34 – Advent – 4
Suddenly, as Serena stepped into the lake made of blood, a calm wave rose.
The waves that spread from the ankle drew a large circle on the surface and spread widely. Now Serena was walking on a lake of blood. It was a simple application of the technique of walking on water with mana wrapped around the body.
Serena took a deep breath and let out a long breath. The air tasted like blood.
Serena brushed off the World Eater once in a diagonal direction. A few drops of blood on the World Eater’s blade disappeared into the lake with a small circular wave.
It was because her heart was a little shaken from worrying about her lord.
Except for Sabathon, who was submerged up to her ankle when the blood first filled up, there was not a single drop of blood on Serena’s armor and face.
It was thanks to walking on blood without allowing any attack and bursting all the monsters with minimal movement. No monster could approach Serena within a certain distance.
I saw a small wriggling space in the distance. As soon as the space was seized, Serena fired a slash.
Due to the slash that passed right before the column of blood rose, the blood that was on the verge of coalescing faded powerlessly.
After that, a few more spaces boiled over, but there were no exceptions to Serena’s slash.
“Is this all?”
“…”
There was no answer coming back. Serena, who had infused the sword with mana and erased all the bloodstains, looked at the shape of a woman spread out in the distance.
The woman, half submerged in blood, stood up.
Her hair, which had been a beautiful orange, was a messy mess of a bright red that had been stained, and it was scattered all over the place. Blood dripped from the ends of his hair.
There was nothing on the wrists and ankles that originally had something red in color. It doesn’t mean that there are no trinkets, there is literally ‘nothing’.
Even the hands and feet. The cut cross section revealed the bones and muscles intact.
Kartina, who had been spattered in blood, reflected on what Serena had just done. The bloody monsters, which were so numerous that they filled this area, were swept away in a single slash.
It was a blow that I couldn’t even perceive with my head, let alone see it with my eyes.
Since it is a monster made of blood, it heals on its own and can go on a rampage even if all limbs are cut off.
I was greedy.
Her abilities and talents, her beliefs and her loyalty, everything of a woman named Serena was really madly coveted. I wanted to get my hands on it by any means.
He came down upon hearing the request to annihilate all life in this world, but to the extent that he justified himself that the annihilation of that life could be interpreted in various ways.
For example, if he removes his emotions and thoughts and reconstitutes his entire body with blood and accepts him as his servant, isn’t it practically the same as dying?
That blonde woman was that attractive to Kartina.
At first, she felt uncomfortable with Serena, who did not break even after seeing her and tried to provoke her, but now her thoughts have changed.
The desire to somehow obtain that enormous talent boiled over.
Kartina stared at the place where her wrists and ankles had been cut off for a while, then blinked a couple of times, and blood gathered along her thighs and wrists to form the shape of her hands and feet.
Cartina moved her bizarre limbs, as if all the skin and muscles had been removed and left only blood, then looked up and met Serena’s eyes.
“I admired you.”
Several bizarrely bent arms protruded from the puddle, grabbed Kartina’s body, and lifted her up.
When Kartina fully stood up, her arm disappeared into the puddle again. All the while, Kartina’s eyes were fixed on Serena.
“Do you intend to serve me instead of the weak man you call your lord?”
Hundreds of slashes flew in response. Kartina was beaten intact and turned into a piece of meat again, collapsing into blood.
Serena’s face as she watched it, even the bleak smile that remained vaguely had completely disappeared.
Serena’s body slowly sank. However, it did not sink into the blood. The mana flowing from Serena was so thick and enormous that the blood was pushed aside.
When her feet stood on the ground beneath them, not blood, Serena began to move. The sound of metal crushing stone echoed.
“Your mind has changed.”
The blood was now evaporating near Serena’s body, unable to push aside. The floor where Sabaton was putting his weight, could not stand the overflowing mana and screamed.
Serena didn’t care and added more momentum.
“Originally, I planned to kill you after returning intact what you did to your lord.”
Suddenly, the floor split like a spider’s web around the place where Serena stepped. The range of evaporation of blood was getting wider and wider.
Anger flashed in Serena’s eyes. The World Eater, infused with excessive mana, dropped the handle.
Cartina, who had recreated a human body with blood, looked at Serena approaching her with a maddened look.
It was an incomparable level of pressure. It was amazing. Could it be that even that wasn’t the power of that woman?
It was far more massive than the force he showed when cutting hundreds of monsters.
If what he showed then was a force that had reached the limit of the human species, now it seemed that he had transcended the human species itself.
“I’ll kill you right now.”
Serena held the World Eater above her head. A level of mana wrapped around the blade that would kill a normal person from the pressure just by standing nearby.
Because the mana was so huge, the surroundings fell into silence in reverse. The silence was so great that they could even hear each other’s breathing, which made Kartina think that time had stopped.
Serena hit the World Eater.
The enormous amount of mana contained in the World Eater erupted in an instant.
As if space itself were being torn apart, everything in front of Serena disappeared without leaving even a handful of ashes.
There was no splashing of debris or formation of debris. It was simply erased like salt dissolved in water.
First, the ground could not stand the pressure and collapsed. The bedrock that formed the foundation of the earth and the soil that covered it were swept away by mana and evaporated.
The precariously standing buildings were nothing more than threads in the face of a typhoon.
No, it was worse than that. It was to the point where the expression of evaporation was more appropriate than the expression of breaking.
Wood and metal touched by the huge mana itself were destroyed and disappeared without a trace in an instant.
Air was no exception. The turbulent mana returned even the aircraft floating in the air to nothing. The place where the slash had passed had turned into a perfect vacuum where everything had evaporated.
Serena put the World Eater back in its scabbard.
The momentum of the slash that swung over the horizon gradually waned, and it barely disappeared after reaching a distance that was barely visible.
In front of Serena, a gigantic stab wound of endless length and depth appeared. The slope was mantle like glass.
No matter how deep the floor was, even though the center was bathed in sunlight, it could only be seen as black.
A stone that had been precariously straddling the perimeter was tumbled inside by the wind, but no sound was heard hitting the floor.
Its size was the same. The tip of the long, fan-shaped cut on the floor stretched beyond the horizon.
Even with Serena’s transcendent eyesight, she could barely guess if that was the end.
Nothing above it existed. Literally nothing.
A step later, an aftershock swept toward the center. Even the air had completely evaporated, so a huge wind began to blow to fill the void.
Other buildings that had narrowly avoided collapsing behind Serena were shattered and blown away like candy by the powerful aftermath.
The wind blew for a while. After that, by the time the storm had barely subsided, nothing was left around Serena.
Only a few remains of buildings that had barely escaped being swept away by the storm remained.
It was a landscape that could not even be imagined as a place where a prosperous city originally existed.
Buildings were all destroyed, the surroundings were razed to the ground, and the terrifyingly deep fan-shaped canyon gave off an atmosphere that seemed like demons could climb out of hell at any moment.
Serena smiled in satisfaction. With her goal accomplished, it was time to go find her lord.
Of course, in the eyes of others, it was as close to a calm expression as usual.
