Chapter 569

Salem POV I stood next to the doorway.  I wasn’t offended that I was relegated to a door guard. I knew that I had very little to input on th

Salem POV

I stood next to the doorway. 

I wasn’t offended that I was relegated to a door guard. I knew that I had very little to input on that situation inside. I was good at killing and magic, not placating grief or bringing back others from the dead.

Perhaps it was the trust given that made my mood not sour at doing this thankless duty. It was a strange but not unwelcome feeling to have others put trust into me. 

“Move.” The blue-haired girl commanded.

I cast her one look and ignored her, not moving. 

That seemed to upset her even more. Her nostrils flared, and it looked like she was suppressing her anger from boiling over.

Wilhelm did say that this bunch weren’t the reasonable types. I had already seen for myself, so I already knew what to expect.

“I said move.” She spoke more firmly. “I demand to know what’s going on in there.”

She had seemingly been attacked as well, eliciting the tiniest smidgen of sympathy. I knew, from experience, that resurrecting was not a…..pleasant sensation.

However, all of that disappeared when I thought about how she spoke to Wilhelm.

In response to her demand, I increased the wardings over the door further, in a very obvious manner.

At my age, I thought my pettiness had all but been ground away by the waters of time. But somehow, I seemed to pick up these bad habits from that lecherous man.

I knew that she had magical prowess, so I knew she could see what I did.

“You—”

I circled a finger in the air in front of me and cut off all sound. It only took a moment for her to realize that none of her words reached me, and that just infuriated her further.

However, instead of verbally raging—not that I would hear it—she instead reeled back and threw a punch.

I admit, it was rather strong, shattering a great many of my haphazard spells that I had placed. But it stopped before me, merely blowing my hair back.

I looked nonchalantly at her fist in front of my face. “Child, stop while my patience remains intact.” I was not usually this merciful, but it has been new experiences for many months now since meeting Wilhelm.

I believe I could allow myself this much without getting angry.

I know Wilhelm would not like me to destroy this train. He seemed particularly fond of it, even excited when talking about how it works. It was rather…cute to see him so.

Truthfully, I mostly just didn’t care to swat a gnat while I was doing something more important. 

She furrowed her brow; I don’t think she was used to people being so dismissive of her. “Do you think I can’t tear down your spells?”

“Yes.” I said dismissively.

I really was doing this on purpose, wasn’t I? I can freely admit that I would often taunt my foes in these pointless quests, knowing that they were doomed to fail. But well and truly, this was just out of pettiness from me.

Looking me in the eye, she reached up as if to grab at the door.

I slapped her hand away.

She slammed her hand onto the side of the train; characters I didn’t recognize crawled up every corner.

I raised an eyebrow, and the shadow under me stretched out and scaled upwards around the corridor as well, devouring it.

She flicked her hand, producing one of those strange bladed weapons.

I raised a finger in front of her, and an intense gust of wind sent her hurling back as she used the blade to stab into the floor of the train to stop her backward momentum, tearing a gouge out of it, eliciting a groan and screech of metal in the process.

I believe we both looked down at the damage now done to the vehicle and frowned.

She stood up straight, looking at me with narrowed eyes, and then she walked back towards one of the train exits, stepping outside. I turned on my heel after casting several more spells on the door and went towards the opposite exit, also walking outside.

I ignored all the other passengers, simply depositing a few dozen of my grimm in the shadows around the door for now. What did their gazes have to do with me? If they dared to try and touch that door, they would find death waiting for them regardless.

The area outside was large and vacant, devoid of any populace for as far as the eye could see.

I looked up.

It was still bright outside, contrary to my preferences; thus, I called upon a storm to gather. I was not as adept as Wilhelm, due to the nature of his storm calling, but I had been doing this far longer.

The girl looked up, unfazed, then looked back at me.

The girl flicked her wrist without warning. One of those weapons flew through the air at my head.

I gestured to the ground, and a hand made of earth burst out and knocked it away.

A bolt of lightning dropped from the sky, and the girl casually threw up another of those weapons, blocking it with ease.

How amusing.

When was the last time I had a fight with someone by magical means? A real fight with someone who uses magic and wanted to kill me. Not simply stepping on some bugs that were too arrogant for their own good.

My musing had me distracted; one of her weapons sneakily bypassed my ‘defense.’

It had ‘penetrated’ me, or rather the look on her face thought it had for a brief moment. My body burst into mist, and moments later, I walked several steps to the side out of the mist cloud that had abruptly come into being before dispersing.

The girl broke into a sprint, throwing more and more of those weapons. 

I floated up into the air and cast dozens of minor spells at each. 

Very quickly, this field was turned into a battlefield of clashing magics. 

Annoyed, she continued to use those swords, but they started turning and moving in other ways mid-air.

However, I was more than experienced with such things with all the times Wilhelm and I have played around.

