Lady Eramisaptor finished wiping the blood from the edge of the saber with her forearm and patted her mount on the head several times, in the space between its horns. That aracross—a female, named Mystia, if Tristessa remembered correctly—narrowed her eyes and gave a disturbing, oversaturated smile of yellow, knife-sharp teeth, enjoying her owner's silent acknowledgment.

Even with that peaceful panorama, no one dared to move an inch. Tristessa felt the pressure, that stifling atmosphere in which one false step would cost anyone dearly.

"Is this the effect a Lord of a Dominion has on their people?" she wondered, with certain admiration.

Finally, Aurelia raised her gaze to her subjects, giving them a stern grimace as she pursed her lips and frowned. Not only did several forget how to breathe, but even their hearts threatened to stop in the face of such a combination of deadly beauty and harshness.

"Why am I not seeing a shield-wall defending my city?" she asked, cold as the harshest winter. "MOVE, RIGHT NOW!"

With that shout that surpassed even the sound of the dark thunder, the spell imposed by her mere presence was broken, and the soldiers hurried to re-form their ranks and advance toward their original position. They skirted the now-dead tainted ursall to a stop once again in front of the boundary marked by the Evil-Warding Pillar. In no time they raised their shields to resist any further incursions by Fallen Militiamen that, for the moment, were creeping in the dark.

"You! Find the most senior among the highest ranks and tell them that under my authority, I assign them the temporary position of Commander!" the She-Dragoon ordered the first soldier who dared to look her in the eye. "Understand?!"

"Yes, My Lady!"

"And you, thaumaturge! Have you run out of magical power?" he asked a soldier who had removed her helmet, showing extreme exhaustion, and was giving first aid to a comrade. Without using her thaumaturgical catalyst, only her bare hands.

"M-my Lady… I can, if you wish…"

"No, idiot! Gather other thaumaturges in the same condition and assist the wounded, take them to the wall!"

"Yes, my Lady! Pardon my boldness, but what do you wish us to do with the…the corpses of our brothers and sisters?"

"Until the dimensional shift event is over, no one has any obituaries…"

Meanwhile, as Aurelia managed the battleground, Astoria had approached where Tristessa, Jin, and Auron were waiting for her, slowly and as far as her legs would allow. The death of the Tainted Ursall had brought a small calm amidst that nightmare come true. Even among dozens of corpses, both Entrana soldiers and monsters, rivers of blood and limbs scattered everywhere, there was a morbid sense of peace worthy of a graveyard.

Amid tears of pain for the Death of acquaintances now unrecognizable and lost, between tears of trauma from so much terror that they would never be able to strip of their souls… That Evil Dream had managed to break the spirit of the Imperial heart a little more. This had been the case for five hundred years, and this was how it would continue to be, at the mercy of a Shadow that stops at nothing…

The only consolation was that all the civilians were safe. Tiara and Lucahn left the gunslinger's tent, and Jin went over to embrace them. The vast majority of refugees remained inside their rustic homes, respecting the order of the Local Army General, but others went to embrace their neighbors. To pray alongside the priests of the Heterodox Church who never abandoned them, or simply to look up at the stormy, corrupted skies and wonder why.

Why?

A question repeated for five hundred years, countless times, by countless people. A question whose answer was infinite malice, aimed at plunging Nekrom into the thickest shroud of Darkness…

"Your father has very good revolvers, lady, but I prefer mine. It's a matter of trust and companionship, you know?" Auron broke the silence and offered Tristessa a clear glass flask filled with fresh water. "Drink. And no, I won't charge you for water…although I should."

"What kind of trick does he use to get so many things out of his jacket?" she thought, accepting it with serious confusion. "Thank you… Hey, Auron, can I ask you something?"

But the gunslinger focused on someone else: a wounded soldier, who had raised his two firearms from the soil. She walked over to him and returned them, but not before placing a kiss on each of them, her lips stained with blood and dirt.

"I appreciate it."

"No, Gunslinger: I thank you for saving my life," the woman replied, bowing cordially before lowering her helmet visor and returning to assist her companions.

