Bear School Astartes

Tracking the traces with his keen eyesight, Lann spent less than two minutes to find, right where Ludwig had just begun to distort, a pendant glued over with blood.

[Shining Sword Hunter Badge]

Ludwig was the [Church’s First Hunter].

Now Old Yan’an was already on the verge of destruction. Even just for the sake of appeasing the survivors, he would never be a single-use, disposable asset of the Healing Church.

According to Lann’s understanding of ’future’ Yan’an.

After Old Yan’an was wiped out by this beast scourge, Ludwig actually remained active for a time, only later becoming what the Healing Church’s official line called ’missing’.

So Ludwig descended to block the passage between Old Yan’an and Church Town, slaughtering without hesitation. But no matter how uneasy he felt after the mission was done, he would still return to Church Town.

The Healing Church would certainly have arranged someone to open the gate for him.

Only, in this nightmare, for some unknown reason Ludwig’s beastification erupted far earlier, and he had already turned into a beast on this very night.

And Lann, who already knew from ’future’ Yan’an’s history that Ludwig should be carrying proof for the reception, directly found this badge.

The [Shining Sword Hunter Badge], unlike the [Sword Hunter Badge] that every Church Hunter carried, was a mark possessed only by Ludwig himself and the Hunters directly under his command.

Without question, it was the thing that best represented his identity.

Maria quickly returned, bringing the trembling Adeline with her.

The Blood Saintess at this moment was already filled with terror. In the span of a single day and night, the Yan’an she knew, the Healing Church she knew, had become like this.

For her not to have broken down yet already counted as strong endurance.

”I’m thinking whether we should settle her somewhere first.” Maria spoke to Lann in a low voice. Her expression was cold, yet her tone carried worry. ”She’s about to hit her limit.”

”But where is there a safe place now? And where do we find the time?”

Lann led the way, heading toward the sealed passage in the mountain while replying to Maria.

He was frowning too. Letting Adeline find a safe place to stay was a good idea, but the critical point was... this nightmare was already nearing its end!

”No, I’m fine!” Suddenly, Adeline, following behind them, cut in.

She even forced out an ugly smile, as if not wanting the two ahead to worry, yet her hand remained anxiously pressed to her chest.

”In a situation like this, you’re going to save more people, aren’t you... Don’t mind me. If danger comes, I’ll find somewhere to hide!”

”Adeline.” Maria called the Blood Saintess’s name, voice heavy.

During their time in the Research Hall, apart from tending to those patients, Adeline was the only one among that crowd of clergy who didn’t make her feel uncomfortable.

Lann said nothing. He just walked silently uphill, leaving people unable to tell what he was thinking.

”Boom~”

All the way up to the stone gate that had been sealed, by some technique unknown to them, the Healing Church made it such that as soon as Lann carried the [Shining Sword Hunter Badge], the gate opened on its own.

”Church Town.” Looking at the stone gate swinging open, Adeline sighed softly. ”Oh God.”

Yes, she sighed.

Because the light and shadow reflected from beyond that opened stone gate... were also the orange-red of fire!

The three of them, Lann and the others, walked all the way out of the sealed passage formed by rock.

Only once they arrived here did they finally see how the fire that had ignited all of Yan’an had appeared.

A flow of lava was running down from some unknown height, following the mountain’s slope straight downward, streaming all the way to the location of Old Yan’an.

And this Church Town, which should have been the safest refuge tonight, did not look safe and peaceful either.

The blaze, at least, was not that bad, because under the Healing Church’s management, Church Town had largely adopted stone and steel structures, with very little wood.

The flowing lava was not a diffusing, chaotic spread either, but a single stream driven straight down by terrain and gravity.

So although the flames looked considerable, from where Lann and the others stood, there were actually only a few dozen people in Healing Church uniforms bustling around the lava flow, busy preventing fires.

As for the rest of them...

”Bang!!!”

An explosive detonation!

From the direction of the Healing Church Cathedral in the center of Church Town.

The luxurious and heavy gates of the Great Cathedral were slammed open with a thunderous crash!

The clergy who had been straining outside to hold the door shut, along with an Old Hunter who had rammed the doors from inside and been blasted out, were all flung far away before slamming hard into the ground.

From the Cathedral doors, a bright tongue of flame licked outward through the gap.

The clergy standing outside the church seemed to have received prior orders.

When the doors were blown open by the flames, one after another they all turned their heads aside, not letting a single shred of their gaze fall inside the Great Cathedral.

Only the distant, agonized beastly roars kept echoing out from the Cathedral doors, layer upon layer, carried far by the church’s peculiar acoustics.

Two more clergy in black robes hurriedly rushed toward the Cathedral gate, apparently still trying to shut the doors again and, at the same time... seal away the scene within.

The Old Hunter who had been hurled clear of the Cathedral slowly staggered up in the distance.

Half the skin on his body was burned black. His coat had been scorched by the flames until it fused to his flesh, becoming a smeared, pulpy mass.

Yet his swaying body seemed utterly unconcerned, only his nose twitching madly, like a hound catching the scent of blood.

His eyes saw nothing but the Cathedral gate, and he hunched over, tongue dangling wildly and mindlessly past his lips, shambling toward the Cathedral.

Not long ago, Lann and Maria had faced the [Beast Cutter] itself, now clutched in the Old Hunter’s hand, its blade extended into whip form.

