"They are coming," the Inquisitor choked out, trying to appear as small as possible in the corner. The once intimidating man of the Church—he wasn't even worth defeating now.
"Who are?" Welf asked, hugging his sword for the warmth that Konrad had embedded into it.
"The dead ones," he answered before Otto could.
Because he felt it too, the unnatural fluctuations in the mana around him.
He had no doubts about the nature of Stella's powers now.
"What?!" the blacksmith yelped, but he also got to see the results of her rampage soon enough.
Two guards in the Church's red-painted armor stumbled into their hidden sanctuary. Their movements were stiff, their faces blue, and they didn't even try to wield their weapons.
They didn't know how. They didn't know anything.
It couldn't have been clearer that they were already dead.
Their shells still moved, driven by some forbidden power, and he could guess their goals, too.
But they didn't scare him—not as much as their master.
"This will piss her off," Konrad groaned, but did the most logical thing—setting them on fire.
He gave thanks for the ceiling above them for keeping the burning dead out of her view.
If Stella could see through their eyes, she would've been screaming already—
But other than the whooshing of the cold wind and the crashing icicles, he heard nothing.
"What the fuck was that?" Vargas shouted, his back against the wall, not that far from the cowering Inquisitor. "I get that your fireballs are strong, but humans don't burn like torches."
"They do when they're dead and dry," Konrad spat, kicking the melted armor pieces away.
Almost nothing else remained.
A full cremation, and he used no more than a small trickle of his mana.
"What is happening?" Welf poked a charred bone with his blade, and it crumbled into dust.
"Why don't you tell them?" He turned to the Inquisitor, unsheathing his bastard sword, too.
That square face was unreadable—or rather, the expressions made no sense.
A man who had given up on life, but his eyes reflected some perverted joy.
"I nurtured her for a decade," Otto mumbled, more to himself than the others. "I already gave up on her at one point, but it was still in her. That spark—this forbidden power."
"He lost it," Welf stated the obvious, keeping an eye on the entrance, sword raised.
"I would argue we all did," Vargas noted, his face grim. "I saw a mad woman screaming up in the sky, and the dead moving again down below. And I'm not even trying to be poetic."
"Stella's a necromancer," Konrad said, now that his theory had become solid.
His companions' eyes reflected doubt or fear, all the way to anger.
The Inquisitor's? A strange, twisted happiness.
"She is, and she finally unleashed her full power—"
His knee to Otto's face shut him up. He wasn't even sure why he did that, but it felt great.
"This bastard knew about it?" Welf asked, his brows furrowed in anger. "An Inquisitor hiding one of the greatest heresies of this world? All the while causing suffering in the Church's name."
"Oh, he did way more than that," Konrad said, yanking Otto by his collar, his nose bleeding.
"I-I can't take credit for everything," he sang, ignoring his own pain. "But when she tried to resurrect her parents from their ashes—I knew she had the potential to undo this world."
Why would he even—
No, he didn't care. He let go of him, and the trembling body slumped back on the floor.
Whatever his twisted motivations were, the Inquisitor had a good reason to celebrate.
He only had to make sure that he wasn't celebrating for long.
"What the hell are we going to do now?" the blacksmith groaned, taking a threatening step towards the old man. "Call her back, or I don't know."
"There is no way he can do that." Konrad shook his head. "And it's pointless to fight her."
He ran the math. She was too high up to reach her with a fireball.
In case one could even do something against her. She could've deflected his spells with the ice and telekinesis, or drained his mana away. Then he'd be defenseless—well, he already was.
"What? So we're giving up, like that?" Welf demanded, now close enough to strike the Inquisitor.
Konrad had to step in the way to try to calm the storm at least inside them.
"I didn't say that. I have a plan."
It was a long shot, but he saw parallels in how the executioner operated and how Maple got sealed away. The extreme cold told him there was no more mana to syphon away from here.
Stella was trying to pry the cracks open between dimensions, whether she understood it or not.
And with the same ritual that Konrad freed the dragon, he could've cut off her power, too.
The problem was the scale.
"I don't know how many people remained in Halaima, but I assume that everyone else is dead. Don't let them go near you—if you die, you'll become Stella's puppet, too."
"Which part of this is your plan?" Welf raised an eyebrow, trying to sidestep him.
He wanted the Inquisitor dead, like everyone else, but it wasn't the time for that.
"The plan is—I need to draw a huge magic circle to seal away her power," he claimed with more confidence than he had felt. "And you're going to help me do it."
That raised a few more eyebrows, but at least he got their attention.
"You're the only one who knows how to do magic," Vargas pointed out, but changed his mind right away. "You and the little one." He pointed at the child, still curled against Konrad's leg.
He almost forgot about her.
She was quiet this entire time, but since she didn't strike him with any more lightnings, he was content with that. Could she help him? She couldn't even stand straight, her eyes closing.
No, he had to do the heavy lifting by himself.
"You won't have to do anything," Konrad claimed, but that wasn't exactly true. "Or at least nothing magic-related. But I'll need you to act as my amplifiers."
"The what now?" Welf asked. "You said not doing anything, and now—"
"Except surviving while you reach the outskirts of Halaima," he interrupted.
He needed a big circle. It didn't have to be pretty—but they all wore something made of adamantite. And he had already embedded a spell into each. It could have worked.
"I'm going to distract her or try to reason with her," Konrad said. "You should have an easy time."
He glanced at the Inquisitor.
Even the thought of talking to him felt disgusting, but he needed all the help he could get.
"Do you still have one of those silver bracelets?" he asked.
While they didn't cut him off from the ambient mana, they stopped him from casting.
Getting one of those on her wrists should have sorted out the aftermath—and dealt with the undead. After that, Maple or the angels could've found a long-term solution.
Otto's eyes lit up.
"Of course," he said. "I've had many prepared. Do you want to make me rich?"
Yeah, he was out of it. But it didn't matter.
He had everything to deal with the necromancer now.