Making our way back down the cobblestone road, we headed back toward the front gate of Wolfhaven.

We had spent enough time here, and it was about time to get back on the move. The Umbrian Grand Cathedral was an incredibly far distance away, with the capital of Miltoven hundreds of kilometers inland, past numerous towns and villages under the influence of the church.

We had a hard trip laid out for us.

I was hoping while we made our way to the next town in Whitewood, Hana could practice her combat skill on various monsters that lurked in the forest. Then, she could get some much needed experience in the way of battle, while still not really having to face the emotional guilt of having killed an actual person.

Also, since her latent athletic ability had shown itself since she first used her powers, I was secretly hoping that we’d get to see something like that again. It would make our trip that much faster if she could keep pace with me while I dashed at full speed.

As of right now, I assumed that I couldn’t feasibly pick up Hana and carry her everywhere, as the fight in Alonzia and movement afterward to scan the town for survivors had thoroughly exhausted me at the time. Of course I’d test it anyway, but if it was as I suspected, then I wouldn’t make it very far before effectively running out of steam.

In that moment, the thought occurred to me that it was strange Hana could make me infinitely more powerful, but wasn’t able to do the same for herself. It was certainly a little odd.

‘Eh, I bet I can write it off as weird hero shenanigans,’ I thought.

Hana looked over at me, frowning.

(Did you just call me weird?)

…

As we approached the gate, Hana and I noticed that the area was unusually crowded. During the time we had spent escorting Craig and Miotu back to the guild, a large number of Wolfhaven guardians had assembled near the opening in the stone wall, standing watch with a heightened intensity.

Their faces were hardened and their weapons were drawn, indicating they were prepared for a confrontation. Initially, we wondered who they were waiting for, as they faced inward rather than outward from the city walls.

Then their gazes fell on Hana and I, locking on like a griffin's eyes to its prey. That told me all I needed to know.

I stopped in my tracks.

(Hana, get ready. I don’t think they’re going to let us out-)

…

Then, I saw them.

…

A large group of men with gold masks and wide-brimmed hats were spread out behind the Wolfhaven guardians, numbering exactly thirty.

Their masks were intricately designed, depicting fearsome expressions to invoke dread in the hearts of their enemies. They were clothed head to toe in bright red garments, with a gold cross emblazoned on the front of their flowing cloaks. Not even the tiniest bit of skin was visible beneath their meticulously tailored outfits, which seemed to be made from a material that shimmered subtly as they moved.

They were undoubtedly Inquisitors, the church’s specialist strike-force, assembled to deal with any and all threats that opposed its decree. They were infamous for their unyielding dedication to rooting out heretics and enemies of the faith.

Or, rather, those accused of being such people.

Abusing cruel and inhumane torture techniques, preying on the fear and desperation of their victims, many falsely confessed to heresy, hoping that their torment would end. But instead, they almost always faced burning at the stake.

If they caught us, that would be our fate. There was no real conversation to be had.

Hana, who had been reading my thoughts, drew her blade. Her hands gripped the hilt, knuckles white in anticipation for her first battle, a trial looming not an hour after acquiring her first weapon.

My eyes darted from one Inquisitor to the next, attempting to gauge their individual strengths and weaknesses, but their movements and their clothing were indistinguishable from each other, only differing in height and width.

The guardians called out to us, having noticed that we were no longer moving toward them. One man’s voice in particular boomed over the rest, exclaiming:

"We have recently been informed that the true culprit for the slaughter of the Alonzian people was caused by a pale woman with blonde hair and blue eyes!"

The man's sword, glinting in the sunlight, was pointed directly at Hana. He appeared somewhat uneasy, as though he sensed that something was amiss.

"Are you not the one?" he demanded, his voice laced with suspicion.

Hana's grip on her own blade tightened as she retorted, her voice filled with conviction.

"I did no such thing! The town was attacked by gargoyles, ones that rested on the church's walls! We're being framed!"

For a moment, an unsettling silence hung in the air.

A tall inquisitor, his mask shrouded in the shadows of his wide-brimmed hat, stepped forward.

"Oh?" he sneered, his voice dripping with disdain. "You would dare to accuse the church of such wicked acts and claim that both of you are victims of a conspiracy? How very convenient for us. We will take your accomplice as well."

He then turned his gaze to the Wolfhaven guardians who, having heard Hana's impassioned plea, began to doubt the inquisitors' claims.

From the beginning, the agents in the red cloaks seemed suspicious, but the Inquisitors were simply above them, so I doubt the guardians even had the option to question them. Now, having heard the side of the innocent-looking girl, I could tell they knew something was wrong.

