It was a cliché, but Veronica wished that time would freeze right now. How utterly selfish. Here I am, standing on countless human bones, yet all I can think about is how much I want a life with him.
A painful ache squeezed Veronica’s chest like a merciless vise. She sat in a daze, absorbing the warmth of the man leaning against her.
Darkness writhed across the landscape, devouring it piece by piece. The sun had set, leaving their world wrapped in impenetrable blackness.
Leon’s grip on her wrist tightened as he pulled her slender waist against him. He clung to her as though separation would mean his death. Veronica trembled softly when he pressed his lips to her nape, then slowly traced her exposed jawline. His touch made her feel like delicate glass, thoroughly polished yet in danger of shattering completely. She drew shallow breaths, caught in a strange, yearning sensation.
“Leon,” she whispered.
At her voice, he froze like an obedient child. He lifted his head slowly. Contrary to her expectation of finding clouded pain and desire there, his features beneath the disheveled crimson hair were startlingly clear. No trace remained of the tears that had marked his face moments before.
When his eyes caught the moonlight, gleaming with unnatural clarity, a strange chill ran down Veronica’s spine. His gaze had fixed beyond her, staring intently at something behind her back.
Why is he looking there?
“Can you hear it?” Leon’s voice was barely above a whisper.
Hear what? What is he talking about?
“The approaching horde.”
Before she could question him further, her stomach lurched violently. Overwhelmed by nausea, Veronica stiffened and grimaced.
She knew this feeling. She’d experienced it once in Asseldorf. At the time, it had felt like hundreds—no, thousands—of faces were staring up at her from beneath her feet.
Though the sensation came from behind her this time, there was no mistaking its source—the Bahamuts. Soon her ears detected what Leon had already sensed: the heavy footfalls. They were heavier than any human tread, and more numerous than any ordinary army. They were definitely returning.
As realization dawned, a bone-deep chill swept through her body. Veronica’s face drained of color as she whispered, “That’s impossible. How did they know you were here?”
After It had disappeared to find Leon, all those watching eyes had vanished as well. It couldn’t possibly have searched through Karta and returned so quickly.
Murderous intent was saturating the air, causing her stomach to revolt.
Leon silently lowered his gaze to the ground. White bones began to clatter and leap upward as the earth trembled beneath them.
Leon’s dark pupils slid toward her. “It was your eyes.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s no other explanation. It saw me through your eyes—through your connection.”
At first, her mind couldn’t process his words. Then suddenly, a forgotten vision flashed through her consciousness: she had once witnessed battles across the continent through the eyes of distant Bahamuts—Ruega, Tanbia, Chesania, Whiteland, even the bloody conflicts in the Rom Archipelago. It had been possible because the Bahamuts were all connected to each other.
Looking back, the timing of the Bahamut attacks had always been uncanny—just before her witch trial began, for example, or precisely when citizens were starting to flee to the wilderness. It was as though they knew exactly what was happening. Perhaps none of this had been a coincidence. Maybe It had been secretly borrowing her sight, peering through her eyes without her knowledge.
Veronica whipped her head around and felt her hair stand on end at the sight of countless red dots approaching from a distance. The Bahamut legion was already ascending the hill of skulls. This was their domain, and their numbers were vast enough to fill the entire Blasen Mountains. Killing them all was impossible.
While she remained frozen, Leon had silently risen, sword in hand. He moved forward as her shield.
“Stay back,” he warned over his shoulder. “On a night like this, my blade doesn’t discriminate between friend and foe.”
“You can’t seriously intend to fight? That’s madness! You can’t face their legion alone. This isn’t like defending Karta’s walls—we need to flee while we still can!”
He still had years of life remaining, didn’t he? If he escaped now, survival was possible. Even if Veronica failed to destroy the First Bahamut, Leon was resourceful enough to keep himself alive.
“If we survive this night…”
Leon stopped there, leaving his sentence unfinished. Whether he meant to suggest escape after survival or had begun a request he couldn’t finish remained unclear. His face, etched with exhaustion yet strangely peaceful, turned to her one final time.
“Even if I ordered you to flee alone, you wouldn’t obey, would you?”
The darkness around them was rapidly filling with red points from left to right. Veronica bit her lip and shook her head fiercely.
Leon gave her a faint smile. As he strode toward the boundary between light and shadow, his crimson hair danced like nighttime flames. The temperature seemed to drop several degrees.
As Veronica lurched to her feet, she realized with dismay that Genesis lay buried in the shifting bone pile beneath them. Her hands trembled violently as she clawed through the remains. Each time her fingers scraped against the white bones, pain lanced through her hands.
Her pulse raced wildly, and nausea churned her stomach. Why? Why does reality always crash in without warning? I only said hurtful things to Leon. I didn’t even properly wipe away his tears. Why now, of all times?
“…Found it,” she breathed as her fingers finally closed around the lion-engraved hilt protruding from beyond a knee bone.
At that precise moment, the Bahamut horde surged forward like a raging wave. Leon, standing in the light, raised his sword.
With one horizontal sweep, the divine blade cut through the air. The front line of Bahamuts froze mid-charge, then collapsed in fountains of blood. The creatures trampling over their fallen kin had shrunk considerably since Veronica first encountered them—now standing only about two heads taller than an adult man. Time was clearly running short. Once they completed their transformation into human form, their next evolution was inevitable—each seeking unique identities and faces.
Veronica staggered to her feet, Genesis gleaming in her grip.
Each time Leon cleaved through the air, Apocalypse blazed blindingly. She watched, transfixed by the deadly dance. She had witnessed Leon wield his divine blade countless times before, but this… this was different.
Leon was on a rampage.
When his blade smashed a Bahamut’s skull into the ground, the earth itself split open from the impact. Centuries of accumulated bones cascaded into the widening chasm as inhuman screams echoed through the cavern.
Veronica whispered in horrified realization, “He doesn’t mean to survive this night at all…”
Tears she hadn’t realized were forming streamed down her cheeks. She couldn‘t determine if they sprang from heartbreak or from witnessing the terrible majesty of his slaughter.
Never before had she seen Leon unleash such unbridled savagery. Now she understood his warning to keep her distance. In the face of such destructive fury, no fragile human could hope to survive—they would be consumed just as surely as the enemy.
Each time he brought his sword down with both hands, flesh and blood erupted skyward. His face was now half-masked in crimson, steam rising from his blood-drenched form. His blade carved vertical and diagonal paths of destruction, its trajectory cruelly beautiful.