I Returned with the Cheat Holy Sword

Before his shock could even settle, the Hero was already moving.
With a motion so casual it almost seemed leisurely, she drew back the arm opposite the finger she had extended.
Thud—like brushing something aside, a nothing-special strike flew.
And with that direct hit, half of Astarion’s body was blown away.
“-?!”
Of course, a noble-class demon wouldn’t die from such an attack.
But even so, the blow shredded his whole body and mind alike with a horrific shock.
He wrapped his blood and spilling organs in miasma, somehow holding himself together. He staggered back, attempting to regenerate.
And when he raised his head—he saw Gray once again pulling her fist back.
Her blow # Nоvеlight # slammed down onto his hastily crossed arms.
His arms shattered. The remaining parts of his body tore apart as well, agony flooding his entire nervous system.
And more than the physical trauma, what shook Astarion was the mental shock.
The movement the Hero had just shown.
She could have finished it in a single strike—but she had deliberately waited for him to raise his guard, then struck over it.
As if she didn’t want to end it quickly.
“-?”
But before he could even continue his confusion, her attacks rained down again, leaving him not a moment to breathe.
She hadn’t even drawn the Holy Sword. She was simply beating him bloody, wielding raw magic with her bare body.
…And he had no defense against it.
Something—
Something was wrong.
No matter how monstrous the protector of humanity might be, he too was a noble-class demon. A difference this overwhelming was beyond anything he had anticipated.
This was far beyond the combat ability he had observed from her before.
In that sense, what she was doing now wasn’t even fighting.
It was simply crushing him—like a real insect.
“-Kh!”
Some of his barely regenerated body parts burst apart again under her kick.
All response was futile.
It was as though she knew his movements better than Astarion himself, hemming him in.
Piercing through his defenses with ease, nullifying his counters—
Beating him as if torturing him.
The maddening part was that every attack stopped just short of killing him.
“Ghhhaaa—!”
Without exaggeration, his entire body was being torn apart and regenerated in real time, over and over.
And when such treatment continued, one couldn’t help but realize it.
This damned—!
The goal here wasn’t simply to kill him.
It was as if she was trying to draw something out of him—
“You… damned beast—!”
The desperate strike he lashed out with was dodged with ease. Instead, she slipped inside his torso.
Still pressed close, her terrible body shots pummeled into his midsection in rapid succession.
“Khck—ghh—gghha—!”
Bones cracked. Muscles ripped. His innards turned to pulp—
“Stop—stop! Damn it, what do you want?!”
Spewing blood, Astarion collapsed to the floor, screaming.
“If you’re going to kill me, kill me! What do you want?!”
It was disgraceful behavior, unthinkable from a noble demon.
With tears, snot, and foul fluids spilling from his insectile body as he writhed on the ground in terror.
“If you want something, I’ll tell you! Just stop! Stop, damn you—!”
“That.”
And then—
Gray, who had been watching silently, spoke for the first time.
A sentence slipped out with a sigh of relief, as if in accomplishment.

“I just wanted to see you like this. Pathetic.”
“….”
So.
She had tortured him so long, simply to see him begging for his life in such a disgraceful state?
Abandoning all pride of nobility, reduced to this pitiful groveling—that was what she had wanted to see?
Unknowingly, he muttered to himself.
The demon was supposed to be him—but the roles felt reversed.
“You, do you have anyone close? Family, relatives?”
“…Why do you ask…?”
Gray kicked him where he lay sprawled.
Coughing up a mouthful of blood, Astarion rolled across the floor.
“Do you, or don’t you?”
“I—I do! Of course I do!”
“Good for you.”
Gray’s lips curled into a bitter smile.
“Because then I can hunt them down and kill them all.”
“….”
While Astarion stared blankly—
She drew the Holy Sword.
Magic of a scale capable of obliterating everything in the vicinity gathered at its tip.
Even as she did, her face was dazed, absent.
How should one put it.
This entire situation still didn’t feel real.
The demon was screaming at her, but it only spread beyond her brain as meaningless noise.
Ah.
Come to think of it, weren’t there still people nearby?
Vespa, and those noisy squealing brats.
If she let this loose, it might engulf them too.
“….”
Well.
What did it matter.
Vacantly, Gray kept gathering magic into the tip of her weapon.
She just wanted to erase everything.
What came after, she didn’t know.
She just wanted to erase everything here—
“My Lady.”
“-”
Gray’s body jerked.
“My Lady. You mustn’t fire that.”
Her head turned stiffly.
There he was—clutching his stomach with blood pouring out, coughing as he spoke.
Carlyle.
His face was pale, drained of life—but.
He was moving.
Breathing. Speaking.
“….”
Alive.
—He’s alive!
Gray threw down the Holy Sword and rushed to him.
“You, are you, all right—”
“There are still people nearby—don’t.”
“Be quiet. Don’t talk.”
Her breathing was ragged.
What should she do.
Even Gray herself wasn’t familiar with this state.
Since taking up the Holy Sword as the Hero, not once had she panicked like this.
But seeing him so gravely wounded—
Her vision spun. She didn’t know what to do.
The emotion flooding her entire body was closer to fear than anything.
She hated it.
Hated it.
She didn’t want to lose him.
Underneath the chaos of her scrambled emotions—
There was only one word she could shape.
“Don’t die.”
Don’t—
Don’t leave me alone.
“Don’t die. Please.”
Clutching Carlyle’s body, she spoke with a trembling voice.
A voice tinged with tears.
***
“…Hmm…”
Felix twirled a pen idly as she stared at the documents before her.
The Imperial Palace office.
Papers written with the full authority of the Pale Moon, entirely ceded to her by Carlyle, lay neatly stacked on the desk.
…Though their content was exasperating enough to elicit only sighs.
“This is madness at a glance, isn’t it?”
“Anyone would think so.”
Shiona agreed, her expression grave.
They had long known the Black Lion March and the Emperor had brought all sorts of dreadful supplies into the capital, but the details had only just reached them.
“Rockets? What rockets? What possible reason could there be to install rockets in the middle of the capital?”
She grumbled as she looked out toward the enormous spire beyond the palace.
By the Emperor’s order, a “rocket” dismantled from the Mage Tower had been installed inside, complete with launch apparatus.
It was top secret, so much so that she had only just acquired the information.
A rocket, in a city where people lived.
The very combination of words reeked of menace.
And if the touch of demons was upon it, who could guess what it would lead to.
“Send people at once to search inside. As soon as Gray returns—”
But the sentence was never completed.
Because the great front doors of the imperial office were in uproar.
Turning to see what it was—
The massive doors burst open, kicked in as though with bare legs—Gray entered.
On her back, she carried someone. In one hand, she held someone’s severed head.
“….”
What kind of event produced such a grotesque combination of results, she couldn’t even imagine.
But at the very least, Felix recognized the face of the head Gray carried.
Father Gregory?
Wasn’t he the one they had pulled from the Exorcism Division?
Leaving aside why Gray was carrying that man’s head—
What drew the eye far more was the person slung on her back.
“Doctor.”
In a ruined face and disheveled hair, Gray spoke.
There were dried tear tracks on her cheeks.
That alone sent a tremendous shock through Felix.
…She cried?
That girl?
“Doctor. Now—!”
Who could it be that she was carrying—
“….”
But as soon as Felix looked, she understood Gray’s reaction.
Carlyle Belfast.
…Anyone could see, he was ruined.
Balanced precariously between life and death.
The pen slipped from Felix’s fingers and dropped.