cold hand slipped through the knight's armor and into his body. Johanna crawled on all fours before placing one hand on his left thigh. Her fingers sank through the flesh without resistance until they touched the bone. There was no blood and no wound, and his body showed no natural reaction, yet he was forced to struggle against the sensation as if his flesh and skin did not exist at all.
The knight tried to gather the light from the environment, reaching out with his power, but nothing answered him. The creature was swallowing the light inside him, devouring it piece by piece. If all the light within him was consumed, he would die.
With sudden fury, the knight raised his axe and struck downward, splitting Johanna's body in half. The cobbled ground of the open area near the fortress walls shattered beneath the impact, sending fragments of stone outward. Johanna lifted her head and looked directly into his eyes, and it almost seemed as if she were smiling.
The knight stepped forward and drove his armored fist straight into her face. The blow crushed bone and flesh, breaking her features completely until her face became unrecognizable and her jaw shattered apart.
"How was that?" he said.
Yet he could swear she was still smiling at him, still laughing silently, still enjoying the meal.
The knight turned toward Sora, his voice filled with anger, surprise, and anxiety. "Come here! Help me get her away!"
Sora stared at him in silence.
Hmm… my eyes look similar to theirs. Did the same thing happen to me? No… no, I'm different. Even if my eyes look a little hollow, I can still see. Maybe they are just deep black… that's all. Right? I didn't lose my mind like they did. And unlike them, I can still—
"HURRY!"
The knight's scream cut through his thoughts.
Sora finally noticed that Johanna had risen again. Like Vincent, she was no longer the same. He ran toward the knight and saw her body split in half from the chest, her legs lying behind her and no longer connected to the rest of her body. He had seen bodies in similar conditions before, so the sight itself did not disgust him, but touching them was always unpleasant.
Still, he grabbed her from the chest and tried to pull her away from the knight. The moment he pulled, he felt resistance. Her arm had turned into thin black strings that were connected deep inside the knight's thigh.
"I can't," Sora said. "It feels like there are black strings connected to you. I can't pull her out."
The knight cursed in anger. "Then go away. You're useless."
Sora stepped back, giving him space.
The knight raised his axe once more. Without hesitation, he swung the blade down and cut through his own thigh. Blood spilled across the ground, splashing over what remained of Johanna's face and staining her golden hair red. With only one foot left, the knight jumped backward, creating distance between them.
For a brief moment he felt the light touching his body again. He gathered that light into his axe, preparing to release it.
Then he saw something that made him stop.
Johanna's corpse moved.
The creature picked up the severed foot the knight had lost and pressed it against the open half of her chest. Slowly, she rose to her feet. Somehow she balanced, the foot lodged in the middle of her torso.
The creature seemed pleased. Even without a jaw and with her face completely destroyed, a strange laugh escaped her throat. The sound felt terribly wrong, like a thin iron door shaking violently.
The knight stared at her. "That's mine."
He swung the axe again, releasing a diagonal slash that cut through her and burned the corpse in flames.
For a moment the fire consumed the body.
Yet Sora heard her laugh again.
Not outside.
Inside his mind.
As if the flames had done nothing.
Sora watched the Sun Bull Knight with amazement. Damn… if I could use the light like that, my life would be much easier.
Before him stood the knight in his glorious armor, balanced on a single remaining foot. Losing a leg would affect him, of course, but at least he had not lost everything.
At last the knight allowed himself to collapse onto the ground and rest. He closed his eyes.
Sora ran toward him and leaned closer to look at his face. "Are you alive?"
The knight nearly jumped in shock. "Damn it! I thought a third one appeared. Talk before showing those eyes next time!"
"Oh… sorry," Sora replied.
The knight looked at him strangely. "Anyway, why the hell do you look like a hollow blue rat? Did you do something terrible in your past life?"
"I don't know."
Once again Sora felt sadness and disappointment. The knight in front of him looked like a hero to him. He wanted to use that same power, and he saw the knight as inspiration.
The knight began to say something. "Hah… I was j—"
Suddenly a loud cracking sound spread across the entire city.
The knight cursed. "Damn it… don't tell me something else is going to try to kill me again."
Sora noticed something strange. The sound was not coming from around them, nor from anywhere in the city.
It was coming from the sky.
"Look," Sora said, pointing upward.
A beautiful white twilight appeared above them, splitting the sky into three massive cracks like fractures spreading across glass. The light illuminated the heavens themselves, but it never reached the ground. It was as if something unseen was pulling the light backward, refusing to allow it to touch the world below
For a few moments neither of them spoke.
The white twilight slowly spread across the sky like a silent wound opening above the city. The cracks stretched farther and farther, thin branches of pale light crawling through the darkness of the heavens. Yet none of it reached the earth below.
The ground remained untouched.
Sora narrowed his eyes, trying to follow the light as it descended, but every thread of it seemed to bend and turn away at the last moment, as if the world itself refused to accept it.
The knight slowly pushed himself up on one arm and stared upward as well.
His expression changed.
The exhaustion was still there, but something else appeared behind it — recognition.
"Damn it…" he muttered quietly.
Sora glanced at him. "What is it?"
The knight did not answer immediately. His gaze remained fixed on the fractured sky.
"That light…" he finally said. "It shouldn't be here."
The white glow above them pulsed once, softly, like the fading memory of a distant sun.
For a brief instant the entire sky looked almost peaceful.
Then the light trembled again.
And somewhere far above the city, something moved within the cracks.