petals and darkness from the air. Her aim was unsteady, perhaps due to her agitation. However, the chains just barely managed to wrap around the Butcher's arm. Kaito breathed a sigh of relief. The next moment, though, blood billowed forth. "Whâ€”?" "And finally, thank you so much for your many years of patronage." The Butcher's clawed left arm remained bound by the chains. It, and it alone, dangled in the air. The Butcher had drawn a knife from the many folds of his cloak, then severed his own arm. His body fell, as though it were being sucked in. Ribbons of blood followed him down as the abyss consumed him. In the end, all that remained was that one arm. Elisabeth stopped at the edge of the cliff. Hina came to an abrupt halt, too. Kaito, on the other hand, didn't. His momentum practically carried him over and into the abyss. Then, with his arm still outstretched, he got ready to leap into the vast darkness. Elisabeth and Hina frantically wrapped their arms around him. They nearly ended up slipping as well, but the two of them narrowly managed to maintain their footing. They both cried out in unison. "Get back, you dullard!" "Master Kaito, please step back!" "...This isn't right." The words tumbled from Kaito's mouth. As he scooted backward little by little, he tried to get his jumbled thoughts in order. Not even he knew what he was trying to say. He didn't know what it was he found so wrong, so abhorrent. But then, all of a sudden, he realized what it was that was filling him with such sorrow and vexation. "Thank you for being born unto me," she said. No doubt it had been a happy, joyful thing. Until he met Hina, Kaito had never had anyone tell him that, either. But in the end, the Butcher had died imprisoned by his role as a seed of evil. He'd abandoned everything he'd enjoyed, canceled out all the memories he'd collected, and swallowed up the pain of cutting away the feelings of those who'd shouted at him not to die as well as his own arm. Could the words that had bound him really be described as love? Hadn't the Butcher just died after being used up without ever truly being loved by a parent? He hadn't even been able to live for his own sake. And the Butcher would never get another chance at life. "This isn't right, goddammit!" Kaito screamed from the depths of his soul. Tears began spilling out from the corners of his eyes. No matter how many times he'd lost his humanity, no matter how many times he'd tasted the pain of death, Kaito hadn't shed a single tear. But for the Butcher's sake, he cried. He let out animalistic wails. But he received no response. Hina gently stroked his back. Elisabeth said nothing. She merely snapped her fingers. The silver chain transformed into petals, then vanished. The Butcher's arm descended, accompanied by crimson. When it did, Kaito felt a faint pressure in his eardrums. He looked up with a start. Then he heard it. *** A roar reverberated up from the depths of the pit, one that tore the heavens and cracked the earth. The World's End quaked at the terrible cry. Following the vibration of the atmosphere, cracks began running along the surface of the ice. Spiderweb-like white patterns began polluting the silvery ground. As they did, the darkness of the abyss inverted. Something ominous was glowing at the bottom. Upon seeing it, Kaito was struck speechless. A massive golden eyeball was floating amid the blackness. And it was staring straight at Kaito and the others. They were peering into the abyss, and it was gazing back at them. Eventually, Kaito realized just what it was he was looking at. There's a monster down at the bottom. It was a colossal creature, one that defied all reason and providence. The monster then shifted its body, and its eye disappeared from sight. In its place, a giant jaw jutted up from the pit. As it did, Kaito understood what meat the Butcher had meant to deliver and to whom. When he fell, he wasn't carrying his bag. In other words, the Butcher himself was the meat. The Butcher had delivered his own flesh to the gigantic, presumably draconic creature. "It awakened by consuming the Apostle? What in the blazes is it?" Elisabeth murmured, her voice low. As she did, a massive pair of wings extended up from the pit to the sky. They were like massive, fleshy flower buds reaching for the heavens. Then, like a flower blooming, the wings unfurled. Rejecting all constraints of gravity and volume, the dragon softly flapped them and took off into the sky. When it did, its entire monstrous body came into view. Compared to its wings and body, its limbs were comparatively stubby. It also had no scales, which was unusual for a dragon. Its pale, pinkish flesh was fully exposed. Between that and its round shape, it called a human fetus to mind. The thin red membrane swimming in the air behind its neck made it look like it was on fire. Jeanne narrowed her eyes. As she regarded the strange dragon, she said in almost a whisper: "Why, if it isn't the Legend Dragon, the supreme flesh drake... According to the literature, the male was hunted by a group spearheaded by the merchant of legend. That must be the female, then. Who'da thunk it'd survived by staying out here. Now, this, this is a fairy tale." "Man... Looks like those tall tales of yours were true after all." Kaito muttered in disbelief. He thought back to all the stories the Butcher had told seemingly half in jest. One of those stories had been about the battle against the Legend Dragon. Although he'd dressed them up as tall tales, the Butcher had shared no small number of his memories with them. At that moment, though, harsh winds began to blow and