Convict Unit: Black Parade

Gulp, gulp, gulp…

As if she could never get her fill, the Rose Princess continued to drink Little Lamb’s blood.

A vampire’s feeding is not a simple physical act. It is a spiritual plunder, a theft of another’s life force—its very source.

Little Lamb was a Resurrector, but his lives weren’t infinite. He had a fixed total, and any he expended would gradually regenerate, but only up to that limit.

Just as the Rose Princess had drained that total nearly to the dregs—a sinister presence pricked at her senses, interrupting her meal.

Ssshhh…!

“Mm?”

The Rose Princess raised a curious gaze. Not far from her—where she had strung up her prey alive—a disquieting energy was stirring.

The convicts were gathered. At the rear of their formation, the white-haired woman stood with her hand on the hilt of her sword, preparing something—just as she had before.

“Hee hee?”

With a voice like a child who’d just found a new toy, the Rose Princess slowly lifted her blood-soaked face.

And then… she launched herself forward.

Thwump!

She kicked off the ground, ran along the wall, scrambled onto the ceiling with her claws, and in the next instant, plummeted toward the convicts.

“Ten seconds.”

Staring down the approaching Gate Lord, Ghost slowly closed her eyes.

“I’m counting on you,” she bit out, her voice laced with a faint tremor of pain.

“Yes, Master.”

A frigid chill emanated from Ghost as she entered a state of deep concentration.

Standing before her, Jae-hee met the Rose Princess’s advance with an unwavering gaze.

“This time,” he said, his voice firm, “we’ll succeed.”

The Doctor, too, stroked Rabid Dog’s back and whispered, “Rabid Dog. You can protect me, right?”

“Grrrrr… Woof! Woof woof!”

With a vicious bark, Rabid Dog shot forward.

As she charged straight at the Rose Princess, her body began to swell, growing immense.

From dog to wolf, and from wolf to Lycanthrope.

“Graaaah!”

Finally transformed into a giant, bipedal werewolf, Rabid Dog roared and blocked the Rose Princess’s path.

Rip! Tear! Rip!

The Rose Princess swung her hands casually, intending to tear her to shreds.

“Grrrwl!”

“…?!”

Rabid Dog ignored her wounds, barking even more ferociously as she latched onto her.

A normal Therianthrope would have instinctively recognized the power gap and submitted to a Lord-class monster, but Rabid Dog lived up to her name.

Simply put, Rabid Dog had a terminal case of rage.

Despite knowing she was outmatched, she couldn’t contain her fury. She clung to the Rose Princess, using her teeth, claws, hind legs—even her tail.

Splurch…!

It only bought them a few seconds. In the end, her body was diced all over, and she collapsed in a spray of blood.

But she had bought them time.

Jail Mojik, who had been waiting, shouted through gritted teeth, “Seriously—with this material—at this scale—this kind of plan—”

Snap!

She snapped her fingers.

“—is a goddamn first for me!”

FWOOSH!*

All around the Rose Princess—from the floor, walls, and ceiling—dozens of cords and ropes wove themselves into existence.

The material was the Rose Princess’s own castle: the muscles and veins that pulsed like some unknown life-form.

Jail Mojik had already collected a massive pile of the unsettling material at the corridor’s entrance

Dozens of bloody tendrils shot toward the Rose Princess.

But she didn’t even spare them a glance, continuing her charge. No matter the material, every rope she’d encountered so far had been far too weak to stop her.

“Right—” Status Window, his hand raised, whipped it forward. “—now!”

Simultaneously, Jae-hee, crouched for a running start, kicked off the ground.

The Boy shot forward like a missile.

Moving faster than a bullet, he didn’t attack the Rose Princess directly. Instead, he circled her in a blur, snatching up every single one of the bloody cords Jail Mojik had woven and binding them tightly around her body.

“An extra-large…”

Watching the bloody cords restrain the Rose Princess like a spider’s web, Status Window yelled at the top of his lungs.

“Tortoise-shell bondage special desu!”

Fwip-fwip-fwip!

The next moment, just as Jae-hee—having squeezed out every last ounce of his strength—skidded back into position and collapsed.

“?”

For the first time, the Rose Princess was stopped in her tracks.

She could have torn an ordinary rope apart with ease. But when layered and twisted with intent, bound tightly against her body, they became a restraint that even the mighty Rose Princess couldn’t instantly escape.

