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*****
Inside the hall of the Blackthorn Security Company, the atmosphere was thick with a suffocating tension. Leonard, Klein, and Dunn were doing everything in their power to keep Megose calm, their voices steady even as their pulses raced.
However, all three were coiled like springs, ready to strike at a moment's notice.
Leonard Mitchell kept his hand near his chest, where a thick, rigid, and calcified blood vessel lay hidden. This was Sealed Artifact 2-105, the "Blood Vessel Thief." It granted its wearer the chance to steal a specific ability from a target within a certain range. With the "Old Man" residing within his soul, Leonard knew he could push the stealing capabilities of this artifact to its absolute limit.
Klein Moretti had his pockets lined with Sun Charms—potent items crafted from a mutated Sacred Sun Emblem. They bore no side effects but possessed devastating purifying power. In his other hand, he held the pacifier George had upgraded for him, ready to place it in his mouth the second the situation turned dire.
Captain Dunn Smith, however, had not yet reached for the Saint's Ashes. He was well aware that the holy residue of a high-level Beyonder would act as a violent stimulant to the entity gestating inside Megose. Furthermore, without the Saint's Ashes to anchor the seal, the horrors kept behind Chanis Gate might seize the opportunity to break loose. Instead, he held the "Quiet Hair," the same artifact previously used to restrain Old Neil.
His plan was clear: if things went south, he would use the hair to temporarily suppress Megose and signal Kenley, who was on standby, to rush to Chanis Gate and retrieve the Ashes for a final confrontation.
"Waaaaah!"
Just as the Nighthawks began to hope they could maintain this fragile peace until reinforcements arrived, a sharp, piercing cry of an infant erupted from Megose's distended belly.
The sound was not that of a human child; it was filled with a primal, malicious fury and a thick, oily sense of corruption that seemed to stain the very air.
In an instant, Megose's hair fell out in clumps. Her flesh rippled and distorted, bone tearing through skin as she mutated. Within heartbeats, she had transformed into a nightmare—a skeletal, monstrous figure wielding two eerie blades of white bone. The only thing that remained disturbingly human was her bulging, pulsating stomach.
Yet, she didn't immediately turn her blades on Dunn or the others. Instead, she tilted her head back, staring at the ceiling of the hall. With a singular, violent horizontal slash, she obliterated the entire roof, sending debris flying into the sky.
Subconsciously following her gaze upward, the faces of Klein and his colleagues turned deathly pale.
A massive meteor, cloaked in a roaring shroud of crimson flames, was hurtling through the atmosphere, locked onto their exact coordinates.
"Kenley! Get the Saint's Ashes! Now!" Dunn roared, his voice echoing through the ruined building. He moved to lash out with the Quiet Hair, intent on suppressing Megose before the meteor struck. In this desperate moment, they could no longer wait for help. Whether it was to intercept the celestial threat or to combat the horror within Megose, the power of the Saint was their only hope.
"Captain, wait! Don't attack yet!"
Klein suddenly lunged forward, physically blocking Dunn's path. He was acting on a desperate impulse, fueled by a telepathic message that had just vibrated through his mind from George.
"Let her deal with that meteor."
Dunn froze, his rational mind quickly catching up to the suggestion. The situation was clear: the meteor was a catalyst, a threat that had forced the entity inside Megose to accelerate its birth to save itself. Instead of fighting a two-front war against the meteor and the spawn, they could let the monster in the womb exhaust its strength against the falling star. It was a cold but necessary calculation to weaken their enemy.
"Waaaaah!"
Another ear-piercing shriek rang out. As the meteor loomed large enough to incinerate the entirety of Zouteland Street, Megose crossed her bone blades and leaped into the air with supernatural strength.
The eerie white blades collided with the flaming heart of the meteor. A deafening explosion rocked Tingen as the celestial rock shattered into countless fragments, scattering across the sky like a rain of dying embers.
However, the sheer kinetic force of the impact was immense. Megose was slammed back into the ruins of the office, the recoil so violent that one of her mutated bone arms completely disintegrated into a spray of dark mist and shrapnel.
At that exact moment, Kenley sprinted back, gasping for breath as he thrust the box containing the Saint's Ashes into Dunn's hands. He quickly took the Quiet Hair from the Captain to provide secondary support.