The two clergy who had been blown back with him, those door-blockers, now lay sprawled across the savage, elongated whip-blade, while the Old Hunter seemed not to see them at all—or even if he did, he cared not in the slightest.

”Tch-lala!”

The whip-blade, under the action of its mechanism, snapped back with a shower of sparks and reassembled into the heavy shape of a massive chopper.

But the two clergy who had still been faintly breathing while pinned under the whip-blade were, in that process, cleanly and efficiently carved into several large chunks.

The pieces crackled and thudded onto the ground.

The Old Hunter didn’t care, and the clergy present didn’t seem to care either.

All of them, heart and soul, were focused only on what was happening inside the Great Cathedral.

The Old Hunter’s berserk slaughter, the lava in Church Town that hadn’t yet cooled and dried... compared to the thing in the Great Cathedral, compared to what was happening inside, none of it was worth mentioning!

That was a truly monumental discovery! Inside were children born of an upper being!

Inside were...the divine child’s blood and corpse!

The mere trace of blood-scent that leaked out the instant the doors were blown open was enough to make everyone outside—busy dousing fires, blocking the doors, evacuating people, and watching the surroundings—unconsciously raise their heads and flare their nostrils.

For the Yan Nan People, this blood-scent... was far, far too sweet, far too enticing.

But the self-control of clergy was, in the end, stronger than that of Old Hunters who spent their days injecting blood vials into themselves.

Even the two clergy trying to hold the door shut were now forcing themselves to keep their heads lowered, not allowing themselves to look inside.

The Old Hunter’s nose twitched; drool and blood mixed as he slobbered like a ravenous hound, and dragging his severely burned body he almost couldn’t wait, once more lunging through the crack of the door towards the inside of the cathedral!

The doors slammed shut with a boom, but immediately after, they began to shudder again under impacts from within.

They rang out with dull, monotonous thuds, like the countdown to a calamity.

The instant Lann and Maria saw this scene, they knew at once that the ”key” they were pursuing was inside that Great Cathedral!

That cathedral was not unfamiliar to Lann; in Yan’an of the ”future,” it was in that very Great Cathedral that he had cut down the vicar Amelia.

Without a word, the Blood Nobility and the Demon Hunter exchanged a glance, then, after settling Adeline within this entrance passage that had once again been sealed...

The two of them sprinted together toward the nearby Gothic Great Cathedral that loomed over everything!

Lann wanted to truly put an end to this nightmare, while Maria was impatient to understand what had really happened within the Healing Church, and whether her teacher knew any of it.

And regardless, the goal of both of them was to end this catastrophe!

On the way, quite a few people from the Healing Church saw them.

Those clergy, the idiotic giants doing heavy labor, and the pallid, towering descendants of Sumeru...

But at first Maria didn’t care.

She was a Hunter of some renown, and had even been invited to attend previous meetings at the Great Cathedral.

The Healing Church was very familiar with her.

Now the cathedral was in such chaos, and Church Town was in such turmoil; going there to see what was happening was perfectly normal... wasn’t it?

”Bang!”

Gunpowder burned and expanded within the barrel, and the silver bullet grazed the edge of Maria’s single-shoulder cloak as it slammed into the stone pavement.

The one who fired was a clergy of the Healing Church.

That shot was like a signal, informing everyone that outsiders had appeared in Church Town and were attempting to reach the Great Cathedral!

Almost the very next instant!

”Aaah!!!”

The idiotic giants serving the Healing Church roared, swinging the tools and bricks still clutched in their hands as they charged toward the two!

Maria invoked the Acceleration Technique, her figure flickering out of sight; when she reappeared, the blade of her Long Blade, ”Falling Leaves,” had already stabbed in from the side, skewering the idiot giant’s belly, its tip punching out the other side.

Blood splashed across the stone.

”What in the world is going on?!”

Maria cried out.

It wasn’t the Healing Church’s attempt on her life that surprised her; trailing in Lann’s footsteps through the lower reaches of Old Yan’an, she had already begun to grasp the true nature of the Healing Church as an organization.

What shocked her was that these people shouldn’t be attacking her on sight like this!

She was a proper Hunter; even if she’d come up from the lower districts, that was still normal!

But Lann’s gaze on the Great Cathedral was only growing brighter.

”Isn’t it obvious?”

Without even turning his head, the Demon Hunter lifted an arm; a silver bullet slammed into his arm-guard and was deflected straight away!

”Something is happening inside that cathedral that must not be known! They won’t even let the clergy outside look in! They certainly won’t let anyone from outside the Church have a chance to see it and live!”

As though their hostile intent had been activated, the already frantic personnel of the Healing Church now turned even more crazed, launching wild attacks on the two.

”I’ll handle them! You do what you need to do!” Maria swept her Long Blade sideways; the head of a clergy behind Lann was cleanly hacked off. ”Don’t worry about me! I’m going to find my teacher and demand the truth from him!”

This had in fact been what Maria most wanted to do ever since all these sudden upheavals began.

So Lann said no more; he only cast a deep look at the Blood Nobility, white-haired beneath her tricorn, cloak flaring.

”Whether you find him or not, don’t go too far, Maria!”

”What do you mean?”

”Just don’t go too far. Go too far... and you won’t be able to come back!”

Lann offered no further explanation. He straightened his posture and charged toward the Great Cathedral!