Snap, snap-snap—

Of course, like a great beast shaking off a spiderweb, she eventually succeeded in ripping the bindings to shreds.

In that time, however, Jae-hee had already slammed a new supply item—a self-injector—into his thigh.

It was a stamina recharger created by the Doctor.

The Refill Injector!

“Again!”

The injection forcibly sent his rock-bottom stamina surging back to full.

Jae-hee kicked off the ground and launched himself forward once more.

Jail Mojik, blood vessels bursting in her eyes and a stream of blood pouring from her nose, generated another set of bloody ropes.

The Rose Princess screeched in anger. She was not about to be caught again.

“Khaaaa!”

She swung her arms wildly, unleashing a storm of slashes in every direction while her golden eyes indiscriminately fired off waves of mental corruption. If even one of those countless attacks grazed him, it would be a fatal blow for Jae-hee.

But he dodged them.

Whoosh…!

The brilliant blue arrows—the Wind’s Trail—forged a narrow path forward. Jae-hee evaded every last one of the Gate Lord’s attacks by a paper-thin margin as he bound her again.

Racing at top speed, Jae-hee ran along the corridor walls just like the Rose Princess, defying gravity to kick off the ceiling. Her hidden weapon, her pink hair, shot out like tentacles to ensnare him.

But Jae-hee wouldn’t fall for the same trick twice.

While running on the ceiling, Jae-hee crouched for a split second, gathering power. The special function in his boots activated, adding to his leg strength.

Adding even that explosive force to his speed, blood streaming from his nose, Jae-hee screamed, “You’re not getting to my master!”

Dropping from the ceiling, using every bit of power his boots could offer, Jae-hee shattered his limits again and again, breaking his own top speed.

The Rose Princess’s golden eyes couldn’t even catch his afterimage.

Fwip-fwip-fwip-fwip!

Once more, the bloody cords tangled and dug into the Rose Princess’s body in a geometric pattern.

Her bewilderment was brief.

She tore through the cords and broke free, but breaking through the two rope traps had cost her nearly five seconds.

And all that time, Hangman had been quietly condensing his aura of suicidal impulse into a single point.

“Cry for me…”

Because of his mental corruption and friendly fire in the previous battle, none of the other convicts trusted him. Some had even suggested killing him, just in case the corruption lingered.

Only Jae-hee had continued to believe in him.

“Brother Hang’s not that kind of person,” he’d said. “If you can’t trust him, then trust me instead.”

“…I’m begging you.”

And so, Hangman had decided to try one more time. He would take his power—often dismissed as weak against elites, only useful for wide-area Mental Contagion—and pour all his effort into honing it into a single, sharp dagger.

Black tears streamed like a waterfall from his blackened eyes as Hangman let out a convulsive sob.

“CRY!”

The black aura spreading from his back merged and twisted into a single strand, sharpening into a point like the tip of a blade—and shot toward the Rose Princess.

Splat!

As if doused in black ink, Hangman’s aura stained the top of the Rose Princess’s head.

Crack!

His sheer obsession must have worked. A distinct crack appeared in the Rose Princess’s mental barrier.

But that was all.

In the end, Hangman’s attack failed to pierce the Gate Lord’s mental barrier.

“Heh, heh, heh.” Facing the Rose Princess, now right in front of him, Hangman muttered, “I did my best, Boy…”

Crack!

The Rose Princess’s fingers flicked Hangman’s chin, and his head snapped sideways, twisting a full 180 degrees.

As Hangman’s broken body crumpled to the floor and the Rose Princess entered the corridor where the convicts were gathered.

“My man…”

Having regained consciousness just before the operation began, Silken Bodhisattva snarled viciously.

In place of her shattered Ritual Guillotine, she was now standing atop Jae-hee’s long sword, Mountain Lord, preparing her Cursewrit.

“You sucked on him with that filthy mouth, you fucking bitch!”

Thump!

Standing on the razor-sharp blade had left her stockinged feet drenched in blood. But ignoring the pain, Silken Bodhisattva leaped into the air.

The curse she unleashed shot toward the Rose Princess—and for the first time, it broke through.

Like a sniper’s bullet, Silken Bodhisattva’s Cursewrit slammed into the very spot on the mental barrier where Hangman had managed to create a crack.

