CHAPTER 6.5: TRICKERY

***The Lord Haya’s manor***

Smoke could still be seen rising from the recently destroyed—and leveled—manor of the Lord Haya of House Usarved. Upon the orders of the Human Saint, the paladins brought forth the mighty cannons from their arsenals and bombarded the property with sheer ferocity that no stone was left unturned. And, as if it was not enough, they set aflame whatever remained…including the corpses of those monsters who were killed.

“…” Lady Madelaine, donned in her paladin armor, watched as the paladins and soldiers from the nearby kingdom of Nerfes searched the rubble for anything that might still move, and for the corpse of the ‘paralytic demon, the Lord Haya’ from the intelligence reports. With her was Lady Ruro and Lady Seirna; they were on alert if everything suddenly went haywire again.

“Maddie,” it was the Beastman Saint who broke the silence. “Are you…alright? You look pale!”

“I…I’m good,” she replied with a weak smile. “I-It’s just that, I’m exhausted.”

“Well, you can take a rest over there,” Ruro pointed at one of the paladin tents. “We’ll take over from here with Lady Seirna.”

Maddie looked at the Saint of the Flame; she didn’t say anything, but nodded to show that she agreed to what the wolf saint suggested. So without further ado, the Human Saint took her leave, and went to the tents for a break.

“That’s the effects of what we just did,” Seirna revealed to Ruro.

“What?”

“You know that Lady Madelaine is the Seductress’ conduit to this world,” she explained. “Of course, she’ll be affected by the negative event that happened here today.”

“But she already sealed her ‘mother’, right?”

“She did. However, do you think that it is only here that something negative happened? Lady Ruro, we’re talking of five worlds here. Chersea, Cherwind, Cherflammen, Cherwoods and Equality. We can’t monitor everyone, so I’m sure, in one of those places, something bad is occurring. And that, no matter how little it may be, adds to the strain on the Human Saint’s mind. The more it accumulated, the lesser Lady Madelaine’s grip on herself will be, and the greater chance that the Seductress will control her again.”

The Beastman Saint could only look at Seirna as she said those dreadful words.

“We can’t prevent her return, Lady Ruro…we can only delay her. And the longer we delay, the more chance we can unite the people to fight against that creature of the void.”

“So, there’s no cure to that Seductress, huh?”

Seirna was about to say something, when they were interrupted by a commotion from the paladins and the soldiers patrolling the rubble. A monster was still alive, with the head of a bull and a body of a human male; but, it was injured enough to lose consciousness. Ruro and Seirna immediately went over to check on their discovery.

“That’s…a disgusting creature!” Ruro quipped.

“He’s still breathing,” a paladin checked on its pulse. “And half of his body was severely burnt.”

Seirna then drew her sword and gave the monster the killing blow. “Burn the corpse,” she told the paladin. “But cut his head off!”

“What?” the Beastman Saint blurted out, “You’re gross!”

“Silence, dog!” the Saint of the Flame countered. “If you can’t understand what I’m doing, then it’s best you shut up.”

Embarrassed, Ruro then turned her attention to something else, “H-Hey! What’s that in this monster’s hand?”

Seirna followed the Beastman Saint’s direction, and much to her surprise, she saw something familiar to her, “That’s a—”

“Hm? You know what that is?”

“I-It can’t be,” the Saint of the Flame took the black object and removed the dust and rubble that stuck to it. “Good heavens…I can’t believe this…”

“What is it?”

“It’s a gun. An M1911 pistol from a government armory somewhere on Earth…”

“Huh?”

“A ‘demon weapon’,” Seirna reiterated. “But a more powerful one than those what we have here. This demon weapon can be found in that otherwolder’s land.”

“Whoa! You mean, it got teleported here?”

“No…” the Saint of the Flame’s hands tightened its grip on the gun. “Rather than teleported, I’d say this was transported here. I need to ask that person who did this…”

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As the paladins and the Nerfes soldiers moved and looked into the rubble, they had to carry off from the site boulders and twisted metals that hinder their progress on the search. Along those they removed was an innocent-looking rock almost the size of a human being. Of course, it carried no value, so the soldiers just tossed it in the nearby forest, and went back to whatever it was they’re doing.

“…”

Soon enough, there was movement on that stone. At first, what seemed to be the eyes opened, followed by the stretching of arms, and then legs. Then, finally, the stone broke into pieces to reveal the Lord Haya of House Usarved. He had cast a ‘petrifying’ spell on himself to escape the rain of cannon balls and incendiaries earlier. Now, he’s more than determined to slip past the noose of the paladin guards, and he would do this even if he had to crawl to his freedom.

Though the leadership of the Knights of Cassandra David in Chersea was nearly-decapitated, he knew where to gather new supporters to regain his group’s strength…

“…”

…and that place is Darkmoor.