Though no longer bound by obsession or the First Flame, her body was still an Ashen Body.
The Coiled Sword in her hand severed the head of the last living corpse maid before her, but the maid's dying counterattack finally tore apart the tattered knight armor covering her body—the sword forged from a dragon's tailbone pierced her shoulder, bringing with it a great plume of dark ash and burning flames. She kicked the corpse away, pulled out the short sword, and watched her body gradually regenerate amid the molten flames.
Ash had no liquid blood, because flame was the blood of ash.
Only mortals bled, so she was not a god.
—I have never been a god.
She threw the short sword aside and heard the crisp clatter of a bone implement striking the ground. The Sun Amulet's miracle healed her body, completely erasing the neither-light-nor-heavy wound. Her gaze shifted at once, sweeping across her surroundings and taking in everything nearby.
Broken walls and ruined buildings. Corpses strewn across the ground.
The living corpses, gargoyles, and strange creatures that had lurked and hidden within this underground buried city had piled up like mountains, slain by her hand. Quite a few of them already showed signs of Abyssal corruption—mutated Dark Souls flowed out from the depths of their minds, transforming into roots or branches resembling those of trees. And on even more of the corpses lingered the Profaned Flame, spreading from the deepest recesses of the human heart.
Lights blazed in every direction. The flames of sin drifted through the air, silently burning atop the gold and silver vessels scattered across the ground. In the City of Sin, before this royal capital was destroyed by flames, all its people could see was still wealth and indulgence. The flames of sin came