With numb and cramped fingers, Tristessa brought the only vial of vitality potion she had to her mouth and drank its contents. One last effort before her hand gave out and she dropped the empty glass container into the river of blood that the Meridion Highway had become inside the Evil Dream. With an almost imperceptible plop!, the vial was left behind, floating on the crimson surface and disappearing from sight.

"...this is wrong."

Vergil ran at high speed, while Tristessa waited for the potion to take effect before she lost consciousness and fell. Intensified by her vertigo, her vision was darkening and her eyelids weighed a ton. She was becoming dehydrated from sweating, her fever rising with each passing minute. And her limbs felt limp, indicating that soon her entire body would follow suit.

And all because of the excruciating pain in her right side. Where there were bound to be one or more broken ribs.

"The final straw would be if this loop ended for me because of a couple of fractures..." she thought, noticing that she was slowly beginning to see the path ahead of her better. Blurry and terrifying but not obscured by the loss of consciousness. Her arms and legs were responding. The potion was beginning to do its work. "We have to get to Entrana, there's no time to waste."

Now it wasn't just the Evil Dream that was an enemy, her own body was as well. The effect of the vitality potion was only temporary. If she didn't find a healer before time ran out and her blood finished processing the supernatural liquid she drank, she wouldn't know salvation in that loop.

"Raaa!"

"What's wrong?" she asked at Vergil's call to attention, puzzled, especially since the beginning of the end of the forest could be seen ahead. "What...?"

The trees were becoming more sporadic, spaces between them opening and leading to those lands designated for cultivation… But something was strange, even for the Evil Dream.

The black-furred beast slowed its pace until it was moving forward with caution, allowing Tristessa to take a closer look around.

"What the hell happened here…?"

Tristessa noticed that the ground itself was riddled with craters, several of the trees uprooted, and those still standing dripped with blood. Dozens of corpses of [Fallen Militiamen] scattered everywhere, their armor broken, dismembered limbs, or destroyed bodies turned into rotting masses of bone and skin.

Furthermore, many of the tree branches, for some reason, had shifted into dangerous spear-like forms, with which many of those ancient soldiers had been impaled. The vast majority emanated that pull toward the void, an invitation to fill their empty bodies with the black light of false life granted by her [Divinity of Accursed Existence].

"But if I revive one of those soldiers, I'll fall victim to the Curse of the Evil Eye... I shouldn't risk it."

Whatever the reason that caused such chaos, there was a clue in the air that betrayed its origin: magical energy decaying, its traces scattering into nothingness.

"Thaumaturgy," the girl whispered aloud, her heart beginning to beat faster. "Severus..."

With a pat on the back, she signaled Vergil to advance. It was naive to think that the thaumaturge responsible for this massacre was the blood elf she so longed to see again, especially because the type of magic that seemed to have been implemented there didn't seem elemental. But if by some coincidence it was him…

"No! Don't think about that. Don't be stupid," she admonished herself, though the fear of a dire fate befalling Severus was real, lodged in her heart with no way to shake it off. Her treacherous imagination brought back all the times she'd seen that crimson-haired man die, and it twisted her chest with unrelenting pain. "Sev…"

She and Vergil passed between shadowy corpses, impaled, mangled, their entrails scattered everywhere in a sea of ​​gore and blood, both their own and that emanating from the petrified trees. The exit from the forest was within reach, but there was no reason to be complacent and go blindly; not among so much Death caused by such a violent display of thaumaturgy.

Even less so when a terrible, malicious roar came from outside, echoing through the forest and intimidating the spirits of both Tristessa and Vergil, as well as the cries for help from the people.

"T-That's…! Let's go, Vergil!"

The beast rushed like a bolt toward the edge of the forest, and the Pestilent Fields greeted them. The plains and farmland ahead were overrun by vines made of clotted blood that spread rot and sickness, through imperial vistas as far as the eye could see. The dark stone pillars from which they originated and diverged in all directions were in a strategic layout, throughout the corrupted region. Those inverted human faces, carved into the stone, expressed all the pain and agony that the Evil Dream predicted for the rest of Nekrom, once the Dark Lady's malice reaches End-World… In due time, if the Empire of the Night's Watch failed to stop her.

And that evil would not stop, seeking to destroy everything in its path and extinguish Life indiscriminately. That evil. now represented in the form of that giant beast with dark fur, a head with yellow eyes, and a snout full of teeth that spewed boiling saliva.