The Rose Princess let out a short scream as her legs gave out, sending her tumbling to the floor.

With no sacrifice to absorb the backlash, Silken Bodhisattva took the full force of the curse herself. She collapsed, vomiting a massive amount of blood.

“…!”

The Rose Princess, blood pouring from her own eyes and nose, managed to recover and get back on her feet. She staggered forward, kicking off the ground and lunging, her hand outstretched toward Ghost.

At this point, Ghost’s concentration had reached the nine-second mark.

Her eyes were squeezed shut, oblivious to the chaos unfolding before her, completely immersed in her own inner world.

Jae-hee gritted his teeth.

It wasn’t enough.

One second…

He resolved to throw his own life away to protect her. The Boy spread his arms, standing before Ghost to shield her with his own body.

But he didn’t have to.

Crrrack—

Directly above the charging Rose Princess, a fissure spiderwebbed across the ceiling.

BOOM!

It exploded into pieces, and a giant of fire fell from above.

“Firestarter?!” the Doctor yelled in shock. “You were alive?”

“EVIL MUST BE BURNED!”

The giant of fire—once Firestarter—shrieked in a bizarre, layered voice that was no longer human but monstrous, and crashed down upon the Rose Princess.

“ALL OF IT! EVERY LAST BIT! UNTIL NOT EVEN ASH REMAAINS!”

KRA-BOOM!

Firestarter and the Rose Princess collided, triggering a massive explosion.

The next moment, a huge hole was blown through the center of Firestarter’s chest, and the Rose Princess burst out, the tips of her glittering pink hair completely singed.

Firestarter’s sudden appearance had bought them only a single second.

And that was enough.

With a long exhale, Ghost opened her eyes. A flash of light sparked in her brilliant blue irises.

Her black sword, Void Trinity, was already unsheathed, drawn without a sound.

In a single, fluid motion, Ghost slashed the empty air before her in an asymmetrical X.

And then—Shhhk…!

Dimension itself split open, following the exact trajectory of her blade.

Jae-hee stared, horrified at the sight, but what followed was even harder to believe.

A dazzling blue light began to pour from the rift Ghost had carved in space.

What is that…? Jae-hee’s eyes widened. A Gate…?!

The gash Ghost had torn in space looked no different from the Gates he had seen before. The only difference was that the monster legions’ Gates were an ominous purple, while Ghost’s was a clear, lonely blue.

Just like her eyes…

FLASH!

A vivid blue light flooded out from the Gate she had sliced open, beginning to “erode” the surrounding space, forcibly overwriting the Rose Princess’s blood-red territory with its own color.

“…?!”

At this point, no matter how fast the Rose Princess ran, she could no longer get any closer to Ghost.

Stunned, she whipped her head around.

Somehow, this place was no longer the crimson castle of a vampire.

It had been transformed into a land of extreme cold, a vast, blue ice plain where glittering white snow was falling.

“What in the world…?” Jae-hee muttered, just as bewildered.

Beside him, Status Window adjusted his glasses with a trembling hand and said, “‘Those who can alter the world through sheer force of will. They are called the Transcendent—S-Rank Awakened.’”

“What?”

“And this is the Special Ability unique to S-Ranks, a miracle permitted to only ten people in this country… I can’t believe I’m seeing it with my own eyes…”

“What… what is it?”

Upon the vast ice plain that continued to expand, now stretching beyond the horizon, Ghost slowly adjusted her grip on her sword and aimed its tip at the Rose Princess.

As Jae-hee watched, Status Window’s words echoed distantly in his ears.

“Ultimate, Finisher, Decisive Technique… Signature, Special, Secret…! Innate Bounded Field, Bankai, Domain Expansion—whatever the Awakened wants to call it. But its official name is…”

A puff of white vapor slipped past Ghost’s lips as she summoned her ultimate technique—her strongest move.

“Domain Break…”

Glittering snow began to drift across the ice plain.

No—this wasn’t snow. The flakes falling from the sky, covering the frozen ground, were fragments of shattered blades.

“Advent…”

Her white hair whipped in the wind as the storm of blades descended. On the endless blue ice, her eyes darkened, heavy and fathomless.

At the heart of this domain—no, this world—Ghost’s voice fell, soft as a dying breath, naming the “season” she had called forth.

“Winter’s Edge.”