The smashing noises and the singing grew louder. They could feel the vibrations now. Chunks of the earthen walls of the buildings, both big and small, were lying around, having been crushed by Taidael’s ridiculously huge hammer-like arms, but even though the ground was far from level, they were able to walk across it with ease, even as it shook in time with the noises. But there was more. A dust-laden wind was blowing against them. Manato squinted and covered his mouth with his arm, feeling like he was about to cough.
“E’Lumiaris, Oss’lumi, Edemm’lumi, E’Lumiaris...”
“Lumi na oss’desiz, Lumi na oss’redez, Lumi eua shen qu’aix...”
“Lumi na qu’aix, E’Lumiaris, Enshen lumi, Miras lumi...”
“Lumi na parri, E’Lumiaris, Me’lumi, E’Lumiaris...”
The dust cloud was making things hazy. Haru held up his left hand to stop them again.
“Ha-ha-hahhhhh!”
Laughter? Manato couldn’t hear it particularly clearly, but he did hear it. Was that Taidael?
“Kh—” Manato gulped.
It wasn’t that he was surprised when he heard laughter that he assumed must be Taidael’s. The saint was up ahead. He understood that. He’d been prepared for it. So, no, that wasn’t the reason. It was because someone had suddenly seized his shoulder.
Was it Tata? Tata was right behind Manato. He turned, but it wasn’t the little goblin. Riyo. Riyo had reached over Tata in order to put her hand on Manato’s shoulder. She wasn’t looking at him, though. Instead, her eyes were aimed back the way they had come.
Manato looked in that direction too. The dust was thinner than up ahead, which allowed him to see much more clearly. Enough to make out the shape of whatever had caught Riyo’s attention.
It wasn’t small. In fact, it seemed to be even taller than Riyo, the tallest member of their group, by quite a bit. He wasn’t sure what it was. Was it alive? It was blackish in color, and looked like a tree that had lost all its leaves. But it wasn’t just a dead tree. And maybe it wasn’t a single tree either? It was as if multiple trees had grown together and intertwined, and were now all dying at the same time. He’d seen trees like that in the forest before on rare occasions. They had looked like some kind of tree ghosts. Kinda creepy. Where had this tree ghost come from, though? It had clearly moved to its present location at some point, because Manato and the others had previously passed by the spot where it now was, and it hadn’t been there a moment ago. Of course, it wasn’t actually the ghost of a tree. Manato understood that. But what was it, then?
Were those arms? Dark arms? The reason Manato thought that they might be was the fact that there were hands—or things that resembled hands and had five fingerlike protrusions—at the end of each limb. There were an absolutely incredible number of them, though. It was just a giant tangle of arms that were too numerous to count, except for a single spot right above the center of the mass, where something white was peeking out through a gap between all of the limbs.
“A face?” Manato murmured.
A face. It was a face. A person’s face, with eyes that were slightly open. It was probably a woman. Inside the mass of blackish arms. There was a face there. What was with that?
“Chibi,” Haru murmured.
Manato saw that Haru had turned to look back too. Chibi? Meaning, like, tiny?
“What’s a fiend doing over there?” Haru wondered.
“When you say a fiend—” Yori might have been starting to ask a question, but she stopped mid-sentence and drew her red sword.
“Stop, you’re no match for her!” Haru immediately said to prevent Yori from attacking whatever it was. “That’s Chegbrete of Penitence! You could call her the lord of Damuro!”
Fiend. Lord. She was the boss, then? Of the thralls living in Damuro. Taidael, the Saint of Tremors, was probably leading the converts that followed Lumiaris, the God of Light. So was Chegbrete of Penitence the same, except she belonged to the faction of Skullhell, the God of Dark?
“E’Lumiaris, Oss’lumi, Edemm’lumi, E’Lumiaris...”
“Lumi na oss’desiz, Lumi na oss’redez, Lumi eua shen qu’aix...”
“Lumi na qu’aix, E’Lumiaris, Enshen lumi, Miras lumi...”
“Lumi na parri, E’Lumiaris, Me’lumi, E’Lumiaris...”
The singing voices and smashing noises reverberated.
The fiend’s arms, or rather the hands on their ends—so many of them that they seemed to be unlimited in number—began bending their fingers and reaching out. It was absolutely enormous. This whole situation was nuts. Completely nuts. However, Manato was not afraid. And because he wasn’t afraid, he wasn’t having fun. As strange as it might sound, it just didn’t feel real. Was the fiend, Chegbrete of Penitence, really there?
“You said Chibi,” Yori noted, her hands tightening around her red sword’s hilt. “I’ve heard that name from great-grandma. There was a girl called Chibi-chan. But wasn’t she supposed to be a priest?”
“Yeah,” Haru said. “She was a priest. And right before my eyes, she turned on her comrade...the man whom she must have trusted, and loved, more than anyone—Renji...”
That was when it happened. Had saying the name Renji triggered it? The eyes on the fiend’s face, which were only slightly open, started oozing a black liquid. Were those tears? They were running down her white face now. She was crying.
Manato shuddered.
She was there. The fiend. Haru’s former comrade in arms whom he called Chibi. A priest, who should’ve become a convert of Lumiaris, but who had submitted to Skullhell instead for some reason.
Chegbrete of Penitence.
Ohhh, she was coming at them now, her black arms, and hands, and arms, and arms, and arms, and arms writhing.
She was heading straight for them, shedding black tears.
✦ ✦ ✦
