“By the power of the Red Foot.”

The witch muttered the same phrase five times in a row, her eyes constantly rolling back and forth.

Both of those swordsmen were too threatening.

Am I going to die like this? Like my sister already did?

No. She refused to believe that. She wouldn't let it end like that.

The days when they were called the Twin Witches flashed briefly through her mind. She pushed the thought aside and focused, reciting the incantation.

It was a forbidden magic called Starving Bowels.

“Die, all of you.”

This particular incantation only worked if part of her internal organs were sacrificed. That was the reason she’d modified her body, but that didn’t mean she was immune to the pain or agony that came with it.

Black blood trickled from the corner of the witch’s mouth.

It hurts.

The pain of her intestines rupturing made her lips tremble violently. But pain was still better than death. That, she understood.

***

The moment Enkrid stepped forward, he sensed a shift beneath his feet.

This incantation wasn’t as fast as the earlier firestorm, but it was much wider. The earth beneath him shifted and twisted, forming gaping holes filled with rows of sharp teeth.

Caught in those, it wouldn’t be a matter of flesh being torn—it would be bones being severed.

The ground around Enkrid writhed, opening wide with mouths as if trying to devour him whole.

Sensing danger, Enkrid kicked off the ground and leapt sideways.

Strangely, grotesque jaws sprouted up from the ground in the exact spot where he had just moved.

CLANG! CLANG!

The snapping of the jaws sounded like iron colliding—sharp and metallic.

Veina?

Enkrid thought briefly, glancing down. What he saw were dozens of mouths—this wasn’t the kind of thing you could end with a single slash.

The real body wasn’t even here. There was nothing he could strike at.

If one got caught in those teeth—chewed even slightly—one would be sucked into some demonic maw, somewhere far away, endlessly hungry.

He didn’t know all the details, but his instincts were sharp enough.

A forbidden spell, huh.

None of those were ever easy to deal with.

Walking Fire, Firestorm, and now this—it was the same.

As he moved again, shifting his weight to dodge, the same thing happened: more snapping jaws spawned in a radius around him wide enough to fit several dozen adult men standing shoulder to shoulder.

He stabbed downward with Dawnforge, slashing through one of the mouths that had sprung from below. It vanished.

But before he could even catch his breath, another mouth sprang up right beside the spot he’d just struck.

Slashing one means nothing. And if I move, it follows.

Persistent. Vicious. That was the impression.

Watching its activation and seeing the shape, he could grasp the general principle.

So it’s a sustained-type incantation.

He was the target. Whatever the witch had sacrificed to activate it—this was a spell that wouldn’t end until it had chewed something up and swallowed it whole.

Even if I cut it, it just regenerates.

So how long would this continue to spawn?

That question soon became action.

He stepped where there was still a slight gap and swung his arm holding Dawnforge. Slash. And slash again.

If they kept spawning, he would keep cutting.

It became a contest of quantity—her total mana versus his total Will.

The truth was, the witch had chosen the wrong spell.

She had already burned through half the prepared sacrificial materials, not to mention sacrificing part of her own guts.

This forbidden spell was meant to grind down the opponent persistently. To exhaust and devour them slowly.

Wear them down until they couldn’t move—and then chew them up and finish it.

But it was unfair, from her perspective.

The bastard had fought all the way through the Demon Realm to get here, cutting through walls and spells alike.

Wasn’t it obvious he’d be running low on Will? Surely his stamina had to be drained, too.

But in the end, in a battle of who would give up or tire out first—Enkrid was never going to be the one to lose.

His expressionless face and tireless, repetitive sword strokes resembled a laborer completely immersed in his work.

The witch grew frantic watching it.

How can he endure this?!

Even when grotesque tentacles occasionally burst out from the demon’s guts within the spell, his response was always the same—he calmly pivoted on one foot and cleaved them away.

With spinning force, his sword carved through the tentacles and swept across the ground like a whip. It created the illusion that the blade had extended in length.

But it wasn’t just an illusion. It became reality, slicing through another set of gnashing jaws.

“Aaaaagh!”

The witch screamed.

Was it her spiritual sensitivity? Or just a raw instinct for insight?

She could see her end.

Even if she transformed into some grotesque form, if she were cut into dozens of pieces, she would die.

She’d already seen it happen to her twin.

