The priest said something again, and raised the tip of its spear toward the sky. There was no flash of light this time, but the priest seemed to grow a little, and its whole outline turned blue and hazy. What in the world was it doing?
Manato gulped.
The priest started moving. It was about to stab Haru with its spear. No. It had already thrust its weapon at him. And not just once. A ridiculous number of times. The priest was unleashing a flurry of attacks. Manato heard its spear making the air vibrate. What had happened to Haru?
He’s not there. He disappeared.
Haru had dodged the priest’s flurry.
Behind it.
He was behind the priest.
How did he get there? No clue.
Manato couldn’t even begin to guess how that had happened.
But Haru had probably predicted what the priest was going to do. If he hadn’t, then he’d have gotten skewered like crazy. Nobody could react to an assault like that in real time. That was what Manato had to think, having seen how fast the priest had moved. It had suddenly sped up a lot. Had that hazy blue outline had something to do with that?
And yet Haru had managed to get behind the priest, or so Manato thought, but only briefly, because he wasn’t behind it for long. When had the priest turned? The priest was now facing Haru, and about to let loose with another flurry of thrusts.
“Haru!”
“Kh!”
Haru dodged the flurry of thrusts by falling to his left. He then rapidly recovered, and an instant later he was moving to get behind the priest again. Haru sure was incredible.
But even so, in its current state, with the hazy blue outline, the priest was keeping up with Haru. It turned in an instant, facing Haru once more, and stabbed at him with the banner spear again. Haru had no choice but to dodge.
It’s no good. There’s no end to this.
Manato was about to jump out of the bushes. Isn’t there something I can do? he wondered. It didn’t matter what it was. He wanted to do something.
It wasn’t Manato who acted, though, but Riyo. She raced in on an arcing course, keeping low to the ground. Was she planning to grapple the priest as it unleashed its flurry of thrusts toward Haru? She reached out and wrapped her arms around it from the side, then twisted. She wasn’t wrestling with the priest. This was a throw.
But the thrown priest rolled and then quickly got back onto its feet.
Neither Riyo nor Haru attempted a follow-up attack on it.
“Fifth Ember!”
But Yori did. She rushed right at the spot where the priest had landed.
“Dashura Illusio!”
Yori’s red sword...was not red. Even though it had been before. Now it was black. And not the glistening kind of black. It was covered in dark mist, which shot out from it after a moment. What Manato saw next made him doubt his eyes. Yori appeared from it. Another Yori. There were two of them now.
Manato threw his head back and laughed, though he knew it wasn’t a good time to be doing that. The priest thrust at one of the Yoris without hesitation. Ohhh. It got her. She vanished. But not without a trace. The Yori impaled by the banner spear turned to black smoke. Meanwhile, the other one was rapidly closing in on the priest. Yori’s red sword cut the priest from its left shoulder to its right hip.
As the bisected priest slumped to the ground, Yori gave a performative shrug.
“Is that all? Great-grandma wanted to return to Grimgar so badly, but she was never able to.”
The only ones left standing were Manato, Haru, Yori, and Riyo. Their opponents were all lying face down in the soil of Grimgar. The bisected priest—obviously—as well as the captain and all of the lesser divine soldiers.
“It’s not over yet!” Haru shouted.
But he didn’t just shout. He sprang into action. There was something writhing at Yori’s feet. No, not something—the priest. It was reaching out to grab her leg with its right hand. Of course, its right arm was the only one it could move after Yori had cut it in half. But even in its current state, the priest was trying to grab Yori. Haru jumped on the priest to stop it. Turning the priest face down, he thrust his dagger—the non-stretchy one—into its neck.
“Priests have three hexagrammic light cores!”
What was he doing? He wasn’t just stabbing the priest at random. He pinned it down with his knees, cutting it open like he was butchering prey. Was he trying to separate the meat from the bones?
“Hexagrammic...light cores?” Yori murmured in confusion.
Riyo was standing next to her, looking around.
“I’ve destroyed two of them. Now for the last one.” Haru thrust his left hand into the priest’s head, extracting something from it. The object was awfully small. Manato rushed over to get a closer look.
The round thing Haru was holding between his index finger and thumb was probably smaller than the nail on his little finger. It was translucent and there was light coming from inside it. Not just any light, though. On closer inspection, the source of the light had six protrusions coming from it. It was that shape again. The same one that was on the priest’s banner.
“This is a hexagrammic light core. It’s what powers Lumiaris’s converts.”
Haru stood up and squeezed the hexagrammic light core thingy in his hand really hard. But when he opened his hand, the light core wasn’t so much as scratched. It sat in his gloved hand, still shining.