Her golden eyes were gradually invaded by a black, malevolent aura. Lovene gasped in agony, her body twitching bizarrely as if something were fighting her for control over her own physical form.
Elena gritted her teeth and refused. “No! You are my husband's savior. How... how could we kill you...?”
“I... I will hurt you, I will hurt you...”
Elena took half a step forward, the hem of her skirt catching the wet sand. “But you still have your consciousness right now, don't you?”
Lovene's wings folded slightly, as if she were trying to stabilize her center of gravity in a way she wasn't accustomed to. At the same time, she realized that a sweet fragrance was wafting from the people before her.
It wasn't body odor, but the scent of meat—the kind of juicy, sizzling meat that would burst with flavor when bitten into.
Hungry... So hungry...
Having just emerged, the energy in her body was almost completely depleted.
Eat. She had to eat them to replenish her energy.
With that thought, Lovene looked at the crowd with eyes full of greed. But soon, she bit her tongue, forcing herself to wake up from her primal instincts.
“My consciousness... it will disappear... Kill me, quick, kill me!”
Standing a short distance away, Marcus watched the giant butterfly trembling in the moonlight, completely shocked.
“How is this possible? How can someone contaminated by the contamination source still retain this level of consciousness? Just how strong is her will...?”
He remembered how he felt when he was swallowed by the contamination source. He had fought back with his own will, but the contamination had been like ocean waves, overturning his consciousness again and again.
Especially at the moment he completely turned into a monster, the boat of his will felt as though it were seized by a terrifying sea monster from the deep sea, dragged to the bottom of the ocean in an instant, and stripped of all consciousness.
Afterward, he couldn't feel his own body at all, let alone recognize what kind of monster he had become. He could only allow his instincts to guide him as he roamed aimlessly throughout the territory.
He considered his willpower to be one in ten thousand; otherwise, the initial contamination wouldn't have taken two or three years to erupt. Yet, after transforming into a monster, he had still lost consciousness without any ability to resist.
Yet the church girl before him could still control her monstrous body, even briefly maintaining dominance so that the contamination could not submerge her consciousness...
This was terrifying.
Just how resolute was her will?
No one moved. They stared at Lovene in silence, their thoughts unreadable. No matter how resolute Lovene's will was, under the continuous influx of contamination, she finally lost her dominant position.
She was on the verge of no longer recognizing those once-familiar faces. Her wings suddenly flared and snapped shut, and she lunged forward, kicking up a sudden gust of wind as she prepared to devour them.
Mia sidestepped the gust, her boots sliding half a step across the wet sand as she used her scabbard to deflect the edge of the wing. Clement took a step back, the chains reappearing in his hands.
Seeing that they still wouldn't act, Lovene cried out anxiously, “Gale! Didn't you promise me that if I turned into a monster, you would kill me?”
“You are a knight! Why won't you keep your promise? Why won't you keep your promise...?”
By the end of her words, a hint of a sob crept into her voice. Gale gripped his scabbard with his right hand, bowing his head in silence.
After Lovene said she could heal his right hand, he had imagined many times what it would feel like to grip a hilt firmly again, and he had envisioned the first opponent he would face after reclaiming his strength.
But he had never imagined that this opponent would be the Saintess of the church who had given him a new lease on life—the very person he had once promised to kill.
【If I change, if I turn into a monster, kill me.】
So, she had written her own ending from the very beginning.
He had fallen into her trap.
People ultimately change, but some would never change, even unto death.
He used to disbelieve this saying, refusing to believe that anyone could remain unchanged for a lifetime. But after seeing Lovene turn into a monster, he knew he was wrong.
Some people were indeed pure—so pure that they remained unchanged even after turning into monsters.
“It hurts so much... My body hurts... My heart hurts...”
Dark patterns began to creep up Lovene's neck, nearly reaching the edge of her jawline. This seemed to signify that her consciousness was gradually being swallowed by the contamination.
She suddenly lifted her head, revealing eyes that still held a remnant of sanity. “I beg of you, for the sake of the territory's people, for their future, kill me! Otherwise... otherwise—”
Before she could finish, she slashed forward. Three or four sharp air currents sliced through the spot where Gale had just been standing, shattering several reefs into pieces. Following the attack, her aura grew even more violent.
Clement frowned at this and sighed. “Do it.”
He could see that Lovene was completely contaminated now. She had lost control of her body. If they continued to hesitate, she would likely lose her mind entirely to the monster.
When that happened, the difficulty of killing her would likely rise to a whole new level.
Even after he spoke, Gale still hesitated. Elena exchanged a look with Marcus. Although they felt immense reluctance, they said nothing more.
Clement shook his head at the sight, thinking they were too soft-hearted. But in the next second, Mia moved.
Her sword slowly left its sheath in the moonlight, the edge of the blade drawing a slender, silver-white arc through the air.
Catching Lovene off guard, she slipped to the side. Her blade sliced upward into the base of the wing, cutting through the outer layer covered in dark carapace and carving a new gash along the pulsing fissure.
Dark liquid dripped from the edge of the blade, leaving faint traces on the wet sand that were quickly swallowed by the incoming tide. The edge of the wing drooped, and Lovene stumbled back a few steps.
“...Just like that, Mia.”
Lovene's relieved voice came from between her wings. The dark patterns on her face receded briefly, revealing half of her human profile before being covered once more.
Flesh squirmed, and the severed wing regrew.
Gale took a deep breath. “Mia!”
He hadn't expected that the first person to strike Lovene would be the Holy Knight who was closest to her.
Mia did not look back. Her sword tip pointed downward, the dark liquid slowly sliding down the spine of the blade before finally dripping onto the ground. “Do it, while Her Highness... still recognizes us.”
Gale's hand clenched tightly around his hilt.
He knew that although Mia was expressionless right now, she was the one suffering the most inside.
Having spent only a few days with her, he had already been deeply moved by this Saintess of the church. This was even truer for the Holy Knight who had been by her side for over a decade. The bond between them was already as close as family.
Thus, killing Lovene was, to her, no different from killing her own family.
In this world, there was nothing more cruel than this.
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