed."

"Yes... all of it was because of my greed and cowardice."

Arthur answered earnestly. The man who had just moments ago been so proud of his own intelligence now seemed to have abandoned thought altogether, capable only of obeying the will of that woman’s voice.

"You know what to do next."

"Yes... I understand."

Arthur spread his palms and pressed his entire body flat against the ground.

"I will... repent."

The next moment—

Bang!

Arthur suddenly exploded into a thick cloud of blood mist.

"No! You can’t—"

Bang!

Bukadi also turned into blood mist.

Bang!

Bang!

Perfumer Lucy. Madam Serwyn’s corpse. Even some of Arthur’s subordinates hidden in the shadows of the ducal estate, the ones he had been using for support work, all burst into clouds of blood mist in an instant.

"Only this much?"

The woman’s voice gave a regretful sigh.

"Well, whatever. It will be enough."

A wind suddenly rose.

The night wind seemed to come from nowhere, yet bizarrely swept all the blood mist together. It gradually solidified, blooming into a crimson lotus bud.

The sense of danger in Muen’s heart intensified sharply. His thoughts raced.

"An!"

"Understood, Young Master!"

Steel roared.

Every piece of metal in the entire ducal estate twisted and interlocked with a thunderous clamor, finally forming a steel dragon that lunged violently toward the crimson bud.

The blood-red bud floated above the spot where Arthur’s body had exploded. By the eye’s estimate, it was less than ten meters from Muen and the others.

And yet the steel dragon had to extend an enormous distance—nearly a full thousand meters—before it finally touched where that thing existed...

Unfortunately, at such a distance even An could not precisely control the steel dragon. Distorted by some unknown force, it struck only empty air.

"Enough!"

A sharp light flashed in Muen’s eyes.

He had never expected the Steel Divine Favor to work properly across such a distance.

He only needed to know one thing—

that this distance was not beyond reach. That was enough!

"Ariel!"

"Don’t shout!"

Ariel stood motionless like a statue. Fighting aura, magic, flame—it was as if all of it had vanished from her body, leaving not the slightest trace.

"I’ve already been charging up! I don’t need you yapping at me!"

"Good!"

Muen took a deep breath. The alchemical core on his back began to turn, and the sudden heat it gave off rapidly evaporated the dew clinging to him in the night.

He gripped his knife as well.

A hundredfold time-slow activated. Though he had started charging a beat later than Ariel, at the very last instant he caught her rhythm exactly.

And so the two of them, together, unsheathed—and struck.

The sky flashed bright. The intersecting knife-light and sword-light crossed that thousand-meter distance in an instant, slashing toward the crimson bud with force enough to split heaven itself.

This was another perfectly synchronized strike from the two of them, a full-power blow. Even Zagu from before would never have been able to meet its edge head-on.

But...

the crimson bud did not dodge.

It simply bloomed.

The blood lotus, woven entirely of blood, swayed in the night wind, beautiful and wickedly enchanting. And at the very center of that blood lotus, a pale white hand slowly emerged from the flower’s heart.

The world remained just as quiet as ever.

The blooming flower, the extending hand—neither imposed any added disturbance on their surroundings. The commotion they created was not even one ten-thousandth of the attack Muen and Ariel had unleashed.

And yet when that jade-white hand curled its finger gently and flicked, like a parent lightly disciplining a disobedient child—

the knife-light and sword-light shattered instantly.

"What...?"

Seeing that, Muen’s heart clenched violently.

But before he could think further, not just his heart—his entire chest caved in as well.

That flick had not merely broken their attack.

Across a thousand meters, it had also landed on his chest.

"Muen!"

"I’m fine!"

Muen dropped to one knee and raised a hand to signal that he was all right, but his other hand clamped over his nearly crushed chest as black flames surged, hurriedly forcing the shattered ribs back into place.

"The Lion King’s son has already become this formidable?"

The woman’s voice, still echoing from nowhere, sounded genuinely impressed.

"Arthur did not lose unjustly."

"Who are you?"

Ariel asked coldly. Flames blazed fiercely, and the killing intent in her eyes was impossible to hide.

"Who am I? Hmm, all right. The time before that ridiculous stink bear notices something is wrong and comes rushing over should still be one minute and twenty-one seconds. That’s enough time for a brief introduction."

The petals of the blood-red lotus spread fully open, and that hand slowly turned in a circle.

The woman’s voice said gently,

"Following the will of the world, repenting for the great sins committed by humanity... I am the Third Seat of the Salvation Society—the Witch of Repentance."