The amount of Discord emanating from Tristessa's soul was catastrophic. An aura of darkness that both Astoria and Auron felt permeating their own spirits. Xiliarra's dark light illuminated the empty, endless interior of the terrdrak's corpse, where the irreparable pieces of its corrupted soul returned.

"Ugh...s-shit!"

The girl gasped, filled with pure terror that invaded every corner of her essence, hand in hand with soul strain. It wasn't because of the murderous instinct the beast possessed by nature, but because she felt a tiny fragment of the malice that had turned that beast into an even more terrible and vicious monster.

And now it was caressing her own soul. An undesired intimacy, deadly and repulsive… But impossible to reject.

"What is this?! S-so...so horrible... So much evil...!"

Shivers of deadly cold equal to or worse than those she'd felt through her Baptism in Ruins, when it reached the critical limit.

A terror that forced her to bring both hands to the center of her chest, finding it difficult to breathe and swallow. A terror comparable to that of experiencing Death.

"It's moving!" She heard Auron exclaim, watching in amazement as the tainted terrdrak rose from the ground and shades of manifested Discord returned to gather on its back, in the form of two shadowy wings. Its distinctive feature as an Alpha of his kin. "Sweet Nekronomika, this is impressive! I knew there was something odd about you, lady!"

"What a... horrifying Divinity," Astoria whispered, very overwhelmed by so much Discord that emanated from Tristessa surrounding her luminous soul, abundant with [Grace], its opposing element.

The revenant raised its half-destroyed head and let out a high-pitched, ear-piercing shriek that frightened the poor refugees in their tents.

"L-Listen to me!" Tristessa was forced to do her best to ignore the terror creeping through her entire being, making her feel like she was going to die instantly at any moment. She had to give that beast a command, without wasting another second. "Attack the tainted ursall! Draw its attention, keep it occupied!"

The order was clear, and as long as Tristessa's soul could tolerate the strain, absolute. The alpha terrdrack overcame rigor mortis and spread its wings, giving a violent flutter that kicked up dirt and necrotic contamination. In the air, its body was hit by bullets from snipers unaware of what was happening, but the undead creature didn't change direction in its flight or subsequent attack. It lunged like a projectile straight at the ursall, sinking its deadly fangs and claws of its long fingers right into its back.

"It's time, let's go, Blackguard!"

"Your aim better be true!"

"And those knightly muscles strong enough to do some real damage!"

The tainted ursall reared up on its hind legs, unleashing a deafening roar of pain, and the two warriors ran straight at it. They ran in the opposite direction of the soldiers who had narrowly escaped the beast's fury, covered in the blood of their comrades. And so frightened that they didn't even bother to warn them two that they were running toward certain death.

"Beware the forbidden light!" Astoria warned, and the gunslinger smirked below his handkerchief. "What?!"

"Leave it to me."

The red, maddening light flowed from the beast's luminescent organ, in a vain attempt to get rid of the undead terrdrak. Every soldier covered their eyes in fear, even Astoria was forced to look down… But Auron, he faced it head on.

"I've seen worse back at home… That thing is candlelight next to hellfire!" he roared with deep resentment and anger in his voice.

He stopped at a safe distance, aimed at the forbidden light with his two revolvers and fired. The organ in the beast forehead exploded into a fleshy mass of blood and nerves, thus extinguishing that red light forever.

"I'm not done! Go, Astoria!" Auron shouted as he continued shooting, not giving the beast even time to understand what happened.

All the bullets hit near the neck and chest due to the beast's erratic movement to get the terrdrack off it. The hollow-point bullets weren't enough to penetrate such a layer of stiff fur, which functioned like natural armor, but the impacts caused a lot of pain.

It was such that the ursall thrashed around even more desperately. It never noticed the woman clad in white armor running with her longsword pointed at the lower part of its belly, completely exposed.

"Rrrriaaaa!" Astoria bellowed, exerting all her strength to drive the blade as close to the beast's hide as possible, swerving from side to side and continuing onward, so as not to be at the mercy of the claws that descended and sank into the ground. She spun around on the ground and managed to use the momentum to quickly get to her feet. "Go for the eyes, Auron!"

"Easier said than done!"

The cut had created a superficial wound. Blood could be seen dripping continuously, and the ursall kept moving, now enraged with Astoria. Despite having that undead creature sinking its teeth and claws into its back, the beast focused on the one that had caused its belly wound, lunging at it.

"Damn it, get away from there, Blackguard!" Auron shouted, firing until both revolvers' cylinders ran out of bullets. All projectiles aimed at its hind legs, which were areas less protected by fur and therefore more susceptible to damage.

