The battle that had begun at dawn’s first light still raged as dusk painted the sky in shades of blood and ash.
“The cathedral doors are breaking through!” a knight shouted, panic edging his voice.
“What in the blazes is happening upstairs?”
“The creatures have scaled the outer walls and reached the roof! The vice commander is still up there, sir!”
“Damnation! Then summon whatever forces remain in the crypt! Bring horses as bait if you have to—anything to draw them away!” the commanding knight barked from behind a hastily constructed barricade of church pews.
The response to his order came not from his subordinates but from the massive cathedral doors themselves. With a sound like the death cry of some ancient beast, the wood splintered, and a gaping hole appeared in the center where angels had once been lovingly carved. Even the commanding knight fell silent, his frantic shouts dying in his throat as every eye turned toward the jagged breach. As a massive inhuman eye peered through that gap into the sacred chapel, a fluttering black cloak swept across the knights’ field of vision.
The knights crouching behind their makeshift fortress watched in stunned silence as a solitary figure stepped up onto the pews, his back to them as he faced the breach.
“Everyone, retreat to the crypt,” the black-cloaked man commanded. For a heartbeat, the entire cathedral seemed frozen in time—until Leon Berg glanced over his shoulder.
“Or would you prefer to die like dogs without even putting up a proper defense?”
A kaleidoscope of emotions flashed across the commanding knight’s face—joy, relief, courage, determination, and above all, a spark of hope where there had been none.
Leon Berg, the legendary Bahamut Hunter whom they had assumed was fighting on the upper levels, stood before them now. The divine knight who had single-handedly defended the eastern wall and survived encounters that had claimed dozens of other holy warriors had come to help them.
“You heard Sir Berg!” the commander shouted, newfound strength in his voice. “Leave the first floor to him and fall back to the crypt!”
Fortunately, his decision was swifter than the monstrous arm now reaching through the shattered door. While the emaciated limb—skin stretched tight over inhuman bone—tore violently at the remaining wood, the knights retreated with practiced discipline.
Leon’s voice cut through the chaos, stopping a blond knight in his tracks.
“Joachim, that’s your name, isn’t it?”
Startled by the unexpected recognition, Joachim froze mid-step, unable to confirm or deny. Veronica had mentioned telling Leon about him, but to be directly addressed by the legendary Bahamut Hunter himself left him momentarily speechless. Most knights only ever remembered his family name, Kaisenmier, if they bothered to remember him at all.
“I need a favor,” Leon continued. “Go upstairs and tell that stubborn vice commander to abandon his pride and give up on securing the ground floor. The crypt, with its walls of stone and steel, can sustain the survivors for weeks if properly sealed. No scent or sound escapes those chambers.”
By the time Leon finished speaking, the cathedral door had been completely torn away, flooding the sacred space with the bloody light of sunset. Leon’s face, illuminated by that dying glow, was hollow—a mask belonging to a man who had lost everything that gave life meaning. Joachim stared transfixed at that empty visage.
“Ah, and I nearly forgot,” Leon added, almost as an afterthought. “Thank you for trying to make my final moments comfortable, Sir Kaisenmier.”
His tone was casual, almost dismissive, yet those simple words struck Joachim like a physical blow. He stood rooted to the spot, unable to move, like a deer caught in a hunter’s sights.
Had the commander not bellowed for him to move, Joachim might have remained frozen there indefinitely. Overwhelmed by a surge of emotion he couldn’t name, he finally turned and raced up the stone stairs, Leon’s words burning in his mind.
Meanwhile, Leon raised his blade without emotion as he listened to the retreating footsteps echo through the cathedral. The divine sword in his hand felt strangely rebellious today, vibrating with an energy he’d never felt before, but he no longer possessed the capacity to care. He had lost the ability to feel anything at all. His nerves had been scraped raw during his frantic search through every corner of the Grand Cathedral, unable to trust Philip’s word.
Veronica wasn’t by his side. She was gone.
That single, devastating truth had transformed his existence into something hollow and worthless. Death held no terror for him now. His heart beat only from habit, not purpose.
When the Bahamut that had been slowly advancing finally launched itself toward him, Leon swung his sword in a perfect arc, without hesitation or fear.
A blinding beam of light sliced through the air, cleaving the chapel and the creature in half. With a sickening sound, quivering flesh and glistening entrails spilled across the consecrated floor in grotesque heaps. A piercing scream—too human to come from a monster, too monstrous to come from a human—echoed through the sacred space. Even at this abomination of sound, Leon didn’t so much as flinch.
It was hardly surprising that a Bahamut in the process of acquiring a human form would gain a voice. He simply continued his deadly dance—slash, pivot, thrust, repeat—with mechanical precision.
In this trance-like state of combat, his thoughts drifted to Veronica—how far she might have traveled by now, whether she had reached the wilderness beyond the mountains, and if—in quiet moments—she ever thought of him.
He could understand why she fled, though. In his current state of madness and obsession, he found himself wanting to abandon his sworn brothers to chase after her fading trail—that was, if he somehow survived this onslaught first. He was like a helpless cub stubbornly searching for its mother even after being abandoned to fate.
But perhaps it was already too late.
Leon recognized the fury consuming him, a sign of an oncoming rampage. Flames burn most brilliantly in the moment before they’re extinguished forever. He would die here, alone among monsters. He would never again see her smile, never feel her touch. The realization tore through his chest as if his heart were physically splitting open, bleeding out into the hollow cavity where his soul had once resided. His breath vanished as surely as if a hangman’s rope had tightened around his neck.
You must have felt this same crushing emptiness as you lay curled up alone in the darkness, waiting for me to return, he thought. I wanted to die in your arms, Veronica. I dared to dream of such a gentle end, even knowing I deserved no such mercy.