The remaining elder sister screeched, and her anger drove her ever faster onward, to strike down the white elf in vengeful anger. It was then that Hegni entered her path, Dizaria raised high.
“You’re after me, remember?” he said.
Furious, Dina tried to cut him down, but then, beyond him, she watched as Hedin turned and shot her a disinterested glance. He raised the black sword in his hand and began to chant.
Hedin’s support. Caurus Hildr. A low-power, precision-strike magic that he was using to avoid hitting Hegni. Dina would have no trouble evading a spell like that.
That was Dina’s split-second reasoning.
She was wrong.
“Valiant Hildr.”
There was nothing remotely like restraint in Hedin’s response.
“………”
Dina froze for a moment, unable to speak, before the lightning engulfed her. Hedin had chosen not a hail of magic missiles, but a single great beam of light that devastated all in its path—not just Dina, but Hegni, too.
“Aaaaaaaaaaghhh!!”
She screamed. And then, amid a world of white, terror overcame her as she saw Hegni approach.
“Grgh?!”
He had not fallen. Even taking constant damage from Hedin’s twisted magic, he lunged for Dina, sword drawn.
Dina could not resist it. Through the curse, she had traded away not only her Magic, but her Defense as well, to her ill-fated sister.
There was nothing she could do. It was all the result of Hedin’s plan. A plan built on the back of Hegni’s suffering. A plan that Dina, who loved her sister, could never have conceived.
This was not trust. This was not faith. This was not teamwork.
The only word for it was spite. A strategy birthed from a single vile sentiment the knights both shared:
If it was this easy to kill him, I’d have done it a long time ago.
“Roooooaaaaaaaaaggghhh!!”
A guttural roar, issued from the depths of Hegni’s belly. He lacked any buff to block the pain, and only held Hedin’s blade.
There was a flash of steel.
“Ugh…”
Guided by all Hegni’s might, the blade cut Dina from shoulder to hip. She staggered back and fell, and Hedin’s magic finally dispersed, giving way to colorless gray skies.
It was at that moment she saw it. Hegni, sword poised for a horizontal swing, no love at all in his eyes.
“Hegni,” she said, “I—” love you.
Those final words were never spoken, interrupted by Hegni’s borrowed blade. The siren’s severed head flew through the air, a peaceful smile on its lips, and Hegni turned his back, refusing to dignify the death of his cursed kin with a moment more of his attention.
Instead, the head landed at the feet of Vena, who had escaped death due to her stolen defense. She picked up Dina’s severed head and peered at it.
“D-Dina…?”
The light softly left her own eyes, and soon she tossed it aside.
“No! No, no, no! It’s so dirty! Such a dirty thing can’t possibly be her! We’re both elves! Beautiful elves!”
After her outburst, Vena laughed. She went on laughing as the tears began to roll.
“Where are you, sister? Where did you go? Don’t leave me!”
A vital part of her destroyed, she broke.
Then again, the Dis sisters had always been broken. It was only through each other that they ever falteringly clung to sanity.
The tears and laughter overflowed. Here she was, a deviant who had only ever pursued her own lust for killing.
At last, her eyes fell upon Hedin.
“Ah, there you are, sister!”
Crawling on her front, she arrived at his feet and clung to his leg. Hedin looked down at her, at this twisted creature who had created a refuge inside her own brain, but he said nothing. Only his hair fell across his face.
“Break me, sister! Love me, sister! Hurry up and turn our pain and suffering into joy, so I don’t have to feel so cold!”
Soon Hedin could bear her pathetic, dirty, rotten, vile and hopeless behavior no longer, and he snapped at her.
“Shut up, you filth!”
“Eep!”
His hand tightened around her skull, and he hoisted her into the air. His coral-red eyes burned like fire, causing Vena to squeal.
“It hurts! It hurts so good!”
“You abhorrent, accursed, befouled, begrimed, defiled, depraved, fiendish, foul, greasy, grimy, loathsome, lousy, malicious, malodorous, oblivious, obnoxious, perfidious, pernicious, repulsive, revolting, sinful, spiteful, toxic, treacherous, ungodly, unholy, vicious, vile, weaseling weevil! You are evil incarnate! After all this time, you seek to be absolved of your sins?! I can hardly bear to admit we are the same race! Get out of my sight!”
His anger provoked, Hedin took his revulsion, and like a fire-breathing dragon, he belched a stream of insults at the hated elf before preparing to remove her from this world entirely.
“Strike forever, indestructible lord of lightning!”
Gazing deeply into the burning hellfire of Hedin’s eyes, Vena smiled as bitter tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Hedin. Sister. I love you!”
“Valiant Hildr!!”
Lightning erupted. Once the magical embodiment of Hedin’s rage had subsided, there was nothing left of Vena.
But unlike Hegni, Hedin had been forced to bear witness to the elf’s last words.
“You make me sick!!” he spat.
“A-Apate…and Alecto, too?!”
In the Amphitheatrum, the Evils cultists paled as they beheld the fates of their masters. At that moment, there was a rallying cry from a field captain atop the eastern walls.
“S-send in the reinforcements! Take down the strongholds, now!”
He could see the smoke and flames rising all across the city, but what worried him most was the shouts of adventurers he heard. The balance of power had clearly tipped in Orario’s favor.
“The adventurers abandoned their posts to sally forth!” he yelled, seizing his last chance to scrape things back. “Strike at their weakened defenses, and we shall have victory yet!”
Central Park was a lost cause, as was the Amphitheatrum, but the other four strongholds were vulnerable due to the charge of Noir and the other veteran upper-class adventurers. Many of them had been Level 3 and above, and there was no doubt their maverick sacrifice left holes in the defensive line. That was precisely why Finn had been so reluctant to send them in the first place.
“All units, descend from the city walls! Chaaarge!!”
The troops entrusted to maintain the siege were highly skilled. Seeing the war about to come to a decisive end, this commander ordered those troops to leave their positions and join the fight below. However, just at that moment…
“Guh!”
“Gah!”
They were all hit by a frighteningly accurate hail of arrows. It came not from the streets below, but from their flank—a fact that could only mean their assailant was on the walls with them. Flabbergasted, the elite Evils troops wheeled around and were shocked by what they saw—one of the gods themselves leading a charge of her bow-wielding followers, each wearing the mark of the moon and bow.
“Shoot them!” she cried.
“A-a goddess?! Gahhh!!”