Blue Fire

The guards surrounded the red-hooded men with weapons drawn.

But the men in red hoods showed no concern whatsoever.

They carried themselves as if ordinary swords and spears were beneath their notice.

"So the statues were destroyed. Imitations may share the form, but they hold no real power."

The lead man surveyed the wrecked statues with an irritated scowl.

"You won't get away with this!"

The man who appeared to be the guard captain leveled his sword and shouted.

The lead man ignored him entirely and pointed at Lady Anatia.

"The Elemental Stone has been moved as well. There's no reason to linger. We'll take the woman and withdraw."

"Understood."

The two flanking figures nodded at the lead man's words and assumed combat stances.

"Take them!"

The guards charged in all at once.

But water magic unleashed by the red-hooded men swept them aside.

The water magic that came their way was deflected by Azu and the others.

Unfortunately, the guards were no match for these men, regardless of numbers.

Only the guard captain managed to block the magic, and even he took damage.

"Those three are the only real threat. Be cautious."

The lead man clearly viewed Azu's group as a threat.

Hearing that, Yohane gave his order.

"Kill them. Dead or alive, I don't care."

Taking them alive would've been preferable, but even a layman could see these weren't the kind of opponents you could afford that luxury against.

The two flanking men charged forward.

Alexia and Elza moved to intercept them.

The lead man and Azu faced off against each other.

Lady Anatia was carrying the Anti-Magic Orb, so even a surprise attack with magic wouldn't get through.

Unless they defeated Azu and the others first, they wouldn't be able to take her.

Yohane quietly repositioned to keep Lady Anatia between him and the line of fire.

He was unarmed at the moment. Even stray shockwaves were terrifying.

He made a mental note: next time he got his hands on an Anti-Magic Orb, he'd keep it instead of selling it.

While he was thinking about that, the battle between Azu and the red-hooded man had already begun.

Azu's movement speed was extraordinary.

Spells aimed and fired at her almost never connected, and she could deflect most magic with her blade.

She struggled against opponents who outclassed her in raw physicality, but against anyone else, Azu was formidable.

True to form, she dodged the incoming magic and closed the distance.

His wide-area water spells were meant to catch her anyway, but Azu had the Water Elemental on her side.

"Infuriating little brat!"

From his perspective, she must have seemed to slip through the magic impossibly.

His growing frustration was plain to see.

When Azu closed to sword range, she slashed at his chest.

The man switched from his staff to a short blade and parried her sword, deflecting it aside.

Azu pressed with strike after strike until his guard finally broke, and she cut into his right shoulder.

"That one was a little shallow."

"Curse you…"

She had the upper hand.

The man appeared more powerful on paper, but the matchup favored Azu.

A light fighter focused on evasion against a mage: once she closed in, the light fighter won. That was how it worked.

A mage could prepare for close-quarters combat, or so he'd heard, but the man appeared to have nothing beyond that short blade.

Alexia was suppressing her opponent in a magical exchange, while Elza was shrugging off damage with full heals and pressing her opponent relentlessly.

The red-hooded man pulled back sharply, putting significant distance between himself and Azu.

The other two followed suit.

"Prelate, at this rate…"

"A second failure will not be tolerated. Even at the cost of our lives."

With that, the man produced a vial of blue liquid from within his robes.

A very bad feeling settled in Yohane's gut.

"Destroy that vial!"

He shouted the order, and Alexia fired a spell at the vial.

But the man's counter-magic nullified it.

Azu had moved at the same time, but she was a hair too late. The red-hooded man drained the vial's contents.

"Ahh… I can feel His divine power."

In the middle of a battle, he stood still, clasped his hands toward the sun, and began to pray.

It was deeply unsettling.

Azu's sword slashed across the man's chest.

Yet despite bleeding openly, he didn't so much as flinch.

"Prelate, how I envy you."

"You can hear the voice of God. Please, take our souls as kindling."

The two flanking men also produced vials and drank the contents.

But unlike the lead man, their entire bodies erupted in blue flames, and those flames were drawn into the lead man, absorbed completely.

Nothing remained of them.

"What on earth is happening!? Elza, you know something about this, don't you?"

Alexia kept her battle-axe pointed at the man while turning toward Elza.

Elza was watching the men, one hand pressed to her mouth in thought.

Unusually, there was visible sweat on her brow.

"He shared his fire with them? He can interfere directly now? But it's still too soon…"

"Hey!"

Alexia grabbed Elza by the shoulder, and Elza snapped back to the present.

"Sorry, I was lost in thought."

"So what is that?"

"I don't know what they drank, but I think those two who were absorbed were used as human sacrifices. That's not a normal way to disappear."

"And the man absorbing the flames?"

"That's probably…"

Elza trailed off.

Blood from the wound Azu had inflicted ran down to the ground, staining it red.

With that much blood loss, standing should have been impossible.

And yet the man continued to weep and pray toward the sun.

His mental state was clearly far from normal.

The whole thing was profoundly eerie.

"Oops, can't have that."

The man finally seemed to notice his own wounds.

He brushed his right hand across the gash, and the wound simply vanished.

It wasn't healing so much as reversal, like the wound had never existed.

Not even Elza's healing miracle could replicate something like that.

"He shouldn't truly have divinity. They must have forced the power into a human body."

Elza muttered to herself as she studied the man.

"Azu-chan."

"Y-Yes?"

Elza called out to Azu without warning.

Azu flinched slightly at the sudden address.

"I don't think a state like that can last long. But if we wait for him to burn out, we'll all be dead first."

"… I won't let that happen."

"Yeah. You'll be fine, Azu-chan. The you of right now can beat him. Use the Apostle's power and cut with everything you've got."

Elza wrapped an arm around Azu's shoulders and bestowed a blessing upon her.

More thorough than usual.

The red-hooded man was walking toward them. His body had begun to burn with slow, creeping blue flames.

"How magnificent. So this is what it means to be saved."

He wasn't even looking their way anymore. He was lost in rapture.

Lady Anatia, watching the man, had gone completely pale.

"I'm going."

Azu stepped forward.