“…If you stop committing these horrific acts that desecrate life, then perhaps we can avoid such unpleasant reunions in the future.”
“Desecration, you say? Well, that may be how it appears to you, but to us, this is a sacred ritual. Not only that, but this is a holy war—a crusade to reclaim this land from the cursed, filthy demons and restore our lost glory. The deaths that occur in the process are merely trivial and inevitable sacrifices.”
Riel’s gaze, filled with unhidden disgust, fixed sharply on the man before her, exuding unmistakable hostility.
Yet, despite her pointed words, the man remained utterly unfazed.
If anything, his eyes, ablaze with a blind obsession for his grand cause, were so brimming with madness that it felt as though it seeped through the mask he wore, reaching all the way to us.
Judging by the situation, the grotesque sight before us appeared to be parts of living beings.
In other words, this complex structure resembling a massive spiderweb was essentially a twisted amalgamation of corpses.
And to complete it, the number of lives that must have been sacrificed was beyond comprehension.
From what we could infer, the grotesque creatures that attacked us on our way here were most likely byproducts of this man’s handiwork.
***
“W-Wait!! Then, what about our villagers?! You kidnapped them all, didn’t you?! Where are they?!”
“Hmm… I’d say, somewhere over there. Though, I doubt they still look the way you remember them.”
A desperate cry, verging on denial, echoed through the chamber, rejecting the horrific reality before us.
The sight alone was enough to shatter one’s sanity, yet the girl barely held on to her reason, screaming at the man.
And that was a natural reaction.
Unlike Riel and me, she was a part of that community.
To her, the missing villagers were like family—relatives she had spent years with, or perhaps even her closest friends.
Accepting that they had vanished, only to meet such an atrocious fate, was an impossibility.
Yet, despite her anguished cries, the man remained indifferent, lazily pointing toward a particular spot.
And there, obscured by a dense mass of webbing, was something barely visible.
At the very center of this web-like structure sat a suspicious, spherical object.
Gurgle—slosh—
A grotesque, repulsive mass, as if it had accumulated writhing, vile flesh into one concentrated form.
However, it was somewhat different from the other abominations we had encountered thus far.
Encased in a thin membrane, its semi-transparent surface faintly revealed the inside.
If one were to describe it, ‘cocoon’ would be the most fitting term.
Whatever lay inside was impossible to guess, but one thing was certain—
Whatever it was, it must never be allowed to emerge into this world.
It was an abomination that defied the natural order.
“If you had cooperated from the beginning, we wouldn’t have resorted to such methods… At the very least, we would have granted you the honor of being sacrificed for the greater cause.”
“…What? Honor? Sacrifice?”
“You pathetic vermin, groveling in filth, clinging to life like sewer rats under the demons’ rule. You’re destined to die like insects anyway, so isn’t it far more honorable and meaningful to perish for our cause—no, for the cause of all humankind? Not that your feeble minds could ever comprehend such a thing.”
The girl had likely braced herself for the worst after witnessing the horrors on our way here.
By now, she must have realized that the missing villagers being alive was nothing short of a miracle, and that the most horrifying truth imaginable awaited us.
But seeing it firsthand—hearing it directly from the perpetrator’s own mouth—was something else entirely.
The shock of the relentless atrocities, the terror of what was to come—
Drowning in the overwhelming surge of emotions, the girl could no longer endure.
She collapsed, completely paralyzed by panic.
In truth, the fact that she had held on this long was remarkable in itself.
Watching Riel shielding her, I clenched my fists in icy rage, then, for the first time, I spoke.
“…Are you done spewing nonsense? If there’s anything else you want to say, you’d better say it now. You might not get another chance.”
“Hah! How terrifying. I’ve already seen what you’re capable of while you made your way here. I have no idea where a fighter of your caliber suddenly came from, but it doesn’t matter now. What matters is that you are the greatest obstacle to our plan. And that eliminating you here and now will significantly increase our chances of success.”
***
Shff! Shff—! Shff!
With that, as if on cue, several figures emerged around him, cloaked in robes and masks, their appearances shrouded in mystery.
Even at a glance, their numbers were considerable, and I instinctively tensed in response.