But before they could act on their doubts, the inquisitors swiftly and mercilessly cut them down, beheading some, running through the hearts of others. The blades of the inquisitors, adorned with ornate gold hilts and intricate steelwork, were now stained crimson with the blood of the fallen guardians.

"Thank you for your service," the tall inquisitor said, his voice cold and unfeeling. "Unfortunately, it’s time for you to take your leave."

Hana gasped, and anger shot into my veins. I was just about to attack, my body permeating a purple aura, before the man started speaking again.

"Ah, and you can kill the other girl now. Her use has been fulfilled."

Then, one of the Inquisitors that still stood in the back line walked forward, tossing a beaten and bruised girl to the floor.

For a moment, time seemed to stand still. My skin clammed up, my heart skipped three beats, and the most disgusting, horrible nausea washed over me.

Her blonde hair that used to be tied back in a neat ponytail had come undone, her hair thrashed and disheveled. Her neatly pressed blouse and skirt that used to give an air of professionalism and competence had been crumpled, torn and dirtied. Her light brown eyes were bloodshot, the skin underneath them reddened from crying.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

And even despite all that, she smiled at me cheerily, her smile wide and welcoming, through her painful and plentiful wounds.

The Inquisitor who had thrown her to the floor drew his blade, bringing it above his head.

"I’m so sorry, Sun."

And swung downward at her neck.

I leapt forward with all my strength, having hesitated for much, much, much, much too long. I expelled every last bit of mana I had at my disposal just to increase my speed, but no matter how I looked at it, I wasn’t going to make it in time.

The moment seemed to stretch on forever, the blade inching closer and closer to her as I waded through the molasses that was material space.

"No… NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

A spurt of blood and the rending of flesh.

The sound of metal prevailing over bone crackled and echoed. The air stilled, the dawn of a fresh kill pouring its chilling feeling over the land.

There was silence.

And then, more rending. More, and more and more as the segmented blade curled and coiled and wriggled and tore up the Inquisitor from the inside, turning his innards to little more than mush. As this went on, his skin, now faintly visible from the opening in his cloak, began to lose its color, shrinking inward and hollowing.

Hana, her hand outstretched, eyes crazed in panic, had pierced the man with her sword from tens of meters away, simultaneously protecting Claire’s neck from his downward slash with a clang. She whipped her sword upward, splitting the man in two, and his churned guts poured from the pale shell of his dried skin and muscle.

I, not being able to stop myself, barreled through the man’s mangled body at maximum speed, splattering his remains amongst the remaining twenty-nine inquisitors.

They looked at us in terror, clearly not expecting this kind of resistance.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING, YOU IMBECILES? [BIND] HIM-"

The tallest inquisitor could barely get out his command before I swept his legs out from under him with a low kick. Both his thigh bones bent inward before they were knocked clean off his body, one crashing into another Inquisitor and tearing his head from his neck. I performed a full spin with my momentum before slamming a palm into his head, sending the front of his face through the back of his skull.

In response, eight of the now thoroughly terrified Inquisitors cast a [Bind] spell on me, all but entirely stopping my movements with invisible chains. I was slammed to the floor with an incredible force, cracking the cobblestone road. They pulled tighter and I struggled against the spell, forcing my will against theirs. I could feel their minds straining under the pressure, but they still hung on. The Inquisitors’ magic was no joke.

Fourteen more drew their blades, a glorious blue light emanating from every single one of them. They charged me, while the remaining five charged at Hana.

She impaled two of the five immediately with a startlingly quick reaction to their movement, her blade seeming to move with a mind of its own.

However, the serpent-like sword seemed to be stuck in them, not budging from the bodies it had claimed. It was emitting an ominous and terrifying aura, seeming to once again hollow out the inside of the Inquisitors, their once struggling bodies losing strength and going limp. Their swords clattered to the ground.

She was doing well, but she was caught.

The remaining three leapt at her, her segmented blade immobilized.

The fourteen Inquisitors whaled on me with their blades, breaking my focus on Hana.

I was expecting their blows to do nothing, just as Amhar’s had, but to my surprise, they had incredible weight to them. Rather than a slash or a flame attack, which had little in the way of blunt force, I felt like I had just been struck with the weight of the ever-stretching sky. Fourteen times.

"[Heaven’s Might: Gravitum]!" They yelled, throwing the full weight of their bodies into every blow.

My body was pushed further and further into the cobblestone road, each chop blasting my ears with the sound of a gong. Though I wasn’t sure if I had actually been injured, I was thoroughly disoriented, and my ears rang like church bells.

They continued to whale on me with these mind-destroying attacks, and though I tried to get up, the Inquisitors in the back held their [Bind] spells with unwavering focus.

Every time I tried to lift an arm, it was pounded back into the ground. When I raised a knee, it slipped out from under me. When I hefted up my head, it was hammered in like a nail.

