you want to save the suffering people as soon as possible?" Her voice was like a slap in the face. In that moment, Izabella had completely and utterly defeated Kaito. He found himself at a loss for words. Still speechless, he practically spasmed as he bowed deeply to the white orb. After biting down hard on his lip, he turned to Elisabeth. "Elisabeth..." Her crimson eyes were fixated on the orb. For a second, Kaito felt as though the gazes of those two women, who stood at opposite ends of evil and holiness, had met. Eventually, Elisabeth said a few words. "You could have merely cracked your whip at me and amused yourself as a spectator... I'm surrounded by fools, the lot of you." "Elisabeth..." "We're leaving, Kaito! Don't fall behind now! Chop-chop!" The next moment, Elisabeth kicked off the ground hard. She took off like an arrow, leaving deep footprints in the gray earth as she ran. Flustered, Kaito took after her. Vlad and the Kaiser followed along as well. The orb remained behind, perhaps in order to survey the underlings' positions. Then Izabella's pained shouts chased after them. "Go, Torture Princess, O reviled sinner who slaughtered countless innocents, knights, and my brother!" For a second, intense hatred leaked through into her voice. Izabella was aiming her vivid resentment at Elisabeth like an arrow. But with power strong enough even to crush her negative emotions, Izabella continued on. "Please save the capital!" Her tone sounded almost like a prayer. White light surged forward. It drowned out Elisabeth's expression, so Kaito couldn't see it. He just single-mindedly advanced, surrounded by flying underling corpses. Burdened with Izabella's sincere plea, Kaito and Elisabeth dashed across the plain. It was practically like a battlefield that was under bombardment. The light burst forth several more times. Though their vision was blasted away time and time again, they unceasingly made their way through the stream of death. Leaving the sound of bombardment behind them, they pressed deeper into the gray world. Eventually, all the noise faded into the distance. Once again, they were engulfed in a heavy silence. The air was thick with the presence of death as the mass of flesh towered in front of them. The looming mass was adorned with innumerable holes. Its damp red surface was covered in cavities, like a leaf that had been chewed through by a caterpillar. It was almost impressive how viscerally repugnant it was. Kaito felt goose bumps run all the way down his body. He looked up fixedly at the mass's unseemly surface. Those holes are probably from when its victims' faces came out. They'd been uniformly transformed into underlings, then expelled. Kaito racked his brain as to how they were supposed to deal with that thing. But without laying a finger on the writhing mass in front of her, let alone attacking it, Elisabeth quickened her pace. Tilting his head to the side, Kaito followed her. Although he hadn't said anything, she must have sensed his confusion as she spoke. "'Tis too great a task to cut it down from the outside. I said I'd be striking their true bodies directly, did I not? It just released that great mass of underlings. There should be a hole somewhere that leads to its core. I aim to find it." "A hole that leads to its core?" "Indeed, I would say that her prediction is right on the mark." Vlad gently floated up to walk beside Elisabeth. As Kaito turned to look at him, he exaggeratedly propped up his chin with his finger. "All-out war has a nice ring to it, but putting all their cards on the table like that was base foolishness. The King and the Grand Monarch expelled everything they had. Because of that, you should be able to make it past where they were storing the underlings inside themselves. Making such a choice causes me to wonder if their very brains had turned to mere lumps of flesh... Hmm, even though it may give rise to abnormal power, it seems that having demons run rampant carries few benefits with it." "You just be quiet, Vlad, and cease your twittering. Nobody asked you." Elisabeth clicked her tongue. Vlad shrugged and obediently shut up. After nodding at her explanation, Kaito began circling the mass's perimeter. The footing was poor, and the area was covered in blood and tallow. The two of them noisily trudged through the muck as they looked for a suitable opening. Before long, Kaito stopped in front of an unsettling fold of flesh that hung conspicuously over the ground. "Elisabeth." "...I see; this must be it." Behind the soft, womanly flesh was a massive, tunnel-like hole. Its insides had been trampled flat by underlings. It was the remnants of the path that deadly procession had taken. Elisabeth cast a sharp gaze inside. "There." "Wait, there's still more of them?" Three underlings sat at the edge of her crimson glare. They were lined up horizontally, guarding the hole like overly diligent gatekeepers. Kaito looked their new foes over from head to toe. From the left on, he cast his gaze at each of their peculiar figures in turn. There was a woman wearing a tattered dress. There was a man wearing a gray wolf headdress. And there was a man dressed in stern, full-body armor. Out of the three of them, it was the woman's strangeness that gave Kaito pause. She had proper eyes, lips, and a nose, yet her face was decidedly inhuman. Her skin was made out of some smooth material, like glass or porcelain. Her clothes, too, gave her the appearance of some sort of half-finished cloth puppet. Their faces are covered up by the helmet and the headdress, but the two guys probably look the same way. Even so, they looked more human than the underlings who'd been forcibly transformed. And above all else, the amount of power emanating from them was far greater than that of the small fry they had seen so far. Remaining wary of the three, Kaito spoke. "Hey, Elisabeth... Is it just me, or are those guys way stronger than the other underlings?" "Indeed, they are. 