A shrill laugh rang out overhead.
The thin man riding the Griffin pointed at the black-clad swordsman on the battlefield:
"Keep him occupied!"
"Wait-"
The Horse-Eared Girl's warning was drowned out by the beasts' roars.
A Giant Rabbit lunged from the left, an octopus's tentacles swept toward the ground from the right, and a gorilla beat its chest and leaped. Unnatural red light burned in the eyes of every controlled creature as they surged toward the same target like a tide.
The swordsman did not move.
He gripped the hilt with both hands and raised the long blade horizontally to shoulder height.
Moonlight flowed along the blade's curve, gathering at its tip into a cold point of starlight.
Just as the first Giant Rabbit's claws were about to touch his clothes, that cold point of light trembled slightly.
The tremor was so minute that, had the moonlight not shifted its angle at that very instant, almost no one would have noticed.
Then time seemed to freeze.
Every creature lunging through the air suddenly stiffened, a thin red line appearing from neck to belly at the same time.
The red lines rapidly widened into gushing wounds.
The Giant Rabbit's body slid apart diagonally, the octopus's tentacles broke into several pieces, and the gorilla split in two while still lunging forward-the cuts were as smooth as mirrors.
There were no screams.
Only the dull thuds of heavy bodies hitting the ground, one after another, like a muffled drumbeat.
The blood mist spread a sickly sweet, metallic smell beneath the moonlight.
The red light in the fallen creatures' eyes swiftly faded, with something like release seeming to linger in its last glimmer.
The swordsman flicked the blood from his blade and looked up into the sky.
The man on the Griffin's back stared