"The [Tainted Ursall]!" Tristessa exclaimed, also seeing near Vergil's feet the remains of the luminescent organ that had been torn from his forehead, robbing him of the weapon that contaminated the minds of its victims with Madness. "Oh, no…"

That giant bear-like monster lurked in the fetid fields, among all the vines, crushing them as it passed. With its muscular limbs and sharp claws, it attacked a kind of semi-transparent dome created with thaumaturgy. Its intention was to break it and feast on the three people inside, possibly the ones responsible for tearing out its luminescent organ.

Three individuals dressed in the typical uniform of scholars from a thaumaturgy school: black robes with gilded embroidery, clasps to tie their cloaks, and large black hats. Pinned down inside that dome, surrounded by one of the macabre stone pillars, trapped between a rock and a hard place.

"GRRRAAA!"

The ursall thundered in fury and lunged at the magical barrier, slashing down with colossal force. The impact was so powerful that Tristessa felt the ethereal sound of the otherworldly surface of the dome cracking, reaching her like a shockwave comparable to lightning on the dark skies, and making Vergil twitch with impatience.

"Easy, boy!"

Continuing to skirt the barrier in search of a weak spot, the Tainted Ursall cleared the way for the thaumaturges to look in the direction of the forest, noticing the presence of Tristessa and her mount.

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"Y-you! Please help us!" one of them begged, part of his face hidden by a veil, though it wasn't necessary to see his expression to understand his desperation. "We're spending our magical capacity to maintain this barrier…!"

The ursall struck the dome again, and the high-pitched screech it produced was a clear sign that it wouldn't last much longer.

"Damn Abyss!" The other thaumaturge, who was also wearing a veil, had fallen to the ground in fright. He scrambled to his feet and pointed his wand at the dome, trembling like a leaf caught in the wind. "Infusio!"

The non-elemental glyph that appeared out of nowhere made the dome glow, giving it a more solid appearance. A further reinforcement for that defense constantly attacked by the ursall. It was the only thing those three thaumaturges could do… But for how much longer?

"I have to do something, but…!" Tristessa thought, as the memories of that same dark beast killing dozens of Imperial soldiers returned to her, warning her of mortal danger. She was gripping the handle of her hunting dagger, but she didn't dare draw it from its sheath. "I-I...I...!"

"Hey, you! Just distract him for a while!" the last thaumaturge to speak shouted, leaning against the stone pillar with her arms crossed. A woman with a familiar voice, calm enough to be in such a critical situation. "I promise you, if you get them off us, we'll finish him off!"

"...!" Tristessa opened her eyes in surprise, thinking of the possible name of that person whose face she couldn't see because of the black hat she was wearing. "Don't tell me she is..."

If it was that person... She wasn't going to like it, but she trusted her talent in thaumaturgy.

"Uh, alright, damn it!" she snarled, and from the way the aracross looked at her sideways, it was possible he was doubting her sanity. "Trust me. I don't know if that bitch is bragging, but we must do something to save them. Come on, Vergil, let's distract that ugly, piece of shit bear!"

"Raaa!"

With that war cry, Vergil began to run toward the ursall, attracting its attention. The dark beast let out a vicious roar and tried to charge at the aracross and Tristessa, but they stopped dead in their tracks and changed direction, forcing the ursall to follow.

"Well done!"

"A she-dragoon? She doesn't look like a mercenary!"

The thaumaturges celebrated their temporary freedom from the tainted beast's harassment and broke the dome's spell, which shattered into hundreds of pieces like glass. Far from running for their lives in terror, the three followed Tristessa and Vergil with their eyes.

"Over here, you overgrown anglerfish and bear hybrid!" the girl shouted at the ursall, clinging tightly to Vergil as he veered slightly to the right and dodged the bloody vines as best he could. As they turned, she spotted the three individuals standing near where they had been pinned down. "Hey, wizards! I hope you have a plan!"

"Wizard? Did she insult us?"

"I don't know what she meant..."

"Armin, Xavier," the woman interrupted, cane in hand, the end glowing with power. "Get ready. I need you to keep that beast still for a few seconds. Here it comes…"

Tristessa and Vergil finished changing direction and were heading straight for the thaumaturges, with the ursall chasing them and salivating with an insatiable hunger.

"Shit, shit, shit…!" Terrified and fearing that at any moment she would feel the ursall's claws rip her back in two, Tristessa saw the two male thaumaturges get into position, pointing their magical catalysts at them. "DO SOMETHING!"

