Chương 45: The Oathrunner and His God Ears

"Is that... a Night Arrow?" Enel had never seen one in his life. They said there had been one years ago, close to his birth, but most of the people he asked did not know about it at all. He stared at it, watched it move so slowly above the clouds... if they were clouds. Or perhaps it wasn't slow at all, and it only seemed that way—everything was so confusing in the Dark Forest. Still, he could not look away from it.

It burned above the sky, a small white light at first, then blue, then orange as it tore through clouds. The faceless figure kept pointing, and behind Enel, the knotted villagers began to tremble. Their smiles did not disappear, but their bodies pressed closer together, limbs tightening around one another. He turned to them, but he only looked away for a moment, and in that moment, the Night Arrow struck the village....

And it dropped straight onto the knotted villagers, the ground caving in as the skyrock crushed them into the crater beneath it. But once again, it was weird—Enel did not feel even a small tremble at all as it landed. And... it would seem the knotted villagers did not feel anything, either. Despite their limbs torn and crushed flat, the heads that had ended up around the edge of the stone were still looking at him. And they were still smiling.

"What..." Enel stared as their arms twitched beneath the stone, fingers bending everywhere as they tried to crawl out. Their faces pressed sideways through the dirt, trying to tear themselves free. And tear they did, to the point one twitching limb threw a head toward his feet... and still looked up at him with a smile on its face. Enel gripped the hilt of his sword, but did not draw it.

"What..." And then, the stone moved. Enel stepped back as he saw what seemed like a small hand press against the inside of the Night Arrow.

"Is there... someone inside?!" he raised his voice. But the stone only answered by moving again. This time, it bulged outward around the shape of tiny fingers... then finally cracked open. Another hand appeared beside the first, pushing from within. The Night Arrow groaned, its surface splitting like an egg. Enel took another step back as the crack widened... and something started to crawl out of it. It was... a baby? Or at least, it was shaped like one. Its limbs were small, but its head... its head was massive.

Double the size of its own body, while its skin looked like stone, gray in some places, then red with veins. It pulled itself free from the stone, and the ground beneath its hands cracked... crushing some of the knotted villagers as well. The baby looked at its blood-stained hand, then made a sound that felt like a giggle and maybe a cry at the same time. It gazed down again, then placed both hands on one of the already crushed villagers beneath it and just... started cracking the heads beneath it one by one.

Still, the villagers all smiled before their heads were turned into bits.

"Child..." Enel blinked.

"Stop it." And yet the baby pressed down again. Even more violently this time, not stopping until almost everything around it was flattened into paste. Then it made that broken giggling cry again... then finally crawled forward. Its head slammed into the ground and the blood, but it did not seem to care at all. It carved through the dirt with its forehead. It ground the villagers still beneath it, some separating from the knot with their limbs rolling in so many directions at once.

And yet, even then, those that still had heads... continued to smile. The baby continued to crawl forward, causing Enel to once again step back. And right when he was about to draw his sword, the thing finally stopped. It lifted its head... then cried out. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"Kh!" Enel immediately clamped his ears shut from how loud the cry was. The villagers, those still with their limbs, all pointed at the crying baby.

"Wha..." Enel dropped to his knees, curling down as the noise became louder and louder by the second. He then felt something touch him on the shoulder. He looked to his side, only to see the faceless figure crouched beside him. But as soon as he looked at its empty face, the figure lifted both its hands toward its head.

"You..." Enel's eyes widened as he realized what it was about to do. It dug its fingers into its own skin, pulling apart the place where its mouth should have been—and then, finally, this faceless villager also smiled at him. Then its head snapped toward the baby, before one finger pointed at Enel... and it let out a scream of its own. The sound struck Enel hard enough that his teeth started to grind. Unlike the baby's cries, the scream coming out of the faceless figure was made from different voices.

First, it sounded like Lamb screaming in anguish while calling his name, then it became Mira scolding him... and soon, it did not sound human at all. Enel clasped his ears tighter, but it did nothing. The sound was not only in the air. It came from the ground beneath his boots, from the sky above him, from the well, from the Night Arrow, from the smiling villagers crushed beneath it, and from the roots moving under the baby's skin. Enel dropped further.

"S-stop..." But the scream only grew louder, until Enel no longer knew what he was hearing at all. It only sounded like a whistle now, piercing through the deepest parts of his head.

"Enough..." he whispered, slowly removing his hands from his head as they curled into fists. He almost slammed the ground then and there, but a thought made him stop—the tiny leaf spirit trembling in his palm earlier. It was corrupted, yes. But after he crushed it, he watched as it slowly returned to its original color. These things... were once spirits—no. They are spirits.

"No," he whispered, though he could barely hear himself.

"No. God ears, Enel... use your god ears. Tiny is right." He lowered his hands as they began to relax, and the violent sound rushing into his ears burrowed into the deepest parts of his skull. His entire body began to tremble and convulse—but instead of clamping his ears again, he bowed his head and forced himself to listen. Not to the voices, no. Not the pain, not the screams, not a single thing from the village. Instead, he tried to listen... to the peace.

The warmth he felt from his mother's lullaby, and the calm he felt from his father's heart. He knew he would not be able to hear them, but it didn't matter. Just the thought of them... made everything else slowly fade away. The cries were the first to disappear, and then the horrifying scream from the faceless figure. And soon, he could hear the leaves from far away. Other spirits, groaning, suffering, and slowly being corrupted by the Veil.

He could hear the water, the sand, the wind that seemed to come from every direction but at the same time, nowhere at all. And then, beyond all of that, farther perhaps, he heard metal. His head tilted at the sound of it scraping against wood. Then, again, he heard the metal strike something else. And beneath all of that, he heard a breath so sharp and angry, followed by a curse so crisp that Enel could recognize it anywhere. Lamb. He opened his eyes, only to find the faceless figure was gone.

The baby was no longer there, too—no. The entire village was gone, and there was not even a single trace of them, or of the skyrock.

"Huh..." He looked around, and there was nothing but a vast, empty glade there. Enel didn't waste any more time and quickly stood up, following the sound of Lamb's sword. But as soon as he took his first step, the glade twisted toward him. The grass and mud beneath his feet tried to swallow him, and even the trees that had been far away spiraled toward him. But Enel did not look at them and even closed his eyes once more.

"God ears," he whispered, slowly taking one step toward the clang. The twisting sea of trees was not an illusion, though—Enel was tearing through it. He could feel the branches trying to wrap themselves around him, only to be torn away like paper. Soon, he heard the sound of the metal grow closer, and closer... until he heard a laugh. And no, not the forest. Her. Enel kicked off, bursting through everything in his path until his ears hurt from the maniacal laugh.

And when it got too loud, he finally opened his eyes—and for a moment there, he could only stare. Vemons completely covered the ground. Some were split open, while most had been hacked apart into so many pieces. The roots of the forest crawled through them, seemingly drinking the ooze leaking out of their corpses. Dozens, however, still moved and circled the figure that was at the very center of all the carnage—Lamb.

Her hair was a mess, her sleeves were completely torn, and there was no part of her that was not covered with her enemy's blood. One of her eyes was already swollen shut, and yet... there was still a wide smile on her face as the vemons crawled toward her.

"Come on," she whispered.

"Come on!" She was about to lunge at the closest vemon, but then... they finally saw each other.

"Enel...?" she whispered, staring at him with her eyes wide. And for the first time since she entered the forest, her arms relaxed.

"Heh. Took you long enough." And with those words, her body finally gave in completely. She fell, but Enel caught her before she touched the mud.

"Lamb..." he whispered.

"You did well."