Lightning fell from the sky. Fire rolled across the ground. Ice froze the air. And the Earth squealed with each of my gestures.

Wilhelm was accurate in his earliest assessments. The Elements were second nature to cast to those of us that hailed from Remnant. He once said that when it comes to elemental manipulation, we could put out twice the scale and scope with half the effort in comparison to him.

I ran a finger across the air.

Fire and wind combined, converged, pressed, and then exploded.

The girl danced around the field, avoiding as much as she could. Even with every step followed by an explosive might that would obliterate a normal human, she skillfully avoided any meaningful harm.

I had to admit, she was skilled.

I followed along with her form with a finger, a black ball growing at the tip before it reached its precipice and shot out. It hit the girl head-on, enlarging before suddenly disappearing, eating away everything that it had touched, leaving not even earth behind.

However, I narrowed my eyes.

Out of the earlier dust that had been kicked up, I saw a silhouette jump out, launching at me. Very narrowly, I moved my head out of the way; a blade flashed by, and the wet feeling of blood started to flow down my cheek.

The girl, stepping on the air through spell usage, had reached me in the sky, and her fist reeled back to punch me.

I scoffed and pulled my hand up.

The earlier earthen hand shuddered and burst out of the ground, fully forming into a golem, growing bigger and bigger until it towered over both of us. Before she could reach me, it slapped her out of the sky and back onto the earth.

The girl skipped across the ground a couple times before flipping onto her feet. She ripped off her long sleeves, and across her arms, different tattoos appeared. I was not privy to their meaning or significance, but her demeanor shifted.

She shot forward much quicker than before, and dozens of her swords flew through the air.

I held my hand up, conjuring a shield to block, noting how they pushed through the spell, almost reaching me.

The girl had run up the golem’s arm when it tried to smash her into the ground. She ran up to its head and, with one punch, blew its head to pieces, collapsing the golem’s structure.

I held both my hands up, one above and one below, and cast one of my newest spells. Normally, I did not like to use things like Spell Words or Spell Circles. I prided myself on being able to perfect any spells to not need to rely on anything.

However, the more I branched from the magic I knew, the more I had to lean into such things. 

If even the Spirit of Knowledge – now Goddess – used such things, then why should I be ashamed?

“Marionette”

Two ethereal hands appeared in the air, one above her and one below her. From the fingers, ethereal strings stretched out and latched onto her, taking hold of her movements completely. Despite her struggling, she couldn't break free, but she was certainly putting up a fight.

Layering twelve different curses together, it seems simple on the surface, but it’s quite the difficult spell to break.

The strings began to tighten, and I started to pull her limbs in every which direction.

The tattoos on her arms glowed, and through gritted teeth and a pained groan, she shouted. “Excarnation Rite.”

The many discarded weapons on the ground bulged and distorted; crows pushed out of them, the blades disappearing as what appeared to have been made of holy texts then turned to crows.

I scoffed, and a black, inky-like substance dripped down from me until it became a waterfall. My shadow connected to the ground and spread outwards. Hundreds of red eyes blinked inside of it before shooting out.

My Nevermores launched out and attacked all those birds. 

Her skin began to rip at the joints as she fought against me, suspended in the air.

“Origin!” She shouted, and the remaining discarded blades on the ground jumped up, impaling themselves into the earth. They then began to move in lines, gouging out symbols and moving in a meticulous way until an eight-pointed star spell circle had been carved into the ground below. “Mandate.” The spell circle on the ground glowed, and above us in the sky, a copy of it appeared. “Law. Calling. Verdict. Wheel. Purify. Judgement!”

Both the spell circles were linked in invisible ways and glowed brightly before it began to rain blades from above and below.

From below, those same weapons shot upwards; from above, they rained down in a torrent.

She smiled smugly at me, despite it being a ‘suicidal’ spell. There was nowhere to run, nowhereto hide from it. The first one slammed right into her shoulder, the next broke my spell, and the third went through my hand.

And quickly hundreds, thousands more continued up and down.

I pulled my shawl around me as the barrage came.

It was impossible to count how many, just as you couldn’t count the raindrops in a storm.

They continued to pour in both directions, and I felt the scathing edge as they pierced my flesh, delivering their ‘holy’ wrath upon my body.

Wilhelm said that they were made to contend with things heretical, and I was a cursed witch with the Dark Brother’s heinous magics coursing through me. What else was I to these things?

My Grimm died by the hundreds. 

They took the strikes in my place, for the most part. Each strike burned and seared the wounds of my monsters, destroying them with ease. But I had many—many more to continue to fill the gaps. With each moment passed, more and more of them turned to dust, these weapons having an annoyingly excellent capability against my creatures of darkness.

While I could refill my Grimm at any time, it took time and effort, and I did not want to have to drag tens of thousands more over to the Grimmlands to stuff back into my shadow for no reason.