So maybe this was nothing more than a scream of sheer terror.

“I’ll add to that.”

And then—Audin joined the fray.

Enkrid had already shattered the witch’s hopes by mercilessly cutting through her forbidden spell.

The witch, distracted by defending against Jaxon’s strikes, was suddenly forced to block the sacred fist of a giant bear of a man using only her enhanced physical strength.

Her body had been modified to match that of a knight, but—

CRACK. SNAP. THUD!

—It was useless.

The man imbued with divine power immediately located the joint of the mass of flesh she had instinctively extended, twisted it the wrong way, shattered it—

—and finally stepped in close and drove his iron fist into the witch’s skull.

BANG!

It was like she’d been struck with a solid steel weapon.

Her skull caved in with a single blow, black blood spurting in thick streams.

Before new flesh could regrow from the collapsed /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ area, a white-glowing fist struck her again. And again.

THWACK! THUMP! WHAM! THWACK!

The rhythm of his punches turned her head into a percussion instrument.

“S-stop...”

During the brief pause in the barrage, the witch, now collapsed, stopped screaming and casting spells. She pleaded.

“Yes. I shall send you to your Lord. Poor soul.”

Audin showed no mercy.

He extended his fist and crushed the witch once and for all.

SPLAT!

He pulverized her with his fists.

Her mangled body was smashed flat into the floor. That was the end. The witch had no words left.

After more than 150 years of life, both of the wretched Twin Witches had met a pathetic end.

And elsewhere...

The Apostle was still being chased by Ragna’s blade. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

“This is absurd—!”

The Apostle rejected reality.

Now that the forbidden spell had ended, Enkrid had a moment to catch his breath and nodded in agreement with the Apostle’s words.

Sturdy fortress walls, forces specialized for the Demon Realm, countless monsters, and overwhelming personal strength.

Even two or three knights coming at once wouldn’t be able to handle that group.

So saying something like that wasn’t unreasonable.

“Why are you nodding to that?”

The number of monsters here was actually fewer than outside, so Pell approached, thinking it was easier to clean up this area.

More monsters meant more sword swings, more time, and more stamina consumed.

Elite monsters or not—cut them, burn them, stab them—they died just the same.

“I am the Apostle of the Red Foot!”

And then, from far away, the Apostle made one final, desperate attempt.

His entire body was coated in red muscle, like an external armor, and he began to swell.

Thick blue veins bulged over the muscular layer—ropes of power—and his frame expanded massively.

Even Audin, who usually required one to crane their neck up to meet his gaze, now seemed smaller.

The Apostle had grown taller than a giant. He had instantly shot up to the height of three or four full-grown men.

The very process of that transformation was astonishing—muscles growing wildly, like something undergoing rapid evolutionary acceleration.

“WORMS!”

The Apostle roared.

And the swordsman standing before him simply raised his blade in silence.

That sword was named Sunrise, and the man holding it was Ragna.

The blade in Ragna’s hand shimmered red, pushing away the darkness around him.

A single light had appeared on the battlefield.

A god, born in the east, ruler of half the world, and devourer of darkness, was here.

“Hey.”

The wielder of the god’s power called to the Apostle.

The Apostle’s eyes were red and wide, thick black veins webbing out across them.

He didn’t reply with words—he brought down his fist.

It was a massive blow, like a hammer crashing down. The air was ripped apart by the swing.

BOOM!

The path of the attack distorted the space around it. The Apostle’s monstrous strength tore through sound and space alike.

It looked like Ragna, standing at the center of it, would be turned to pulp.

But it didn’t happen.

He spread his legs and grounded himself. Holding Sunrise, he let the Will surge from his core to his entire body.

KRAKOOOM!

The impact burst out in concentric circles, a deafening boom.

Enkrid felt the force within that one blow.

The Apostle’s physical might surpassed even the Minotaur who had fought wielding two blades.

But there’s no finesse.

That’s how it seemed.

The experienced ones, the veterans, infused purpose into every swing.

Every movement had meaning—there was no wasted motion.

But the Apostle’s punches had no follow-up. No plan beyond the initial strike.

In other words, he lacked battle experience.

But the raw force in his strikes? That was no joke.

Breaking through walls? He could do that.

Killing every last monster in the Demon Realm? Wiping out the cursed treefolk? All within his power.

