Infierno pulled Crow along as they ran through the palace, constantly searching for stairs leading upstairs. After all, that room, which could only be considered a useless national legend, was ostentatiously situated at the highest point of the palace.
“Hey, are you sure you know where Miss Snowlight is?” Crow felt that Infierno’s forceful pulling didn’t seem like they were going to rescue someone, but rather like they were dragging him forcibly to somewhere.
“Stop going on about Snowlight, just follow me.” Infierno, now impatient to continue lying to Crow, decided to treat it like a duck being forced onto a rack, hastily resolving the matter and freeing himself, returning to the leisurely and lazy life of a dozen years ago.
“What? Hold on! You need to explain clearly first. Do you actually know where Miss Snowlight is?” Crow sensed something was wrong and tried to shake off Infierno’s hand, but Infierno’s strength was much greater than Crow’s.
“I told you to follow me, that’s all. Can’t you cooperate a bit? It’s not like you’ll die from it. Anyway, listening to Snowlight is the same as listening to me.” Infierno’s temper flared up instantly, and he roared at Crow, overwhelming him with his aura.
“How, how could it be the same?” But Crow still mustered the courage to retort.
While the two argued as they ran, soldiers encircled and besieged them from various entrances. Infierno shouted inwardly, realizing they were in trouble. They hadn’t even seen that inexplicable room yet, but they were already cornered. Crow grew nervous too. Infierno turned around, drew the Damascus sword from Crow’s hand, disregarding Crow’s protests, and continued to drag him, intending to take on the group of armored soldiers.
“If this sacred beast of mine is really something special, let’s see some miracles!”
He swung the sword with all his might at the soldiers in front of him, leaving a deep gash in the armor but barely scratching the person inside. Infierno cursed inwardly, then made a split-second decision, using the sword as a club, viciously striking at the soldiers’ heads to knock out as many as possible.
“Stop it! How dare you use my sword like that!” Crow was the first to lose it, watching his beloved blade being wielded like a blunt object, his heart aching with each barbaric swing. But Infierno’s intimidating demeanor, coupled with the dire situation, made it clear that now was not the time to reclaim the sword.
“Quit whining. You don’t want to get caught, do you?” Infierno shouted while swinging his arms, finally managing to break through the encirclement of soldiers. Crow stood dumbfounded as he was dragged out from the midst of the soldiers, but another group of soldiers immediately gave chase. Infierno wiped the sweat from his brow with one hand, while the other held onto Crow tightly.
As they were about to be surrounded once more, the ground suddenly began to shake violently, then cracked open.
“Whoa, whoa!”
The floor beneath Crow’s feet gave way first. Infierno quickly turned back to grab Crow, but his hands, exhausted from wielding the sword just now, were completely unable to hold onto him.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“What on earth is happening here?” Infierno grumbled. There had to be something going on; the castle wouldn’t collapse for no reason. And his first instinct was that the only entity capable of such destruction was the demon he had encountered before.
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With a shout of alarm, he couldn’t react in time, crashing hard onto his back. The pain made it difficult to breathe, leaving him gasping uncontrollably. Crow hastily leaped away from Infierno’s body.
“Hey, you okay?”
Infierno regained his composure, then asked Crow, “Can’t die, can you?”
“You can see for yourself,” Crow muttered quietly as he helped Infierno up. He had been shielded entirely by Infierno, even from the impact of their landing moments ago, leaving him unscathed.
Seeing Crow’s uncharacteristic reticence, Infierno felt a sense of novelty. Crow always seemed to make cheesy and direct confessions in front of Snowlight, leaving Infierno with a mental eye-roll.
‘Is this guy really into lolis? Did I cause this?’ In moments like these, Infierno’s coarse nerves couldn’t help but think so.
“If you’re okay, that’s good. Seeing the palace like this, that room is probably collapsed too. Going there won’t help… Tsk, we’ll just have to escape for now,” muttered Infierno to himself, then looked around for a route to escape. Crow, puzzled, suddenly exclaimed, “Oh, I haven’t found Miss Snowlight yet!”
“Forget about that, escaping is the priority,” Infierno replied. He didn’t want to bother explaining, so once he roughly confirmed the escape route, he grabbed Crow and started running.
“What are you doing? Let go of me! Are you planning to abandon Miss Snowlight and run away?” Crow panicked as he was restrained again. He knew once Infierno got hold of him, it would be hard to break free. If he was dragged away like this, he wouldn’t be able to find Snowlight.
“You’re really difficult to deal with.” Infierno shook off Crow’s hand, noticing a red mark left on his wrist. Feeling a twinge of reluctance, he finally confessed, “No need to search anymore, I am Snowlight. Can we go now?”
Crow visibly frowned and snorted, “Who would believe that?”
“Believe it or not, it’s up to you. But when you can’t find Snowlight no matter where you look, then you’ll believe,” Infierno retorted.
“That joke isn’t funny at all.”
