A massive wave of sacred energy covering the entire width of the tunnel advances.
The ground melts where the energy touches it, the walls crack and crumble, and debris rains from the ceiling.
An attack designed to destroy everything non-human in a wide area, with no space to dodge because the entire tunnel is covered by that light.
If this attack hits me directly, even I'll be in serious trouble.
But I have no intention of dodging. Turning into mist might work, but I have the feeling an attack of this scale could also affect me even in that state. Maybe that would even be a foolish move that leads me to defeat. Blood Mist isn't untouchable.
Another reason is that behind me are Touka and Rize. Though I know Kiriko will protect them if necessary, I don't care.
I won't allow that man to make me retreat and make me look weak.
Maybe it's foolish on my part, but for me, this kind of danger is exciting.
"Uhuhu... What beautiful light!"
My laughter echoes in the tunnel.
The blood covering my body detaches and rises around me. At the same time, the six tentacles position themselves in front of me and intertwine forming a shield. The blood I manipulate gathers and covers the kagune barrier. Behind all that is me, with the claymore covered with a dense layer of blood, held with both hands.
And then I launch directly toward the cross of light, which crashes against my barrier.
My entire body trembles violently as the sacred energy collides against my kagune and my blood. I can feel how the energy tries to penetrate, burning the blood layer and starting to corrode the tentacles forming the barrier.
The pain reaches my back, and from there melts into my soul. I feel like I'm thrown into a furnace that can melt steel.
I just need one second.
The claymore emerges from behind the kagune barrier, piercing through my own defense, and clashes directly against the center of the energy cross. The claymore's blade cuts through the sacred energy.
The two halves of energy pass on either side of me, crashing against the tunnel walls behind me. Walls explode, pieces of concrete and rocks pulverize, and the sound is so loud my ears ring.
After cutting the energy cross, I keep advancing with the claymore leading.
My body passes through the opening my barrier created. The blood surrounding me absorbs part of the sacred energy and evaporates instantly, but fulfills its purpose of protecting me during that second.
I emerge from the other side of the cross of light and see Johannes in front of me, with wide eyes when he sees me emerge from his technique.
The claymore in my right hand descends diagonally.
"Wait..."
The first cut separates his left arm below the elbow. Blood splashes and Johannes lets out a strangled scream as his body shakes from the impact.
The second cut, using a blood blade I formed with my left hand, cuts his right leg below his knee.
"Aaaargh...!"
Johannes falls to the ground at the same time the Odachi stops floating and bounces against the tunnel wall with a metallic sound before sliding across the floor away from him.
The cross of light fades, and with it, the energy that sustained it.
I stand looking at Johannes, who's on the ground missing an arm and a leg. Blood gushes from the stumps, and his breathing is irregular and noisy.
My tentacles are destroyed, only two of the six remaining, and they're regenerating slowly because they absorbed too much sacred energy during the charge. My blood layer disappeared completely, and I can feel a sharp pain throughout my body.
And the damage to my soul increased exponentially, though not to the point where I start hallucinating again.
I'm satisfied with the result. Because I'm still standing.
"...Heh."
"Hehehe."
"Hahahahaha...!"
Johannes laughs.
He's lying on the ground, missing an arm and a leg, and he's laughing.
"Marvelous... truly marvelous... God has shown me something incredible tonight..."
Johannes looks at me from the ground with bright eyes.
"We will meet again, monster. You can be sure of that."
His free hand goes inside his torn overcoat, and when it comes out, it's holding a book.
"And until we meet again..."
The book opens and the pages glow.
"...God will be watching you."
As he says that, his body starts fragmenting and turning into white sheets of paper little by little.
Through my vampire vision, I can see his body is being invaded by sacred energy thanks to the book in his hand. In that black and white world, I see his body dissolving into paper connects to a very distant place through golden light threads.
It's a teleportation based on sacred energy.
He's trying to escape.
Probably from the moment he arrived, he already had planned how to leave if things didn't go as expected.
I deactivate my vampire vision and look at him while the sheets separate more and more from his body.
"Are you an idiot?"
Johannes blinks hearing me speak.
"...What?"
"I cut off your arm and leg. Do you know what comes now?"
His eyes move toward where his severed arm is, then to his severed leg.
There's a lot of his blood spilled.
He seems to realize my intention, and I can sense his emotional frequency changing for the first time, showing an emotion different from madness and ecstasy.
Sensing his fear, my lips lift upward, revealing rows of sharp teeth.
"You..."
While it's true his body may be enhanced through experiments at the Vatican, and through years of training, his base is still a human body with human blood.
And human blood is much easier to manipulate than mine.
Blood from his severed arm and severed leg explodes outward.
The fragmentation of his body stops abruptly.
"What...? What are you...?!"
Johannes tries to fragment again, but can't. The blood inside his body is being held by my will, and acts as an anchor keeping him in this place, so he can't turn into sheets if his own blood refuses to cooperate.
His body materializes completely again.
"AAAARGH!"
A scream of agony comes from his mouth, echoing in the tunnel as the blood inside his veins twists in a way that's impossible for the human body to endure.
"Let me go! Let—!"
My legs move and I appear next to him, crouched at his side, with my face inches from his. I can see my own reflection in his dilated pupils, and I understand why his expression changes to deep and bottomless terror.
Because my mouth opens disproportionately.
"Thanks for the meal."
My fangs sink into his neck.
Johannes's blood enters my mouth and I swallow in gulps.
Once again, I'm transported to what seems to be a memory of when Johannes was talking to someone in a church.
I keep drinking while his body dries out. The spasms shaking his body become weaker, his remaining arm tries to push me, but strength abandons him quickly and his hand falls to the ground powerless.
When I finally release him, what falls to the ground is an empty, dry body.
Slowly I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.
...Mm.
There's a lot of information.
Johannes was sent to Japan as the Pope gave him a mission. The CCG contacted the Vatican asking for assistance to deal with a growing threat in Tokyo.
Aogiri Tree.
The CCG wanted Iscariot to help them eliminate Aogiri Tree, since the organization had become too large and dangerous for the CCG to handle alone.
But besides that, through his memory I learned something else.
Johannes didn't come just as help. Iscariot also sent him as a spy. They wanted information about the supernatural situation in Japan, which for them was not-so-well-known territory. The vampires and ghouls in Europe are different from those here, and the Vatican only has knowledge about Japan thanks to records.
That's as far as the memories I absorbed from Johannes go.
I purse my lips while thinking that behind it all there are probably political and religious interests that go far beyond eliminating ghouls.
Then I notice something.
In the corpse's right eye, which is opaque, I notice it glows softly. Mm? Why is it glowing?
I crouch down and with two fingers pull it out of the eye socket.
It's a device the size of a child's pinky finger, thin and with a tiny lens in the center.
A recording device.
Everything Johannes saw, this device was transmitting, probably to the Vatican.
Which means someone was watching the entire fight.
They're already aware of my existence.
I look directly at the device's lens.
Is someone watching on the other side?
A disproportionate smile full of sharp teeth forms on my face while I hold the device in front of my face.
The skin on my cheeks darkens and distorts, before turning into what seems to be a bloody aura. And from my face sprout mouths with sharp teeth that open and close in different directions.
The mouths speak at the same time. From all of them comes the same distorted voice, superimposed on itself.
"I will devour you all."
I close my fist and the device explodes into pieces.
×××
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