“Kreis!” Siegfried cried out immediately.
“Lord Kreis!” But it was Theodore who slammed into me just in time, knocking me onto the ground. I scrambled upright as fast as I could. Theodore was hunched over beside me.
“Theodore!”
“Lord Kreis... Are you hurt?”
“Why did you shield me, you idiot?! I’m fine, but you...!”
I reached out to hold him and I felt something warm and slick on his back.
“You’re hurt because of me... This is all my fault...”
Why? Why had he thrown himself into harm’s way for me? No one had ever treated me like I mattered in my old world, but here, people were willing to risk everything for me. Why?
“It’s nothing. Please go... Get yourself to safety...”
“Like hell I’m leaving you behind!”
“Please... I’ll be okay...”
“No, you won’t!”
I looked up to see Siegfried fighting above us, but he was faltering. At first they seemed evenly matched, but he was slowly being pushed back. She was draining his strength bit by bit.
We would all die at this rate. The difference in their power was too great. If I tried to help, I’d only get in the way, but waiting around would only drain Siegfried’s mana further, and he’d end up collapsing.
“Ah ha ha! You’re slowing down, Siegfried! Think you can protect everyone like that?!”
He hesitated just for a moment, and in that instant more water shards rained down. I raised another earthen barrier, but a few slipped through and tore into my body.
I suppressed my scream, trying to keep quiet because I didn’t want Siegfried to notice. I didn’t want to be dead weight again. The blows weren’t lethal, but I couldn’t move anymore.
“Kreis! Kreis, are you okay?!”
“I’m fine!”
Siegfried hovered high above me, and he was a wreck. He was covered in wounds and panting hard, barely holding himself together.
He really thinks he can handle this alone? Not even he can win like this. How many times do I have to die and come back before we beat her? I can’t even guess.
“Better keep your guard up, Siegfried. If you take your eyes off me, Kreis dies.”
Another torrent of Water magic came down directly at me this time, and I couldn’t dodge. I couldn’t move.
This was it. There was nothing else I could do. I’d fought as hard as I could, so maybe it was just time to die again. I didn’t want to give up and accept death. But despair took hold of me as I was faced with the inevitable.
Then—
“Father!”
—a body slammed into me hard, knocking me and Theodore clean over.
“Cirelle?!”
What was she doing here?! She’d been hit. A water shard had torn through her leg. She pulled herself upright and stood, bloody leg and all.
“We’re going to protect you, father.”
“No, Cirelle! Get out of here! Run away now! Cirelle!” I shouted, pleading with her, but she didn’t move. She stood between me and the fallen angel, her arms spread wide. Then the other children surrounded us from all directions. I didn’t know where they’d come from, but they rushed forward with their arms open on all sides of us.
“It’s okay, father. We’ll protect you, no matter what.”
“We’ll fight for you, even if it means we have to take your place.”
“Stop it! What are you doing?! Get out of here now!” I shouted.
Why were the children even here? They were supposed to be safe back at the Louboutin domain. Theodore was the one who answered the question, still barely breathing in my arms.
“I...brought them here...” he said.
“Why would you do that?!”
“They wouldn’t...listen...and said...they wanted to help find...their missing friend...”
“You idiot!”
Why did they have to be here now, of all times?! I hadn’t rescued them from the streets just to get them caught up in something like this. I wanted to nurture their talents and give them a whole new future and a better life. That was the whole point!
“Well, well. Using children as human shields now? You’re more of a villain than I gave you credit for, Kreis,” the fallen angel said.
“Your fight is with me, not them!” I said.
She raised her hand. “This is so dreadfully boring.”
“Stop!” Siegfried lunged at her, but she evaded him with ease and caught him by the arm, pinning him down effortlessly with just one hand.
“Gah!”
“Stop! Please, I’m begging you... Leave the children out of this!” I pleaded with everything I had, but her hand came down anyway.
Another barrage of water shards rained from above.
“Father!”
“Father, watch out!”
“Everyone, protect him!”
“No, don’t protect me! Just run! Please, run!” I yelled.
They threw their small bodies over mine, one after another. I heard their screams, their cries. Their weight and warmth filled me with despair. I felt something hot and thick trickling down from above. By the time I realized it was the children’s blood, everything went red in front of me.
