"You... who are you?"
Trissy cried out in terror, "What have you done to her!"
But the "Saintess of White" across from her paid her no mind at all. She merely spread her arms wide, tilting her head to feel the sea breeze against her skin, gazing out at the azure water, savoring the warmth of the sun.
"Ah, how wonderful... this feeling of freedom."
The phantom shadow of the "Red Angel" spirit surfaced across Katrina's body, its voice tinged with something like nostalgia.
"Thud."
The sound of landing rang out at the bow of the ship as Silas rode the wind down onto the deck. His gaze swept over Trissy and her companion, over the bloodstained lens, and finally settled on Katrina.
"Got her?"
he asked flatly.
Back during the chaotic struggle with the "Saintess of White," Silas had already used the Black Knight's projection ability to quietly send this spirit out of his body.
As a spiritual entity, the "Red Angel" ghost could likewise pass in and out of mirrors, and had used this to lay a trap within one.
Worn down by battle, Katrina had stepped into it without any guard, caught by surprise, overwhelmed in Sequence, and already drained from great exertion.
The outcome was decided in an instant: she became the spoils of the "Red Angel" spirit.
At the sound of Silas's voice, the Red Angel, who had been laughing a moment before, paused abruptly, then rolled its eyes toward him with obvious amusement.
Now that It possessed a Sequence 3 body of its own, and had just happened to leave its Shepherd's body besides, surely there was no longer any reason to pretend loyalty?
Silas's expression didn't change. He gave his chest a light pat.
"Whoosh~"
The illusory sound of ocean tides echoed from within him, and Medici's expression changed at once.
It could feel that part of its spiritual body still remained within Silas's domain, that the invisible bond was still there, that on a spiritual level, it was still bound.
"Heh."
The "Red Angel" spirit soon laughed again, its eyes growing considerably clearer. "As you can see, I suppose you could say I have her under control."
Beneath its illusory face, the Saintess of White wore an expression of fear, her lovely body twisting slightly as she struggled.
But the effort was plainly useless, and her large eyes filled with an innocent, frightened look, the kind that stirred pity and tenderness in anyone who saw it.
An utterly exquisite allure rose up naturally from her.
But Silas only watched her, unmoved.
"Is there a way to kill her?"
he asked. The Unaging Witch was simply too troublesome to deal with; only once she was truly dead could he safely go about shepherding her and interrogating what she knew.
Katrina's expression stiffened, as though she had genuinely begun to feel fear.
Her allure had no effect on him at all. Silas radiated thick malice, and the madness in his eyes was plain to see.
She could sense that she would be utterly destroyed in the face of such madness, devoured completely, turned into his lamb, made to suffer endless torment at his command!
"Well, if you truly want to do that, there are ways," the "Red Angel" spirit said, stroking its chin with a soft chuckle, seeming to relish the feeling of tormenting the other's mind. "For instance... hm?"
It stopped abruptly, its gaze turning toward the distant sea.
At the same moment, Silas turned to look in the same direction.
There, a figure was rapidly emerging.
It seemed the person had arrived by traveling through the spirit world, and judging by the powerful spirituality now radiating off them, this was at the very least another Sequence 3 demigod!
Damn it. He had only just subdued one Sequence 3, and now another one showed up. Was this an enemy, or just some Beyonder passing through? Surely it couldn't be a helper. Even someone as ruthless as Silas found himself at a bit of a loss.
"Swish!"
But in the very instant that he and Medici had their attention drawn away by the distant figure, Katrina suddenly moved.
In that instant, the "Saintess of White" burned through the whole of her spirituality, straining with everything she had to break free of the "Red Angel" spirit's hold.
Her whole body remained rigid, save for a single finger that twitched and moved. With that finger, she pointed at her own child, Vice Admiral Ailment, Trissy!
"Splat!"
A great burst of blood erupted from Trissy's chest as something buried deep within her body tore free in an instant and shot violently toward the "Saintess of White"!
By the time Silas and Medici turned back, the thing had already lodged itself in Katrina's belly.
What had originally been nothing more than a single strand of long black hair had swiftly swelled and grown into a fearsome black snake, sinking its venomous fangs through the Saintess of White's body.
"Rumble, rumble..."
Thick black flames rose up in its wake. Bathed in the fire, Katrina wore a bewitching smile as her body rapidly disintegrated and dissolved.
"Distort!"
Silas quickly raised his hand and pointed at her, invoking the Fallen Count's ability to throw the flame's burning range into chaos and halt it.
But the black flames burned far faster than he had anticipated, and before his power could take effect, the Saintess of White's body had already been almost entirely burned away.
"Heh heh..."
Her body grew steadily more charred and broken within the flames, yet her eyes still rolled to look toward Silas.
With a wet tearing sound, her mouth split open, and she licked her lips with what remained of her tongue, a flicker of alluring light seeming to pass through her eyes.
"Next time... be a little gentler with a girl..."
Her soft, sweet voice echoed over the sea one last time, and then she crumbled entirely into ash and vanished.
Only Medici's phantom shadow remained, staring back at Silas.
"Weren't you supposed to have her under control?"
Silas asked, clearly annoyed.
"Who could have known she still had a trick up her sleeve," Medici said, spreading its hands with a laugh.
"Hiding the very thing meant to curse herself to death inside her own child's body, of all places."
"Captain! Captain!"
The blonde maid cried out in tears, pressing her hands against Trissy's bleeding wound to try to stop it.
Silas paid her no attention.
Like Medici, he kept his eyes on the distant figure, which was closing in fast, and in the blink of an eye, it landed on the battered Black Death.
Only then did he realize the newcomer wasn't alone: they were dragging a man along by the hand.
The man radiating high Sequence spirituality had bronzed skin and soft, gentle features, with a small black mole beside his ear, while the man he was pulling along had a gaunt face and a cold, austere air about him.
It was Klein, disguised as "Gehrman Sparrow," together with Azik Eggers, whom he hadn't seen in a long while!
"She got away?"
Klein asked the moment he landed, his gaze sweeping the deck. He saw the wounded Trissy, and he saw the crimson phantom of the spirit as well.
His expression quickly turned strange.
Though he had long known that Silas had shepherded the "Red Angel" spirit, seeing it in the flesh still stirred an instinctive unease in him. Fortunately, this time he had brought reinforcements.
Klein instinctively edged closer to Azik, only to suddenly sense that something was off about the man's presence.
He saw that Azik was staring blankly at the crimson spirit's phantom form, his pupils dilated, as though he had slipped into some distant memory.
"You're... you're..."
He struggled to remember, trying to place Medici's identity.
"Ha!"
Medici let out a mocking laugh, seeming to recognize exactly who he was.