'Tis the Grand Monarch's abilityâ€”birthing unique underlings through Duplication. Those three are copies of the King, the Grand Monarch, and the late Monarch. While they are far weaker than their demonic counterparts, 'tis true that they far surpass ordinaryâ€”huh?" As she spoke, the armor-clad man strode directly toward Elisabeth. He grabbed the handle of the long sword strapped to his back, then drew it from its sheath with one hand. He swung its blade downward, parting the muddy gray air with great force. Kaito felt a powerful gust of wind blow across his entire body. The armored figure then pointed the tip of his fiendish blade at Elisabeth, as though provoking her. Her eyes widened a hair, and the corners of her ruby lips curled up. "I see; he truly is a copy of the King. So you wish to trade blows with me? Very well." In response, Elisabeth raised a pale hand overhand and drew the Executioner's Sword of Frankenthal from a swirl of darkness and crimson flower petals. After spinning its handle once around in her palm, she turned it toward her armored foe. Its tip came to a sudden stop in the air. "Come. I shall face you." Their blades in hand, the two squared off. A stillness rife with bloodlust filled the space. The next moment, the armored man roared. The air around him froze over, then shattered like glass. He charged with a glorious scream. As the ferocious mass of bloodlust approached her, Elisabeth shouted as well. "Wicker Man!" Darkness and petals exploded from the Executioner's Sword of Frankenthal. Defenseless, the armored man rushed directly into them. The dancing black and crimson swallowed up the other two replicants as well. A dry popping noise rang out, and the darkness split to become countless boughs. Before Kaito's eyes, a massive, birdcage-like figure knit itself together. The replicants found themselves sealed within its hollow torso. They raged, demanding to be let out. As they did, the figure's twisted limbs caught fire. The blaze grew to a tempest. As he faced the radiant scarlet mass, Kaito spoke up in confusion. "W-weren't you going to face off against him?" "Your honesty is going to get you killed one of these days, boy." "I really must agree, my dear successor. Take this as a lesson. At times, victory demands one to abandon their scruples." "Exactly! Why should I feel obliged to go out of my way to fight those things? Splendid, splendid! Burn for me! Ha-ha-ha!" Elisabeth crossed her arms and let out a loud, villainous laugh. But the next moment, the flaming mass tore open from within, and the figure's torso burst. Sparks flew violently through the air. The three replicants practically danced as they leaped out from within it. "Tch, it seems a single blow was insufficient." Elisabeth clicked her tongue. The female replicant leaped at her as her tattered dress violently flared up. Suddenly, the replicant's throat squirmed strangely, and her egg-like face split open. Something soft came flying out from between her glassy lips. *** It looked like a blob wrapped in ordinary red cloth. But Kaito could sense a bizarre liveliness coming from it. The blob of cloth was giving off the same kind of vitality that flesh did. Having been tormented by something similar once before, Kaito reflexively knew what it was. That blob is a copy of a heart. Mediocre as it may have been, the female replicant was preparing a version of Sacrifice. "It can't be!" He hadn't thought it to be a technique usable by a mere copy. Kaito was shaken. At the same time, his battle experience caused a dreadful hypothesis to flash through his head. Even with the amount I'm keeping in reserve for the fight against the King and the Grand Monarch, I'm burning through a crap ton of mana. Given the situation, having their power sealed away, even a little bit, would be dangerous. And even if Kaito wasn't the target, Elisabeth getting hit would lead to the same ending. Dispelling Sacrifice would use up a huge amount of his blood and mana. In other words, no matter who took the blow, it would severely restrict Kaito's ability to keep fighting. If that happened, he wouldn't be able to keep his promise to Izabella, the oath he'd sworn with her to take out the demon together. And he'd end up leaving Elisabeth alone right before the decisive battle. I can't allow that. He had to destroy the heart before it could activate. Panicking, Kaito completely froze in his tracks. Standing still on the battlefield was clearly an act of utter folly. Elisabeth shouted out in rage. The King turned his blade on Kaito. Sacrifice was on the verge of erupting from the heart. And looking overhead, the Kaiser was laughing. "Oh-ho. An intruder here, of all places." All of that happened in a single moment. A powerful flapping noise rang out, and a massive shadow passed over Kaito's and Elisabeth's heads. And at the same time, someone shouted. *** A classically designed maid uniform and skirt soared through the air. The silver-haired girl's frills fluttered as she fell. The way she'd appeared before Kaito was practically like destiny. "...Hi...na!" As she landed, the beautiful maid brandished her halberd. With it, Hina, Kaito's bride, brilliantly cut down the heart right before it could invoke Sacrifice. The rent heart fell to the ground with a plop. As it gently unraveled, it reverted back to being ordinary cloth. The female replicant toppled to the ground. Hina turned to Kaito, who was still astonished. Her emerald-green, gemstone-like eyes shone as she looked at him. "Master Kaito! I've returned home!" A beautiful smile spread across Hina's face, one brimming with heartfelt love. But her choice of words was a