“Kreis! Are the children safe?! Kreis!”
I couldn’t answer Siegfried.
How? How could anyone do something so evil? The children hadn’t done anything wrong. They were just trying to live, that was all. So why...
“How dare you! How dare you hurt the children?!” Siegfried’s voice trembled with rage, and the mana swelling around him grew heavier and darker, but it still wasn’t enough.
“Despair only feeds her joy, you know.”
“Stop acting so high and mighty! You were just watching this whole thing!”
Professor’s voice made me furious. Where had he been when the children needed him?
“If you die here, she wins. So go ahead and die, just not for real.”
“What, you’re saying I should just start over and pretend none of this happened?”
“No, I’m just saying you don’t actually need to die. Just pretend you did.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I didn’t expect the gap in power to be this great before Siegfried awakened. If you don’t want another wave of attacks, shut up and do as I say.”
I bit my tongue. All around me I could still hear the children’s groans. That meant some of them were still alive. At least a few, anyway. But one more strike and even those few might be lost.
Professor took my silence as compliance and raised his voice dramatically.
“Oh, no! This is horrible! How could this happen?!”
“Professor! Are the children okay?!” I heard Siegfried’s panicked voice from above.
Before I could say anything, Professor whispered in a low voice, “Play dead.”
“What?”
The sky lit up with a sudden flash. Professor gently moved the children aside and dragged me out from beneath them.
“This is terrible! If only I hadn’t looked away for just a moment! How could this happen?!”
“Professor!”
“Quiet! Play dead!” He scolded me so intensely I instinctively shut my eyes. I let my body go limp and lay still. I didn’t hear anything from above.
I wondered if she’d figured it out and seen through the act. Just as I cracked one eye open to check...
Boom!
A thunderous impact shook the ground beneath me, unlike anything before.
“Kreis is dead?” The voice I heard was low and rumbling like it came from the earth itself. Surely that wasn’t Siegfried? I barely recognized it. He seethed with rage.
“What, already? How disappointing. I was hoping to play with him longer and—” The fallen angel began to taunt him, but then she was cut off. Even with my eyes closed, I could feel the air shift and tremble around us.
“Y-You...”
There was no reply from Siegfried.
I couldn’t help it any longer. I opened my eyes and froze at what I saw.
Siegfried’s arm had pierced straight through the fallen angel’s chest. She stared at him, completely astonished. But he wasn’t even looking at her. Instead he stared into nothing, his eyes empty and vacant.
She stumbled backward, gasping.
“To think...your mana could spike like that... But it’s too late now... Your soul is tainted. There’s no coming back. You’ll never... Urgh!”
Siegfried grabbed her by her throat before she could finish. He looked down at her with that same hollow expression while her eyes bulged in panic.
“Who said you could speak? You don’t even have the right to breathe the air in this world.”
“Nghaak!”
She used Wind magic to break free from his grip and tried to flee, but Siegfried vanished and then reappeared in midair, kicking her down.
“Arghhh!”
She hit the ground with a sickening impact. The courtyard cracked apart from the force of her fall, splitting a gaping hole into the stone beneath her. Siegfried didn’t even flinch. He just raised a hand to the sky.
“I’ll return the favor. Let’s see how you like your own game.”
A sphere of water floated above them, and sharp droplets shot out like bullets upon her, endlessly and mercilessly.
“Gaaah! N-No, please! Stop!”
The water kept falling even after her screams died away. The force of it was on an entirely different level from hers. The ground was shredded, turning into the stuff of nightmares.
“It never gets less terrifying, you know. Human obsession, I mean. It’s scary.”
“What the hell are you doing, Professor?! Siegfried’s turning into the demon king! He’ll destroy the whole world if he keeps it up!”
“True. The world will collapse at this rate. And I’ve seen how the world collapses after your deaths before, but this might be the most spectacular one of all.”
“Don’t just say that like it’s nothing! If the world ends, nothing else matters! Everyone will die!”
Siegfried’s eyes had already gone blank, and his mana raged like a storm, shaking the ground beneath us. The air heated up like it was on fire.
“Stop! Stop it and listen to me! This body, it’s...”
But he said nothing. He just kept attacking, empty-eyed and relentless.