She Is Already a Monster

Leaving Mia to do this all by herself was too painful for her.

“She is already a monster.”

Clang!

Gale whispered before drawing his sword. Without another word, he stepped over the edge of the reef and slashed his blade down toward the base of the wing.

The battle erupted between the moonlight and the sound of the tide!

Clement flung his chains forward. The metal rings expanded in midair, wrapping around the base of Lovene's wings. The moment the chains tightened, sealing runes spread frantically along the surface of the rings.

Unfortunately, the golden light flickered along the edges of the wing veins before being swiftly devoured by the dark patterns. The edges of the sealing runes rapidly shattered across the surface of the wings like a crack that had yet to fully form.

The monster struggled, its wings suddenly flaring outward. The chains were pulled taut, and the metal rings let out a sharp, groaning screech under the strain.

A crack was dragged into the reef beneath Clement's feet. With veins bulging on his forehead, he exerted all his strength to control the chains. Gale seized the opportunity to slip through the gaps in the chains, his greatsword drawing an arc that left a long, narrow gash on the edge of the wing.

After gripping his longsword once more, he regained his true strength—Rank Four mid stage.

At this level, he could indeed be called the strongest knight in the Oswell territory.

However, Mia was even stronger than him.

Her blade continuously sliced through the slowly healing dark patterns in the moonlight. Each cut was deeper than the last, steadily depleting Lovene's energy.

Her strength had already reached the peak of Rank Four, only a single step away from Rank Five. It was this very strength that made it possible for her to withstand the monster's onslaught.

Outnumbered, the monster quickly fell into a disadvantage. Nearly all of her claw attacks were blocked by Mia, while Clement seized opportunities to briefly bind her movements with his chains, and Gale slashed his sword across the base of her wings.

“Skreee—!”

With a short shriek, half of the monster's wing was severed. She plummeted from the air to the ground, her eyes filled with relief as she looked at everyone.

That was the remnant of Lovene's will.

The group did not halt their assault. Having lost the ability to fly, the monster's strength dropped another level, and Mia's group gradually shifted from defensive counterattacks to active offense.

Sensing that she was cornered, the monster's attacks grew increasingly ferocious. The soundwaves from her roars began to disrupt everyone's minds and break their formation.

At the same time, a cold, icy gleam coated her sharp claws. As she swung them, the surrounding air was sliced to shreds. If anyone took a direct hit from those claws, even Mia would be carved into pieces.

But Mia was a battle-hardened knight whose mastery over combat and technique was already consummate. No matter how ferocious the monster became, it could not breach her absolute defense.

Gale was no slouch either. Although he had not held a sword for many years, his combat instincts remained. After a brief period of adjustment, the combat power he unleashed was equally formidable.

As time passed and dawn approached, the battle gradually tilted in Mia's favor.

The monster was covered in wounds, several of her claws were broken, and a massive amount of blood constantly gushed from the wound on her abdomen. She was clearly at the end of her rope.

Yet, the more this was the case, the more uneasy Clement became.

The strength of each monster created by contamination differed. After Marcus turned into a monster, he could be bound by Clement's chains, which meant that monster's strength was relatively weak.

But the monster the church Saintess had turned into was different. Although the chains affected her, the impact was minimal, and she easily broke free from their restraint.

In his view, a monster of this level shouldn't possess only this much power. Even if Lovene's will was constantly helping them, she shouldn't be this weak.

She had to have some unused ability up her sleeve.

“Be careful! A contaminated monster can't possibly be only at this level!”

The moment he spoke to warn them, the monster vanished before their eyes like a twisting vortex. By the time she reappeared, she was already right in front of him.

She raised her gleaming claws and swung them down fiercely before anyone could react.

Before the claws even landed, Clement felt the wind.

It wasn't a natural sea breeze, but the wind whipped up by the claws tearing through the air, faster and colder than he could have anticipated.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Gale standing a few paces away, shouting something in his direction, but the words were drowned out by the howling wind, rendering them inaudible.

He had always thought he was fast. His Rank Three strength gave him reaction speeds far exceeding those of ordinary people, but at this moment, he realized that some gaps could not be closed by speed alone.

But... why was he the one who was going to die?

As the claws descended in his vision, he suddenly understood.

The monster's target might have been him from the very beginning.

Not for any other reason, but because he was the one who could contain the contamination source. If he died, even if the monster was killed by Mia and Gale, the contamination source could still find another host and nurture a new monster.

A chill rushed up his spine. He had originally thought that contamination sources lacked self-awareness and were merely inanimate things, but the one before him was clearly different.

It was intelligent.

If it really succeeded in killing him, the consequences would be unimaginable. The Oswell territory might truly be destroyed by its hands in the near future.

But there was nothing he could do.

He was going to die.

In fact, from the moment he became a Heresy Inquisitor, he knew he would eventually die at the hands of these heretics. But he had never expected to die here.

Nor did he expect that in his final moments, what he felt in his heart was not fear, but worry—worry that a territory completely unrelated to him would suffer destruction.

This wasn't like him at all; instead, it was rather like the church Saintess.

Heh.

Laughing mockingly at himself, he heard Gale's voice in the distance. He couldn't speak, but he only hoped that after his death, they would immediately go to the church to find another Heresy Inquisitor.

Perhaps, that way, the destruction of the Oswell territory could be averted.

However, just as he was worrying, accompanied by the monster's painful screech, a massive amount of warm blood sprayed across his face, drenching him completely.

He stared blankly ahead. The claws that were meant to sever his head had plunged deeply into the monster's own abdomen. Not only that, but the monster's other hand was also trembling as it stabbed into her own body.

She... was ending her own life?

Clement and Gale froze in shock, but Mia seized the opportunity. Descending from above, she drove her sword straight through the monster's heart.

After a few final struggles, the monster eventually collapsed onto the ground, motionless.

Sensing the end of her life, the dark patterns representing contamination began to frantically recede from her body, and Lovene's own will reclaimed dominance at this final moment.