His heart pounded wildly, hormones surged, and even time itself seemed to slow down.
Inside and out, two sets of jaws closed simultaneously.
What had once seemed like nothing more than a flawed structure now fused together at the moment of contact, doubling its cutting power instead of breaking apart.
Within the [mouth], all timelines were severed.
“······!”
In the weakened state brought on by the miracle’s power, durability, regeneration—everything became meaningless.
The One-Winged Angel twisted its body as much as it could, but with its torn membranes, it couldn’t gain proper speed.
Perhaps this was the greatest damage Alje had inflicted in this entire battle.
Though it had happened by chance, she had effectively severed the creature’s last remaining wing.
Even so, the One-Winged Angel relied solely on its powerful muscles, contorting its body to escape the trajectory.
The twin arcs, beginning from opposite ends, finally converged, and something massive was cut.
[RUEEEEEEEE!]
A scream, a spray of blood.
But it fell just short.
A massive wound was carved across the One-Winged Angel’s body, intersecting with the scar that had already been there, slicing deep into its flesh.
Had it not twisted its body with its innate physical abilities and elasticity, it would have been cleaved in two.
However, avoiding immediate death was all it managed.
The wound was critical.
Because of the mimic monster that refused to stop singing despite its torn throat, the injury couldn’t heal; instead, it widened further, spilling even more blood.
Because the opponent was a monster, the [miracle] had the opposite effect.
For adversaries like witches, the miracle’s power was somewhat diminished, but the benevolence of a saint could still grant healing.
But for that stillborn child of the witch, the failure of the world—Alje—it was an exception.
Boom.
The One-Winged Angel staggered, unable to support its weight, and collapsed.
The impact alone was like a massive statue crumbling, shaking the earth.
When it finally struggled back to its feet, there was no more will to fight in its eyes.
Even a monster could feel fear.
Was it because of Alje’s tenacity, her will to fight despite the blows she had taken?
Hardly.
The mimic monster had devoured the [miracle], the very mystery that was most incompatible with its kind.
A paradox in its purest form—like cold flames or an apple falling upwards.
Something that simply should not exist.
And yet, instead of breaking down from consuming a saint or a witch, the monster’s very nature—built outside the laws of the world—allowed it to persist.
It sensed it more acutely than anyone else.
That thing was an anomaly.
Something that should never exist.
Even [mimicry] had its limits.
Had it consumed a saint or a witch, it should have been unable to withstand their mysteries, melting away as a natural consequence.
But now, burning itself away, the mimic monster’s lips shimmered with a radiant glow.
“[🔥🔥🔥🔥-!]”
Even as its body cracked apart, its loosened shell splitting, its legs collapsing in utter disarray, its voice remained unwavering.
A prayer sung with the purest heart.
Among all those present, only one being could accept it not as poison, but as power—Hans.
Like a drug, courage and glory surged through his veins.
The sword in his hand—no, his entire body—began to glow.
For this moment, Hans had temporarily gained a fragment of the mystical.
And now, he understood why the saints, despite being unable to destroy humans, could stand as equals to the witches.
Though their reproductive abilities had weakened, diminishing the power of their miracles, at this moment, Hans was no different from a [guardian knight].
He alone was monopolizing the miracle of a saint.
“Haaah!”
The omnipotence he felt, as though he had become a god, even numbed his survival instincts.
Hans did something he would never have attempted under normal circumstances.
He stepped forward to block the One-Winged Angel’s escape.
The size difference between the two was enormous—several times over.
It was like a mere ant standing in the path of a praying mantis.
By all natural laws, he should have been torn apart by those scythe-like forelimbs.
“Haaah!”
Veins bulged across Hans’s straining muscles as he let out a battle cry.
Beneath his skin, through his blood vessels, the divine radiance coursed.
The One-Winged Angel swung its claw to crush the insect standing in its way—only for its attack to be blocked by Hans’s sword.
It wasn’t even a particularly high-quality blade, merely a disposable weapon.
Yet bathed in light, it easily withstood the force of the giant monster.
No, it did more than just endure.
“Uaaahhh!”
Hans’s scream grew closer to a shriek as his sword sliced through iridescent feathers, cut into the violet flesh beneath, and reached the bone.
