The night sky above the village was no longer dark; it was bruised. Clouds rolled in sick hues of purple and orange, reflecting the inferno raging below. Atop one of the buildings yet untouched by the fire, a slender silhouette stood calmly, as if enjoying a scenic afternoon drizzle, not an apocalypse.
Henzelgard opened his black umbrella with an elegant fwoomp. He was an anomaly amidst the chaos—a creature made of roiling pitch-black ink, clad in a dapper formal suit, complete with a white tie and a perfectly tilted fedora. His four white-gloved hands moved with independent rhythm; one held the umbrella, one straightened the collar of the small cape on his shoulder, and the other two were casually clasped behind his back. A silk handkerchief poked neatly from his breast pocket, the only clean thing in this filthy town.
Behind his flat, featureless face, he observed everything.
Henzelgard:
"The New World... A foreign, chaotic, and glitchy Fate. In the limited physical form of the Principle of Violence, without full Authority over fate, he was forced to condense his essence just to interact with the Blind Dog..."
He flicked imaginary dust from his suit.
Henzelgard:
"He should have been nothing more than a grain of salt compared to the ocean of his true shadow. 'Weak', physically limited, and arrogant. But... remember this. A neutron star the size of a grain of salt still possesses a mass of millions of tons. Its gravity will still crush you."
He tilted his head, gazing into the distance where explosion after explosion could be heard.
Henzelgard:
"The question is... can the Blind Dog withstand the weight of that 'grain of salt'?"
Suddenly, his attention shifted. Down below, on the muddy streets surrounded by walls of fire, a wooden figure stood frozen.
DEG... DEG... DEG...
That sound. The rhythm of life trapped within a cage of death. Danica stood there, in the middle of the inferno. She did not breathe, but she heard her own heartbeat—a wet, red organ pulsing behind the hard wooden chest plate.
Surrounding her was a gallery of horrors. The corpses of cultists lay scattered like melted wax dolls. The effects of Eldrum's—the Rat's—Sin Aura had turned them into gruel. Their skin blistered and slid off their flesh, blood boiled and seeped from every orifice, their internal organs liquefying into a thick soup pouring from their mouths.
A cultist whose face was half-melted tried to crawl, his bony hand reaching for Danica's wooden leg.
Cultist:
"Danica... D-Danica... please..."
Danica did not look down. Her gaze was empty, fixed on the fire consuming the homes of the citizens she had sworn to protect.
On the roof, Henzelgard chuckled soundlessly.
Henzelgard:
"(Danica? So this one is the leader? This pathetic Pinocchio?)"
The silence broke.
BANG!
A projectile pierced the smoke and fire. A heavy slugshot bullet slammed into Danica's wooden chest.
CRACK!
The old wood splintered. Her body, already weakened by exposure to the corrosive aura in the air, was not as tough as usual. However, the bullet missed the beating heart within by mere inches.
Danica:
"?!"
Her wooden body swiveled with the sound of grinding hinges. Her eyes—human organ eyes embedded in wooden sockets—narrowed, catching the glint of a scope lens from the window of a house fifty meters away.
Danica:
"Aiming for my vital point, are you?"
She realized. The Rat was smart. Eldrum had found her only weakness. If that heart organ was destroyed, the magic binding her soul to this wood would sever.
Danica raised her hand. Long, wet red veins shot out from her wooden fingertips, extending like giant tapeworms. The veins snatched the corpses of cultists around her, piercing their flesh, and pulling them closer.
With sickening squelch and crunch sounds, Danica began to assemble her army.
Flesh met flesh, bone met bone. Strengthened by her own black blood, two humanoid monsters formed from the pile of corpses.
The first was the Muscle Puppet: a monstrosity two meters tall, its entire body plated with thick slabs of meat and pulsing red muscle, without a single strip of skin.
The second was the Bone Puppet: a terrifyingly slender figure wearing a cloak of crudely stitched human skin, with both arms modified into sharp bone swords and rib-axes.
They stood flanking Danica, loyal corpse puppets.
Eldrum, from his hiding spot, did not flinch. He pulled the trigger again.
BANG!
The bullet sped forward. But this time, the Bone Puppet moved. Its speed was unnatural, leaving only a blurred afterimage.
TING!
With one slash of its bone sword, it split the bullet in mid-air. The figure then began to advance in a confusing zig-zag pattern, closing in on Eldrum's position.
Eldrum:
"Tch!"
BANG!
He fired again, but the figure was too fast. And that wasn't the only problem.
Eldrum glanced toward Danica, and his eyes widened. The wooden woman had lifted a burning chunk of a house roof with her roots.
Danica:
"Drop dead."
WHOOOOSH!
The flaming debris was thrown like a giant baseball, hurtling straight toward the window where Eldrum was positioned. At the same time, Danica opened her back plating, releasing toxic spore vapor into the air, signaling the Muscle Puppet to charge.
