"Oh, no… It can't be! This is new…!" Tristessa murmured, her hand gripping the hunting knife trembling. "W-what do I do now?!"

She felt the fear of the unknown returning to her like a latent illness. Always there, waiting for the opportunity to awaken and spread its dark influence. The wall of shadows, cold and indifferent, like Death; possessing an obvious density, yet somewhat transparent, allowing one to see to the other side. Toward the trees of the Feydra Forest and the darkness that reigned between, hiding what lurked within.

"Calm down. Don't despair, please," Reiden urged her, leading her back, away from all those shadows that rose like walls of black fire. "Stay close to me."

But he also looked sideways, distrusting the bandits who had reacted in the worst way to that circumstance.

"What the hell is this?! Katriel!"

"Calm down, idiot! Stop screaming!"

"Can I touch it? W-what happens if I touch it…?"

"I'm sure those two are behind it!"

Amid the screams and growing desperation, Bennett was the only one who interpreted the appearance of the shadow barrier because of Tristessa and Reiden's appearance. This led him to rush toward them, knife in hand and ready to confront the mercenary, as if that would return the forest clearing to normal.

"Hold your horses, idiot."

But to the surprise of the two newcomers, it was Katriel Strauss who stopped Bennett. He grabbed him by the collar of his rags and pulled him back, throwing him onto the uneven, rocky ground, and almost causing him to plunge his own knife into his shoulder.

"What are you doing, Katriel?!" he demanded, lying on the ground, massaging the back of his head with his eyes half-closed because of the pain.

"Does it hurt? I'm sorry, I didn't know you had something inside that skull of yours. I always assumed it was full air and cobwebs."

With that insult, the leader of the Ghost Daggers turned to the gray-eyed girl and the former hero.

"Can you two explain to me what in the Abyss is going on, or do I have to force the answers out of you?" Katriel asked, though no one was paying any attention to him. "Honestly! You're pissing me off, and that's a very hard thing to…"

CLICK. CLICK. CLICK.

The sound of footsteps, coming from the darkness. Loud and metallic, because of the dark steel plates moving and touching each other. Spreading the chill of Death indiscriminately, frosting the ground beneath the feet of those present, and a sickening miasma of Discord…

"My sworn enemy. My Nemesis…"

The Dullahan entered the area, the shadows of the barrier she had created with her vile thaumaturgy parting to allow her passage. The light from the bandits' bonfire only magnified her exalted and terrifying figure, making her dark steel armor emit a lustrous sheen, and her cloak of pure darkness, blown by the wind, resemble the wings of a fallen angel.

"No matter the timeline, no matter where you are, where you want to hide, where you want to run to…" Her eldritch voice, emerging from within the head she held in her left hand, enveloped in the aura of Discord with increasing density, falling like heavy smoke, like a censer used in a pagan ritual. The Dullahan pointed her sword at the girl; a firm, determined threat, in keeping with the reason for existing her divine mothers had given her. "I will always be there, waiting for you to face me and defeat me."

Words that always managed to reduce Tristessa to the barest expression of dread and a sense of doom, knowing there was no chance of survival… Words that, that night, curiously, didn't make her back down.

Her grip on her hunting knife was fragile, saturated with fear, but she kept it raised and threatening her enemy. She knew she couldn't flee, and yet she wouldn't submit to all the fear that tainted her own soul. Even if her plans, goals, everything she'd orchestrated in her mind palace were at risk.

"What the hell is that thing...?" she heard Katriel ask, wincing in pain and holding a hand to his temple, blood gushing from inside his ears. "M-my fucking head, huh... Hey, you guys, calm down!"

The pain-laced scream was directed toward his henchmen, lost in a world of terror the Dullahan created with that prison, her presence, and her words, incomprehensible to their bleeding ears.

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"They brought a demon toward us!" Bennett shrieked, so scared he dropped his dagger. "A monster!"

"How do we get out of here?!" Zef had not only retreated to the far side of the clearing, but he was so desperate to escape that one hand was on the verge of touching the shadow barrier. "I-I must…I must…!"

"Don't do it!" Ludvig yelled at him. He ran toward him to stop him by any means necessary, but those few seconds weren't enough. "No!"

The moment his arm passed through the barrier, Zef carried on, taking several uneven and heavy steps forward. He seemed as if he might fall at any moment, his legs threatening to buckle or even lose his balance… Until, suddenly, he stopped.