"…at least you could have given me a bullshit jewel," Auron murmured, receiving a disapproving nod from the exhausted and wounded silver-haired knightess, who sheathed her sword and massaged her right shoulder joint. A gesture he chose to ignore and returned his attention to the black-haired girl. "And how are you feeling, lady? That Divinity of yours must demand a lot from you, I'd like to believe."

Tristessa finished refreshing her throat with the delicious water and passed the flask to Astoria. Overwhelmed, she snatched it from her hands and drank the entire contents with a lack of patience, as if she were at the cabaret.

"Yes… It's very tiring. But I'm alright. A little less scared-to-death," Tristessa replied, looking at the ursall's corpse and not at all afraid that it would rise again: she felt that empty vessel calling her, to put it to a use she would surely regret. "Oh, and for the record, I'm not part of the Mercer-Archeos family. I only helped them get to Entrana."

"Is that true? What a selfless gesture…" Astoria opined, returning the flask to Auron and then crossing her arms, suspicion evident in her calculating gaze. "Do you travel the borders of the Sea of Trees saving exiled people?"

Tristessa felt the vein in her temple throbbing with bitter resentment, memories of the previous loop returning where that same woman rejected her in the worsts of ways.

"I'm a friend of the thaumaturge Severus Malak Drakan. Sometimes I do some jobs for him, including watching over his friends," she lied, nodding in the direction of the family, where the mother and father were comforting their frightened son.

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"I never saw you in the city."

Astoria stood in front of her, in an attempt at intimidation that somehow worked. She was covered in blood from all the creatures she'd killed, and some of her own wounds below her shoulders were still bleeding.

"Oh?" But Tristessa had the courage to retort, not flinching, with a smile that emanated a certain air of vanity. "Do I have the face of someone you'd remember, Miss Silverthorn?"

The girl hadn't meant to make Astoria's cheeks blush a little bit. With those menacing, unchanging red eyes, she didn't seem as though she'd been embarrassed by that question... but the slight shifting of her gaze to the side, a sign of insecurity, was all Tristessa needed to know.

"Cute!" she squealed inside her head. "Why does this woman who almost killed me while being drunk have to be so…so…?!"

"Ladies, I deeply regret interrupting something that fills my heart with warmth on this cold and haunted evening. But please, you must halt your conversation for the time being…" Auron urged them, his hat straightened and his two revolvers holstered. "Our beloved governor is coming our way."

Indeed, Aurelia Eramisaptor had finished giving directives to several of the soldiers and made her way toward the three of them. Her aracross, Mystia, was so large that Tristessa felt the force of its footsteps underground. With those four intact horns, intelligent yellow eyes, and a mouth made for indiscriminate devouring, it wasn't easy to remain calm, and Tristessa instinctively wanted to stay away from such lesser demon.

"Not bad, for beginners," the She-Dragoon told the three, looking down on them with the superiority of someone of her rank. She addressed Auron first. "What's a Gunslinger like you doing living here, like a war refugee?"

"I have nowhere to call my own, my Lady. This is the face of a man with too many debts and too few soul-jewels in his pocket."

With that, Auron removed his hat and placed it on his chest, bowing his head slightly in respect.

"I see… And tell me, do you think you could have finished off the Tainted Ursall without my intervention?"

"No. If it weren't for you, I would be dead, my Lady…" Astoria also bowed her head, one hand resting on her chest in deference, though Tristessa could see her empty red eyes, focused on nothingness.

"…"

Aurelia didn't comment, expressing her disdain for the woman with the taboo surname with a grimace of disgust, and ordered the aracross to stop with a harmless kick to the back. The lesser demon sniffed at the three of them, its snout expelling very hot, foul-smelling air. It growled menacingly when it was Tristessa's turn, smelling the Discord emanating from her.

"Enough, Mystia." Her master's command silenced the creature, rendering it docile as if it didn't have those horns on its head. "I'm sorry about that. I raised her from birth to be hostile toward bearers of very dense souls with Discord. Don't try to touch her, or she'll rip your hand off."

"I-I won't..." Tristessa noticed Auron's uneasy eyes and a subtle movement of his head that she understood right from the get-go. She ducked her head awkwardly in an attempt to imitate Astoria. "...my Lady."

