"Don't you know how to say hello? What a rude girl!"

The woman complained while pouting, seeing that Tristessa not only didn't respond, but took a couple of steps back, without taking her eyes off her.

"…I was taught not to talk to people that worships the Shadow Queen," she replied in a low voice, trying not to show the extreme nervousness that had taken hold of her.

"Oh, I see! Yes, yes, yes, yes… How silly of me, I taught my daughter the same thing!" The woman let out a frantic laugh that made Tristessa's hair stand on end. "That was before I smashed her head against the rocks, so I don't think she had a chance to put what I taught her to the test. Poor, silly Emi…"

After saying that brutal and unforgivable anecdote, the woman jumped from the giant root and gracefully landed on poisoned ground.

"Tell me, tell me something, tell me… What are you doing here alone? The forest is dangerous, there are many vargs, and ursalls, and…and…and… Oh, my name is Gwen!" The woman gasped with a rapid and ragged voice, her eyes welling up with tears, and she bit her lower lip until it bled. "Are you lost? Or were you looking for that man?"

Gwen pointed at Viktor, whose skinless, eyeless face could be partially seen from this new position, which Tristessa took out of extreme caution.

"Yes… To tell you the truth, I was looking for him," she replied, clenching her fists and skirting the cursed area to keep her distance from the witch, who also began to do the same. She also knew where not to step, possibly being one of the architects of that curse. "And you? What are you doing in the Sea of Trees, so far from the city?"

"C-city? CITY? MY HOME? M-my husband, his second wife, her son, my daughter, my…?" Gwen stopped her sudden outburst and bit her lower lip so hard that even more blood began to flow. She looked down at her own hands, and a new smile spread across her now bloody mouth. "Oh, right… I killed them all. And now I'm here, looking for food for my sisters."

"…"

"Tell me, tell me, tell me, Nameless Miss, tell me… Do you have any food to give me? I-I'm not good at hunting… My sisters will get angry and eat my legs if I don't return with the day's game," she explained, walking faster and faster to close the gap with Tristessa. The nerves in her face were in a state of epilepsy, causing her to suffer multiple spasms. "I know! Since you smell so much like Discord, no man will ever want to have a child with you, not even as a second or third wife. How about I stick my hand inside your cunt and rip out your belly? We could appreciate your donation!"

"…"

Tristessa stopped out of the sudden, allowing that lunatic to approach. Her expression was cold, contrasting perfectly with the witch's insanity.

"What the fuck is wrong with you all witches? What made you like this?" she asked. "Did Moebius possess you with dark thaumaturgy or something?"

That was a provocation. On purpose, and successful.

"You dare disrespect our holy Lord, blessed by the Shadow Queen herself? Take it back, you fucking idiotic child!" Annoyed and furious, Gwen finished skirting the danger zone, standing with her back to Viktor's rotting and desecrated corpse. "Lord Moebius tirelessly watches over the prosperity of his flock! He offers wisdom and truth in exchange for love, nothing more! And you dare to sully his good name?!"

"Love? And tell me, was killing your daughter a proof of love for him?"

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"OF COURSE IT WAS!"

"…You witches are beyond salvation… It is impossible to reason with monsters like you," Tristessa wailed, and with her eyes filling with tears at what was about to happen, she whispered one word filled with power: "Arise."

Suddenly, hatred from the grave reached her, from a source from which she had only received help and pity. Animosity, silent curses against her, and every second it was in the material world, all coming from that corpse that was rising to its feet.

"Huh? Are you crying?" the witch asked, confusion permeating her indignation. She was unaware that something was moving behind her, immune to the cursed soil since that kind of evil magic had no effect on something that was already dead. "Oh, please, no! It's a waste if you cry here. At least wait for my sisters to play with you! In the meantime, I'll eat your…!"

Amidst tears and a terrible weight placed on her soul, Tristessa witnessed the corpse of Viktor Enma, his right arm wrapped around Gwen's neck and his left arm in a headlock on the witch's, immobilizing it.

"What, what, what?!" WHAT?! AGH…!" The revenant tightened his grip to stifle her screams. His skinned face peered over the witch's shoulder, his dark, empty sockets pointed at his summoner, conveying a rage that transcended Life and Death. "H-how?!"

"Punish her, Viktor... Forgive me for bringing you back."

Even with all those tears streaming down her cheeks and blurring her vision a bit, Tristessa didn't look away when the revenant began walking backward, pulling Gwen toward the thaumaturgically cursed area.

"HAHAHA, THIS IS A MIRACLE! UGH, GAHH!" Gwen squealed, laughing and struggling to breathe against the revenant's grasp. She couldn't reason with what was happening, couldn't grasp the danger. Truly, she was a lost cause. "LORD MOEBIUS' LOVE BROUGHT YOU BACK TO LIFE! WHAT A JOY, WHAT A BLESSING! HAHAHA, BLESS YOU, LORD…!"

Her happiness died the moment her body crossed the invisible threshold of the curse, and every inch of the witch's skin crystallized, with countless black spider veins spreading beneath it. Through her eyes, injecting them with blood. And through her mouth, which opened to release a scream of indescribable pain that was drowned by a rotting liquid pouring from the back of her throat. Escaping from her body, her organs rapidly dissolving into an acidic mess that burned the leaf-strewn ground as she vomited.

Gwen was already dead by the time Viktor's corpse released her and discarded her to the side like garbage.

"Grr..." he growled, causing Tristessa to moan in deep regret.

"I'm sorry... I know everything you went through from your echoes, and yet, I still asked for more," she wept, closing her eyes for a moment before giving him one last command. "Come to me and kneel."

Silently, the corpse obeyed. His steps were slow but hard against the fallen leaves, his figure growing larger as they closed the distance. But Tristssa never felt fear; she was incapable of, with all the echoes of that man inside her, attached to her soul like a more than personal connection.

Knowing his strengths, weaknesses… She knew the spirit of that mercenary well enough to receive his hatred and return pity in its place.

Once in front of her and on his knees, Tristessa could see the missing top of the man's skull. And inside, along with the remains of liquefied brain and decomposing blood, she saw what she was looking for.

"Fucking hell…"

Not wanting to prolong Viktor's suffering any longer in this world to which he didn't belong, she reached in, trying to not think about how repulsive and nauseating it was, and grasped the soul-shard between teeth and bloody bits of skin.

The crystal was cold and stained with blood, emitting a dark glow against the skin of her fingers. She released the sigh she'd been holding in all this time.

"Severus… I'm coming," she whispered, and slipped the crystal into one of her trench-coat's pockets. Then she backed away, staring at the crestfallen man, to whom she couldn't give a proper burial right then. Soon, she hoped. "Goodbye, Viktor."

A painful murmur.

Just as she was about to break the connection her Divinity had formed between her and the mercenary's broken soul, the revenant delivered a farewell message to her. Without raising his head, without making a movement. Only his guttural voice, filled with hatred for that false life, saying:

"Remember me…"

His broken soul got lost again in the timeless void. And Tristessa's sobs and tears were the only sounds that remained in that clearing once the echo of his dark voice faded.

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