But even with those bullets penetrating the heels and lower leg muscles, the beast wouldn't stop until it had turned Astoria into minced meat.

"Cover its eyes! Gouge them out, eat them, anything, but don't let it see!" Tristessa ordered, and through a new shockwave of malice that coated its soul with the frost of Death, the tainted terrdrak obeyed, peeling itself off its opponent's back to focus on its head.

Its bat wings blocked the vision of the ursall with a blinding embrace, and its fangs pierced its thick, muscular neck. This intrusion allowed the silver-haired knightess to get down and escape unharmed as the beast fell, its balance broken, near the edge of the Evil-Warding Pillar's dome.

"Hold on, beast! Hold on…!"

In the middle of her command, Tristessa saw the ursall raise both paws to its head and sink its claws into the winged revenant's body. Before she could have thought of a new command, the ursall tore the terrdrak in two, bathing it in blood and guts.

"Fuck!"

The connection was suddenly severed, freeing the soul from that terrible combination of tension and terror, and thus giving Tristessa a brief but powerful surge of fatigue that brought her down to one knee.

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"N-no… S-so soon!" she cried, and squinted as Astoria attacked again, this time focusing on the beast's legs. She made precise cuts in the areas where Auron had shot, deepening the wounds and seriously damaging its heels.

A successful attack, which the tainted ursall, still lying in the middle of the road and roaring wildly, was quick to respond to. Its claws were like four dark silhouettes that arced through the eclipsed dusk, falling directly upon the knightess...

"ASTORIA!"

Tristessa's scream mirrored the metallic echo of that longsword as it received the blow of its four claws. Astoria had blocked the counterattack and was still standing, though not for long: her legs were shaking as were her arms, resisting who knows how many hundreds of kilos of weight falling upon her, to the point that the black cobblestone beneath her feet had fragmented into dozens of fissures.

"Impossible…" Tristessa blurted out, unaware that she herself had felt that superhuman strength firsthand. It was hard to forget the feeling of being lifted from the ground and pinned against a damp underground wall as if she had the weight of a feather.

"Ugh, fucking shit!" Astoria growled and summoned all her strength to avoid being crushed by that claw, but the distances grew shorter, and the sharp, curved edges came closer to her. Fresh blood of innocents dripped from the tips onto the pressed blade of her sword and onto her face. A sign of an ill-omen. "Auron!"

"I told you not to waste my name, Blackguard!"

With his revolvers filled with new ammunition, the gunslinger fired as he advanced at a run. The bullets grazed and pierced the ursall's monstrous face, shattering several teeth and tearing parts of its snout, causing it great pain that was uttered in another nightmarish roar. The power of the bullets served to push the beast's head back, thereby also lessening the pressure exerted by its claw. That allowed Astoria to deflect those four bone blades to the side and escape the grip.

"There better be an Abyss Gem in there, beast!" Auron spat, holstering his revolvers and then doing something that left Tristessa even more speechless than she was: with a leap that sent his hat flying back, he scaled the ursall's left leg and ran up its chest until he was standing under its chin. "Spit out the riches!"

He drew his revolvers and emptied all the ammunition into its head, this time at point-blank range. The combination of hollow-point and armor-piercing bullets penetrated the fur at that distance but barely managed to pierce those facial muscles that were harder than steel.

"Who the hell do you think you are, an Abysswalker?!" Astoria yelled at him, her anger interspersed with pain emanating from her limbs. "S-shit…"

"There goes an eye!" The last bullet from her right revolver turned the eye on that side into a black, bleeding mass, and the ursall roared in fury. "And the other one…!"

The moment the end of the revolver's barrel exploded with the bullet exiting it, the Tainted Ursall jerked its head to save its remaining eye and tried to trap Auron between its two pairs of claws, like an iron maiden. The gunslinger narrowly avoided certain Death by throwing himself at the beast's lower chest, but he didn't have enough speed to free himself from that deadly trap: a sudden movement of the beast's arm threw him through the air, losing both of his sacred weapons in the process.

"No, Auron!" Tristessa shrieked as she watched him roll on the ground, very close to where his hat had landed.

"Uh…sweet N-Nahalith…"

The blow to his back, while not from the claws, had been so strong that reaching out to grab his hat and push himself up from the ground caused him extreme physical pain.

And Astoria... She could barely move. The tainted ursall was limited to crawling on the ground, partially blind, but he had focused his killing intent on the exhausted woman. He used his claws to close the distance, digging them deep into the ground and pulling. His mouth, filled with teeth broken by the gunfire, emitting a foul odor and flooded with its own and others' blood, opened like the jaws of the void, seeking to engulf Astoria.

