eyes. With those same eyes, she focused her vision on the monster whose very existence she would just as soon have denied. The snowy owl began moving in earnest. Its massive head spun as it glided forward. Dragged along by its upper half, its mass of feelers moved as well. For a moment, Kaito felt as though the entire room had charged forward. That was just how extensive its writhing, mucus-covered flesh was. "Master Kaito." "On it." Kaito, accompanied by Hina, tried to take a step forward. However, he could have spared himself the effort. The loud, high-pitched noise of heels clicked and echoed throughout the room. The black Torture Princess and the golden Torture Princess had stepped forward first. The two of them stood side by side. Then, as though they were mirrored reflections of each other, they raised opposite hands. Darkness and light swirled atop their palms as they fearlessly faced down their sacred, profane, hideous foe. Crimson and gold flower petals danced. White light and black darkness spun. One spoke with naked fury, and the other emotionlessly murmured. "Just die already!" "Good night, slave." The next moment, the crimson, gold, black, and white exploded. The Torture Princesses weren't relying on their torture devices and machines. Not fearing the onrushing feelers in the slightest, the two of them were firing off swords directly. Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk! Thousands of swords designed for decapitation impaled the snowy owl through its body. It looked like a living pincushion. Opening its beak, it let out a miserable, throaty voice. "Ahhhhhhh, ahhhhhhh, AHHHHHHH, aHhHhHhH." Its voice was neither avian nor monstrous. It was the voice of a human. As he heard that, a terrible possibility welled up within Kaito's mind. The birds La Mules summoned vanished right away. Why, then, had the owl before them not? Perhaps, in order to secure the summoned beast to this world, they'd mixed a human in as well. That was the horrible suspicion Kaito had. But between his sentimentality and his revulsion, he had no space left to thoroughly examine that possibility. "Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" The scream went up in pitch, rising nearly to the level of a shriek. After forcing her way out of Deus Ex Machina's arms, Izabella hit the ground running. Then, upon crashing into the sword-ridden owl, she grabbed the handle of one sword buried particularly deep in the bird's chest and twisted it. The snowy owl screamed even more violently. As it did, Izabella wrenched the sword free. A horrible squelching noise resounded throughout the chamber. Dark blood gushed from the wound and ran across the floor. The sword had been puncturing the owl's pulsating heart. Its massive eyes still as wide as dinner plates, the owl convulsed. Its head and torso began transforming into white light, and the feelers comprising the rest of its body turned into black feathers. Halfway through, though, both transformations stopped. Its tragic corpse then toppled to the ground, the right to even vanish as a demon or a holy creature taken from it. Izabella was drenched in blood. The sword clanged against the ground as she dropped it, and when she looked up, her face was trembling. For a second, it looked like she was going to collapse. But she managed to right her footing with willpower alone. She then placed her arm horizontally over her chest and gave a bow. "No longer must you be bound by the chains of your tortured existence. Your efforts guarding the tomb did not go unnoticed." That was the dedication she gave to the monster. Nobody else said a thing. As though it were accepting her words, the man-made monster drifted into its eternal slumber. Its feelers stopped twitching. After confirming that fact, Izabella toppled to the ground. Then she broke into a silent sob. She cried and she cried, as though trying to parse the absurdity of it all and change it all into rage. A massive pool of blood spread through the room. Izabella sat motionless in it. "Hey, Izabella..." Kaito called out to her in hopes of comforting her. But before he could finish, the light sound of footsteps splashing echoed through the room. Jeanne had approached Izabella with an easy, almost dance-like gait. To everyone's surprise, she spun forward and wrapped Izabella up in a tight hug. Izabella's eyes went wide. Jeanne's expression was as cold as always, but her embrace was warm and kind. "I knew I liked ya for a reason, li'l lady. Fools demonstrating their pride is not so unpleasant a thing. You got a backbone on ya." Using her own pale hand, Jeanne wiped the blood off Izabella's face. After wiping away the filth, she stroked Izabella's scarred skin as she went on speaking. "Their weakness is precisely what drives the foolish to be strong. That was the ideal you were striving toward, miss. You're a good kid." Upon hearing the gentle words, Izabella blinked several times. But she didn't have a chance to reply. Deus Ex Machina scooped her up in its arms once again. "No, I... This again?" Izabella tried to resist. But a moment later, she wearily let her body go limp. She seemed to have given up and was now obediently allowing herself to be carried. Standing up herself, Jeanne raised her bloody hands. "Come now, just a little fartherâ€”how exciting." Kaito cast another glance around the room. He hadn't noticed at first due to the feelers covering it, but the room was constructed like a large hall. To his alarm, the walls didn't seem to have any joints or seams on them, and a number of delicate crystalline lamps hung from the room's hemispherical ceiling. Was this room really made by people? Kaito found that fact dubious. At the same time, he realized that the room offered no way for them to advance. He couldn't see any hallways or