West of Yorikof Town, inside a hidden cave in the Silent Hills.
Screams, the crunch of breaking bones, the sound of flesh being torn apart, and the ceaseless cries of two infants tangled together. Holding a blood-red sword, Qu Xuanqing leaped lightly and crouched behind a boulder, wiping at the wound on her face, carved open by the infants' shrill cries.
The church party had originally numbered more than fifty. Now, fewer than twenty were still standing.
Dark red blood soaked the earth around the altar, mixing with filth that had long since congealed and giving off a nauseatingly sweet, rotten stench.
Severed limbs lay scattered about. The terrified, twisted expressions of some young guards had frozen on their faces as they died, their eyes still holding the utmost fear of that indescribable horror.
"Hold steady! Form ranks! The Mother Goddess protects us!"
Deacon Habert's hoarse shout echoed through the cave. The grotesque scar on his face looked even more terrifying, flushed dark with blood.
The holy emblem in his hand burst with a brilliant golden light unlike anything he had produced before. Like a solid wall, it barely held back the evil pressure surging toward them like a tangible tsunami.
But the gap between them was simply too great.
"Ugh—!"
A young guard on the flank suddenly let out a howl that sounded nothing like a human voice. He dropped the standard-issue long sword in his hand, its faint white glow dying, and clutched his head with both hands.
Dark red blood mixed with a grayish-white, viscous substance, gushing out between his fingers—his eyeballs had burst under the immense psychic impact!
Then he lunged at the companion beside him, bared his teeth, and began tearing into him like a beast, as if trying to vent all the madness and