knocked Kaito out of his reverie. The Legend Dragon had begun softly bending her crooked wings again. In open defiance of her own mass, she was floating gently in the air like a balloon. She cast a vast shadow atop the icy ground as she drifted. The way she did made her look almost like a floating island. It made for a grand spectacle, one that surpassed the realm of human comprehension. The way her reddish flesh pulsated also made it look as though she were the beating heart of the very world. Kaito found himself once more in the harsh grip of bewilderment. What reason did the Butcher have to want to wake up the Legend Dragon? He probably was planning to have the Legend Dragon destroy the world, and in doing so spur on the restructuring. Massive as she was, though, she was as docile as a whale. She showed no signs of wanting to attack her surroundings. And considering their descriptor, the reason the merchants had hunted down the male probably hadn't been to exterminate a threat but to harvest his flesh. And the Legend Dragon just kept drifting along. Then she slowly began turning her massive body over. Eventually, her chest entered Kaito's frame of vision. "Whâ€”?" As it did, he let out a dumbfounded noise. He finally understood why the Butcher had woken her up. A hard crystal had been forcibly embedded in her soft flesh. And in the Legend Dragon's chest, encased in the red crystal, something was sleeping. A naked woman was floating within. She looked as though she'd been buried within a coffin suspended in midair. She was horribly defenseless, frozen upside down and submerged naked in the bloodred liquid. Its red crisply offset her white skin. Hina held down her hair, which was being blown about by the wind. She blinked and whispered in puzzlement: "Is that...the Saint?" "Man... I guess it makes sense why no one could find her." With that, Kaito nodded. The Saint had been hidden away in the belly of a sleeping dragon at the bottom of an abyss in a pit at the World's End. There was no way any ordinary search party could have turned her up. Kaito had no words; he merely looked up at the drifting dragon. The stone in his pocket containing Vlad squirmed, but he ignored it. He didn't have time to worry about Vlad right now. The Saint they'd been seeking was floating right before their eyes. However, Kaito didn't have the first clue as to what to do. So what are we supposed to do with her? The being before them was simply too far removed from mankind's sense of scale. Kaito gazed up at the shadow-casting giant and the woman lodged in its chest in bewilderment. And the Legend Dragon continued to drift. However, it was then that the calm, peaceful atmosphere came to a violent end. A low, merciless voice rang out. "Reenactment of the Plain of Skewers: Impaled Victim." Stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab! Innumerable crimson petals scattered through the air, and countless stakes fired out from them. The silence was shattered, and blood flew through the air. Easily over a thousand iron stakes had buried themselves in the Legend Dragon's body. The air violently trembled. Kaito was certain that the Legend Dragon had let out a scream, but he couldn't hear it. It must have been at a frequency that human ears were unable to perceive. The Legend Dragon contorted her body through the air in anguish. Stakes fell out from her trembling flesh in succession. They roared through the sky as they toppled to the ground and pierced the frozen earth. At the same time, massive amounts of blood gushed forth from the Legend Dragon's wounds. The fresh blood pooled wide atop the ground like a lake. However, a few of the humongous drops twitched, then halted in the air. Several orbs of blood hovered in place. "Huh?" "Hmph." The next moment, the bloody spheres shot toward Elisabeth. The path was narrowâ€”she had nowhere to run. At this rate, Kaito and the others would get taken down as well. But Elisabeth was the very image of composure. As she swung Executioner's Sword of Frankenthal, darkness and crimson flower petals spread out over the chasm. When they vanished, they left behind a web of chains that covered the hole. Elisabeth cracked her neck in displeasure. "I first thought of this as I watched the Butcher fall. I must say, I'm disappointed it didn't occur to me sooner. Ho!" Elisabeth took an acrobatic leap and landed atop the chains. Then, despite her high heels, she effortlessly dashed across their delicate iron loops. Seemingly uninterested in harming anyone except their foe, the dragon's bloody spheres took off in pursuit. The countless crimson orbs snapped at her heels like a pack of beasts. Elisabeth weaved a graceful, nimble dance atop the chains. As they grazed her afterimages, the blood pellets fell down. When they came into contact with the chains, they burst into steam and then vanished into the pit. The Legend Dragon lurched unsteadily as she let out a groan. Many of the stakes were still embedded in her flesh. In her current state, she was nothing more than a target. Kaito thought back on the story he'd just been told. The male Legend Dragon was once hunted down by a group of merchants. If that was the case, then there was no reason why the Torture Princess shouldn't be able to kill the female. Grabbing a chain, Elisabeth hoisted herself upside down. After avoiding the blood that had been aiming for her foot, she arched her back and made a soft landing. Then she mercilessly snapped her fingers once more. "Arachnophobia." A new swirl of crimson and black appeared high in the sky. Two iron claws shot out of it. Then, like the hands of