[Uhana Vernasta.]
The sea rose and fell in a steady rhythm, its breath carrying the salt of the ocean into my lungs.
The night sky was littered with stars, scattered like shards of glass across velvet darkness, yet even their beauty could not mask the stench of war ahead.
The island came into view, shrouded in a purplish-grey barrier that warped the air itself.
Space bent, time faltered, and just looking upon it sent waves of nausea crawling through me.
It was less a wall and more a living wound carved into the fabric of reality.
Steam hissed from the ship's engines as we drew closer.
My hand tightened around the hilt of my sword until my knuckles whitened.
Then, with a breath I did not realize I had been holding, I leapt from the deck, soaring high into the air.
From above, the barrier writhed like a great serpent circling the island.
Rosen's method could breach it, he was clever enough for that, but not for long. They would only rebuild.
No, I needed to do more than break through. I needed to erase it, completely, as if it had never existed.
I wrapped my blade in infons, its edge stretching and distorting as I pressed it down upon the barrier. Reality itself resisted me.
Time unraveled, space cracked, and the sound of silence screamed in my ears.
For a moment, I felt it try to devour me. Then it broke, shattering like glass.
I fell, sand rushing up to meet me. Rolling across the shore, I rose quickly and, before the barrier could reform, I unleashed my mana.
Its surge flooded through my limbs, mixing with the infons, and I forced the two into harmony.
What was once a warped domain bent back into ordinary space. The barrier collapsed in on itself, erased entirely.
It felt almost impossible. I had only read theories of such fusion, always dismissed as madness. Yet here I was, proving it with blood and bone.
It reminded me of dismantling a spell, but on a scale so vast it gnawed at the edges of my sanity.
With the barrier gone, the castle in the distance revealed itself in greater detail.
Towers clawed at the heavens, their shadows long and domineering.
Wide black windows reflected the moonlight like hollow eyes, each marked with golden crosses.
Countless paths wound their way to the fortress gates, all whispering promises of slaughter.
I could feel them waiting for me. Auras pressed against my chest, inner worlds colliding and bleeding into one another.
It was like standing in the den of devils, reality itself twisting, rethreading its own laws again and again.
This was the weight of approaching the divine… and the stench of those who had long forgotten what it meant to be human.
I glanced at my sword. Ordinary steel, flimsy, dull, unworthy of what lay ahead. With a flick of my wrist, I abandoned it.
The blade clattered against the sand, a relic already out of place in this warped battlefield.
My Regalia appeared, summoned by thought and conviction. Its form warped into a weapon, humble yet radiant.
A wooden hilt, warm to the touch. A blade of yellow light, humming with fragile divinity.
And a guard shaped like a heart, pinkish-red, beating faintly as if alive.
I exhaled sharply. How humiliating, to wield something that looked so naive in a world drenched with blood.
Yet this was mine. This was me.
And if I were to carve through these wretches, I would do it with the truth of my Regalia, no matter how it mocked me.
There was risk. If destroyed, my Regalia would strip me of my power entirely. But the reward was absolute.
It was every shred of strength I possessed, amplified, sharpened, given form. A perfect reflection of my soul.
I had to be careful. Too much power, and the clash itself could tear me apart.
Too little, and I would be devoured. Such was the dance of those who lived on the blade's edge.
I began walking forward, each step sinking slightly into the sand.
The weight of unseen gazes fell upon me, dozens, perhaps hundreds, hungry, hateful, curious.
Their eyes sought to test me, to unmake me before the first strike was cast.
I did not falter. My grip on my Regalia tightened, the heart-shaped guard pulsing like a second heartbeat in my hand.
The castle loomed closer, and I welcomed the fire stirring in my chest.
These bastards had stolen too much, burdened too many with grief. Tonight, they would pay for it all.
It did not take long, hardly any time at all, before my gaze found someone standing before me. But this was no ordinary Saint.
It was a Martyr.
Unlike others who merely carried the aura of sanctity, a Martyr bore something more unsettling, more paradoxical.
They radiated holiness and divinity, yet their power was woven from the memory of their deaths, violent, grotesque, sanctified in suffering.
Each had died uniquely, cruelly, only to rise again in the name of the very deity they now seemed to contradict.
To gaze upon them was to witness the clash of faith and blasphemy embodied in a single form.
God Almighty would strike down those who dared to sing His name in this wholly unholy light.
The man before me was tall, though not towering, with broad shoulders that carried both authority and weariness.
His dark hair was swept back, strands streaked faintly with the grey of burden and sacrifice.
His complexion bore the olive tone of long travels beneath the sun, and his eyes, deep and unwavering, seemed to hold both sorrow and judgment.
His face, though carved with gentleness, carried a stern gravity that weighed heavier than any crown.
He wore flowing robes of pale linen traced with golden inlays, each thread seeming to catch the light as if woven from relics of sanctity itself.
Yet in his hand he carried a short sword, plain and utilitarian, utterly at odds with the sanctified aura he exuded.
He looked not merely like a bishop, but like a warrior shepherd, one prepared to bleed and defend with equal conviction.
Martyrs are peculiar creatures.
Their very physiology is transformed, their essence and Regalia reshaped into symbols of the lives they lost and the ideals they died for.
He walked with measured grace, his steps soundless on the sand, and when he reached me, he bowed slightly, a gesture of both humility and defiance.
"Your anger, your wrath, your fear, and even your love," he said with calm authority.
"I feel them all. But I ask you this, lay down your sword and permit the resurrection to unfold."
I scowled, my grip tightening as I raised my blade to his neck. "Thomas, will you follow this path until you die once more?"
He chuckled softly, a sound more weary than mocking.
"My death will only guide me to the pearly gates, where I shall be set free. You cannot threaten a man who has already been welcomed by eternity."
There was sadness in him, carved deeper than flesh.
He was a man who had lived among the broken, who had lifted the suffering and carried their grief as his own.
A man who had offered hope when none remained.
For a fleeting moment, I had wished the Martyrs had vanished, that their absence was a retreat into obscurity.
But no, it was foolish, ignorant hope. They had not hidden.
They had returned because they believed their false deity demanded it, because in their eyes righteousness justified any sacrifice.
And that is why I must raise my blade, not to desecrate his memory, but to keep his legacy from being twisted into chains for others.
I struck, my weapon lashing toward his neck, but the steel bent back like a reed in the wind.
My arms snapped downward, my hands crashing into the sand as though divine weight pressed them low.
"Did you forget, young one?" His voice echoed, soft yet immovable.
"No blade shall prosper against me. Neither fist, nor persecution, nor even death itself."