The next second, accompanied by a piercing wave of pain, Klein suddenly sensed several new extraordinary abilities within his body.
No time to think. His figure elongated into a blur, then melted into the shadow of a nearby desk.
Whoosh!
At the tail end of the white bone blade, a figure rapidly took shape. The killing blow aimed at Klein struck the floorboards instead, carving a gash half a metre long and over ten centimetres deep.
Clang!
The floor shook. Having lost her target, Megose turned her attention to Dunn, her eyes blazing with ever-greater fury — those threads, those tendrils wrapping and impeding her, came from the man with the box.
Kill him!
She flickered into existence before Dunn. The white bone blade lined up with his neck.
Dunn poured more spirituality into the artifact while simultaneously attempting to use Nightmare to drag Megose into a dream. It bought him barely two seconds.
"Submit!"
Leonard raised his left hand, palm locked onto Megose, and activated the Corrupted Words ability he'd just stolen — turning it back against her.
Megose's head spontaneously exploded, charred skin and flesh scattering in all directions. But her headless body used the opportunity to break free of the Blasphemous Words' influence.
The bone-white blade slashed out savagely.
Smack!
Klein emerged from the shadow behind Dunn, shoved him aside, and seized the chance to empty his revolver into Megose.
Most of the bullets found their mark, burying themselves in her body. Blackish blood splattered — but Megose didn't even flinch.
Dunn crashed heavily to the ground. The box containing Saint Selena's Ashes slipped from his grasp, tumbled across the floor, and came to rest at the entrance to the basement.
He scrambled to get up, desperate to retrieve it.
And then — a sound, abrupt and piercing:
"Waaah!"
An infant's wail.
Dunn felt as though he'd been clubbed over the head. Vertigo, nausea, and convulsions wracked his body. Blood trickled steadily from his nose, his eyes, his ears — as if every capillary had ruptured at once.
He wasn't the only one affected. Klein and Leonard felt a crushing weight slam down on them, and their bodies collapsed to the floor beyond their control.
"Waaah!"
The infant's second cry. With Saint Selena's Ashes no longer restraining her, Megose — aided by the child in her womb — could now unleash her full power.
Dunn gritted his teeth. Thick, writhing, serpentine shapes bulged beneath the skin of his back — as though snakes, or tentacles, or monsters lurked just underneath. This was his final, desperate use of Nightmare.
Crack! Crack! Crack! A single thrash from Megose and every one of those swollen ridges burst open simultaneously.
Blood — copious, vivid red — erupted outward, spraying in every direction like a downpour.
"Pfft!"
Dunn coughed up a mouthful of blood and collapsed to his knees, utterly spent.
Whoosh!
In a blur, Megose materialised before him. The bone-white blade was nothing more than a white streak.
Squelch!
Dunn threw his arms up with everything he had and managed to twist his upper body out of the way — but his lower half wasn't so lucky. A searing agony ripped through him, and blood fountained across the floor.
His legs had been severed at mid-thigh.
"Captain!"
Klein and Leonard had barely begun to push themselves up when Megose spun toward them with a single stomp. The aura rolling off her — laced with divinity — pressed down on them until even breathing became a struggle.
The headless body abandoned its pursuit of Dunn and turned on Klein. The child within her had told her: of the people here, he posed the greatest threat.
Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.
Her footsteps suddenly accelerated. Another slash hurtled toward Klein's head.
Klein tried to Shadow Jump, but under the crushing weight of divine pressure, he couldn't do a thing.
Damn it!
It can't… end like this.
I haven't lived nearly long enough.
Then, abruptly, Megose's headlong charge halted. The black thread-tendrils — which had vanished when Saint Selena's Ashes hit the floor — surged back into existence. One by one they coiled around Megose, binding her, constricting her, burrowing desperately into her body, making every step she took an ordeal.
"Waaah!"
The infant let out an agonised shriek. The oppressive pressure, the suffocating weight — gone in an instant.
All three turned to look. There, at the entrance to the basement, stood Melissa — no one knew when she'd appeared. She held the bone-ash box in both hands. Her face was ashen, but her expression was nothing short of resolute.
Melissa fought through the brutal discomfort that Saint Selena's Ashes inflicted on her, wringing every last drop of spirituality from her body and pouring it into the box, driving the black threads to burrow deeper into Megose.
Facing the headless monstrosity that Megose had become, Melissa felt not a shred of fear — only an overwhelming regret. If she hadn't meddled that day and caught Megose when she stumbled, perhaps the girl would never have latched onto her.
If Megose hadn't latched onto her, she wouldn't have followed them to the office.
If she hadn't come to the office, none of this would be happening.
Yes, maybe Megose would still have detonated eventually, just as Lanevus's letter promised — a ticking time bomb. But at least she wouldn't have been standing on the Nighthawks' doorstep when it happened. They could have prepared, rather than being caught flat-footed like this.
So — all of this was her fault.
And that meant she had to find a way to fix it.
BOOM!
The countless cold, slick, tendril-like threads exploded into a frenzy — pushing forward, surging upward, locking tight around Megose, around the swollen, squirming bulge of her belly.
Klein seized the opening and hurled the Flaring Sun Charm he'd been holding in reserve.
"Light!"
In an instant—
The golden foil expanded rapidly above Megose's head, igniting into a blazing sphere wreathed in fire.
BOOM!
The sphere of light compressed into something nearly solid — a pillar — and slammed straight into Megose. The heat, the flames engulfed the headless body. She thrashed wildly, her flesh charring and beginning to crumble.
"Waaah! Waaah! Waaah!"
But at that very moment, the infant inside her let out blood-curdling screams, and from the distended belly crawled a half-spectral, half-real, nightmarish infant — "infant" only in its size, because in truth it was an abomination.
Megose's body was a hair's breadth from total disintegration, but under the protection of that half-phantasmal creature, she clung stubbornly to existence.
Barely free of the searing white blaze, his vision not yet clear, Klein screamed: "Melissa — get away! NOW!!!"
Squelch!
A wet, viscous, soul-freezing sound tore through the air.
A bloodless hand — as though it had clawed its way out of a tomb — pierced through Melissa's thin back with cruel precision. Clutched in its palm was a quivering, still-beating mass of red — her heart. Warm blood sprayed outward, staining the hand, and staining the pupils of Klein's eyes as they contracted to pinpoints.
Behind Melissa stood a figure in a double-breasted black clergy robe, wearing a soft cap, and possessing a single empty, frozen eye.
"MELISSA!!!!!!"
Klein's vision flooded red. His gaze locked on the still-beating heart, and on the expression frozen on his sister's face — one of terror, not yet faded.
To be continued…
T/N: The story will soon go on a temporary hiatus due to not getting any subs despite my multiple requests as I won't be spending more money to buy more chapters without getting any rewards or so.
Advance 100 Chapters are up on my Patreon!
pat reon.com/AlphaSenatus