they got yanked into the air. Their necks made loud popping sounds as their spines snapped, their respiratory tracts collapsed, and their veins burst. The hoods that had been concealing their faces plopped off. Their faces were made of huge, festering sarcomas. They weren't humans. They were underlings. Their corpses dangled from the ceiling. "This can't... Damn you. Damn you!" Clueless's hands shook as he grabbed the necklace from his collar. He tried to mutter something. But when he did, steel shackles bound around his wrists. His gaze froze on Elisabeth and her smile. "It seems you're fond of pain, hmm?" "Aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹aâ€‹râ€‹gâ€‹hâ€‹!â€‹" The shackles jerked, and his wrists snapped. Fragments of bone pierced his skin from within. He screamed, writhing in agony. But suddenly, his arms slid out of the fetters binding them. His whole body was soon covered in venom. His thick blond hair fell out in clumps, and his cassock burst off. As his limbs continued to swell, he leaped into the air. Now resembling a fleshy meat-frog, he pushed his flesh through the prison's iron bars and fled for the corridor. For some reason, Elisabeth's face contorted in surprise after seeing Clueless's massive, hideous form. "That man... He possesses an unnatural amount of magical power, but he is no demon! He's a weakling, a mere underling!" "Really? That's good news, right? That means you can take him out easily." "Of course it isn't good, you fool! He's a member of the Church! Surely you jest... The only demon a member of the Church would encounter is..." Elisabeth snapped her fingers. The restraints on Kaito's arms and legs popped open. Crimson petals collected around his wound and forcibly infused it with Elisabeth's blood. The petals also wrapped a fresh leather belt around him. Kaito screamed at the sudden pain of the forcible transfusion and hemostasis. "Gah! What're you doing? Dammit, Elisabeth, that hurts!" "Follow me if you wish. Or stay, but I may return late, or take another route back to the castle altogether. It would be on you to stay alive until you received proper treatment." "Not following you doesn't seem like much of a choice, then, does it?!" After struggling to his feet, Kaito took off after Elisabeth. He'd only recovered a little from his blood loss. If he could ignore the pain, he'd probably be able to keep up with her. Having cleared the door, the meat-frog was clumsily running through the passage. Elisabeth waved her hand at it. Darkness and crimson petals coalesced, then became a massive spiked wheel. The wheel spun toward it, but it vanished midpath as if repelled by something. For a second, Kaito thought he saw a black dog's tail sticking out of the frog's back. The meat-frog turned and then, with a relieved expression, took off again, even faster than before. "That reaction... Could it really be him?!" Elisabeth's voice was tinged with uncharacteristic desperation. Even though her foe was a mere underling, she unsheathed the Executioner's Sword of Frankenthal. The meat-frog hopped up a larger set of stairs, then smashed through the door at the top. Upon seeing the frog, an old, gentle-looking clergyman carrying a bundle of scrolls screamed and fell on his rear. A group of believers hid behind a young clergyman who'd apparently been leading them around. Kaito hadn't expected the Church to be such an ordinary, upright organization. The path the meat-frog was taking led it into an orderly, neat marble room. It continued to flee, spraying foamy venom as it went. As it made for the worship hall, Elisabeth swung her sword in its direction. "Gibbet!" The darkness spiraled in a long, vertical pattern, and a cage barely wide enough to fit a person standing up straight clamped around the meat-frog, wringing massive amounts of venom from it. Chains surrounded the cage. Even if the meat-frog broke out of the cage, the chains would still restrain it. But the next moment, Elisabeth's body quivered and she dropped to her knees. "Rrrgh... Mm... Ah, my body..." The cage crumbled, returning to darkness and petals. The chains, too, lost their power, collapsing to the floor and wriggling a few times before vanishing. "Elisabeth!" Patterns of scarlet characters snaked across her body. Kaito's golem features tried to decipher their meaning but failed. His knowledge bank told him it was the Word of God, unable to be translated or vocalized. The scripture was etched all over her body like burns. She looked as though she had been branded. So those were the shackles the Church had put on her. But why did they activate just now? "It burns... Rrrgh... Wh-why...? Who...?" Even though she was down on her hands and knees, Elisabeth shot a hate-filled glare to her side. Up on the altar was a clergyman, clutching his necklace and waving it side to side as he chanted a prayer. With every verse, the patterns on Elisabeth's skin flared scarlet. She screamed in bloodcurdling rage. "Not me, you imbecile! That's the one you should be stopping! Fool!" The meat-frog mowed down worshippers and smashed through pews as it headed deeper into the church. A band of guards had finally assembled, but the meat-frog mercilessly routed them. Pressed beneath its massive belly, their bones shattered in their armor. But even in his confusion, the clergyman never stopped his prayer. Kaito dashed up the short steps, then forcefully stuck out his hand. "Whatâ€”?" "I'm borrowing this, old man!" Kaito snatched the necklace off the man's wrinkly neck and threw it. Elisabeth stood, then took off like a newly fired arrow. But she was still covered in serious burn marks. Elisabeth ran, continuing to be tormented by the scripture, and Kaito followed after her. The hallway was littered with the guards' battered corpses, and they only grew more prevalent