(Continues directly from chapter 8)
The silence after Kaien's death wasn't truly silence. Not in the way peace is quiet. It was the heavy, suffocating kind—the kind that settles in your chest and never leaves. The kind that makes breathing feel like betrayal.
Ezrah stood still, eyes locked on the bloodstained soil where Kaien's body had collapsed, his blade still clenched in lifeless fingers. Aira hadn't moved. Her knees pressed into the ground as if rooted there, her head bowed low, arms limp at her sides. The slayers behind her dared not speak. Something was cracking inside her—and they all felt it.
Hirata swallowed hard. "We need to move. That Hollowborn is still out there."
But Shino placed a firm hand on his shoulder, shaking her head slowly. "Not now."
Thunder rumbled in the distance. Or maybe it wasn't thunder. Maybe it was the growl of another beast lurking in the mist-covered trees, waiting for them to shatter fully before attacking.
Ezrah finally stepped forward, kneeling beside Aira.
"He wasn't supposed to die," she whispered, her voice hoarse and unfamiliar. "He used a blanket for me, even though he didn't have to. No one else… no one ever… treated me like I was still human."
Ezrah didn't answer. There was no right thing to say. His hand hovered above her shoulder before settling gently. "Kaien knew the cost of being kind in a world like this. He chose it anyway."
From behind them, a guttural, bone-scraping roar echoed through the valley.
They had lingered too long.
The Hollowborn returned—this time, not alone. Its form loomed in the distance, surrounded by smaller creatures stitched together from ash, bone, and shadow. Demons that weren't supposed to exist anymore. Not this deep into the sanctuary.
Hirata drew both blades. "Aira. You either fight now… or die with his memory."
Aira rose.
Her face was unreadable, but her aura had changed—more grounded, less wild. Her eyes glowed faintly blue, like a frozen flame, and something shifted in the atmosphere. She didn't scream. She didn't rage. But when her foot touched the ground, the soil cracked beneath it.
"I'm done holding back."
Ezrah unsheathed his blade in response. "Then we move. For Kaien."
Shino and Hirata flanked them, the last of their small team forming a circle.
The demons howled in chorus, their grotesque limbs twitching, their faces echoing the screams of long-dead humans. The Hollowborn reared back.
Then the slayers charged—under a crimson sky, blades drawn, past fear, past mourning.
This wasn't just war anymore.
It was personal