It was frustrating, annoying, INFURIATING.

Anger began to build in my chest, then hate, then pure, unbridled rage. I could feel the power of the mysterious purple aura grow inside me with every strike they landed.

No, it wasn’t just power. The aura was angry too.

It hated the sound of the gongs, the ringing, the loud noises.

It hated it so much.

It wanted them GONE.

A low growl escaped my lips, and my mind focused on the sound brought forth by my hate instead of the constant harassment it had been enduring. I rose to one knee and pushed up from the ground, one arm shielding the back of my head. The ground beneath me shook with the constant pounding, the fourteen Inquisitors now swinging even more desperately than before.

"WHAT IS THIS THING?" They screamed.

I could feel the [Bind] on me weaken as my anger built, and the Inquisitors grew more afraid. Their grasp on me was slipping.

Then, Claire, still lying on the ground and finding her moment to strike, shot an icicle into the back of one of the Inquisitor’s heads.

"[Ice Shard]!"

It was an incredibly small scale and simple attack, and one she had learned solely for self defense purposes.

But it was sharp, quick, and pierced through cloth and flesh. More than enough to kill an unsuspecting man.

Two of the Inquisitors closest to the man who was shot turned their heads, breaking their focus on the [Bind].

"Sun, NOW!"

I tore free of the [Bind], enduring the [Gravitum] strikes, and launched myself towards the Inquisitors who had sealed away my movement. In a flash of light, I ripped through their ranks, killing six of them in my initial charge.

The Inquisitors who had been using [Gravitum] now switched to [Flash Step], pursuing me in an attempt to protect their comrades' lives. I turned on them, knowing that [Bind] was no longer a significant threat, and gathered mana into my fist. I punched forward at them, unleashing a blast of purple mana far more potent than anything I'd ever conjured before.

"[ASURA'S FIST]!"

Six of them disintegrated into mist, their comrades descending towards me, screaming and pouring all of their mana into a desperate last-ditch effort to defeat me.

"[GRAVITUM]!"

I swatted them aside with a flurry of punches and kicks, and as the last one approached, I launched myself towards him and delivered a flying knee to his head as his blade ricocheted off my body, nearly useless without its thirteen brothers to aid it. The man's head exploded, his golden mask crumpling under the force of my strike.

But I wasn't finished with him just yet.

I reoriented myself in the air, still hovering parallel to the man's beheaded corpse. I grabbed it by its arms, spun it around my body, and hurled it at the last remaining Inquisitor who had bound me. The man [Flash Stepped] out of the way, narrowly avoiding death by his comrade only to have his brain stem severed by another of Claire's well-placed [Ice Shards].

With all of my enemies vanquished, I turned to Hana, hoping she had managed to hold off her opponents while I was preoccupied. Claire hadn't even bothered to glance her way, which had concerned me greatly.

But now, I understood why she hadn't looked. It wasn't because she had given up on her or placed more faith in me during the fight, no.

Hana was completely unscathed.

An Inquisitor floated above her, impaled by one of his comrade's fallen blades, drenching her pale visage in blood. The sword seemed to hover in the air by itself, guarding Hana as if by its own volition, while its companion, the other fallen blade, appeared to have decapitated the other two red-cloaks before they even had a chance to land.

Their heads rolled on the ground, masks still firmly attached to their faces.

The Inquisitors impaled by her segmented blade were now mere husks, their life force drained by the purple aura.

It was a chilling scene, and Hana's pale, petite figure stood at its center, unmoving. To anyone unfamiliar with the hero, she might as well have been a witch.

A wraith.

A being to be feared.

She lowered the impaled man down to her face level, one of the floating swords prying his mask and hat from his head.

He looked like any ordinary person. Just... a guy.

"Who... told you to do this?" Hana interrogated, her voice low and flat.

She seemed like an entirely different person. Not even a trace of the Hana I knew resided in that cold, detached voice.

The man coughed up blood, his organs failing as life was drained from his body.

Slowly, the purple aura from Hana’s blade hollowed his cheeks, and previously brown hair fell from his head in clumps of snow white. His comrades lay all around him, telling him there was no hope of coming out of this alive.

Even despite all this, he smiled, laughed, and spit at Hana’s feet.

"Eat shit, Abyss freak."

Using his last breath to loose those words, the man slipped from Hana’s blade, limp and cold, the blood all but removed from his body.

…

…

…

She turned to me for just a moment, her bright blue eyes alight with the ominous purple mana that coated all three of her tools of slaughter.

These eyes were empty, devoid of the warmth and compassion that once resided within them.

And yet, they were filled with tears.

Then, she threw up.

…

It smelled vaguely of coffee and sweetened cream.