the farther the two of them got. They seemed to have been guarding an imposing door, but that door was now wide open. An impressive office lay behind it. An old man wearing a diadem and a gold vestment sat dead atop a velvet chair, his body crushed from the waist down. The wall behind the man had been smashed to pieces. Beyond the wall was a hidden passage, covered on all surfaces by the faint glow of the Word of God. With every step the meat-frog took down it, its body frothed violently as its flesh burned. But Elisabeth was no different. The instant she'd dashed into the corridor, the patterns on her body flared up again, and she let out a scream of agony. "Rrrgh... Aaaaaargh! Ah, ah!" "Elisabeth, don't be stupid!" Hurriedly, Kaito rushed to support Elisabeth. As he propped her up, he endured the pain in his stomach and walked forward. The meat-frog, somehow still alive, reached the end of the passageway. It clung to the wall and pleaded, shedding a flood of tears all the while. "Oh my Lord. I was mistaken. Hungry for power, I left you sealed away. Had I but believed in you, I never would have done such a thing. But now I offer you my everything. I will free you as a sign of my devotion. So please, save me from that demonic woman." The meat-frog vomited something out. From within the mass of phlegm, it retrieved a golden key. After intricately tracing the Words of God and offering up words of prayer, it inserted the key into what appeared to be a featureless wall. A clicking noise rang out, and the wall flashed violently before vanishing. Deep darkness and a sharp chill flowed out from inside. In the center of the persistent darkness sat an Iron Chair. Upon it sat a black-haired man. The man slowly looked up. His dark, tangled hair rustled, and his crimson eyes glittered. From what Kaito could see of his facial features behind the hair, he possessed a certain androgynous beauty. But the instant he looked at the man, his throat swelled up, intimidated, and he understood something. That man was terrifying. Even though he possessed a beautiful human form, he was no human. He was something repulsive. Yet, despite all that, his face looked somehow familiar. Without a sound, the belts holding the man's arms and legs burned to ash. He slowly stood, as though he was rising from a throne. Clad in prison garb, he plucked a needle free from his back, and blood gushed out. Yet, his expression did not change in the slightest. His eyes were vacant, as if he were in a waking dream. Clueless, the meat-frog, crawled toward the man and knelt awkwardly before him with eyes that screamed for mercy. Without even looking at the meat-frog, the man raised a foot. He then brought his bare foot down on its head. The frog's massive eyes popped right out at the impact. "Bleâ€”" Dark-red blood began spilling forth. The meat-frog's head had been abruptly crushed, and its gray brain tissue oozed out. But even surrounded by blood, the man was still emotionless. He looked back up, as if he'd simply stepped on an ordinary frog that had jumped in his path. It was then that he saw Elisabeth, standing in the entrance, for the first time. His absentminded expression vanished, replaced by an impossibly charming smile. "Elisabeth." His voice, filled with fervent adoration, was the same as the one Kaito had heard in the castle's Treasury. *** Elisabeth howled, shoving Kaito away. He flew into the wall and crumpled without a word. She rushed into the room, waving the Executioner's Sword of Frankenthal. She slashed at the empty air, and hundreds of chains bore down on the man like a torrent. But the scripture still burned in her flesh, and her chains lacked their usual strength. Even so, they would have been sufficient to shred the Knight they had fought before to pieces, but a canine black tail whipped through the air and blocked every last one. Grrrrrrrrr, grrrrrrrrrrrr, grrrrrrrrrrr. Out of nowhere, an enormous black dog squatted by the man's side. It was a first-class hound, with lustrous fur and rippling muscles. The black dog had the stench of a beast, and its mouth and eyes burned with hellfire. While it didn't look hideous in the slightest, every instinct Kaito had screamed out to him that it was more dangerous than any demon they had faced yet. But for whatever reason, he didn't feel an ounce of fear. His mind was unusually numb. Face-to-face with the embodiment of death, his sense of fear had been completely paralyzed. This thing was in an overwhelmingly different realm than the ugly, twisted demons. The black dog stuck out its head. With movement so efficient you could almost call it beautiful, it leaped toward Elisabeth with its sharp fangs. But right before it could clamp down on her slender frame, the man shook his head. The dog stopped, and with a dreamlike gaze, the man vanished. When he did, so did the suffocating pressure that had filled the room. Kaito had seen everything from the passageway. After finally reaching the room, he looked around in a stupor. "Wait... Where did he go? Or rather, more importantly, who was that?" "The Kaiser." "What?" Elisabeth answered his question in a stiff voice. He tilted his head to the side. Seeing Kaito's poor grasp of the situation, she repeated herself. "The Kaiser has returned to his homeland." 5 The Birthplace of the Torture Princess Elisabeth sat in her usual room, one leg over the other. Atop the ball-and-claw throne, she stared into the gloomy, overcast sky. An orb of pale-blue light hovered in front of her. Kaito hadn't been told the specifics, but as the orb slowly rotated, it projected the image of someone who seemed rather important. However, despite appearing on the front of the orb no matter which way you looked at it, his face was so blurry, it looked like it was encased in a cloud of fog. It was difficult to