Eldrum threw his body to the side.
BLAAARRRR!
The house he was hiding in was crushed by the flaming debris. The wall exploded. Eldrum rolled on the floor, but a sharp, burning splinter of wood embedded itself deep into his side.
"Arghh!"
Eldrum groaned, fighting the pain and burning rage. He ripped the wood splinter out roughly. His black blood spurred out, coating the wood splinter.
HSSSSSS...
In the blink of an eye, the wood hissed, frothed, and melted into black sludge. Dissolved completely by Eldrum's acidic blood. Eldrum stared at the blood on his hands. A cunning smile carved itself onto his face. This was a weapon.
Suddenly, the floor beneath him shattered. A giant hand made of meat punched through the wood, grabbed Eldrum's leg, and yanked him down.
"Damn it—!"
Eldrum fell to the ground floor, crashing onto a dining table and smashing it to pieces. Before him, the Muscle Puppet loomed, preparing to slam both fleshy fists down to turn Eldrum into human patty.
Eldrum reacted instantly. He kicked the Muscle Puppet's stomach, using the recoil to launch his own body backward, dodging the meat-hammer strike.
CRASH!
The floor where Eldrum had just been lying was pulverized.
Eldrum raised his shotgun, the barrel almost touching the Muscle Puppet's head.
BLAM!
The puppet's head exploded. However, it wasn't an ordinary explosion. Blood and flesh from the puppet's head—which was mixed with Danica's blood—splattered over Eldrum's body.
A miracle occurred. The stinging pain in Eldrum's stomach wound vanished instantly. Danica's blood that touched him seeped into his pores, stitching the wound shut in seconds.
In the distance, from the safety of a roof, Henzelgard noted everything. The imaginary lens on his flat face focused.
Henzelgard:
"(Interesting. The Rat's bleeding stopped when Danica's blood was absorbed. So, Danica is the source of life, while Eldrum is the source of decay. Corrosive nature versus absolute regeneration.)"
Henzelgard nodded slowly.
Henzelgard:
"(Will this person be useful to the Mistress? Ahh, better safe than sorry. I need this footage.)"
Casually, Henzelgard placed his hands on his own neck.
SQUELCH... POP!
With a comical wet sound, he plucked his own head off. There was no blood, only dripping ink. He placed the head on a strategic corner of the roof, like placing a CCTV camera.
GLURP.
A new head grew instantly from his neck, replacing the empty air. He straightened his tie.
Henzelgard:
"I'll just put this here. Don't blink."
He then leaped away, his coat fluttering, disappearing into the shadows to find Oldred.
Back to the fight...
Eldrum leaped backward, dodging a sword slash from the newly arrived Bone Puppet. The bone sword managed to graze Eldrum's arm. Eldrum's black blood splattered onto the bone sword.
HSSSSS!
The bone blistered and softened like burnt rubber. The Bone Puppet retreated momentarily, confused that its weapon was damaged.
However, the Muscle Puppet—whose head had just been shot off—was rising again. Its head grew back with terrifying speed. It lunged forward simultaneously with the Bone Puppet. A pincer attack.
There was no gap to run.
Eldrum gritted his teeth. He didn't dodge. He rushed the Bone Puppet, grabbed the skeleton's neck with his bare hand coated in corrosive blood, and pulled it forward as a living shield.
BOOOOM!
The Muscle Puppet's giant fist slammed into the Bone Puppet's back. The force was equal to a freight train. The Bone Puppet shattered into pieces, bone fragments becoming shrapnel that scattered. Eldrum was thrown by the shockwave, slamming hard into the wall behind him.
"Cough!"
Eldrum vomited black blood. The wall behind him began to hiss and melt upon contact with his blood. The room turned into a chemical hazard zone.
The Muscle Puppet stepped forward to finish Eldrum, but suddenly its steps halted. Its feet sank. The wooden floor beneath it had melted into acidic mush due to Eldrum's spilled blood.
This was his chance.
Eldrum snatched a broken bone arm—the end still sharp as a sword—and dashed forward.
SLASH!
He severed the Muscle Puppet's neck with its own ally's weapon. The fleshy head rolled off. Fresh red blood sprayed like a fountain, bathing Eldrum once again.
A sensation of euphoria enveloped Eldrum. His wounds healed again. His energy restored. His enemy's blood was his medicine.
However, the joy was short-lived. The severed Muscle Puppet's head began to sprout threads of meat to reconnect with its body. And from behind the melting wall...
KRA-CRACK!
A giant tree root as thick as a thigh, sharp as a spear, burst through the wall. Its tip aimed for Eldrum's heart.
Eldrum:
"Tch!"
He backflipped, barely avoiding becoming a human skewer. He crashed through the window behind him, shattering it, and fell rolling into the alley outside.