"M-my guns..." Auron lamented, seeing that his revolvers were far out of reach, and he couldn't run in those conditions, where his back was making him close his eyes before consecutive pulses of agony. "Dammit all!"

"Mr. Casimir!" Both Tristessa and Auron looked behind them: Jin had left the tent and was carrying not only his rifle slung over his shoulder, but also a pair of sidearms. "Here!"

The girl recognized those two revolvers, treasures from the hunter's personal display case and blessed by faith in Nahalith, the Angel of the Hunt.

Jin tossed those sacred weapons to Auron. As soon as he caught them, he released the safety, spun around his own axis despite his body flooding his brain with anguish, and opened fire.

"Stop right there, you accursed beast!" the gunslinger yelled. Bullets found their target, with such brutal power reflected in the recoil of the revolvers as they fired. The beast's back spurted blood, and it growled, slowing its advance. "Stop!"

But the tainted ursall was not stopping. Tristessa saw it in the gunslinger's gaze, which shifted to her side to convey a silent message, once the revolvers' cylinders spun but no bullet came out: it wouldn't be enough.

"I have to do something!" She looked desperately at the corpses surrounding her. Terrdrak, soldiers, anything that would help Astoria survive this certain Death. So great was her fear that she hadn't noticed the double gate in the wall behind her had opened. "Another terrdrak! Aris…!"

At that precise moment when her soul began to release Discord as a sign of the activation of her Divinity, a shadow passed right between her and Auron. Fleeting, swift, but one that Tristessa saw crystal clear thanks to the adrenaline coursing through her system: a black-furred aracross, much larger than those of the Fireclaw Company mercenaries and, surprisingly, with all four horns intact. Riding it, was a woman whose long black hair had a bluish sheen around the edges.

Their gazes met in that split second, gray eyes against bright violet ones.

"…!"

The gust of wind created by such speed almost pushed Tristessa away. She gaped at the mysterious woman brandishing a glaive—a metal pole with a curved saber at the end, which she placed on the left side, next to her mount. The aracross carried her until they crossed the path of the tainted ursall, and the woman gathered momentum with her glaive to sever its right paw as its claws pierced the ground.

"GRRAAAAAAAAA!"

The dark beast tried to lash out with its remaining arm, but two events occurred at the same time: the rider leaped from her mount, rendering those air-cutting claws useless, and the aracross sank its teeth into the beast's wrist with jaw strength that rivaled a varg's.

The rider, now a warrior on foot, started running around the tainted ursall. And instead of scaling its body as Auron had done, she made an impossible leap of at least two meters in height, sending a powerful gust of wind up as her feet lifted off the ground.

She landed on the beast's back with the glaive pointing downwards, plunging it deeply within. Amid the ursall's agonized roars, rivers of blood began to flow from that wound. The woman opened it ever wider as she swung the glaive's saber toward the beast's head, lacerating every protective layer of skin and flesh in her path.

"..."

Agile, silent, and deadly, the mysterious woman was once again surrounded by a violent gust of wind unrelated to the miasma of the Evil Dream. The momentum she gained with it allowed her to make such a deep and powerful cut when the ursall raised its head to roar that the back of its skull split in two.

In the air, she whistled, and her mount instantly went below her to stop her fall, as the corrupted beast dropped dead, the contents of its head spilling down its sides.

"Who is she…?" Tristessa whispered, so shocked that she barely remembered how to use her mouth to speak.

For the first time since the Evil Dream descended upon End-World, only the lightning bolts above could be heard breaking the stillness. The soldiers surrounding the tents, the refugees who had poked their heads out to see, Tristessa, Jin, Auron, and Astoria… No one spoke. No one made a sound.

All attention was focused on that woman on her early thirties, brimming with beauty reflected in a face with delicate features, a small nose, and mesmerizing violet eyes. She wore a combat trench coat with dark steel plate armor positioned in critical parts of her slim, athletic body.

And while sitting astride that aracross, she was wiping ursall blood from her glaive's saber… An intimidating image. Her presence was overflowing with respect, like a warlord.

"She is…" Tristessa thought, her speech slurred like that of everyone around her. "Just as Jin and Tiara warned me."

The girl had no doubt they were in the presence of someone with the title of She-Dragoon, more than deserved after demonstrating her ability to finish the job Astoria and Auron had started.

That woman who had silenced a battlefield invaded by evil.

The Lady of the End-World Dominion and ruler of Entrana.

Aurelia Eramisaptor.

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