The scene inside the Flower Manor was a waking nightmare. The air was thick with the copper tang of blood and the acrid stench of burning silk. I cleared the garden wall in a single, fluid vault, my Blood Bow manifesting in my hands before my feet even touched the manicured lawn.
Calix was a blur of silver steel, his movements frantic and uncharacteristically desperate. He was standing over Constantine, who was collapsed in a heap, his tunic shredded and dark with blood.
"Cassius, quit slacking there and help me! Heal Constantine's wound." Calix said
"Okay, Brother."
Cassius…the ones I had only just seen arrogant and whole… lay sprawled on the grass, his life leaking into the soil.
A group of four bandits, faces obscured by grotesque masks, were closing in for the kill.
I didn't think; I moved, I pulled the bowstring tightly and shot the bandits straight in the head. The Calico brothers noticed me beyond the manor's walls, holding a blood bow with a magnificent arc.
Four crimson arrows hissed through the smoke-choked air. Each one found its mark with sickening precision, sinking deep into the bandits' skulls before they even realized I was in the garden. They dropped like stones, their axes falling harmlessly into the grass.
The surviving brothers scrambled backward, their faces pale with shock as they realized their executioners had been executed. From the shadows of the nearby terrace, a few surviving maids emerged, their eyes wide and brimming with tears.
"Miera?" one of them whispered, hope warring with terror in her voice.
I didn't offer comfort; I offered a lifeline. I pivoted toward Calix, whose chest was heaving, his sword arm shaking.
"Calix! Where are the other maids hiding? Where is the main group?"
"The basement! They were all evacuated by White" Calix shouted, his voice cracking.
"We moved them down there when the gates fell! They're… Miera! Watch out! Behind you!"
The warning came a fraction of a second too late.
I spun, but the shadow had already detached itself from the blackened trellis behind me. A massive brute, wielding a double-headed executioner's axe, had been waiting in the blind spot of the smoke.
"Miera! Nooo…"
I felt the cold bite of the steel before I felt the pain… a searing, white-hot line of agony that tore across my back. The heavy blade carved deep through skin and muscle, the force of the blow sending me stumbling forward into the dirt.
The world tilted, turning a sickly, washed-out grey. My blood… the very essence I used to fuel my power… spilled onto the garden floor, smoking as it touched the earth.
I hit the ground hard, the pain in my back radiating like jagged lightning through my spine. My vision swam, but through the haze, I could see the bandit raising his axe again, a jagged grin spreading across his face as he prepared to finish what he'd started.
"Roxy, use your pain manipulation! Now!" Plasma screamed
With a grunt of pure, distilled willpower, I channeled my Pain Manipulation inward, turning the searing nerves of my shredded back into a dull, icy void. The pain was still there, physically screaming, but it no longer held the power to stop me.
As the executioner raised his axe for the killing blow, I didn't try to stand. I let my Blood Bow dissipate into a swirling, crimson mist, and in the same heartbeat, I pulled the essence inward, molding it into the cold, jagged weight of a longsword.
"Roxy… strike him in the head."
"Roger that, Plasma."
The brute's axe came down, but I was already moving, rolling through the spray of my own blood. I attacked with the desperation of a cornered predator. The blade of solidified blood hummed as it sliced through the air, carving a lethal arc upward. I aimed for the center.
The sword met the bandit's chin and tore upward with a sickening noise, cleaving bone, jaw, and cranium in a single, fluid motion. He dropped, his head split into two uneven halves, collapsing with a thud that shook the garden.
"Roxy, that was close."
"Suits you enough, Plasma."
The moment my blade made contact with his life force, the lifesteal effect kicked in. A surge of forbidden vitality rushed from the weapon, flooding into my own battered frame. I could feel the edges of the gaping wound on my back pulling together… flesh knitting to flesh, skin crawling over raw muscle in a terrifying, rapid-fire display of regeneration.
The blood that had been pooling on the ground leaped upward, drawn to the seal of my skin, sealing the damage until only a thin, fading line of pink remained.
I stood up, the sword dissolving back into my palm as I breathed in the scent of cooling gore and ozone.
Calix was staring at me, his face a mask of shock and newfound, dawning terror. Even he, with all his bureau training, hadn't seen someone recover from a mortal blow in seconds.
I didn't give him time to question it. I wiped the stray droplets of blood from my cheek and turned toward the manor's foundation, where the entrance to the basement lay hidden.
"Calix, evacuate you and your brothers to safety. I will evacuate the maids inside the manor. Leave!
I commanded, my voice cold, devoid of the exhaustion I felt lurking just beneath the surface. I didn't wait for his nod.
"Roger that, Miera."
Then, Cassius carried the injured Constantine and the brothers leaped out of the walls of the Flower Manor,
I turned toward the manor's main hall, the sword flickering back into existence in my hand, i returned my blood sword into my body once again and equipped into a blood bow.
The manor's grand hallway was no longer a place of luxury; it had been transformed into a charnel house.