He rose gasping for breath, his chest feeling tight and heavy. Danica's spores began to fill his lungs, trying to grow a forest inside his chest. Yet, Danica's blood flow that he absorbed earlier was also warring inside his body, healing the damage caused by the spores themselves.
He was trapped in an ironic cycle: healed by the enemy trying to kill him, and killing himself to survive.
Eldrum disappeared into the darkness of the alley, leaving footprints that hissed and smoked in the mud.
Danica stood frozen amidst the ruins still billowing smoke. Her charred and cracked wooden body creaked softly as she scanned the surroundings with her heightened senses. The silence between the licks of fire felt deceptive.
CRASH!!
The sharp sound of breaking glass tore through the silence from her right.
Danica's reflex was instant and lethal. Without turning, her wooden back exploded. Giant black roots shot out like Kraken spears, slamming into the wall on her right with concrete-shattering force.
BOOOOM!
The wall collapsed into dust and rubble in the blink of an eye. But behind the flying dust... emptiness. No torn flesh, no screams. Only a brick rolling slowly on the floor—a cheap bait.
"Tch..."
Before Danica could process her mistake, the wind whistled behind her neck. Eldrum, the Rat, emerged from the shadows behind Danica. His eyes burned with pure hatred. In his hand, the bone axe he had looted from the Bone Puppet was raised high.
SLAASH!!
The axe descended with execution speed. The sharp bone blade bit into the old wood of Danica's body, splitting her back all the way through to her chest. Wood chips sprayed into the air.
With a primal roar of victory, Eldrum didn't stop. He twisted the axe and slashed again, this time horizontally, cutting Danica's body from her lower left waist through to her right shoulder.
CRACK-THUD!
Danica's upper body was severed clean, sliding off and hitting the muddy ground with a pathetic thud.
Eldrum stood there, his breath ragged, his chest heaving roughly. Hot steam escaped his mouth. He won. He had felled this rotten tree. He had beheaded the tyranny haunting him.
But... something was wrong.
There was no blood.
Eldrum stared at the severed wooden body on the ground with wide eyes. No splattered organs. No beating heart. The chest cavity of the wooden doll was... empty. Hollow like a tree trunk eaten by termites.
"What...?"
Confusion crept into his mind. If this was empty, then what had he been fighting?
From within the ground, or perhaps from the wooden remains themselves, came a small laugh. A dry, creaking, dismissive laugh.
"Ha... haha..."
Eldrum roughly kicked Danica's body piece over. There, inside the empty wooden cavity, he saw it. A thread of red flesh—a long, wetly pulsating vein—had snapped from the doll's body and was dangling down, penetrating deep into the dark earth.
Danica's voice echoed, not from the doll's mouth, but as if coming from the vibration of the earth itself.
Danica:
"Repairing those toy puppets of mine takes time and concentration, Little Rat... I realized I wouldn't be able to chase you the usual way. So, I improvised..."
The vein in the ground twitched disgustingly.
Danica:
"I detached my control vein, then connected my real internal organs... not into this doll, but far below. My heart, my brain, my lungs... everything is stored safely, pulsing warmly a hundred meters beneath the ground you walk on. You only cut down a dry twig, Eldrum."
A chill ran down Eldrum's spine. A hundred meters? Beneath layers of rock and solid earth? He gripped his axe with mounting frustration. He had no way to reach that depth. He was checkmated before the game began.
As if enjoying Eldrum's despair, Danica's voice returned, sharper and more venomous this time.
Danica:
"And there is one more thing you need to know, Agurr's poor little brother..."
Danica:
"You and your stupid brother... you both should have been meat paste when crushed by that iron-masked man. Remember? But I... with my extraordinary generosity, used my black blood to save your pathetic lives."
Eldrum fell silent. The memory returned—the pain vanishing, wounds closing when Danica's blood touched them.
Danica:
"Gotten comfortable with my help? You ungrateful parasite. But never mind... Did you forget who owns that blood?"
Suddenly, Eldrum felt an excruciating stinging heat within his veins.
Danica:
"My blood is medicine to my servants, but poison to traitors. I can change its nature at will. Your brother, the obedient Caine, can still be saved as long as he stays obedient at the end of my string. But you..."
"ARGHHH!!"
Eldrum dropped his axe. He clutched his head with both hands. The pain wasn't physical; it felt like thousands of hot needles growing inside his brain. Danica's blood inside his system was now boiling, turning into corrosive acid from the inside out.
Eldrum's vision blurred, blood vessels in his eyes burst, turning his sight red. Fresh blood began to pour profusely from his nose, ears, and tear ducts. He fell to his knees, trying to scream, but his throat felt like he had swallowed live coals.
