The soldiers started to fire again. The shots increased in their intensity, forcing Bedivere to spin her spear and defend herself. Some brandished their swords. They rushed towards her and attacked, but Bedivere wouldn’t allow any windows. Her laughter filled the room while Bedivere shifted seamlessly between rotating her spear and cutting through her enemies.

“All I hear are excuses.” Inbetween her laughs, her voice vibrated through the corridor. “The world changed, and you couldn’t keep up. It left you behind in the dust. You could have lived your lives for yourself and carved your happiness into the world. But that wasn’t enough. You want to force people how to live like you want them to.” She cut through her enemies, and two barbs shot out of her spear. With the speed of a bullet, they punctured the throats of the two soldiers behind her previous victims. “And when you tried to change the world, you failed. The world didn’t budge; the people rejected you. You were too weak. So, you simply blame everyone else and hide behind these great topics and words. But they can’t hide the truth. So, I ask you how you wish to create a new world when you are so weak?”

Bedivere sliced through another enemy when a bullet hit her forehead. She stopped in her tracks, stumbling back several steps, and let her head drop to her shoulders, falling to her knees.

“Yes.” Hertha grinned and pumped both hands in the air. “We did it. Justice prevailed. We defeated this degenerate.” She laughed in relief. Tears built on the corner of Hertha’s eyes as the bullet fell from Bedivere’s head and plopped on the ground.

Ragna stared at Bedivere’s corpse. She was crouching like a doll, her face obscured.

Wait … What? That couldn’t be. Did Bedivere …?

“Man.” Bedivere’s voice started to sound. Hertha’s and Ragna’s eyes widened as Bedivere tilted her head backward. Cracking her neck, she got back on her feet. “That’s what I get for talking non-stop.”

She faced her enemies, and while her mask hid it, everyone knew she was smiling like a child in front of their birthday cake. Her brain had regenerated, and the wound started to close. Blood was running from her forehead down along the rims of her nose.

The soldiers had frozen. All of them could only stare at Bedivere.

Hertha pointed at her with her finger. “W … What … are…” Her arm was shivering, and her voice trembled. Barely could she speak the words. “M…M … Monster ….”

“Really? A monster? Are you trying to piss me off?” Bedivere chuckled. “Do you think I’m that weak?” She swung her spear. “In the name of the goddess. This battle is to the strong.”

Her opponents resumed the battle as well. They fired their bullets and attacked with swords but to no avail. Bedivere danced through her enemies as her movements became more dance-like. Had the Judas Group thought the bullet wound would slow her down, they had guessed wrong. Instead, Bedivere had gained speed. She reacted faster, utilized her weapon swifter, and her attacks had gained more impact.

What just happened?

Ragna looked back and forth between Bedivere and her teammates. None of them showed any surprise or shock. Their faces remained stoic. As if they had expected the events that had played out to occur.

“She has high-speed regeneration,” Ray mumbled, still under the strain of Hertha’s Engel. “Her brain cells had already regenerated before the wound could kill her.”

Was that another rune? Was Bedivere even human? Ragna had heard stories of her exploits: How she sought out battles and hunted beasts. But they paled compared to the real deal. And how fast she moved. Even Altera needed the Fehu rune to reach Bedivere’s speed. But there was no mistake. She might fight like a madman, yet Bedivere displayed nothing but grace in her bloodlust.

Bedivere continued to laugh. Within short order, she had already halved the enemies’ numbers. And Hertha had sunk to the floor, tears, and fear carving through her face. But more than anything, she displayed the despair that was consuming her.

For a moment, Ragna started to pity her. She might be an enemy, and her worldview demented, but to see Bedivere deconstruct everything Hertha believed in through sheer brutality, she couldn’t help but feel sorry.

Crimson colors hued the area, and sirens began to sing. Bedivere stopped, and Hertha raised her head.

“It’s open.” The hooded man smirked and vanished into thin air.

Without communicating, Ragna’s group understood what they needed to do.

Leaving Aggravaine and Ray behind, the team ran past the enemies toward the Sea Mither.

֎

When her group arrived at the most central point of the northern ring, behind which the Sea Mither lay, a shudder traveled through Ragna’s spine. Her body began to shiver the moment her eyes lay on it. She would have rubbed her arms to give herself a modicum of warmth. The temperature of the entire area seemed to have dropped to zero, her bones frozen to ice.

“What the Hel is…?” More she couldn’t say. Her teeth rattled in a cold that didn’t exist, her spine feeling a paralysis that crawled towards her brain.

Black shadow-like sludge had contaminated the area. It crept over the floor and conglomerated into an amorphous body. Back and forth, its form shifted. The ooze turned into liquid, expanding its masses, and sludge formed into a body. Not for a second did its appearance solidify as if the world tried to reject its existence. Its abdomen bloated to a wasp’s stinger torn like an open ribcage. From there, the sludge twisted like a cloak. It ripped open, turning into serpents that entwined their bodies as it vomited torrents of black Mana. Where the sludge pulsated, the abomination extended. Three circles floated around it, each radiating a rune in sickly green light: Isan, Ansuz, Jeran.

The abomination lowered its neck, sludge dripping like blood. Where a head should be, a boar skull grinned at them. And in its sockets glowed two orbs in red mechanical light.

“Sal…va…tion…” Syllables that lost any emotions they could have howled out of the gaps in its jaw. “…e…n…d…”

Ragna tried to move, but her body wouldn’t. Her limbs refused to obey, leaving her no choice but to stare at it.

“…at…chil…dren…” More syllables escaped the skull. “…we…kill…reality…gone…look…I...I…I…I…I…”

The same one letter, it repeated. Its body lurched over the team, its speech transforming into a puppet that couldn’t say anything but the few words programmed into it.

Ragna wished to close her eyes shut, to see that thing never again. Perhaps it was a blessing? What would happen the moment darkness surrounded her? How would her imagination react, knowing that this thing could act at any moment?

This thing was wrong. It shouldn’t exist, yet it smiled at Ragna. It knew how minuscule they were in front of it. Could she blame it? Insignificant humans tried to fight off these perversions of reality. And for what? So that another abomination would appear. And again. And again. And again. The Mana bomb had created a cycle of despair that would repeat their struggle while it ticked towards their end. It had carved a scar into their world, and this intruder infected it through its alien existence alone.

How could they win?