My boots splashed through a thick, crimson tide that coated the marble floors, sliding over the tangled limbs of fallen bandits. I didn't spare them a glance. I didn't care if they were dead, dying, or begging for mercy… my vision was narrowed to a singular, desperate point: the basement door.
"Maine. Snow. White. The girls."
I pushed through the wreckage of the hallway, my chest heaving, the blood-bow flickering in my grip like a dying heartbeat. Every step felt heavier than the last, the air thick with the metallic tang of slaughter and the scent of scorched earth.
"You're shaking, Roxy." Plasma said
"It's nothing Plasma, it's my first time seeing my home raided like this."
"Do get a hold of yourself. Protect your friends in your life. That's a real hero, Roxy."
"Yeah, I just wanted to be peaceful."
When I finally reached the heavy, reinforced door to the basement, I threw it open, my heart ready to burst with the hope that they had survived the initial breach.
My hope died instantly.
A figure emerged from the stairwell, climbing with a languid, sickening grace. He wore the heavy, ink-black robes of the bronze coin guild high command, and in his left hand, he held something that made the world stop.
"Miera?!"
He held a head by its hair… a trophy, pale and vacant. It was the face of the real Miera, her eyes frozen in a final, agonizing stare.
The cloaked man paused, tilting his head as he looked at me, then down at the head in his hand. He let out a low, mocking chuckle.
"Huh. A doppelganger."
A cold, agonizing spike of trauma pierced my heart. My vision blurred with the heat of raw, unadulterated fury… a rage so absolute it felt like it would tear my very soul from my ribs. My voice emerged as a jagged, strangled command, vibrating with a lethal promise.
"What did you do… to the maids in the basement?"
I hissed, my body shaking with the effort to hold back a scream,
The man didn't flinch. He laughed, a sound like dry leaves skittering over a grave.
"No worries, dear girl. I killed every one of them. Not a soul left alive. It was... tidy."
With a flick of his wrist, he reached up and pulled back his hood. He was a man of slender, wiry build, his hair a shock of violence, blood-red, but it was his eyes… piercing, jagged crimson orbs… that truly chilled my blood. They were voids of pure, calculated malice.
He stepped into the flickering light of the corridor, bowing with exaggerated elegance.
"I am Dominik Meyer, and I am Lord Edrie's apprentice. You should be honored, little shadow; you are witnessing the end of your pathetic masquerade."
"You little…"
"Oh, it seems that your are, Roxy? The one who infiltrated Castle Libra, the one who killed Lord Edrie?"
I silenced a bit. While Dominik's laughter curdled into a jagged, cruel sneer. He took a single, slow step forward, his boot scuffing against the stone, and with a lazy flick of his toe, he nudged the head of the real Miera. It rolled across the blood-slicked floor, coming to a rest against my boot. Her lifeless eyes stared at me, an eternal, silent condemnation of my failure.
"Look at her, even in death, she's so terribly boring. You know, when I slit her throat, she didn't even have the grace to scream properly. Just a little gurgle, like a leaking pipe." Dominik crooned, his voice dripping with venomous delight.
My heart hammered against my ribs, not with fear, but with the rhythmic, terrifying beat of a war drum. He continued, pacing in a slow circle around the carnage.
"The others were even better, That little one, the one with the blonde curls? She spent her last seconds begging for her mother. I found it so charming, I made sure she couldn't finish the sentence. Why waste breath on sentimentality when silence is so much more… aesthetic?"
He tossed his serrated dagger into the air, caught it by the blade, and grinned.
"You act as if their lives had some grand, cosmic value. They were just fuel for my ambition, Roxy. Just meat. The manor is a graveyard now, and you're the only thing left to bury."
"They had names, they had dreams. They had people who loved them."
I breathed, my voice barely audible over the hum of the mana beginning to vibrate on the floorboards.
Dominik let out a short, sharp bark of laughter that sounded like glass breaking in an empty room.
"Love? Dreams? You're a parasite, just like your master. You feed on the idea of being human, but look at you… you're standing in a basement full of corpses you failed to save, trying to summon the courage to kill me."
He stepped closer, his crimson eyes gleaming with a sick, perverse excitement.
"Go on, then. Show me that 'consequence' you're so proud of. I want to see you try to avenge those pathetic, shivering little dolls."
He leaned in close, his breath smelling of copper and decay.
"I killed them because I could. I killed them because it made you suffer. And honestly? I'd do it all over again just to see that pathetic tear run down your face."
"The audacity you have to do this… have you ever felt no remorse!?"
"Hahahaha… this is part of my revenge plan, Roxy. You killed my master Lord Edrie, now I will ruin your life just now."
The blood in the room started to rise, not from the floor, but from the pools of the fallen. It hung in the air like a red mist, obscuring the ceiling. The Blood Bow manifested in my hands, but it wasn't a bow anymore… it was a jagged, pulsating engine of destruction.
"You're right, Dominik, you are the end of my masquerade."
I raised the weapon, the crimson light bathing the cellar in a hellish glow.
"But I am the start of your nightmare."