He couldn’t quite sever the bone entirely.
But even so, the wound he inflicted was far larger than anything one would expect from a mere human.
The One-Winged Angel howled in pain—more than just from the physical injury, but from the humiliation of being wounded by a lowly human.
“Lu! Luruk! Gak!”
Even its scream was cut short.
Because at that very moment, the mimic monster’s jaws closed in from behind.
After three failed attempts—this time, it did not miss.
Alje’s [mouth] clamped down precisely on its center, locking it in place.
No matter how it struggled, this time, it would not escape.
There was only one way out of that grip.
“😞😞😞😞😞!”
That once beautiful, golden trumpet-like cry now trembled and distorted into something hideous.
Sensing its imminent demise, the One-Winged Angel let out its final, desperate wail.
The [mouth] closed.
The cut was so smooth that even the sound of flesh being sliced was absent.
The One-Winged Angel’s body stiffened as if struck by lightning, then collapsed entirely.
Hans, who had been foolishly locked in a power struggle with the corpse, initially thought he had won when he suddenly felt the weight drain away.
But as the upper body toppled toward him like a felled tree, he flinched and barely managed to dodge it.
There was no avoiding being drenched in the monster’s blood, however.
The toxins within it were so potent that they sizzled and evaporated upon contact with the divine light still coursing through Hans’s body.
Even with only its upper body remaining, the creature twitched, reaching out toward Hans as if determined to drag him down with it.
But before they could clash once more, an immense force from behind yanked the monster backward.
“Ah.”
The enchanting hymn had stopped—without him even realizing it.
It took a moment for him to awaken from the lingering echoes of that melody, leaving him standing there in a daze.
His vision wavered as the rising heat from the monster’s evaporating blood distorted the air, and his head swam slightly.
A cold breeze brushed against his cheek.
Hans was no longer a guardian knight.
He was just an ordinary hunter.
The omnipotence had vanished, leaving his body heavy with exhaustion.
His suppressed survival instincts stirred once more.
Exiled from paradise, Hans took in reality once again.
Crunch.
A grotesque silence.
And then, sound returned.
Crunch.
Crunch.
Crunch.
The dragging of something across the ground.
The convulsions of a corpse that refused to die, its severed body still spasming with unnatural vitality.
The wet, tearing sound of flesh being ripped apart.
Unintelligible noises—sounds Hans did not want to understand.
But as if to force the truth upon him, the One-Winged Angel’s corpse was yanked away, revealing the true form of the mimic monster behind it.
‘Ah.’
From the start, it had been grotesque.
Deformed.
Perhaps the mimic monster had developed its shapeshifting abilities just to conceal that hideous form.
Such a thought surfaced in his mind instinctively, as if it were the only logical conclusion.
If there had been a creator of monsters, they must have been either careless or completely out of ideas when designing this one.
A maw like that of an executioner worm, absurdly enlarged.
An amorphous body that still clung to a vaguely human shape due to its lack of a defined form.
Limbs haphazardly stolen from other creatures and attached without rhyme or reason.
It was somewhat spider-like, but even a spider would feel insulted to be compared to such a thing.
Hans, who had seen all manner of horrors in the labyrinth, still felt an instinctive revulsion—a deep, visceral disgust.
Technically, it was the disharmony between miracle and monster that made his soul reject it at its core.
But Hans, ignorant of such mysteries, wouldn’t know that.
And truly, what reason was there for him to?
No need for grand theories or high-minded explanations.
Squish.
Squish.
Squish.
Squish.
One look at that monstrous form was enough.
It was roughly the size of a Three-Fingered Giant, but the malice it exuded was on another level entirely.
Even as a mimic monster, it couldn’t consume the entire corpse in one go.
So it worked swiftly, slicing the body into pieces and greedily devouring each chunk.
An instinctive act to restore its failing body.
The massive corpse disappeared at an alarming rate.
Hans stood there, watching the grotesque feeding with an expression as if doused in cold water.
As the One-Winged Angel’s flesh vanished, the mimic monster’s body.
The tattered, mutilated remains of a wingless angel-like girl.
Slowly began to regain their original form.