"Ein Atractor Irit!" they both shouted in unison, the crystals on their wands emitting a violet glow, and two magical circles of the same color appeared on the dead ground. The lines and geometric shapes moved rapidly, and the rings of concentric glyphs rotated and glowed with increasing power.

"GO, VERGIL!"

The aracross boosted forward and flew over the magic rings at high speed, seconds before magical halos collapsed in on themselves and activated a very powerful gravitational well. Tristessa clung tightly to Vergil as he braked, and the inertia almost knocked her off to the ground. Breathing frantically, she saw the Tainted Ursall trapped in the gravitational fields, crushed to the ground, but roaring and unyielding in its quest to free itself.

It was then that the woman stepped forward, her large hat casting a shadow across her face, and raised her cane in the air. Pointing to the heavens, infected scars of Nekrom that continued to ooze poison and gangrene.

"S-so much energy!" Tristessa exclaimed, feeling the air she breathed suddenly fill with electrifying heat, stimulated by the magic the thaumaturge was invoking. "I expected nothing less from her…"

High above, aligned with the gravity well that kept the ursall immobilized, a complex magic circle appeared, filled with tiny circles within it, glowing with a golden glow emitted by the countless lines, shapes, and glyphs. Such was the diversity of mathematical shapes and configurations that not even Severus's [Bloodflame] summoning ritual could compare.

Having stepped off Vergil, Tristessa felt something was approaching. A premonition from the other side, making her tremble with fear and stimulating her survival instinct, telling her to get as far away from there as possible. But no thaumaturge moved; they stared with respect and admiration reflected in their eyes at the woman, who was gesturing with her free hand and, at the moment the luminescence of the glyph configuration reached its full power, shouted:

"SIRIUS COR RADANT!"

And in a second, all that divine beauty manifested in the halos of light collapsed into a dark hole. Absolute darkness, silent, cold… It froze the air, the souls of those present, only to then begin to emit heat. Extreme, unbearable, accompanied by a point of light that started to grow larger, coming from the darkest void.

Until in the blink of an eye, all that darkness evaporated before the passing of an incandescent beam of cosmic radiance. A pillar so luminous it forced Tristessa to raise a hand to shield her eyes; the roar of a star from the Cosmos, a solar flare falling upon that dark beast. Burning absolutely everything in its path, turning the ursall to ash and melting the earth.

"Fuck…!" the girl blurted out, feeling beads of perspiration on her face from the infernal heat transmitted by that beam of cosmic light. And the gigantic figure of that woman, pointing her catalyst at the sky and not moving a step. Her shadow falling over her, Vergil, and the other two thaumaturges. "Cocky bitch."

In an instant, the spell ended and the solar flare along with it, leaving ionized air emitting a ghostly glow. There was a hole filled with scorched earth and magma where the Tainted Ursall had been, now with no evidence of its existence. Only the chaos it left in its wake, as it sought to hunt down those thaumaturges who could now breathe a little easier.

Especially the author of that spectacular display of non-elemental thaumaturgy, drawn from a desire for deadly light that burst into the Evil Dream as a sign of opposition. Her soul abounded in magical power, bright as a solar flare.

She turned around, having removed her hat, and Tristessa could confirm that she was Urias Janus.

A Thaumaturge of the Magnum Gravitas Academy; fourth tier, which was a far cry from her for a prodigy. Short blond hair, sleepy eyes, and a small smile that hid the kind of person she was.

"..."

Tristessa realized something when she saw her try to take a step toward them, and along with Vergil, ran to catch her in their arms before she collapsed to the ground covered in ash and burnt vines.

"After that insane spell, it makes sense that you can't even stand," the gray-eyed girl whispered, as the other thaumaturges arrived at her side to assist their friend and companion. Her eyes were half-open but turned upward, a clear sign that she was unconscious. "And then you criticize Severus for fainting... Oh, that's right!"

Tristessa looked at the two thaumaturges, Armin and Xavier, with a guilty smile.

"Tell me one of you two knows how to heal broken bones."

"Excuse me?"

"Urias is fractured?!"

The girl was overcome by a horrifying sensation of extreme pain emanating from the right side of her abdomen. She couldn't go into further details, as the agony melted her brain with hellfire worse than the solar flare she had witnessed falling from the heavens, and brought tears to her bloodshot eyes.

"FUCKING SHIT!"

And without further ado, Tristessa fell backward, unable to support either Urias Janus's weight or her own. She didn't lose consciousness, but the scream she let out could be heard from all directions in the Pestilent Fields.

Fortunately, there were no Fallen or Tainted creatures that could threaten them… For the moment.

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