In blind panic, Eldrum began digging the earth with his bare hands. His fingernails broke, his fingers bled, he clawed the mud hysterically, trying to reach Danica's organs hundreds of meters below. A futile effort. A dead man's effort.
Danica:
"Die here, Rat."
From the remains of the shattered wooden body, new roots began to grow rapidly, twisting sharply like guillotine blades, preparing to sever the dying Eldrum's head.
However, right before the execution could happen...
WUUUUUUUUUSSSHHH!
A massive wind slammed into the village. Not a mountain wind. This wind carried the thick scent of salt, the smell of the deep sea, and ancient dust. The air pressure dropped drastically and suddenly, making ears ring.
Danica (in her consciousness underground):
"(What kind of joke is this? A storm?! Impossible... Ordinary storms can never penetrate Father's Dome! This magic structure is absolute! That's... impossible!)"
Danica's concentration broke. The roots meant to kill Eldrum froze in mid-air, trembling in hesitation.
Danica's sensory eye, still connected to the surface, looked up. And what she saw made her old soul shiver.
Up there, piercing through the parted storm clouds, floated a Leviathan. The terrifying figure of Albrag, with open ribs and a twisting serpent tail, blocked out the moon. And atop its head stood a small figure—the Sheepman Sailor—radiating an aura far older than this forest.
Danica:
"What... what the hell is that thing?..."
The creature did not attack. It just passed by. But its mere existence was enough to mock the concept of "protection" Danica had prided herself on.
And at the peak of confusion, reality folded.
TING.
The giant creature and its rider suddenly shrank, flattened, lost their third dimension, and vanished into a thin 2D line before disappearing completely from existence, as if the universe had just turned off a television screen.
Silence.
Danica needed a few seconds to process what she had just witnessed. She immediately shifted her focus back to Eldrum, intending to finish what was delayed. Her roots snatched at the spot where Eldrum had knelt.
SMACK!
The root hit only empty mud.
Eldrum had vanished. A trail of bloody, smoking dragged footprints led into the darkness of the alley, away from there. The Rat, though dying and burning from the inside, had managed to use those seconds of confusion to escape into his hiding hole.
Henzelgard stood on the edge of the sloping roof, his posture perfectly upright even as the world around him crumbled. His long black umbrella was closed tight, its metal tip tapping the tiles slowly; he used it like a gentleman's walking stick enjoying an afternoon promenade.
Henzelgard:
"A quiet night... just like the silence in the Mistress's library before ink is spilled."
He mumbled softly, savoring the irony amidst the village's fiery hell.
However, that tranquility was torn apart instantly.
WUUUUUUUUUSSSHHH!
An unnatural typhoon struck from above, bringing crushing air pressure. Henzelgard's reflexes moved lightning-fast; one of his ink hands snatched the brim of his black fedora just a split second before the wind could blow it into oblivion.
His flat face looked up sharply. There, in the bruised sky, he watched the Leviathan—Albrag and its rider—flatten, lose volume, and vanish into a single 2D line before being erased completely from existence.
The wind died down, leaving swirling dust. Henzelgard stood silent for a moment, slightly stunned. He processed the visual data rapidly.
Henzelgard:
"(That wasn't Lord Olbogeolg. That aura was too... primordial. Nor was it the Principle of Disease or Age. An alien entity? In the Mistress's new garden?)"
He let out a long sigh, a sound of hissing air escaping from nothingness. With methodical and fussy movements, he began to tidy himself. He patted imaginary dust from the shoulders of his suit, straightened his shirt collar, and fixed the knot of his white tie that had shifted a millimeter.
Then, his four hands worked in unison performing a quick inventory, patting his coat pockets:
Silk handkerchief? Check.
Leather scroll containing the Vow of Eternal Service to Madela? Safe.
Silver dagger for sudden 'negotiations'? Ready.
Notepad and quill pen? Present.
Gold chain pocket watch? Click. Still ticking precisely.
After ensuring his appearance was prime once again, Henzelgard sighed again. Curiosity tickled the ink within his body. Helping Oldred right now would be very easy, but... it would violate the aesthetics of the story.
Henzelgard:
"Mistress said just ensure the stage doesn't collapse and keep that brute Prince of Conquest away so he doesn't disturb the show..."
He tapped the tip of his umbrella on the roof once more.
Henzelgard:
"Helping the main character directly? Tch, that's an amateur move that would only ruin the plot twist. And if there's one thing that can anger the Mistress more than anything... it's spoilers."
The decision was made. He would be eyes, not hands.
Henzelgard's tall body began to shrink. His legs didn't bend; they melted. He dissolved, liquefying downward, sinking into his own shadow stretching across the tiles. Like ink absorbed by black paper, his physical form vanished completely, leaving only a flat shadow silhouette on the roof surface.
The shadow then glided away silently, tracing walls and floors, heading into the darkness to witness the next act.