Judging by the circumstances, they were likely human.
Individually, humans weren’t particularly dangerous in terms of combat ability.
Even though we were outnumbered, our chances of victory were still high.
The only real concern was ensuring the safety of the two people behind me.
But with Riel protecting the girl, confident in her own survival, there was nothing left for me to hesitate over.
“Of course, considering your strength, even if we all attack at once, our chances of winning are slim. And targeting someone else? That damned cat woman’s abilities are too troublesome for that. …Which means there’s only one option left. To achieve perfect descent, there are still a few more necessary sacrifices. But those, we can easily acquire from elsewhere.”
Muttering something incomprehensible, the man casually snapped his fingers, issuing an order to his subordinates.
Expecting them to make a move, I instinctively summoned my massive scythe, preparing for battle.
But my assumption was immediately proven wrong.
To be precise, the fundamental premise had been wrong from the very beginning.
After all, the weapons they raised in their grasp were not aimed at us.
They were aimed at themselves.
Shhk! Splat—!!!
“Guhk!”
“Kh…!”
“!!……”
At the man’s signal, as if they had been waiting for this moment, the robed figures ended their own lives without the slightest hesitation.
The sheer unexpectedness of the situation left us all utterly horrified.
Some slit their throats, some stabbed their own hearts, and others plunged daggers into their skulls.
Their methods varied, but they all inflicted unmistakably fatal wounds—choosing to die in the middle of this confrontation.
‘Had I not witnessed it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it. It was an utterly surreal spectacle.’
Meanwhile, the man who had ordered this madness merely stood there, arms crossed, watching in complete silence.
Even as his followers’ lifeless bodies lost balance and plummeted below, his masked gaze remained fixed forward—locked directly onto me.
One after another, the corpses, now devoid of life, fell like autumn leaves descending in unison.
Some struck the tangled branches along the way, their descent anything but smooth, but at this rate, they would eventually plunge into the filthy sewage below, never to surface again.
***
And then—
Just as the corpses were about to be swallowed by the darkness below, the massive cocoon at the center of the chamber began to move.
Crack…!
A jagged rupture split across its upper half, as though it were opening its maw.
From the narrow fissure, numerous grotesque tendrils shot out at terrifying speed.
As if they had been watching everything unfold, they moved with perfect precision, snatching the falling bodies mid-air.
The lifeless corpses—now nothing more than slabs of meat—offered no resistance.
Immediately, they were dragged into the cocoon and devoured.
And as a result, the cocoon, now having consumed an alarming number of human bodies, began to shake violently.
A deep, ominous tremor rippled through the entire underground chamber.
Rumble…!!!!
“!!… This… This can’t be!”
“It’s too late now, foolish apostle of the spirits.
Our desperate prayers have reached the heavens.
The great being shall descend upon this land.
A divine messenger of the sky, who will purge the filthy demons from this earth and deliver the judgment that has been foretold.
An ‘angel’…!”
Riel, who had been protecting the unconscious girl while keeping a sharp eye on the cocoon at the center of all this, suddenly widened her eyes in shock.
The composure she had maintained until now had completely vanished, replaced by an expression of pure disbelief.
That reaction alone told me that whatever was happening had exceeded even her worst expectations.
Meanwhile, as if mocking her, the man’s solemn voice echoed through the chamber.
At that moment, the tremors slowly began to subside—
And from within the cocoon, something began to emerge.
It was the very embodiment of the overwhelming unease we had felt throughout our journey here.
A being that should never exist in this world.
Something so impossibly magnificent and divine, yet so unnervingly alien, that its sheer presence struck a primal fear into our very souls.
The first thing to come into view was countless golden eyes.
Then, emerging in full, was a body of unfathomable scale—proportional to the massive cocoon that had birthed it.
And from its form, six enormous, pristine white wings spread wide.
At their center was a singular, enormous eye, far larger than the others.
And upon closer look, the wings themselves were covered in countless smaller eyes—so many that they seemed to blanket its entire form.
All of them were staring directly at us.
‘Was this creature truly an angel, as the man claimed?’
I didn’t know.
But one thing was certain—
This was something that should never exist in this world.