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Lisa was hoisted into the air by the chain wrapped around her right ankle. Her left leg dangled limply apart, while her robe had ridden up and fallen away, leaving her thighs shamefully exposed. The chain-clad woman raised Lisa until the base of her legs was level with her own face. Leaning in close, she sniffed several times deeply before smiling with childlike delight.

“Oh my… the scent of a woman who has not yet experienced a man. Just look at her. A maiden who’s yet to have her first time. And a holy woman besides! A saint, an actual saint! Lord Halbert is going to be absolutely delighted.”

“Marina,” the woman in the black dress said as she stepped beside Lisa. Running a finger sensually along the captive’s suspended leg, she continued, “A maiden is wonderful, yes… but won’t your little saint die at this rate? You’ve torn such a large hole through her stomach, and she’s lost an awful lot of blood. That would be such a waste. We have to keep her alive until we present her to Lord Halbert. Of course, he’d enjoy her even if she were dead… but since she’s such a rare maiden, wouldn’t it be nicer if he could enjoy her while she’s still alive?”

Marina nodded. “I suppose you’re right.” Without another word, she grabbed the chain protruding from Lisa’s back and yanked it free with brutal force.

“AAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!”

Lisa’s scream rang through the forest.

“Hehe… what a lovely voice. Did that hurt?”

Marina narrowed her eyes happily as she looked up at Lisa’s agonized face. She reached out again. Grabbing the front flap of Lisa’s hanging robe, she ripped it away.

“Ahh!”

Lisa cried out once more. Her lower abdomen was now completely exposed. Blood poured from the wound. Her once-white undergarments had been stained crimson. Below her navel, the torn flesh continued pumping out blood in heavy pulses.

Marina gently laid her hand upon the wound. Slowly… Almost lovingly… She stroked across the injury.

“Ngh… no… no…!”

Lisa twisted helplessly, another scream escaping her lips.

“There. The hole’s closed now. Just stay still for a while.”

When Marina removed her hand… The wound had vanished. She then extended her tongue and happily licked Lisa’s blood from her fingers.

“A vampire… used healing magic?!”
“Damn it! Lisa! Hold on! I’m coming!”
“Don’t rush in, Kyle! Cornell! Form the shield line! Pull the noncombatants back!”

Tony cried out in shock. Cedric restrained Kyle before he could charge recklessly, never taking his eyes off the vampires as he barked orders to the troops behind them.

“…Conrad!”
“You got it!”

Howard and Conrad kicked off the ground once again. Their target. The chain-wielding vampire. Marina. Destroy her. Free the captives.

Noticing the two rushing toward her, Marina smiled mysteriously. The chains surrounding her rippled like waves before shooting toward them. Dozens of chains lunged like spears. Conrad stepped forward. Raising his enormous double-bladed battle axe before him, he spun it effortlessly, as though twirling nothing heavier than a wooden baton. With a thunderous roar, the spinning weapon cleaved the very air. The incoming chains were batted aside… Entangled… Then severed.

Howard slipped through the opening Conrad had created. Closing the remaining distance in a single breath, he raised Grand Divider, its blade cloaked in a hazy blue aura. Without the slightest hesitation, he brought it crashing down. Marina’s smile disappeared. Her expression sharpened. For an instant, it seemed the black greatsword would split her in two. Then… A violent metallic impact exploded through the forest. Sparks scattered everywhere.

“…Hm?”
“Gah?!”

Howard’s blade had struck the ground. At the last possible instant… Marina had leapt backward. Taking every one of her chained captives with her.

“I… got overpowered?!”

The bronze-skinned woman had rushed in, attempting to intercept Howard’s blow with her own enormous sword. Instead… Both she and her weapon had been blown away. Spinning her body to bleed off the force, she landed, turned back toward Howard, and stared at him with wide eyes.

“Joel! Fall back!”

Hearing the warning from behind, the dark-skinned woman instantly retreated. A heartbeat later, a pale green slash flashed through the spot she’d just occupied. Gilbert. The magical sigils beneath his eyepatch glowed green as sword and dagger flashed one after another. One strike. Then another. Then another. He relentlessly drove Joel backward.

But the next instant, a volley of fireballs screamed toward him. Gilbert dodged them by the narrowest of margins. The missed projectiles slammed into the ground, detonating violently. Each carried enough force to blast away half of an ordinary person’s body.

“Tch! Stay out of this, Electra!”
“Oh? It looked to me as though you were losing, Joel.”
“Hmph. Marina! Did you catch any more?”
“Hehe… a few escaped… but I reeled in three more.”

Howard and the others froze. While they had been occupied fighting the three vampires… Another battle had been raging behind them.

Several knights now lay on the ground. Numerous members of the logistics corps, the expedition’s noncombatants, had likewise collapsed, writhing in pain. Around them, severed chains writhed across the earth like living serpents before dissolving into bloody mist.

Cedric was desperately cutting down the chains, attacking Joseline’s stretcher, where she lay alongside the three professors. Tony and Kyle remained nearby, defending both the scholars and the logistics corps while repeatedly clashing with the unpredictably moving chains. Magritte and Raisa likewise fought off chains aimed at them with Djimon’s assistance. Yet… Even so… There had been casualties.

“They deceived even our eyes…?”
“My deepest apologies, milord… even these old eyes failed to catch them.”
“Howard! These b̲a̲s̲t̲a̲r̲d̲s̲ aren’t to be underestimated!”

The three men stood shoulder to shoulder once more, eyes sharp with resolve.

No more would escape their notice. The chains rattled again. Still-burning trees illuminated new figures emerging from the darkness. One unconscious knight. The other two… Young women from the logistics corps, dressed in work coveralls. One still appeared conscious, weak sobs escaping her lips. All three were young.

“Damn you…”

Howard ground his teeth.

“Well then… much as I’d love to stay…” Electra smiled gracefully. “Our master is waiting. We really must be going now.”
“You think we’ll let you leave?!”

Conrad roared, kicking off the ground toward her. Joel calmly snapped her fingers. At once, the earth split apart with a deafening roar. A massive black wall erupted between the vampires and Howard’s group.

But it wasn’t a wall. It was bone. An enormous black skeleton resembling some colossal reptile. Then another. And another. Three gigantic skeletons burst from beneath the earth, rising before the heroes like living barricades.

Howard and the others instinctively leapt backward.

“…What?” Conrad frowned as he looked up.

“Another Old Scale Dinosaur?”

The Old Scale Dinosaur. A gigantic undead theropod. Its ancient bones were stained a murky yellow-brown. Weathered. Cracked. Broken by the passage of unimaginable ages. Its immense body, nearly fifteen meters long, was supported by pillar-like thigh bones. Its skull, nearly the height of a man, bristled with knife-like teeth that left no doubt its living form had once been a fearsome carnivore. It resembled a gigantic, undead Tyrannosaurus. A Threat level of 125. If even a few appeared together, an ordinary knight order could never hope to stop them. Earlier that evening… Two of these monsters had appeared. They had mowed down numerous knights and savagely devoured several noncombatants with their monstrous jaws. In the end…Howard. Conrad. And Gilbert. The three of them had managed to bring the beasts down.

But… The creatures now standing before them… Were clearly different from the ones they had fought before.