Beneath hair that clung together like seaweed, the crouching creature had fresh beads of blood on its nose and shreds of torn flesh hanging from the corners of its mouth. Its teeth were still chewing slowly. Taken as a whole, it looked like an ordinary human face.
Yet an extra pair of utterly cold, lashless eyes had grown on its cheeks.
The two eyes on its left fixed on Charlotte, while the two on its right locked onto Roselle. All four eyeballs moved independently, inspiring the chilling sense that they would watch them wherever they fled.
It's eating someone... What kind of monster is this? Charlotte's scalp tingled.
Even though she had become a Beyonder, and Viève's booklet had described the grotesque forms of monsters transformed from humans, such as zombies and water ghosts, seeing it in person still made her stomach tighten. She could barely connect the thing before her with a "human."
Beside her, Roselle also saw the monster's face clearly. His expression went noticeably blank, but the next second, he swiftly drew the Flintlock Pistol from the leather holster at his waist, aimed at the monster's head, and pulled the trigger.
Bang! Flame and gunsmoke burst through the woods. Amid the roar, the bullet shattered one of the extra eyes on the thing's left cheek, then punched into its head and blasted open a hole.
Any human hit by a shot like that would have been dead beyond question. A flicker of hope had just risen in Charlotte's heart when she saw that the monster merely swayed slightly. It did not fall, and hardly any blood flowed from the wound. Only the pale skin around the shattered eye kept contracting, as though trying to heal.
Then it slowly stood, turning toward them and revealing an equally pale, bare abdomen, clothes wrinkled as though they had been soaked in water, and humanlike limbs.
Charlotte instantly realized that this monster had been a living human before its mutation. The knowledge of mysticism she had only recently mastered surfaced in her mind:
Monsters such as zombies and water ghosts could also undergo mutations. But if extra organs or tissues appeared on a body, or things such as hair or feathers grew where they did not belong, the first possibilities to consider were a Beyonder's corruption and loss of control.
There were many reasons a Beyonder might lose control: taking a Potion without passing through the preceding sequences, forcibly advancing before mastering a Potion's power, switching to another pathway midway, or suffering corruption through prolonged contact with dangerous beings because of overly heightened intuition.
I don't know which applies to it, but it certainly looks hard to deal with. At least I couldn't survive a shot to the head, and most low-sequence Beyonders probably couldn't either... Roselle's gunshot should draw people from the camp, but they'll take at least a few minutes... Her thoughts raced. Her gaze swept over the creek bank, the bushes, and the distance between the monster and the two of them as she quickly made a decision.
If the monster moved slowly, they would retreat at once and lure it toward the hounds and servants. If it was much faster than they were, fleeing would only expose their backs to it. They would have to hold out until the others arrived.
She was just about to warn Roselle when she saw that he had already tossed aside the Flintlock Pistol he had fired and drawn the hunting knife at his waist. Then he pulled a spare dagger from inside his hunting jacket and threw it to her, sheath and all.
Charlotte raised her hand and caught it. Its weight in her hand steadied her considerably.
Just then, the extra cold eye on the monster's right suddenly changed from black to green, a dim glow rising from deep within the eyeball.
Charlotte's spirituality screamed a warning. Almost before she could think, her body lunged toward Roselle, knocking him aside while she used the momentum to roll in the opposite direction.
The next second, a dark green ray pierced the spot where Roselle had been standing and swept over several bushes behind him. Their green leaves instantly withered to gray-black, and the branches lost their vitality and collapsed. The energy within the ray spread a short distance along the branches and leaves before slowly stopping.
Charlotte knelt on one knee, her heart pounding.
If her spirituality, which had grown far beyond an ordinary person's after she became an Arbiter, had not warned her, Roselle would likely have lost his life just like those bushes.
She looked back at the monster and found it still standing in place. The lashless eye that had fired the ray had burst into a dark mass of flesh and blood, no longer giving off that strange sensation of peering at the world outside.
One eye was shot out, and another was used up firing that ray. The two human eyes don't seem to have mutated... This should be the best chance to strike back... Charlotte hesitated no longer. She pushed off with both legs, leaped out of the bushes, and charged toward the monster across the gravel and grass beside the creek.
Roselle scrambled up and followed close behind, holding his hunting knife in a reverse grip as he circled in from the other side.
But even with military training and physical prowess far beyond that of noble youths his age, he could not keep up with Charlotte's sprint. He fell behind, almost as though he were afraid to fight.
Charlotte did not wait for him to arrive and form a pincer attack. Instead, she swung her dagger first, slashing at the monster's two intact human eyes.
It merely turned its neck slightly and slid backward with a stiff step, avoiding the dagger's point by a hair.
Charlotte followed through by twisting sideways, dodging the monster's grasping right hand, then thrusting backhanded at its chest. But the monster seemed to have seen through the blow beforehand. It tilted a shoulder, letting the blade's tip pierce only a shallow layer of flesh.
