The Champion of the Blood God had lost nearly half of his bodily fluids and more than eighty percent of his internal organs. At last, he could no longer sustain his broken body. With a hollow thud, he collapsed to his knees upon the blood-soaked deck.
The Witcher silently drove his longsword into the planks beside him. Without a word, he reached down and scooped up the fallen warrior's entrails.
The Blood God's Champion remained indifferent to his opponent's grim action.
"My Lord is the beginning and the end—the master of the living, the first among the dead. Those who insult Him insult themselves; those who honor Him honor their own souls. In the end, you will see that there is no escape."
The Witcher gave no reply. He simply knotted the intestines in his hand.
"Life is born in my Lord's sacred hue," the Champion continued, his hollow eyes fixed upon the witcher. "Is not a newborn's first act an angry cry? Without that wrathful roar, how could you or I have achieved what we are today?"
Through the empty sockets of the man's skull, Aldric could see the scorched remnants of his brain. His hands, however, did not stop moving.
"By my Lord's grace, we are granted our daily bread. And what is our sustenance but violence and death? Is not boundless hatred hidden within every act we commit? Without life, there is no death; without death, what meaning has life?"
Still silent, the Witcher used a necklace to tie the intestines firmly around the bone spear in his grasp.
"In the name of our Lord, we have triumphed a hundred times over," the Champion droned on, lowering his head as if in acceptance of fate. "Through endless pain we learn that survival itself is born of cruelty. Even the noblest warrior must crave his enemy's death to prolong his own existence."
The Witcher looked over his shoulder toward the other end of the ship, where a massive brass beast rampaged across the deck. "Are you ready?" he asked the dying warrior.
The Blood God's Champion ignored the question. "My Lord governs life and death; He shepherds all creation. Believe me, heretic—you owe your Lord far more than you realize. Who among you dares to proclaim that you will not once again take up His sacred tools? Who among you dares to swear you will not rejoice when His divine wrath descends upon the world?"
Aldric raised the bone spear high. Strength surged from his feet, flowed through his waist, gathered in his chest, and burst through his arm. The spear whistled through the air, wreathed in the witcher's own blood and flame. It streaked across the deck like a crimson meteor and pierced clean through the brass-plated hide of the monstrous rhinoceros.
"Travel… battle… slaughter… My life is war. My sustenance is hatred. The widow's wailing grants me peace; the barren wasteland is my resting place. In the end, all of you serve Him nonetheless…"
Those were the Champion's final words.
In the distance, the maddened brass rhino crashed through the ship's railing, dragging its dead master into the endless, chaotic sea—vanishing without a trace.
The steel warship moored nearby shimmered like a mirage under the sun before dissolving into nothingness. The Chaos warriors on deck, who had earlier avoided the Witcher, faded one by one into the air, leaving behind only mountains of shark-man corpses piled across the deck.
So, this must be the final connection point between Chaos and the realm of dreams… thought the Witcher. He gazed at the blood-red sea below, now boiling and bubbling as though it were alive.
Then, a voice rang out across the boundless expanse:
"Hypocrites and pretenders! You treat the sacred teachings as nothing, yet deceit and lies are the garments you wear. Your vows reek of falsehood! Our dream is the dream of the faithful, to bring blood and sword upon all living things. Only through that shall His kingdom descend!"
The young Witcher sat down upon the ground, leaning on his sword, and muttered coldly:
"None of that has anything to do with me."
The world shattered. Aldric watched as the silver-haired woman who had been protecting the girl, Carla smiled softly and waved farewell.
"We'll meet again soon, my knight…"
Her fading voice echoed in his ears before he was expelled from Carla's dream for the dreamer had awakened.
Carla had reverted to her normal self, no longer floating in the air. She now lay upon the floor like a child waking from a deep slumber, stretching lazily.
"Father, I had a dream. There were so many strange things in it. You were there… and he was there too…" The girl rubbed her sleepy eyes then froze. The room around her was unfamiliar, and her father lay on the other side of the room, motionless.
"Dad! Dad, what's wrong?!" Carla scrambled to his side in panic, her eyes darting warily toward the two strangers standing nearby.
One was a woman cloaked in a hood, her face obscured. The other, a man holding a weapon, faint embers flickering and dying across his body. His dark hair reminded Carla of someone she had met aboard the ship, Liam.
The witch quickly noticed how the air around them began to stir. Dust lifted from the floor, and the restored decorations along the walls trembled violently—the girl's emotions were awakening the surrounding energy.
The witch extended a hand, her voice calm and steady.
"Calm down, child. We're not your enemies. Your father is only asleep—his condition is… complicated. If time allowed, I'd explain everything properly. But right now, time is the one thing we don't have."
She cast a sidelong glance at the young Witcher apprentice beside her. The secrets hidden within him had once again surpassed her expectations.
She had never imagined he could rescue a witch of Epsilon-level awakening from within the Realm of Dreams especially when that dream had drawn the gaze of Khorne, the Blood God himself.
Among all the Chaos Gods of the warp, Khorne the Lord of Skulls, the Bloodthirster Supreme was the most violent toward those born of calamity. Unlike other chaos gods who tempted or bargained, Khorne's followers preferred to offer the heads of touch by the warp as tribute.
And this young Witcher—his searing inner flame felt like the natural bane of chaos energy. Even standing near him made her feel uneasy, as if her very essence rejected his presence.
Recovering from the strain of the dream battle, Aldric slowly opened his eyes. Their color was the same as Liam's, and that familiarity brought a flicker of peace to Carla's anxious heart.
"You're safe now," the Witcher said gently. "Tomorrow morning, I'll have Liam come to take care of you and your father."
"Really? You know him? But… but Father said…" Carla's heartbeat quickened—could she really see him again?
New mission alerts flickered across Aldric's retinal display. One particular task reward made the young commissar's lips curl into a fierce grin.
That's right—Liam. The organization had already made its decision.
(End of Chapter)