"Everyone, strike now!"
Dunn gripped the box, pouring every drop of his spirituality into the artifact. He ignited the essence of the Saint, channeling its holy light toward the reeling Megose.
The lid of the box flew open, and countless cold, obsidian-like threads erupted, weaving through the air like sentient tentacles. They lashed out, binding Megose instantly. Neither the sickly green flames flickering on her skin nor the corrosive, profane fluids leaking from her wounds could singe or dissolve these holy filaments.
"You must die!"
With a guttural roar, the entity within Megose fought back. A wave of invisible, concussive force exploded outward, sending Dunn flying. He slammed into a stone wall with such force that the masonry cracked, and he coughed up a spray of bright red blood. Yet, despite the agonizing pain, his grip on the box remained ironclad, his spirituality continuing to fuel the seal.
Kenley threw the Quiet Hair into the fray, the artifact intertwining with the black threads to further immobilize the thrashing monster. Leonard, seizing the opening, activated the Blood Vessel Thief, successfully "stealing" Megose's voice and cutting off her ability to utter any further blasphemous curses.
Klein didn't waste a second. He simultaneously detonated a Sun Charm and channeled the power of the pacifier, aiming a concentrated blast of purifying solar fire directly at Megose's stomach.
Following a blinding flash of golden light and searing heat, Megose's head and her remaining bone arm were incinerated into nothingness, leaving behind only a scorched, headless torso.
And yet, the nightmare persisted.
"Waaaaah!"
The infant's cry erupted again, louder and more resonant than ever before. Cracks began to spiderweb across Megose's distended belly, and a tiny, pitch-black hand—dripping with the essence of shadows—thrust its way out of the ruptured flesh.
The spawn of the Evil God was forcing its way into the world.
Despite the impending birth, the black threads from the Saint's Ashes held firm. The addition of the Quiet Hair and the exhaustion the spawn suffered from destroying the meteor had bought the Nighthawks a fighting chance.
They knew that telegrams had already been dispatched to the "Punishers" of the Church of Storms and the "Machinery Mind" of the Church of Steam. It was only a matter of time before reinforcements arrived with their own Sealed Artifacts. If they could just hold on, the crisis could be averted.
However, Ince Zangwill, lurking in the shadows, had no intention of letting the script end on such a heroic note.
While the two sides were locked in a stalemate of life and death, Ince had quietly slipped through the ruins to stand directly behind Dunn Smith. He reached out with a pale, deathly white hand—resembling that of a long-buried corpse—and struck Dunn squarely in the back.
The sneak attack was devastating. Dunn, already at his limit, was sent sprawling, his connection to the Saint's Ashes severed instantly.
Without the Captain's spiritual guidance, the black threads withered and vanished. The Quiet Hair alone was nowhere near enough to contain the divinity of the spawn. The pitch-black infant, radiating an aura of absolute profanity, tore its way out of the womb.
One look at the newborn horror was enough to send a wave of mental pollution crashing into Klein, Leonard, and Kenley. Their visions blurred, and their thoughts began to fracture.
"Captain!"
Ignoring the searing pain in their minds, they redirected their attacks toward the shadowy figure who had ambushed their leader.
Ince Zangwill, however, completely ignored their desperate strikes. His eyes were fixed solely on the box containing the Saint's Ashes. His plan was to seize the artifact and vanish immediately. As for the True Creator's spawn, its strength had been depleted to below Sequence 4. It would surely be hunted down by the arriving Punishers and Machinery Mind.
He didn't care if the Nighthawks were slaughtered to the last man, nor did he care if the surrounding districts were turned into a graveyard during the ensuing battle. Such trivialities were of no concern to him.
But just as his fingers were about to brush against the box, a warm, gentle radiance suddenly illuminated every corner of the shattered hall.
The darkness was chased away by a brilliant, holy light. From the heavens above, a young man with a serene, saintly expression descended slowly. Behind him, twelve pairs of magnificent, shimmering angelic wings unfurled, casting a glow that seemed to heal the very air.
This was none other than George, timing his grand entrance to perfection to ensure maximum impact for the digestion of his Faceless potion.
(End of Chapter)