The Danger Class of these Fallen Souls must have been Pest, judging it solely on the fact that even someone as inexperienced as herself was competing with them. Granted, Yor wasn’t the one doing the actual fighting, but still!

  Their greatest advantage lay in their endless numbers that kept coming no matter how many were cut down.

  In the black water, their class was Pest. but outside of it, the class rose a bit to High Pest as their entire behaviour and power shifted the moment they touched shore.

  And so, when Yor saw a whole bunch of them coming at her at once, she immediately concluded that she was done for.

  Even if she could dodge it, there wasn’t enough time to make a full getaway without losing a limb or two. And her only means of fighting back was enlarged in clamped flesh.

  ‘I’m dead’

  The worst thing about that thought was that she could not do anything about it. Her body was presently in the control of the Manifestation, her life literally rested in her assistant. If she switched back now, there would be a second delay.

  Once again Yor noted that if she had come in a den of monsters alone, she would be dead without question.

  Arthur’s cane sword flashed through the torsos of the Fallen Souls, severing them in half before their claws and maws could reach the blind girl. Their pieces collapsed into writhing sludge at her feet.

  ‘Wooooo, that was so close!’

  She sighed internally as the gentleman landed beside her. And he didn’t look too happy with what just happened.

  “Damn it, girl! Don’t throw your life away!”

  He was not pleased at all, as impressive her display was, she ultimately did nothing. Sawatari didn’t react to the gentleman’s protest, as if she had not heard him.

  Arthur didn’t waste another heartbeat. He wrapped his hand around Yor’s small frame and in a single bound of strained strength, he leaped away from the deadly shoreline. His boots hit the ground with a thud, landing beside the twins and Elias.

  Despite his serious injuries, he still set her down gently before clutching his wound. Blood seeped through his coat, dripping in fat rivulets as his breaths came ragged. Even in this battered state, he still stood on his feet.

  “You two, damn fools! Letting a girl slip past you into the jaws of death…I told you to keep them safe!”

  The twins wanted to retort back but Arthur didn’t give them the chance. He turned from them, steadying his faltering steps as he moved toward the shoreline.

  “Save your excuses for when we make it out. Run into the forest. With luck, you may run into Agnes. Hopefully, the woman merely lost her way here, rather than to something worse. As for the others…”

  He turned his gaze to the distant structure of the chapel of St. Vicar.

  “Something is keeping them. We cannot expect their help”

  Then, he returned it to the hordes of monsters. The moment they touched shore, their behaviour changed. The Fallen Souls that had been thrashing to make it first now erupted into a frenzy.

  Their screeches split the night air as they sprinted with mindless abandon toward the only humans in the present vicinity, their tar black limbs tearing up the shoreline in a rabid wave.

  Arthur tried to raise his cane sword again but his chest seized. He dropped to one knee and just when he was about to fully collapse, he used his weapon, driving its steel into the earth to stop himself.

  With those wet coughs, it was clear that Arthur was running on fumes. Yor’s heart lurched knowing that part of this was her fault.

  “He’s not going to last…we must run or else we’ll all die here!”

  Elias was not wrong, if nothing was done then they would all die. The only competent fighter they had just succumbed to his wounds, leaving them all effectively defenseless.

  Things were not looking good for them.

  “Uncle!”

  The twins gasped as they went to his side, bracing him up by both arms. His weight nearly dragged them to the dirt, but they were able to somewhat lift him.

  “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?! Run! Run while you still can!”

  Arthur yelled at the two, he even tried to thrash against their hold, but his battered body didn’t allow him.

  “Shut up, uncle! You’re in no condition to be barking orders at us!”

  “With mom gone, your life is in our hands. We’re taking charge”

  Yor barely had a moment to process it before Seth reached into his coat and yanked free a small pouch. He raised it above his head and shouted.

  “The moment this touches the ground. We all run!”

  The boy didn’t wait for a response, there wasn’t enough time to do so anyways. With a defiant cry, he hurled the pouch into the dirt. The instance it burst, the shore was flooded with choking smoke that rolled like a grey wave, cloaking everyone in a haze.

  And just like that, they all began to run in the directions of the forest. The screams of the Fallen Souls grew louder as shapes began to tear through the fog.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  ‘This might be our only chance’

  The twins carrying Arthur and Elias all retreated, except for Yor. Her body was still under the control of Sawatari, who just stood there. Under normal circumstances, Yor would have been screaming at her assistance to turn tail and run! But it was different this time.

  Different circumstances called for a different reaction from her.

  ‘Sawatari, you did good. Better than I could have ever done on my own. You gave me enough time to get this move right. Thanks’

  The Manifestation slightly widened her borrowed eyes, as if acknowledging the praise.

  ‘Let’s switch now. It's my turn’

  It didn’t take long before Yor felt herself again. Sawatari relinquished control with no issues whatsoever. She wanted to take a deep breath, but she was in the middle of a smokescreen.

  Instead, she wiped the streak of black ichor staining her cheek with the back of her hand. She brought the same hand forward, its open palm facing the sky.

  ‘Arthur, I’m not throwing my life away. I can’t keep hiding behind everyone. If all of this is really my fault…then I’ll atone for it, right here and now!’

  What she was about to pull now wouldn’t have been possible without the help of Sawatari. She helped Yor in more ways than one, the first was giving her time to understand and draw upon the power of the Azure Ooze.

  One of its functions allowed her to draw out and manipulate the slime writhing inside her body in whatever way she deemed fit.

  She had attempted to use this before they arrived in Fens, but that night she was interrupted by Daigo when he tried to…ehem.

  Reeling her focus onto what she was doing. Yor concentrated hard on her raised open palm. She let herself get a feel of her astris, funneling it down into a single trembling point in her palm.