"..."

Aurelia Eramisaptor stared at her in a very awkward and tense silence. The gunslinger and the knightess exchanged glances, oblivious to the internal conflict Tristessa was experiencing at that very moment within herself. She felt as if those exotically beautiful violet eyes were stripping her to the bone, looking into the deepest recesses of her spirit and what lay hidden within.

"I heard a very particular young lady awaits an audience with me. Is that you?"

Then Sylas, her Hidden Shadow, had informed her of the matter…

"Yes, my Lady," Tristessa broke the formality to glance briefly over her shoulder at the Mercer-Archeos: in the presence of the woman who had exiled them, Jin and Tiara were holding hands and awaiting their fate, still embracing a very scared and tearful Luchan. "I…"

But before she could elaborate, Aurelia interrupted her:

"Very well, let us have that audience. Here and now."

Lady Eramisaptor leaped from her mount, propelled by a strong gust of wind that was undoubtedly not a natural phenomenon. Up close, the combination of that lustrous dark steel armor and her combat-reinforced leather trench coat was marvelous. Imposing, and with her physique and gripping that glaive that smelled of Death, she radiated respect.

Respect for someone dangerous. As crazy as it may seem, Tristessa felt less safe at that moment than she had when the shadowy creatures attacked the formation of soldiers. She felt tiny, exposed, as if those violet eyes already knew everything about her…

"What fortune have you come to tell me? Or do you need something from me?" the woman asked, and that allowed Tristessa to breathe a little easier, her paranoia and fear for the fate of that family just a few feet away somewhat assuaged. "Speak, Tristessa Irandell."

Hearing her say her name caused her heart to take a violent and unpleasurable leap towards her throat.

"I came to Entrana escorting the Mercer-Archeos family, whom you exiled eleven years ago."

She waited a few seconds of solid, silent tension, shared by both Auron and Astoria. The drops of saliva falling to the ground from Mystia's exposed teeth and her breathing were the only sources of sound. Even the skies, bleeding dark lightning, seemed to wait for the Lady of the Dominion's reaction.

A reaction that never came, as she remained impassive. A poker face that silently judged her.

"It sounds disrespectful to your decision; I know that perfectly well… B-but there was a reason that led me to seek you out and beg for your mercy."

"What reason?"

Screams from the shield wall announced the arrival of new Fallen, thirsty for souls free from perpetual torment. And yet, Aurelia Eramisaptor had her full attention devoted to Tristessa… It seemed that this was going to be the case, even if the world were ending.

"W-well… I got information about an attack on the Mercer-Archeos. The Coven was planning to slaughter them all," she explained, the fateful events of that nonexistent past vividly in her mind. Daiana Mercer-Archeos's maniacal laughter still echoed in her ears, wanting to feed her with the most vile and malicious madness. "One of the Priestesses of the Black Eye revealed it to me… Their eldest daughter, she was the one who boasted about it while torturing me. It was a prophecy from her master, the Lord of Forbidden Knowledge, Moebius."

"…!" The surprise reflected on the faces of the gunslinger and the knightess contrasted perfectly with Lady Eramisaptor's passivity. Even hearing this didn't melt even a bit of her icy expression.

"I managed to escape and warn them. I convinced them to return to Entrana, to seek your forgiveness and mercy, Lady Eramisaptor. There was no other option…"

Tristessa's voice broke slightly, revealing her desperation. Her fear of failing, of her efforts being in vain, and of seeing those people she loved die again.

"There is no other option. It's this or nothing."

The remnants of the wounds Katriel Strauss had inflicted burned beneath all those bandages… She didn't want to feel the pain and dread of Death again. She didn't want to die again.

"…I understand." Aurelia nodded, looking thoughtful. Meditating, and staring neutrally at both Tristessa and the family. "Yes, I think I know what we can do."

Once she said that, with a small nod, Aurelia summoned two individuals who came out from the very shadows that abounded around the wall and the tents.

Two white porcelain-masked Wraiths, who surrounded the Mercer-Archeos family from both sides, armed with deadly poison coated and curved daggers…

Two assassins, ready to kill them all.

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