"Z-Zef…?" Ludvig asked, receiving no response. "Zef!"

The bandit kept standing there, in the darkness between the trees, head down and still as a statue.

"…dead," Tristessa whispered, without taking her fearful gaze from the Dullahan and sensing the new presence of a soulless corpse. "He's dead."

Both Katriel and Reiden stared at her briefly, shocked by her insight and that no one dared to refute.

"D-dead?" Fio repeated that word, unable to decide which deserved her paranoid attention more: Zef's motionless corpse, or this new, unwanted visitor. "An Instant Death curse?!"

No one answered. There was no need to state the obvious, or to divert attention from anything other than that dark knightess who began advancing toward them. Eager to begin a bloody battle in which she would emerge victorious.

Because fear proliferated like stale air, like the miasma of Discord that surrounded her, breaking everyone's spirits. Hope was lost, even Tristessa knew it, with no choice but to face the end of that loop with the few embers of courage that burned in her frozen, pain-beating heart.

Another loop where the Mercer-Archeos would die, the three warriors who waited in Entrana without knowing she existed… And she would die in that place, imprisoned, about to once again test the edge of that curved sword that in another loop it had rip one of her hands.

And now, it was her life what it was going to take…

"You are Katriel Strauss, aren't you?"

"…?"

Tristessa looked at Reiden, confused, hearing him speak with firmness and calmness that only someone accustomed to adverse situations could muster.

Didn't he see that there was no salvation?

"Tell your boys to do what they can to survive. The more we keep standing and breathing, the better chance we have of getting out of here alive."

"Do you have a plan for this kind of situation, Fireclaw?" Katriel felt concern, but also the excitement she felt at seeing Death face to face. "I'm all ears."

"Just try not to die."

Reiden broke the curse of hopelessness that had fallen upon Tristessa and the bandits by taking a rune from one of his uniform pockets and pointing at the dark sky with it. Before the black-haired girl could even show surprise at seeing him possess such an object, the rune emitted a blinding reddish glow and fired a projectile into the air, stripping the darkness of the night in its wake.

It looked exactly like a flare. An SOS. A cry for help.

"Reiden!" Tristessa couldn't understand it. In none of the other loops that mercenary resorted to such methods. "Did you always have that on you…?!"

"It was originally to be used against you if you proved dangerous. On another occasion, I wouldn't have bothered carrying something as volatile as a rune," he replied, satisfied upon seeing her dumbfounded expression. He then took a combat stance with his two weapons and raised his voice. "Listen to me, my allies must have seen the radiance orb! It's only a matter of time before they arrive, including someone who might be able to nullify this demon's thaumaturgy! So, for now, we fight together!"

"Ha! Enemy of my enemy? I like that… You hear the Fireclaw, so don't stand back there, scared like children! You're tarnishing the name of the Ghost Daggers, weaklings!"

Katriel Strauss admonished his henchmen. All while grinning from ear to ear and baring his teeth and tongue like a hungry creature, eager to wield her daggers in the dark spaces between the Dullahan's armor and discover the way she bleeds.

"Attack, maggots!"

What the bandit said made Tristessa's eyes widen, feeling the interference of déjà vu from a past loop. The memory of the first revenant she raised by consciously using her [Divinity of Accursed Existence], using that same man who, along with Reiden, had charged at the dark knightess.

It was bittersweet to think about how a soul retains the essence of its being, even when falling into the depths of nothingness itself… The senseless valor of a madman like Katriel, or the iron courage of a natural hero like Reiden, were things that were not entirely lost, not even in the face of Death.

It was these kinds of things that made a desperate situation like this one fill with hope again. Bright as the magical flare that was slowly fading in the air. Or like the sparks caused by the clash of Reiden's bastard sword against the Dullahan's curved saber, or her black armor taking the blows of Katriel's daggers.

"And here I am, surrendering so soon!" She thought, angry at herself for allowing herself to be captured by the clutches of hopelessness so soon. She dug the nails of her right hand into her chest to distract herself from the deep pain caused by the feeling of frigidity emanating from the Baptism in Ruins. "I'm not dead yet!"

She had to stop complaining and help them. If not by fighting alongside them, at least share with them the knowledge she gathered through failed loops.

Death was going to help them survive that night.

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