Fear began to fester in everyone’s heart.

Because they heard breathing, heavy breathing.

It was definitely not the sound human lungs could make. In the few brief instants while everyone involuntarily held their breath and waited, it sounded as if countless broken bellows were rasping out their last breath in the dark.

“Rooaaar...”

An even deeper roar came, sharp claws scraping steel, throwing sparks that finally lit up the darkness and revealed the monsters’ true forms.

They were... hounds, gigantic demon hounds, with razor claws and fangs, eyes blood-red, in vast numbers. Each loomed like a hill, completely hairless; their python-strong musculature was covered in scales that gleamed with a metallic sheen, making them all the more ferocious.

“Are these... those statues from before?”

Someone cried out, remembering what these hellhounds had once looked like.

Moen also recalled quickly.

Those statues!

Those canine statues that had stood silently in ranks in that wide space earlier!

But...

“Didn’t you say those weren’t mechanical puppets?”

Sevier whipped around to look at Moen, her voice of accusation trembling despite herself.

She remembered very clearly how enormous the number of statues she had seen in the dark had been...

Automata in numbers like that... was there really no escaping the fate of being minced to pieces?

“Calm down. These really aren’t automatons.”

Moen pulled some distance from the prisoner for the moment and looked back. More and more hellhounds were pacing out of the dark.

They bobbed their heads, steps light, and every so often they blasted a foul, fishy stench from their nostrils.

“Automatons don’t breathe.”

“Then what are they...” Sevier froze.

“Probably... another nice thing whipped up by the Goddess’s authority.”

“The Goddess’s authority... wait, isn’t that even worse?” Sevier was shocked.

“Heh...”

Moen gave a bitter smile, both hands gripping his hilt tight, a trace of heat still lingering on his back.

He said nothing more, yet in that moment he struck by a profound sense of absurdity..

He hadn’t forgotten what his earliest, purest purpose had been in coming to the Holy City this time.

It wasn’t to deliver a letter to Teacher Mela, nor to shut his eyes and leap into this pit to help Lea become saintess.

It was... to undergo the baptism of holy light so the alchemical core on his back would fully fuse with him, eliminating the rejection he was bound to face in the future.

And this miracle that countless people could only dream of, one that practically overturned the very foundations of alchemy, was happening right before him, so matter-of-factly.

The conversion between life and death.

Statues that had been dead things turned, under a miracle, into living hellhounds, cutting off everyone’s retreat!

Such extravagance made Moen so jealous he could cry.

“Lea.”

“Mm?”

“The Goddess seems pretty generous. Could you ask her to spare me a bit of this power?”

“Well...”

Lea thought seriously for a moment, lifted her face, and answered sweetly:

“Doesn’t seem possible. With the strength of my faith right now, I’m afraid the Goddess won’t heed me. Once I become saintess, maybe we can try.”

“I figured as much...”

As more hellhounds emerged into the wavering firelight, Moen noticed some of them were already smeared with crimson blood and mangled limbs. Those must be the ones who had chosen to leave early.

In their retreat, they discovered that the harmless statues around them had become snarling hellhounds. With nowhere to run, Moen could already imagine their despair.

“But our situation right now is just as hopeless.”

The only way out had now been cut off by those hellhounds; they, too, had nowhere to run!

Therefore...

Moen looked back again, facing that gaunt prisoner.

Around him, several of the closest had clearly reached the same conclusion: fighting living hellhounds of uncertain number and strength was obviously not a smart move.

Their path now lay only one way, and that was the door behind the prisoner!

Fortunately, there had only been a single passage atop the stairs earlier, so the hellhounds couldn’t all surge up at once for the moment. Before the hellhounds gathered enough to overwhelm them in one rush was the window they had to seize!

“Escape is definitely off the table. Now we can only figure out how to kill this damn thing!”

Margarita didn’t hesitate. She tapped her toe sharply.

Dozens of golden wedges appeared out of thin air, countless chains weaving into a net that bound the prisoner tight, while thunderlight boomed—lightning enough to char a monster pierced through the prisoner.

But the next instant Margarita’s face shifted slightly. Never mind that the lightning had no effect; right now she felt she wasn’t restraining a withered body at all, but a live volcano about to erupt!

“What are you all standing there for? Waiting to die?” she shouted, voice sharp.

“I don’t need your orders!”

The one snapping back at her was Anne, but before the words arrived, a massive shadow had already crashed down!

The freak Reta’s hulking body fell from above; the ferocious bone blade at least two meters long in his hand was like an ordinary toy to him. It tore the air and hacked violently into the prisoner’s shoulder.

At the same time, a pitch-black longsword thrust out from the shadows, aimed straight at the prisoner’s forehead.

Clatter...

The chains rattled.

Pressed by the tremendous force, the prisoner’s knees began to bend.

But in that instant, both Anne—directing Reta—and Paul—the one launching the sneak attack—blanched.

Sparks flew from their weapons on the prisoner’s surface, yet they didn’t even pierce his skin.

But how could that be? Just now, clearly...

“My blade is special.”

Not rushing in this time, Moen, who had chosen to observe for the moment, let out a weary sigh:

“This freak’s body is tougher than any human’s, and ordinary attacks seem to do nothing. Otherwise I’d have lopped his head off already.”

Going for the head first was a good habit Moen had developed after facing countless horrors.

Though more often than not, it was of little damn use.

“Then...”

Clink...

Paul was about to say something, but amid the sigh, Moen once again heard the sound of that hurricane lantern swinging.

“Oh Goddess...”

Kneeling on the ground, the prisoner still held the lantern high, weeping in grief. The dim yellow light flickered within the lantern.

Moen’s heart clenched; that bad feeling welled up from deep inside once more.

Vmm—

The air suddenly trembled. The torches on the walls shook wildly, as if they might go out at any moment.

But amidst the chaos, darkness did not descend as expected. Instead, Moen felt it grow brighter around them.

Like a host of stars... lighting the night!

Moen turned his head, impassive.

Dazzling points of light lit up on the hellhounds loitering at the edge of the dark, not in any hurry to attack.

Bright motes, accompanied by a chill that made one’s heart seize, coursed across the surfaces of those hellhounds and then... gradually converged.

One gaping maw after another opened, and intense light rose within them like suns lifting into the sky.

“This is...”

Everyone’s eyes nearly popped out.

Motherf—... this is... magic!

Those hellhounds could use magic!

And it was a massively powerful coordinated group spell at that...

The hellhounds hadn’t even bothered to try a first charge; they just started casting right away?

In that moment, everyone’s vision went dark; suddenly they all felt utterly dumbfounded, as if they’d just been screwed over by a dog.

Playing it this absurdly... why the f— not just drop a whole bunch of Gundams right here?!