“Go!” I commanded, and the shadows wrapped around me quaked.

The pattering of rain—steel—ceased because something much larger had emerged. My great Grimm Whale emerged, but its head briefly, and devoured the Spell Circle in its entirety in the sky, destroying the spell before plunging back into the depths of my shadows.

I reemerged, breathing uncharacteristically heavily.

I looked down, and there were quite a few of those blades impaled through my body.

The area around us was now unrecognizable. The green grass, the forest, and the warm sky had all disappeared.

That annoying girl reemerged as well. His mangled and shredded body had joined back together like it had never been decimated in the first place. She gasped at first, but she stood up strongly, clearly being used to resurrecting.

Maybe she was tired, but she looked at me like she had won.

However, I felt my lips curling upwards.

I stood straight, and her holy blades that were eating away at my flesh simply by touching me had slowly started to push out of my body.

It was a different pain, one that made it particularly unpleasant. There was no such thing as ‘holy’ in this context in my world, and it felt like my soul was being burned as a result. But compared to everything I’ve experienced, this was still nothing.

She looked at me as her blades hit the ground and the wounds on my body began to heal unnaturally fast.

I looked at her, matching her smile. “Did you think you’re the only one cursed with immortality?” I asked her.

Just because I didn’t like using spell circles didn’t mean I couldn’t use them properly. Nor did I want to use them in a flashy manner.

I liked Shadow Magic, something I never bothered with before meeting Wilhelm. I had an obvious affinity with the Darkness that made it easy to grasp.

Therefore, why did I need to craft my spell circles in the light when I could hide them in the dark?

I merely had to reach inside my shadow and pull out the completed spell circle I had created while talking.

I was copying someone else now. I admired that spell that Wilhelm acquired from that god friend of his. Mine was nowhere near as potent nor sophisticated, but I found it rather…practical.

Circle Spell circles appeared around the girl. One on each side, one above, and one below. 

Each one of them is the same, but slightly altered. Each one reached its own gravitational pull towards it.

My usual methods aren’t to go for disembowelment so vehemently, but who told her to speak to my man like she did?

I turned around and walked away as she screamed.

@***@

Wilhelm POV

Contrary to popular belief, reincarnation via Evil Piece wasn’t some…extraordinary affair.

The Flesh was malleable. A severed head? Reconnecting it was extremely easy. But connecting everything—mind, body, and spirit? Now, that’s what made these things beautiful pieces of magic.

Not to say I like them; I absolutely despised these things. But as a Magus, I could not say a bad word about the beauty in their design. Even Odin couldn’t help but praise the design, despite his disgust for them as well.

It’s unfortunate that I don’t have any real means to save the woman. Once someone is ‘dead,’ I have no way to ‘bring them back’ like this.

Hell, if it weren’t for her being quick and talented herself and casting a spell at the moment of her death to preserve her own head, this may not have even worked.

Waver was standing in the corner with a vacant look on his face.

Karabo wasn’t far away, closer to the door, also with a vacant look on his face.

I think two people might be having a coming-to-God moment, rather than one.

Trisha was lying on the bed, eyes closed.

She was…alive.

For lack of a better word.

“When will she wake up?” Olga asked softly, holding her hand.

Olga was sitting in Venelana’s lap of her own free will. Or, maybe she was just so preoccupied with other thoughts that she didn’t even register it. But regardless, Venelana held her in her lap, which seemed to be helping soothe the poor girl.

Of course, in a normal situation, Olga would be protesting with all her might, but it was still cute.

“It shouldn’t be more than two days, but most likely she’ll be up in about a day.” Venelana gently told her.

The train shook a few times, startling everyone. I looked over my shoulder towards the direction of the source, frowning. “Seems like Salem is fighting someone.” I could take a guess at who.

“Do you need to go help?” Venelana asked.

I shook my head. “I have a feeling that she’s able to handle it.” I was keeping my senses sharp, though; if I had any inkling that something actually went wrong, I would be out the door at my fastest speed.

And Salem was no pushover. There wasn’t anything around here that could genuinely harm her enough that I needed to burst out of the room that she also couldn’t put up a fight against.

And she wouldn’t like if I stepped in unless she seriously couldn’t handle something.

Regardless, I took out some supplies. Talisman writing supplies and I began to grind up ink while also taking out a tiny vial of blood, dripping a single drop into it.

My calligraphy skills weren’t the best, but they were passable.

There was silence for a few minutes, and I could see their eyes on me, wondering what I was doing. Even Olga, once she knew Trisha was ‘safe,’ had been rather quiet and contemplative. This whole thing must have been very mentally exhausting for her.

It took me a bit of effort; this wasn’t like the normal talismans I draw. 

“Hold onto this.” I handed it to Olga, giving her a sneaky pat on the head, much to her chagrin.

“What is it?” She looked at it, back to front.

