Chapter 45: World Line Divergence
One step, and Shalltear moved like a gust of wind.
She drove her hand through a shield, crushed the armor beneath it, cut past the magical defenses entirely, and tore the still-beating heart from the warrior's chest. She held it up for everyone to see.
[Create Undead.]
The warrior whose heart was gone became a zombie on the spot. Shalltear swallowed the heart she held, drew an artificial replica from the blood sphere overhead, and threw it to the reanimated corpse — which promptly grew claws and fangs and became a low-tier vampire.
The cleric raised a holy seal and channeled sacred power. It had no effect on Shalltear whatsoever.
"Hahaha!"
A warrior's sword drove into the newly risen vampire. Shalltear only glanced toward the cleric with irritation and, with a single casual sweep, separated the swordsman from his head.
She vaulted over the female warrior, landed in front of the magic caster and the cleric, seized the cleric's hand where it held the holy seal, and closed her grip. The hand bones shattered in an instant.
A full-force thrust landed in her back from behind. No effect.
"Surely not... nothing? Isn't that an Aindra family electroplated mithril weapon?"
One casual blow, and the magic caster's head left his shoulders.
She turned to face the female warrior. The moment their eyes met, the woman's had tears in them; she kept stepping back, and with her free hand pulled a small bottle from her belt pouch and threw it.
Shalltear batted it aside. Red liquid splashed onto her skin, and a faint stinging sensation followed immediately.
She looked down at the place where the liquid had landed. It was smoking.
She went still.
That bottle. The container was one she recognized from Nazarick. And the contents — a low-tier healing potion. On an undead body, the effect was reversed, causing damage instead of healing.
"Take that woman alive!"
The vampire brides moved at once, pinning the retreating female warrior before she had taken three steps.
Shalltear closed her fingers under the woman's chin, forced her head up, and met her gaze directly with her charm eyes.
"That potion. Where did you get it, and from whom?"
"At an inn. From someone in black armor."
Shalltear nearly went rigid.
"...Where?"
"At an inn in E-Rantel."
She had a rough idea of who the black-armored figure was. Unease surged through her in the same instant.
"Why are you here?"
"We were assigned to protect the town. We received word of a bandit nest and came to investigate. Our group was split in two — we took the direct reconnaissance."
"Split in two?"
"Yes. The other group was drawing the enemy toward a trap area."
"So there's a second group." Shalltear clicked her tongue. "How many of you in total?"
"Seven, including myself."
"Wait — seven? Not six?"
"Yes. There was also a skirmisher attached to our unit. In a critical situation, they were to break off and go back to E-Rantel for help."
"You said what...?"
Shalltear's eyes went wide. She shot to the edge of the depression and looked in every direction, but the depth of the forest gave nothing away.
"Damn it!"
He had gotten away.
She ground her teeth.
"My familiars!"
Several black wolves surged from the shadows — seventh-tier monsters, vampire wolves.
"Hunt them down. Kill every person left in that forest."
Ten vampire wolves plunged into the trees. But if the target was a trained skirmisher, they would know exactly how to lose a pursuit.
Shalltear turned sharply back to the female warrior. "Is there any chance that skirmisher could rendezvous with the other group?"
"No. The plan was explicit: if a total wipe appeared likely, they were to abandon the others and return to the city."
The caution of leaving a failure contingency in place — that was exactly what pushed Shalltear's fury higher.
"Mere humans, and they have this many tricks!"
Information about a vampire was already moving toward the city. Ainz had ordered her to handle criminals without causing a disturbance, and she had already broken more rules than she could easily count.
"It's still fine... it's still fine."
She said it as though repetition could make it true.
No names had been revealed. No information about Nazarick. For the time being, nothing could connect a vampire to either of them.
The real problem was what to do with this woman. Kill her, and it could interfere with Ainz's purposes. Release her, and she would bring intelligence back with her.
"Ainz-sama is going to scold me..."
She pressed both hands to her head and wrestled with it — and the more she thought, the more she regretted.
Eventually she reached a conclusion: releasing the woman was likely more useful than killing her.
Shalltear pressed her head between her hands and slowly sank into a crouch.
"I am absolutely going to get scolded..."
At that instant, she snapped her head toward the forest. Every one of her familiars had vanished simultaneously. Killed.
"Get that woman secured and follow me!"
Shalltear tore into the forest at a speed that left no room for pursuit.
She cut through the trees and arrived at the location of her familiars' last response.
Twelve people stood before her, every one of them in full arms. The equipment they carried had a quality to it that suggested legendary-class items or above. Shalltear took them in one by one, and her gaze eventually settled on one man.
This man was powerful. His ability clearly exceeded the vampire brides by a considerable margin.
He wore men's equipment, but his appearance was strikingly androgynous. Black hair that hung nearly to the ground. Sharp red-gem eyes, on guard. He held a spear that looked, to all appearances, entirely unremarkable.
"Use it!"
His voice was cold. His group broke into motion.
At their center stood a woman dressed in a way that drew the eye — a silver-white cheongsam embroidered across it in gold thread with a five-clawed soaring dragon. But the woman's face was deeply lined with age, entirely at odds with the garment. Shalltear deliberately looked away from her.
And that was the last, fatal mistake.
The cheongsam was called [Downfall of Castle and Country] — a relic left behind by the gods these people revered, and its power exceeded even Shalltear's.
A cold shudder passed through her.
Shalltear shook — Shalltear, who stood at the very pinnacle of the Floor Guardians. Her gaze shifted; she moved toward the old woman. That human had to be taken out.
She was about to act when the spear-wielding man moved into her path.
"Out of my way!"
Shalltear drove him away with her full strength. He was launched clear but did not fall, holding his will to fight.
Shalltear launched the spell [Mass Hold Species], centering it on the old woman.
She wanted to seize them and pull something back from this mess.
Then, in the very next instant, Shalltear's mind went blank.
Mental control. As an undead being, she should have been completely immune to mental interference — and yet her consciousness had been seized. She fought back with everything she had, the worst possible outcome cycling through her mind.
"Ahh—!"
She cried out, fighting with tears of blood on her face. Her awareness kept going white. The teleportation magic stayed out of reach.
She forced through the resistance and used a special skill. She called a [Pure Lance] into being — a massive spear imbued with holy attributes. At the cost of additional MP, it could be granted the supplementary power of absolute hit.
She fought the control as hard as she could and fixed her gaze on the old woman.
She threw it.
At that moment.
A figure dropped into the battle from nowhere. A girl with mismatched hair and mismatched eyes, wearing pale yellow armor, spread all five fingers wide to meet the incoming lance.
"— [Earth's Loving Aegis]."
An Innate Ability activated. The supreme technique of the Earth God, revived in her hands — amber-colored shields layered one over another, heavy and deep as the earth itself. The [Pure Lance] struck the wall of shields and detonated with a sound that shook the air.
Shalltear's tears of blood had not yet dried. Her pupils contracted sharply.
Blocked. The [Pure Lance] — the one that had drained her of massive MP, the one that carried absolute hit — had been blocked by a human.
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