In an instant, everyone Pacifica cared about—the people who had been kind to her, her friends, and even her brother and sister—had turned into an enemy.
“This is some kind of sick joke,” Pacifica breathed. “Stop it, okay? Come on, this isn’t—”
Raquel’s fingers dug mercilessly into Pacifica’s neck, cutting off her words. Pacifica choked and gripped her sister’s wrists. Shannon raised his sword.
“W-why?” Pacifica gasped.
Pacifica tried to pry her sister’s fingers loose, but she couldn’t even weaken their grip. Raquel’s hands were abnormally strong. There was the chance that she could break Pacifica’s neck before she suffocated. Raquel’s face showed no sign of anger or hatred. She was about to murder her baby sister without having any particular emotion about it.
Pacifica’s eyes started to water.
I’m going to die.
It didn’t bother her that it would be by her siblings’ hands. She had been prepared for that all along—if, as the revelation had said, Pacifica really was going to destroy the world, she would accept her own death willingly. And she wanted the brother and sister who had protected her for so long to be the ones to end her life.
But this wasn’t a peaceful suicide after all other options had been exhausted. She couldn’t understand why Shannon and Raquel obeyed the words of a monster. Pacifica would die alone, in the dark, without saying goodbye.
I don’t want it to end like this!
Tears of frustration rolled down Pacifica’s cheeks as her vision began to fade.
No! I don’t want this! Shannon stared blankly at his sister. His feet moved forward on their own volition. He tried to walk away, tried to trip himself up or drop his sword, but it was no use. His body was no longer his own.
I won’t kill Pacifica! he thought.
But from within his mind, a voice from far deeper than his consciousness replied. You will. You will kill her because you’ve been ordered to. The thought smothered his resistance. You cannot disobey. That is the law. You are a human, and humans cannot rebel.
No! I won’t…
The tiny island of Shannon’s consciousness shrieked in defiance, trapped in a body that wouldn’t move.
Pacifica saw her brother raise his sword. She tried to scream, but no sound could escape while the hands squeezed her throat.
I don’t want to die like this!
Her brother slashed downward.
Not now!
Not here!
Her entire being screamed its denial.
NO!
There was no sound. There was no light.
Something burst forth from Pacifica in an unstoppable wave, an invisible color painting over everyone and everything. It changed everything it touched.
Just before Shannon’s blade reached her forehead, it froze. The sword slid out of her brother’s hand and clattered to the ground in front of her.
“P-Pacifica…?” Shannon breathed, his sword arm falling limp to his side.
At the same time, Raquel hurriedly pulled her hands from her sister’s neck. She stepped back and stared at her fingers as if she’d never seen them before.
The people of Taurus blinked and wiped their eyes. They looked at Pacifica, then the monster, and then each other. It was obvious that they were clearly confused over what had just happened.
Pacifica touched her bruised neck. Swallowing hard, she hoped that the nightmare was over.
“Are you… back?” Pacifica whispered. “Are you back to normal?”
Shannon barely nodded, his hands shaking. His face contorted in anger. He glared at the monster so violently that it was a wonder the creature didn’t die on the spot.
“Is-is it true?” one of the townspeople managed to stammer. Pacifica saw that everyone’s eyes were trained on her again, although this time they were alive with curiosity, fear, and anger.
“Pacifica Casull, are you really…?” asked the voice.
The human-faced lumps on the monster also turned to her as countless tentacles shot in her direction.
There was nothing to shield everyone with—when Raquel had fallen under the monster’s control, Midgard had been deactivated. Shannon and Safir leapt into action, slashing at every tentacle they could reach, but there were just too many of them. One of the tentacles shot past Shannon’s blade and headed directly for Pacifica’s face.
“Pacifica!” Winia screamed.
There was no time for Pacifica to dodge. She hopelessly covered her head.
Just before the monstrous limb should have slammed into her flesh, the tentacle stopped in midair. The voice spoke again, sounding strangely unsure.
“So it’s true… after all.”
The tentacles actually started to tremble, as though the monster were afraid.
Chris stared in disbelief. “Did it just stop itself?” he whispered to Shannon.
Shannon swallowed. “I don’t think so,” he answered. “For some reason, I don’t think it can harm her.”
Pacifica just stared at the halted tentacle, confusion and fear etched on her face.
“Amazing,” came a voice.
From high in the air, a girl gazed down at Taurus. Her sky-colored hair—long enough to reach her feet and tied back with a purple ribbon—waved in the breeze.
She hovered far over the ground. Even with magic, the height dictated that the air was too thin to breathe. The girl should have been suffocating.
She, too, was only human in appearance.
“Impressive for a human to defeat a Peacemaker,” she intoned, “even if it was only an intermediary entity. Impressive that they could disobey divine law.”
If what she had told Shannon was true, the girl’s name was Arfi. Her cold, stiff expression remained unchanged.
“That’s only to be expected from the poison that will destroy the world. She is the last hope our master left behind.”
Arfi nodded in satisfaction. “Still,” she said to no one, “you must destroy the intermediary yourself. Since I have assumed a human form, I cannot lend a hand.”
The monster’s countless faces all stared at Pacifica.
“If we cannot end you directly,” the voices said in unison, “we will destroy those who take your side. Without anyone to protect you, you will not survive.”
Tentacles shot out at Pacifica’s companions. Shannon, Raquel, Chris, and Safir were all trained in combat and could get out of the way, but Winia was frozen in fear. She recognized the tiny human faces at the tips of the tentacles.
The Purgers. The faces showed no pain or sadness, only radiant joy. They seemed to call out to her, promising an end to her own suffering.
Winia screamed and backed away.
That’s not happiness! she thought, her heart racing in her chest. She knew better now. Pain was what drove people to do better, sadness reminded them to be kind. The end of those feelings would be the end of humanity.
The tentacles fused into each other, becoming one thick pillar of flesh. It shot directly for her, but a flash of brown cut across her vision and left half of the tentacle to flop on the ground.
It was a fighting stick, gripped in Chris’ hand. He sliced with incredible speed and grace at another incoming tentacle. His exceptional technique clearly allowed the wooden stick to cut like a blade.
“Huh?” Winia breathed. She stared at Chris, more surprised that he had protected her than by his fighting skill.
“Stay inside the building,” he told her. “You’ll get hurt if you stay out here.” Chris crushed the fallen pieces of tentacle with his stick and prepared for the next attack.
“Wall, defend!”
Raquel reinstated the shining geometric pattern of Midgard around the Wild Horse Inn. Satisfied, she peered up at the huge mass of flesh in the hopes that its horror would inspire a plan.
The most difficult thing, she thought, is its rapid powers of regeneration. If both cutting and burning the creature didn’t work, she knew a long battle lay ahead.
However, Raquel could see two ways to potentially defeat the monster. The first was to batter it beyond its powers of healing. There had to be some end to its ability to regenerate, so, hypothetically, too many wounds would eventually wear out the monster’s powers. The problem with that plan was that it required the town to wait for “eventually.”
The second, better option was to quickly destroy all of the creature’s body tissue so that it didn’t have time to use its healing powers. Luckily for everyone, Raquel knew a spell that would do just that.
“I just need another sorcerer,” she thought out loud with a sigh.
The complete annihilation attack magic Fenrir, like Ragnarok, was so advanced that it took more than one sorcerer to activate. Teaming up with Shannon would work, but there was no way she could cast Fenrir and keep her Midgard defenses in place. In addition, the range of Fenrir needed to be set before the spell was cast—it targeted a large area rather than an individual opponent. She needed something to hold the monster in place long enough for her to complete the spell.