At the same time, it flung its left arm backward, deflecting Roselle's slash from behind.
The monster's speed was nowhere near as outrageous as the gray-clad beggar's, and its movements were not particularly agile. Yet it always managed to evade dangerous attacks, as if it sensed the threats in advance.
"It can anticipate attacks!"
Charlotte shouted the warning.
"I know!"
Roselle answered, twisting aside to dodge the monster's sweeping arm. The blow grazed the sleeve of his hunting jacket and tore the entire sleeve off at the shoulder, exposing the linen shirt beneath.
Charlotte circled behind the monster's flank. Taking advantage of the instant when Roselle held its attention, she suddenly lowered her body and stabbed downward at the back of its knee. At last, before it could react, she sliced through its flesh and drew a stream of thick blood.
But the monster merely staggered, then abruptly twisted halfway around and rammed its shoulder toward Charlotte.
Charlotte pulled back in time, but the force still caught her arm, driving her two steps backward. She nearly stepped into the creek.
Before she could regain her balance, her pupils abruptly contracted.
The skin on the monster's forehead was changing rapidly. Two masses of flesh rolled open, revealing another pair of lashless eyes that stared coldly at Charlotte.
The next second, both new eyes shone with dark green light.
I'm done for... Charlotte's heart sank. Still off balance, she drew on the power of an Arbiter and shouted a command in the Hermes she had just learned:
"Lower your head!"
As she shouted, she also tried to push off and dive to the side, but held little hope. Judging by the speed of the monster's earlier ray, hitting her at such close range would be effortless.
And a Sequence 9's "authority" would have little effect on a monster that appeared very likely to be Sequence 7 and could wield such powerful abilities.
Yet the two dark green rays fired in succession shot toward the opposite bank of the creek, instantly reducing a patch of grass to ash. Even the pebbles beneath it exploded into flying fragments.
A faint sound of breaking glass followed, only to be drowned out by the creek.
It turned its head instead of lowering it? Some force seems to have pulled its head around... Charlotte was surprised, but she did not waste the precious opportunity. The instant she landed and found her footing, she changed direction, closed swiftly on the monster, and slashed her dagger hard across its neck.
The sharp blade cut through skin, muscle, and tiny structures that did not quite resemble flesh, nearly severing more than half its neck.
At last, a great gush of blood erupted, mixed with countless short black hairs and specks of starlike light. It looked so uncanny that it hardly seemed to have come from a human body.
The monster staggered backward, its neck lolling to one side, yet it still did not fall immediately.
Its two remaining human eyes turned toward the other side of the creek at the same time, as though it had sensed something more dangerous than Charlotte and Roselle.
The next second, a clear word rang out in Hermes.
"Sun."
The voice was not loud, yet it seemed to open a crack above the monster's head that led to high noon. A blazing pillar of light appeared out of thin air at no great height and shone straight down over the monster. Golden-white flames burst across its body. The heat swiftly blackened and curled its skin, while the eyes on its forehead, still trying to regenerate, gave off tiny popping sounds.
The monster finally let out something like a scream. Its human-shaped arms covered its head, and its legs bent as it crouched in place, trying to lessen its exposure to the scorching sunlight.
Immediately afterward, two glass bottles struck it almost simultaneously from different directions.
The bottles shattered, splashing clear Holy Water over the monster's charred skin and gaping wounds. Pale golden light flared instantly, and clouds of white smoke rose with a pungent, scorched odor.
This fatal blow swiftly drained the luster from the monster's remaining eyes. It crashed to the creek bank, blood bubbling from its half-severed neck.
Charlotte gripped the dagger, her chest heaving. Only now did she realize that her arm was trembling.
Forcing herself to look calm, she turned toward the camp. Three men wearing Sun Holy Emblems on their chests were emerging from the woods. The leader wore a dark long coat with discreet gold stitching at the cuffs and collar. The other two each held a bottle of Holy Water, seemingly ready to throw it at any moment.
Charlotte did not know them, but she immediately guessed who they were.
They were all Purification-ers of the Eternal Blazing Sun.
The first to arrive were official Beyonders? They don't look like they were mingling with the hunting guests. They must have been tracking this Beyonder who lost control... Then could the person across the creek just now have been... As Charlotte pondered, she glanced in the direction the monster had faced at the end, but saw nothing.
Behind her, Roselle remained standing in place, staring blankly at the slowly fading pillar of sunlight and the monster lying motionless on the ground. He seemed to have finally confirmed that this world had another side he knew nothing about.
Watching his expression, Charlotte suddenly gave a faint smile.
"Haven't you always wanted to know the secrets the Church is hiding?"
She returned the dagger to Roselle, leaning close to his ear as she spoke softly.
"This is it."