“You practice Onmyōji, Lord Schweinorg?” Waver perked up.

“I dabble a bit.” I smiled. 

He looked at it and then at Olga. “You can think of it as a Mystic Code, a one-time-use spell, in most cases. In the East, there’s a division of spellcasters that practice this method of spellcraft that differs from our magical foundations of magecraft.”

He really was just a teacher, wasn’t he?

“If that attack comes again, that should block it.” I said simply.

At least, I was fairly sure it would. Considering I used a drop of Izzy’s blood, that thing should ward off Death one time unless a god interferes.

“...thank you.” Olga said quietly, clutching the talisman tight in her arms.

“Father Karabo, you look like you want to be anywhere but here right now.” I finally addressed the priest, who looked very out of place.

He shot me a strained look, as if he was still trying to figure out if I was real or not. With a curt nod, he turned and went for the door, though as soon as he touched it, he stopped, looked at me, then looked at Venelana.

“...If I may ask, why were you willing to do this?” His question wasn’t directed at me; it was towards Venelana.

However, Venelana looked at him in confusion, then looked to me as if wanting help.

“His Mystic Eyes let him look at my past; he knows a few things.” I told her, not bothering to hide that.

The fact is, he knows that Venelana is a Devil, he knows that I’m a Half-Devil. Beyond that, I couldn’t really guess his thoughts.

The tension might have stayed tense if the train didn’t shake again and we could hear the sounds of explosions and rumbling coming from outside.

“There’s no real reason.” Venelana answered. “I did it simply because I wanted to; that’s all.” She continued to smile warmly, hugging Olga in her arms. “My reasons were selfish.”

Maybe he was having trouble reconciling the idea of demons and hell in his head with what he now knew and the woman sitting over there helping a grieving child she barely knew.

He seemed to take that at face value and willingly left the room.

With the door open, Sir Wiggles and Lady Wiggles came running inside, hopping up to Olga. She was startled but quickly accepting of the two furballs. The faint phantom of a smile forming at her lips.

“Waver, why don’t you go collect your thoughts? I’ll meet you at your room in a little bit; we have…the other matter to discuss.” I told him.

Waver didn’t look happy but resigned. It was something that needed to be cleared up at this point.

He gave me a nod, heading out.

“Do you want some time?” I asked Venelana.

“If you don’t mind.” She replied good-naturedly.

It was my turn to be kicked out. That is, Venelana needed to have a long and personal talk with Olga about everything. She is still almost completely in the dark about what’s happened, and she needs to know the details.

Olga would probably not want to be overly pressured or intimidated by having other people around, especially with how vulnerable she is right now.

So, I left the room and closed the door behind me.

I looked out the window and saw what had actually been happening while we were inside.

“That looks about right.” I said to myself, noting that the scenery went from a green landscape to basically a barren wasteland.

I was a little sad I missed it, but Salem came walking back over, entering the train like nothing happened.

It must have been impressive, because a lot of the people in the train were looking at her with much more trepidation than they were before.

Well, all except one.

The veiled woman was sitting nearby, looking completely unfazed.

Salem looked…pleased with herself.

“Did you have fun?” I asked.

She pursed her lips at my question but had a rare smile despite it. “Yes, it was…fun.” She admitted.

“Did you fight Ciel?”

“She was interesting.” Salem responded, answering my question. “Though, it seems her main strength lay in her inability to die rather than her power.”

I nodded.

The Burial Agency was full of genuine monsters. Ciel was mostly a member because she was immortal; otherwise, she probably wouldn’t have been up to par.

“Have you settled your matters inside?’

“Mostly, Venelana is having a heart-to-heart with Olga now; I didn’t want my presence to cause any concern.” I nodded again, sneaking my arms around her. “Want to go question Waver with me to see why his little assistant looks so…familiar?”

Salem raised an eyebrow. “I have been curious.”

I was about to turn around with her on my arm and go find Waver’s room, but something caught my eye that I hadn’t noticed before. My eyes fell on the veiled woman; she looked my way as well.

That wasn’t abnormal; we had been eyeing each other plenty of times so far.

But what I noticed was that, ever so slightly, the bottom of her veil was lopsided. 

Like, it had been cut.

Something I only would have noticed because I had committed her image to memory multiple times now.

At the location, that would have been right where her neck was.

This assassination mystery is just getting more and more interesting.

@***@

A/N

The veiled woman was also a victim of the assassination attempt, if that wasn’t clear. 

And just to put it into perspective, Ciel hates Magi. She hates them less than the fanatic followers of the Church. She won’t stab you in the back like many executors would. But she would sit there and watch you burn if you were on fire without helping. And she’s very pissed off right now after someone tried to assassinate her. Which is why it looks like she’s on a hair trigger. She’s surrounded by ‘enemies’ in her eyes, which also doesn’t help things.