“I didn’t say it was a joke,” Infierno replied. In fact, Infierno could transform into Snowlight’s appearance to let Crow confirm it firsthand. However, shape-shifting required magic, and Infierno didn’t have much power to spare. Therefore, each transformation required several hours of rest in between. If he turned back into Snowlight now and Crow still refused to believe, then relying solely on a little girl’s strength, Infierno wouldn’t be able to drag Crow along. So, Infierno temporarily dared not easily transform into Snowlight. This time, he didn’t intend to forcibly pull Crow’s hand and decided to lift him up and run instead. Although he, as a sacred beast, hadn’t used any remarkable magic or triggered any miracles so far, he was stronger and had better endurance than ordinary humans. This was the only thing Infierno could be proud of.
Crow saw his intention and quickly backed away to evade, but Infierno suddenly knelt down on the ground, tightly hugging his own body, convulsing violently.
“What’s going on… my body hurts so much! Ugh, ahh—!” Infierno collapsed on the spot, feeling as if his entire body was being torn apart by pain. But he immediately realized what was happening—the palace wasn’t the only thing collapsing; it was the entire Kingdom!
“Not possible… What’s gotten into those demons…” The pain made Infierno unable to form a complete sentence. Following the searing agony, there came a bizarre sensation of dissolution starting from his abdomen. He tried to get up, clutching his stomach, but found his feet seemingly rooted to the ground, unable to stand up smoothly.
Crow wanted to help Infierno, but at the same time, he harbored a bit of resistance because this person not only wanted to abandon Snowlight and escape just now but also made boring jokes using Snowlight’s name in front of him.
Seeing that Crow wouldn’t come to help, Infierno said to him, “I can’t move right now. If you want to escape, do it now, but make sure you don’t get hurt!”
Crow couldn’t help but feel puzzled. He had barely met this person a few times, but why did this person seem to prioritize him in everything?
“No, I must go find Miss Snowlight,” Crow refused outright, slowly backing away. Compared to this person, Snowlight, who had been with him for many years, was undoubtedly more important. So even if it meant death, he would rather die by Snowlight’s side.
Seeing Crow really intended to stay in the collapsing palace, Infierno became extremely anxious but still couldn’t move his body. In the end, he urgently transformed into the appearance of Snowlight and sharply scolded Crow in a girl’s voice, “Fool! I told you to obediently escape, are you deaf?!”
“Miss Snowlight?” Crow momentarily thought he was seeing things, but after vigorously rubbing his eyes, that familiar figure remained in place.
“I am Snowlight! Isn’t that enough? Now hurry and get out of this palace!” The girl in front of him, with an expression of excitement that Crow had never seen before and a rude tone he had never heard, roared, leaving him momentarily unable to comprehend.
‘Uh-oh, this guy’s gone mad at this moment,’ Infierno rolled his eyes in Snowlight’s cute appearance, thinking it was quite unseemly. If he could move, he would have wanted to rush up and knock Crow on the head with the Damascus sword.
“You are…” Despite the confusion in his mind, Crow couldn’t deny that this was indeed Snowlight’s appearance and voice. He couldn’t believe it, but he also couldn’t disbelieve it, and that was what troubled him the most. After a few seconds, he finally snapped out of it. Regardless of what was happening, if this person was Snowlight, then Crow absolutely couldn’t leave her behind.
Crow hurried back to Snowlight’s side, intending to lift her up from the ground, only to find that Snowlight’s body seemed to be stuck to the floor, completely inseparable. Upon closer inspection, Crow realized that Snowlight wasn’t heavy, but was actually fused with the floor.
“Snow… your body!” Crow didn’t know how to address Snowlight now, as the familiar girl he knew had turned into an unbelievably bizarre entity.
“My real name is Infierno,” Infierno himself was unsure of what had happened to his body, but the only possibility was the connection between the Sacred Beast and the Kingdom, resulting in this transformation.
Was it the death of the Kingdom that caused this, or did it trigger a miracle?
Although unable to be certain, Infierno couldn’t help but feel that regardless of the cause, neither scenario seemed to bode well for him.
“Forget about that for now. How do I get you down? Do you know a way?”
The crumbling force left Infierno and Crow with no time for further contemplation, striking at the temporary refuge they had found, shattering the ground beneath them once more.
“Crow!”
The sudden rapid descent caused Crow to instinctively shut his eyes, hearing only Snowlight’s shout. Finally, he thudded onto the ground, but strangely, he felt no pain. When he opened his eyes, he saw a large cluster of sandy-colored claws, seemingly catching him as he fell.
At the same time, Crow also saw Snowlight. Most of her body had already merged with the crumbling boulders, becoming one with the stone. Golden sand continuously flowed from beneath the rocks, while around the stones, a massive sand creature with the appearance of a lion gradually formed.
The sand creature’s eye sockets protruded with pale beige bone armor, and within the sunken black holes, glowed a faint red light. The stone block containing Snowlight’s body slowly moved towards the left chest of the sand creature, as if symbolizing its most vital heart.
Infierno vaguely understood the kind of changes his body as a holy beast would undergo. If one were to define it, his current form was probably meant to trigger a ‘miracle.’ The body of this enormous sand creature continuously leaked fine sand, and Infierno felt that the sand was spreading throughout the entire Iron Gray Nation. This body intended to merge with the bridges and piers of the entire nation. In no time, Infierno would turn into a solid mass of sand, supporting the collapsed nation of bridges. This was the miracle of the sacred beast.
