Scarlet remained kneeling before the corpse. The silence around her suddenly felt more oppressive than the battle.
"Is this the treatnt received by those who believe in you?!"
She raised her eyes toward the fresco of the angels, her gaze filled with anger.
Dying was one thing. Dying without peace of mind was another.
"While trying to save people for just causes, valiant warriors died like re..."
Her voice broke slightly.
"How am I supposed to believe in you? Just give a sign? Just one sign to still believe in the teachings of the Holy Cathedral."
A strange silence settled in, and then a roar... A low rumble suddenly split the sky.
Scarlet slowly raised her eyes.
Above the clouds, a gigantic shadow was circling. Then it fully appeared in the moonlight.
A colossal wyvern hovered in the sky, its wings spread covering a large portion of the horizon. Each beat raised gusts that made the already weakened roofs vibrate. The demonic mana it emitted was so dense that it seed to alter the air itself.
Even without being an expert, Scarlet imdiately understood.
This monster was at least equivalent to an A rank warrior.
Her legs gave way and she fell to her knees in the black mud. Her hands trembled.
"I’m going to die here.... All these knights... It’s who led them here."
Her faith shattered brutally. All her belief, all this idea that the Seraphs rewarded those who defended justice...
"Was it all a lie?"
She saw again the knight in front of the parish. His vacant gaze and the regret on his face...
Sothing inside her cracked... A buried mory surged violently.
Her breathing beca more and more erratic. mories she wanted to forget... When she had been kidnapped...
Before she could structure any thought, her vision blurred.
A foreign energy exploded out of her body.
A corrosive demonic mana spread around her. The green light that usually healed beca clouded, turning to a darker shade. Everything nearby began to degrade. The stone cracked. The wood blackened. The monster corpses started to dissolve.
Scarlet leapt without fully realizing it.
An atrocious force coursed through her limbs. Her veins pulsed violently. The sclera of her eyes turned black. Blood flowed from her forehead, but she did not know why.
She no longer thought.
There was only one will left: Tear the wyvern to pieces.
She jumped from roof to roof with a speed she had never reached. The ground shattered under her impulses. She propelled her body toward the sky, carried by a surge of greenish mana that had beco toxic.
A green light streaked across the night sky...
The impact shook the foundations of the remaining buildings. A shockwave swept through the streets.
Then everything went black.
...
When she regained consciousness, she was in the middle of the debris.
Around her, the monster bodies were unrecognizable. So were severed. Others partially liquefied, eaten away by the corrosive mana that still perated the air.
The wyvern was now nothing more than a charred and dissolved mass in the distance.
Scarlet slowly straightened and looked at her hands.
They were clawed, traversed by an unstable demonic glow.
"What have I done?"
Her voice trembled.
She brought her hand to her forehead.
Her fingers t sothing hard.
A black, curved horn had just pierced her skin.
"What am I!?"
Fear truly gripped her this ti.
"Did I kill people!?"
Then a voice, calm and composed, echoed behind her.
"Do not worry, my jackals have put everyone to safety."
"Huh?"
Scarlet froze.
She suddenly realized that the rain had stopped.
Not a single sound anymore, no wingbeats.
Her heart raced.
’All the monsters are dead!? How is that possible?’
She only rembered unleashing herself on the wyvern. After that, nothing. A mana overload had probably made her pass out.
She slowly turned her head.
On one of the neighboring roofs, a silhouette stood.
A long black crossed coat, perfectly fitted. Underneath, entirely black attire, down to the gloves. The air around him seed denser, saturated with a pure aura that contrasted violently with the corrupted mana she still emitted.
His silver hair was slicked back.
He had his back turned, one hand crossed behind the other.
Then he turned around.
The moon reflected on a black Oni mask.
"Who!?"
Scarlet’s breath caught as she recognized the description that had been circulating in the Empire for months.
"Are you the criminal who calls himself The Predator?" She swallowed.
"And are you not the demoness who calls herself the delicate hydrangea of the Valerius duchy?"
"I... I am not a demon!"
She roared, but her demonic mana reacted to her emotion. The ground around her liquefied even more.
"How is this possible? How do I have demonic mana?"
...
In the original novel
Director Akhazel wanted to monopolize this rift. Not to train the students, but to prevent the truly powerful from entering it. Thus, The Spectrum could act without encountering any opponent capable of countering them.
The massacre of the Valerius duchy was the starting point of this arc.
And that day, the delicate hydrangea was going to beco the villainess destined to destroy the Holy Cathedral.
In her fury, she was going to awaken her demonic mana...
When she was little, Scarlet had been kidnapped by The Spectrum. Just like the current subject 109, she was one of the most promising subjects to host Asmodeus, the prince of corruption. She had been subject 77.
Her mother had saved her at the cost of her life.
The trauma had been so violent that she had forgotten everything.
But the aftereffects remained... She was now a half-demon.
And The Predator obviously knew all of this.
"If despite appearances you are not a demoness, then despite the rumors I am not a criminal."
He disappeared from the roof.
And reappeared in front of her.
Scarlet instinctively stepped back.
"Back off! Can’t you see I’m liquefying everything next to !?"
"Lady Scarlet... Do you want to fight true injustice at my side?"
She blinked, still disoriented.
"What do you an?"
"The Prophet Nostradamus sent here to find the one he has chosen."
He took out an ancient grimoire. The leather was dark, giving it a very mystical appearance... He held it out to her.
Scarlet, still in a daze, took it.
The contact did not make it lt.
The demonic mana around her seed to stabilize slightly, absorbed by the small mana crystals adorning the book.
"I do not know this Nostradamus..."
"He knows you now and you of the future..."
"I... How is that possible?"
"The one who can heal the afflicted and poison those who practice injustice? I am searching for that woman, to help protect the weak... Are you this Poisonous Saintess?"
That night, Black Neon had won the sympathy of the population by eradicating all the monsters within a 10-kiloter radius, while spreading the Prophecy of Nostradamus... And that sa night: A villainess was born.
"Kris, I’m going to take everything from you..."
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