If this creature had made it to the continent, he could probably take over an entire city and feast on its inhabitants.

That’s the kind of strength he had.

He just couldn’t kill the one man standing in front of him.

The Apostle’s massive fist, aimed directly at Sunrise, couldn’t even shake the man wielding it.

Squelch. Hiss.

His flesh split on impact with Sunrise, blood flowing freely and then steaming as it hit the heated blade.

The air filled with the stench of burnt iron and blood.

Ragna stood firm, gripping Sunrise, and thought:

My vow is...

To never stop—not until the day I die.

To keep moving forward until my final breath.

What may be easy for one man becomes a soul-wracking ordeal for another.

No two people are bound by the same limits.

Ragna’s vow was born from that truth.

What was natural for Enkrid was not natural for him.

The Apostle wielded both magic and flesh.

Black-blooded tendrils erupted from his limbs, each one flying like a whip, cutting the air.

Mouths opened across his back and belly, tongues lashing out—barbed, dripping with venom.

But the glowing sword of light cut them all down, blocked and repelled them.

Enkrid stood off to the side, silently observing.

Everyone else had taken their positions as well.

A swordsman and a monster, locked in a life-or-death struggle among ruined walls and dead beasts.

Enkrid considered the possibility that Ragna might die.

There were moments when the Apostle’s spells almost broke through.

Black thorny vines burst from the ground and sprayed a volley of fine needles.

A few struck Ragna’s limbs, dulling his movements briefly.

But even so—this side won.

“How distasteful,” Shinar murmured.

Vine magic was the specialty of fairies—specifically druids.

Seeing the Apostle bastardize it made her visibly uncomfortable.

“...By a mere knight?”

The Apostle muttered.

There were monsters in the Demon Realm that devoured knights. Plenty of them.

One of those monsters, blood pouring from half his shattered head, looked at Ragna.

Half his skull was crushed, warped like heated metal, blistered and mangled.

His muscle armor, once impervious, had been torn apart by Ragna’s blade.

He was gasping, struggling for one last breath.

Will he die even if we leave him?

Enkrid couldn’t be sure.

Ragna raised his heavy arm.

This had been a bad matchup for him—trying to defeat a foe like this with a single sword.

There had been a moment when, locked in a staring contest against a hypnotic spell, he nearly died to a tentacle strike.

And just then—

Ragna sensed something flying at him from behind and twisted his body.

He dodged half a beat late, but it hadn’t been aimed directly at him, so it was enough.

Had he stood still, he would’ve been hit.

WHACK!

The flying object slammed into what was left of the Apostle’s head.

It struck so hard that it tore through his neck muscle and skin and tumbled to the side.

It looked like someone had smashed a pumpkin and then thrown something into it.

What embedded itself in the Apostle’s ruined skull was a hand axe.

“I got him.”

A low voice from the side, belonging to a wayward barbarian.

The man continued,

“The last one to strike gets the kill. You know that, right?”

Right hand extended, Rem smiled faintly.

His forehead bore small cuts, his forearms too—evidence of a tough journey here.

This was the Demon Realm. No place for humans.

The battle was over.

There were still monsters scattered about, but the fortress was in ruins, and its guardian had fallen.

A fortress city, not even the heart of the Demon Realm, Enkrid assessed.

Still, it would’ve been a lie to say he wasn’t proud.

The others may not have realized it, but this place had been the target of multiple offensives by the Red Cloak Knights.

And they had just swept through it the moment they arrived.

Shinar, looking down at the corpse of the magic spirit she had killed earlier, wrapped her forearm wound with a long leaf—fairy-style bandaging.

She scanned the surroundings and still heard faint cries of lingering spirits.

If they left things as they were, thorned walls would soon rise again.

Walls like that were born from obsession.

Which meant purification was necessary.

And nothing purified like fire.

“Burn it.”

Those words came from the fairy who once hated fire.

Whether it was a memory she had overcome or a new resolution—it didn’t matter.

Enkrid simply nodded, acknowledging the intent.

Their task here was finished.

It was time to light the beacon.

Beneath the gray clouds that shrouded the sky, in the darkness that had fallen, a red flame began to blaze like the sun.

The sun was still far from rising, but that flame burned just as hot—and far longer.

And in doing so, it fulfilled the wish Enkrid had carried all this way.