The Bloody Valkyrie

“You only lost one hand, why are you screaming so much? Can you still call yourself a man?”

Shalltear muttered a little and waved her hand nonchalantly. Like that the man’s head fell onto the ground.

How is it possible for her to manage to cut off the man’s head, using nothing but her unarmed and delicate hand? Like a scene from a nightmare, it all felt too surreal and the bandits became terrified. The men were unable to react because of their shock. However, the oncoming horrible sight brought everyone back to reality.

The blood started gushing out from the neck just like a fountain. As if the blood had a will of its own, it gathered above Shalltear and formed a ball of blood.

Shalltear’s companions knew that this scene was caused by her special skill 「Blood Pool」. But these bandits didn’t know of such inhuman skills. The very first thought that came into their mind was:

“It’s a Magic Caster!”

If some of them understood magic properly, they might’ve been able to issue a more specific warning. ‘Magic Caster’ was just a general term, depending on the profession there were all kinds of subdivisions and the ways of dealing with each of them were different from each other. After having seen Shalltear’s dress, the first thing that should have come to their minds was sorcery based magic, followed by the ability to control minds. Since they didn't issue any specific warning, one could safely conclude that the other party was completely lacking any fundamental knowledge of magic.

In other words, whenever they saw something they failed to understand, they would believe it to be magic.

Shalltear understood that these men don't know any better, she then looked at them with disinterest. The panicking bandits hurriedly raised their weapons in defence.

“So boring, I’ll leave what’s left to you guys. Only leave this and that guy... got it?”

“Yes, Shalltear-sama.”

The vampires who followed close behind Shalltear, they walked up and bashed the face of the bandit who was swinging his sword at Shalltear, flinging him backwards.

The scene was as if someone was hitting with a metal bat using all his might.

It was like the sound made when a balloon that was filled with liquid had exploded. The bandit flew across the air with his limbs flailing, accompanied by sprays of blood and brain matter. The fluid sparkled in the moonlight, making it even more beautiful due to the element of horror

More than half of the skull had ruptured and had been knocked away flying. The brain spluttered and fell out of the cracked skull and only then did the body finally drop to the ground with a wet sound. The sound gave great horror and fright to the bandits, but it was like the first bell of battle which brought Shalltear great happiness.

Zach showed a stiff smile while looking at the scene in front of him.

Such an inhuman scene

The nauseating heavy stench of blood, which was caused by vicious killing, made him want to vomit.

Limbs of men were shredded like paper. The head that got grabbed by both hands exploded like a pomegranate being cracked open.

One bandit’s stomach was pierced by a bare hand after being forcibly stripped of his armor. The wet and glistening intestines were being pulled out for several meters. The bandit was still alive after this, which showed the tenacity of the humans.

There was one rolling and crawling in pain on the floor. Because he tried to run away, both of his legs were brutally broken. From afar one could see white spots on his leg, —the bones that had pierced through the muscle and skin. Still, he tried to crawl away using his two hands.  He was trying hard to get away from the hellish scene and the origin of horror. Even if it was only for a couple more moments, he still wanted to live.

The otherworldly beautiful girl looked down at the men who were begging for their lives, and let out a shrill laugh.

How did it become like this….

Zach tried very hard on finding an answer.

No matter what kind of glorified words one chose to use, one could not disguise the fact that living beings follow the concept of ‘Survival of the Fittest’. Fundamentally, whatever growth or progression there was in living beings, they evolved and pushed through because the strong preyed on the weak; it was the natural order of things. This was the exact belief Zach had always followed. Even so, was it okay for the strong to go overboard?

Of course not, there was no way he could acknowledge such cruel and vicious killing, but what could he do? The enemy just by chance hadn’t attacked him yet. If he attempted to run away, the enemy might have done something to Zach to make him unable to escape, such as the painful and horrible torture he had just witnessed.

Zach clutched his clothes and felt the shape of the sword that was hidden inside.