Chapter 146: Upheaval

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Several streaks of dark brown fire kicked up trails of smoke, dragging long tails of flame behind them as they turned into blazing fireballs, riding the howling wind as they came crashing down from the rooftops, painting half the night sky red.

They were here in an instant.

“AAAHH—!”

The first one to rush at me was screaming at the top of his lungs, I couldn’t even tell anymore if that was a sound a human being could make. I’d already started to raise my hand to launch Ice Spikes, meaning to freeze him and everyone right behind him in one shot, but in the split second my thoughts turned to action, I suddenly noticed something wrong with the figures wrapped inside the Fire of Sin.

A fat one… no, wait, his body is expanding… something’s about to burst out!

A gut feeling hit me hard and I instinctively pulled back my attack, kicking off with Moon Step and retreating more than 10 meters in an instant. The very next moment, that figure exploded.

BOOM—!

He went off like some horrifying human bomb, and with a thunderous blast, flesh and blood went flying everywhere. As the scorching shockwave came rolling in, the erupting flames shot up well over 5 meters high, and right behind it came a violent impact.

Dust and dirt flew up into the sky, and from the streets near and far came the howling of dogs.

Is this… a suicide bombing…

I got pushed back 2 steps by the shockwave, stumbling as I steadied myself, staring toward the center of the explosion with a mix of shock and disbelief. Through the haze, I could make out chunks of charred and burning flesh, large and small, scattered every which way across the ground, there was no telling which body part belonged to what… and mixed in there, along with that self-detonating heretic, were the remains of the 3 men from before.

That image only stayed in front of my eyes for a very brief moment, then the second and third came bursting through the smoke toward me. When they got to about 7 or 8 meters away from me, their bodies started to swell.

“May the God of Truth protect—”

“AHHH!!!”

My heart jumped, and I was just about to use Moon Step to fall back again, but the moment my feet moved, a violent surge of pain exploded through my head.

It hurt so bad I couldn’t breathe.

“Ugh…”

A muffled groan escaped my lips, and my body immediately went limp, my vision going black in an instant. I knew something was wrong. I flooded my whole body with vivid blue light, a massive ice wall erupted up from the ground in front of me, and I crouched down hugging my head.

The next moment, two enormous blasts went off right beside my ears.

BOOM bzzzzzzzzz—!!!

The shockwave hit my eardrums like a hammer.

Aside from the ringing, I couldn’t hear a thing.

Scorching waves of heat poured out from both sides of the ice wall and swept under my feet, knocking me off balance and dropping me onto the ground. Ash and debris filled the air again, and gradually I started to hear the faint hissing of moisture evaporating.

Beyond the ice wall, waves of heat raged toward the sky. The Fire of Sin roared upward, wild and overwhelming — yet it couldn’t break through the massive barrier standing in its way.

Only after that did my hearing slowly come back to normal.

In my field of view, the candle flames in many of the houses had been snuffed out by the blast. I could faintly hear people crying out in terror and screaming, and all around me was the frantic sound of scrambling footsteps, it sounded like the residents desperately trying to flee.

There are still a few heretics left… there are civilians nearby, I have to take them out fast…

Gritting my teeth, I tried my hardest to get up, but the pounding in my head made it impossible to do anything.

I felt like I was going to die.

It hurts… it hurts… it hurts! It hurts so much!!!

Like my skull was about to split open.

My body, which had only felt a little cold before, had by now plunged into something like an ice pit. So cold that I had to curl into a ball and hug myself tight — and even that didn’t help at all.

This isn’t normal… who gets like this just from their period… this is absolutely not normal…

What do I do… what do I do… has anyone been burned… I need to go help… need to take out the heretics… my head hurts so bad… so cold… I can’t see anything clearly… what am I even… doing right now…

I was gradually losing the ability to think.

What’s… happening to me…

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a figure blazing with flames closing in on me.

Those flames were viscous like blood, carrying a faint metallic stench that hit me right in the face. The figure wrapped inside was bloated and grotesque, eyes bulging with burst blood vessels, nearly popping out of their head. They stared right at me, laughing like a madman, screaming in a raspy, frenzied cry: “I am! A true servant of the God of Truth—!”

“AHHH—!!!”

Pop.

After a dull sound, the kind that comes with flesh bursting apart, my body went airborne.

Whoosh whoosh—

That was the sound of wind dragging against my clothes.

A blast from this close, and it’s actually less noisy somehow…

That was the first absurd thought that popped into my head. Then it dawned on me… I somehow didn’t feel the agonizing pain I’d been expecting.

…?

Did I block it?

Or has the headache already scrambled my brain…

Before I could figure out the answer, my body slammed into something very hard, and right after that my ears were filled with a loud crashing and clattering, something snapped under the impact… wood, maybe… did I just crash through someone’s house?

Thud. I hit the ground.

Crash, clatter, bang—

…So loud.

Where am I?

…So dark. Did I just get blown up and die… no, I didn’t. I can still feel my hands and feet… and my head’s still there. That explosion doesn’t seem to have done anything to me, I can’t feel any pain at all, not even a little. No discomfort whatsoever… huh, looks like I’m not cold anymore… and the headache has eased up a lot.

My body… actually feels a lot better.

Can I stand up… yeah, I can move… heave-ho, I’m up.

“Mmnh~”

A sticky, half-asleep kind of moan slipped out of my mouth as I stretched out in a big, lazy stretch.

Ahhh~

My head feels clear too.

Thinking back on it carefully, that headache from just now… I feel like I’ve felt it somewhere before… where was it… oh right!

Back when I had just crawled out of the Abyssal Mire, after I had absorbed a huge amount from those Holy Church knights… it was back then, that unforgettable headache.

I knew it, there’s no way this was just a simple period… How could something like that bring me down, I’m… Syl… Pe… I’m… who am I again?

Whatever, that’s not important.

Time to head out.

I shoved aside the broken beam blocking my way and stepped forward toward the light leaking in through the cracks ahead.

Voices were coming from outside.

“…Is she dead?”

“Probably. Even a Pontifical Knight can’t take a direct blast like that.”

“Isn’t this almost too smooth? This is a bit different from what the councilman told us…”

“Something feels off.”

I raised my hand and threw a punch at the wall in front of me.

BANG!

Crash crash…

As bricks and stone fragments exploded outward, the thick wall of the house in front of me was punched clean through, a hole nearly 2 meters across.

The crimson firelight came streaming in. I looked down at my hands… yep, completely fine, still as nice-looking as ever.

Just a little dirty.

After crawling out through the hole, I tilted my head back and looked up at the night sky lit up by the glow of the flames.

A hazy moon glided past, morning stars glittering.

Strangely beautiful. It really has been… a while since I’ve seen a view like this.

It’d be even better with some snow.

“Y-you… how are you still…”

The heretics were standing not far away. 1, 2… 4 of them left.

They were staring at me, that look of horror and disbelief on their faces… quite entertaining.

Just a bit noisy.

Thinking that, I lightly tapped the ground with my foot and in an instant appeared right in front of the one who’d just spoken, holding one finger up to my lips, signaling him to be quiet.

“Shh! Can you please not talk?”

“Ugh—”

I saw him swallow hard… honestly, just a moment ago every single one of them was throwing themselves at me like they had no regard for their own lives, so what’s there to be scared of now?

Almost as if to reassure him, I gave him a sweet smile, but in the very next moment, my arm swung high—

Splat.

A strange sound.

That person’s head exploded outright.

Whatever was inside splattered all over my body, my face.

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