  The pressure made her veins burn and her skin twitch like it was trying to crawl away from her own hand.

  The situation to perform this was not ideal, especially not with hordes of manslaughtering beasts coming at her with such rapid pace.

  Thankfully, the use of Parallel Cognition made all of that possible. Through Yor’s thought process, the threat was still there, but appeared to be slower than it should have been. Thus granting her the much needed time to perform her move.

  After some much needed concentration, a bead of sapphire light pushed out from the center of her palm. It hovered centimeters above her skin, shimmering an otherworldly translucence like liquid glass.

  She had finally done it,if the situation was ideal she would be celebrating this achievement. The slight twitch of her lips will do.

  ‘Liquids can pierce anything, provided enough pressure is forced through a fine point’

  Yor recalled what little she understood of the physics of her old world, hopefully the same applied here as well. And it did. With Sawatari’s extended help, that principle became more than theory.

  The slime of the Azure Ooze was a perfect conductor for astris. That was how Grace designed the Sacrament to be. With the Manifestation lending its focus, condensing the energy into a single droplet wasn’t much of a struggle.

  If anything, it went on without a hitch.

  The sapphire orb began to shrink, polishing itself into a flawless sphere trembling with contained explosive power.

  Tightening her jaw, she raised her hand and curled her palm into a crude mimicry of a pistol. At the tip of her finger was where the droplet hovered like a bullet waiting to be shot.

  ‘With enough pressure, water can pierce stone!’

  She repeated that to herself. Hoping and praying that it really works or else she’s going to die.

  She aimed her finger directly at where the leading Fallen Soul was. The smokescreen created by Seth didn’t affect her that much since she didn’t rely on sight like everyone else.

  In the shifting fog, she could see dozens of humanoid signatures pulsing, each one of them a writhing monster sprinting toward her.

  She calmed her breath, allowing herself to be in the moment and then shouted.

  “Bang!”

  The droplet of condensed slime shot forward at blinding speeds. Due to its lack of weight and small size, it was almost like it teleported.

  What followed after was not a sound but an impact. The sapphire bead tore through the smokescreen and slammed in the hordes of monsters, exploding through their blackened bodies exactly where their cores festered.

  “Ahh!”

  The backlash of the shot was so fierce it knocked Yor flat onto her back, squeezing out a small yelp from her. Her ears rang and her finger stung a bit, but she didn’t allow that to keep her down.

  When she scrambled upright, her lips parted in awe at what she saw.

  “Wha the…”

  With just one shot, a whole line of corpses sprawled before her. And at the end of that line, the sapphire orb was still floating as if compelled by some invisible force.

  Her hand still mimicked a pistol, so that must have been it.

  “So much damage…”

  For a heartbeat, even the Fallen Souls were taken aback by what just happened. Their guttural shrieks dwindled for a brief second before picking up again. They threw themselves forward again to the blind girl who was still in shock.

  In response, Yor blinked, snapping herself out of her shock. Subconsciously, she swung her finger to the left and the sapphire orb lanced through another swarm.

  She wasn’t particular in her aim, but still a wave of corpses collapsed in its wake. She moved her finger again, this time right, then back to center, left, up and down. Each time the droplet tore through the monsters, littering the shore with more grotesque husks.

  ***

  “Bloody…hell”

  The smoke eventually died down and Yor felt the cold breeze of the night brush against her face. She took a breath, her small frame facing the carnage before her.

  On the shore of the chapel of St. Vicar, dozens of the Fallen Souls lay scattered across the dirt. Most of them were already disintegrating into drifting ash, but some remained for some reason.

  They weren’t moving, so did that mean they were dead?

  ‘My aim is not that great so I missed the cores of some. Are they still alive…or just dead corpses now?’

  Yor didn’t understand their biology or how they worked, but she had her doubts that they were still alive. Even though her aim was completely poor, she still did hit vital areas that might be considered lethal to humans.

  ‘Also, they don’t seem to be more coming either’

  Her thoughts flickered away when her ears caught the subtle movements behind her. When she turned, she saw the others dead in their tracks. The twins, Arthur and Elias all stood frozen, taking in all the carnage.

  They could not believe what just happened. Well it did happen within a smokescreen so they probably didn’t see a thing.

  And that made it all the more difficult to explain.

  Yor couldn’t see their facial expressions, but basing it off the pale flares of disbelief radiating from each of their astris. They must have widened eyes and gaping mouths. And to top it all, they didn’t say a thing.

  The moment she released her hand pistol gesture, the slime had dissolved, so they probably didn’t see it.

  The best she could do in that unbearable silence was let out a weak awkward laugh because she was also at a loss.

  “Hahaha…I, uh…”

  She cleared her throat.

  “Is…is everyone alright?”

  Still, no one said a word. They continued to stare at her in disbelief. And that warmed her cheeks. She felt embarrassment creeping into her chest.

  Perhaps she didn’t ask that question correctly or they just didn’t hear her. She cleared her throat again and forced a polite smile to mask her nervousness. Then, just as she was about to take tentative steps toward them, she froze.

  Their astris suddenly flared into jagged colors. It was fear and urgency.

  “Yor, behind you!”

  At first she didn’t understand, but when she did…her blood turned to ice at the realization.

  ‘I….didn’t notice it?’

  When she subtly turned her head, she saw a massive maw opened inches from her head, a rancid black void ringed with gnashing teeth.

  Her body was already mid motion and she couldn’t turn in time. Her eyes widened in that moment, already seeing her immediate death.

  ‘It’s too fast, I won’t be able to lift my finger in time. This is it. This is—!’

  Suddenly, she felt her body being lurched to the side with brutal force. And a streak of red cut the air, scattering like rain in the moonlight.

  “Elias…!”