stairs branching off it. It was a dead end. The one thing he did see, though, was a deep carving in one of the stone wall's sections that had been covered up by feelers. The carving's craftsmanship was so impressive that the person depicted seemed to be alive. Kaito walked up to it. The Saint was embracing something swaddled in cloth, but it was impossible to see what lay within. What was clear, though, was the Saint's benevolent smile. A demi-human attendant was standing beside her. His face was cast in shadow, concealed by his hood. Kaito let out a dazed whisper. "...The Butcher?" Putting the dots together, Kaito thought back to the statue he'd seen in the Capital's plaza. A statue of the Saint shedding tears of blood had been installed next to Godd Deos's headquarters. And in front of her had been another statue, a kneeling apostle wrapped from the head down in tattered rags. Surprisingly, the apostle had been a demi-human. Legs with scales engraved in them and sharp claws had peeked out from the bottom edge of the rags. He'd looked as though he was both rejoicing in and lamenting the Saint's suffering. Absentmindedly, Kaito reached out to touch the engraving. Before his hand reached it, though, someone grabbed him by the wrist. Elisabeth had been the one to stop him. She spoke, her voice cold. "Do you have a death wish? Go on, thenâ€”touch it. Not even ash will remain." "Oh. Uh, my bad." Kaito narrowed his eyes and appraised the amount of mana stored in the wall. Elisabeth had been completely right. It was hard to tell at just a glance, but the entire wall was covered in a fiendish barrier. Anyone who touched it would probably have their very existence annihilated. But then he tilted his head to the side in puzzlement. There was something odd about the mana the barrier was giving off. It's the same here...good and evil mixed together. Sacred mana blended together with malicious mana, sealing the wall up firmly. It was at that moment that Kaito realized something. "Wait, this thing isn't designed to protect something, is it?" Something was hidden there. Or perhaps it was sealed away there. That was the impression Kaito had gotten. But...what? His ominous premonitions worsened as he carefully looked back over the mana and the general vibe the wall was giving off. Then he realized that there was something lurking on the other side of the sturdy wall. What...what is that? Is that a noise I hear? Kaito strained his ears, taking great care not to touch the wall. After a moment, he realized what the nature of the noise was. Something was breathing, inhaling and exhaling at a steady, fixed rhythm. Something was sleeping back there. Like a child, taking a calm, tranquil nap. "Now then, today shall be a day worth commemorating. Let us unveil the secret within." There wasn't a tinge of fear in Jeanne's voice. She opened her palms wide. A black jewel sat atop one, a white jewel atop the other. When she pressed them together, they merged into one, then transformed into the shape of a key. Once they had, Jeanne thrust it into the face of whatever it was the Saint was holding. â€”Grgrahhh. As the strange noise rang out, Jeanne gave a sweet, gentle whisper. "Beyond that wall lies the true source of the flesh we ate." Apparently, the groaning noise from a moment ago had indicated it was now unlocked. The hefty wall began shifting, creaking and kicking up dust as it went. Like a chastity belt dropping, the Church's revolting, long-kept secret was laid bare. Beyond the hefty wall sat a child's bedroom. It was quiet inside. The deep, deep silence within felt as though it had lasted centuries, if not millennia. At first glance, it didn't look like anything besides a room for a normal child, its walls decorated with wallpaper and ribbons. It was a harmless, charming little room. But a second glance would reveal the room's dark, twisted nature. There were human faces sprouting from the wallpaper in place of a floral design. All of them were wordlessly writhing. Although they had no vocal cords, their mouths were contorted into silent, anguished screams. As for the ribbons hanging overhead, they were made from various types of human entrails, dangling from the stomachs of people suspended in the air. And given their vivid hues, the owners were still alive. And in the center of that grotesque, pain-adorned room sat a massive cradle. It seemed almost cruel how pure a shade of white it was, the only unsullied object in the room. Within it, something was sleeping. Whatever it was, human vocabulary was ill equipped to describe it. It was alive. It was in deep slumber. It had flesh. If someone wished to describe it in words, that would have to be enough. "That there is the first demonâ€”a far higher entity than the fourteen who descended after it, and a being with the power to shatter the world's very foundations." Though she faced a horror that surpassed human comprehension, Jeanne's speech was dispassionate. Kaito found himself at a loss for words. That thing isn't supposed to exist in this world. He thought back to the exposition Elisabeth had given him right after he'd reincarnated. "We call the entity who created the world 'God' and that which destroys it 'Diablo.' Hence, Diablo can only interfere with the world of man once God has abandoned it. But there is an exception. If Diablo has a contractor, then all bets are off. "But summoning Diablo, who possesses enough power to destroy the entire world, is no small feat, and there is no one vessel who can contain it, so it has yet to manifest." That was how things were supposed to be, yet there could be no mistaking the fact that Diablo, who held enough power to destroy the entire world, was sleeping before them. The Kaiser said nothing, his thoughts inscrutable. A sublime smile was plastered across