The room fell silent, now covered in blood, flesh, and brain matter.
Assassin stood in the shadows, her body completely wrapped in a black robe. She watched expressionlessly as the woman who had survived only because the boy took the blow for her.
Morgan's elegant silver hair was now stained deep red with blood, and her fine magical robes were covered with bits of flesh.
Caster lay on the ruined floor, kneeling over the boy's body, which was now missing everything above the shoulders.
"Ryuuto... Ryuuto... please don't die... talk to me... say something..."
As she called his name, her hands frantically searched the floor.
She gathered all the pieces of skull and brain she could find, collecting them and holding them over where his head should have been.
"I'll kill you, I swear I'll kill you... you bitch..." she snarled.
While cursing the enemy standing behind her, Morgan concentrated on channeling magical energy into the collected remains.
"I'll peel your skull and pour hot oil inside, rip your limbs off and crush them, cut out your womb and feed it to pigs... I'll kill you, you whore..."
'What is she doing? That person is already dead,' Assassin thought, not understanding. 'This is exactly what you'd expect from a heretical magus.'
"She's lost her mind—"
Assassin wasn't wrong in thinking that.
Morgan had completely lost it.
Even the Five Magics couldn't fully bring back someone who had died.
Even a magus of Morgan's caliber would have no chance of achieving this, and she should know this perfectly well.
Yet Morgan, as if possessed, ignored her enemy and desperately tried to bring her Master back to life.
"Why isn't it working? Why isn't it working... am I not the British sovereign beloved by Mystery?!"
The British princess with her three personalities had always been highly compatible with the Berserker class. Her mind was simultaneously extremely strong and incredibly fragile.
While she possessed an almost obsessive tenacity, when her mental defenses were broken, she would plunge into complete madness.
Just like now—
A man she had only recently grown fond of had died foolishly to protect her.
"This can't be happening, this isn't how things should be..."
Her slender, beautiful fingers dug deep into the floor, twisting and breaking until they bled.
"No no no no no no no no no no no no...!!!"
Caster's hair was wild and her eyes wide as she chanted meaningless spells over and over.
Watching this scene unfold like some bizarre ritual, Assassin looked down at the frenzied witch with pity.
'Poor soul who has lost her way through unholy arts, let me release you now.'
With this thought, she once again performed her deadly technique.
"...Zabaniya: Delusional Heartbeat..."
A sickening wet sound filled the room.
A crimson arm burst through Assassin's black robe from behind, shooting forward at a speed impossible for human eyes to follow, aimed directly at Morgan's unprotected back.
'I have her', Assassin thought calmly.
Morgan clearly lacked the Resistance to withstand the curse, and lost in her madness, she was completely unaware of her approaching death.
But just as Assassin's red hand was about to touch Morgan's back—
The headless corpse on the floor suddenly raised its arm, reached around Morgan's waist, and grabbed the cursed red arm.
"...What?"
Before Assassin could understand what was happening, her body was suddenly lifted into the air.
With a powerful swing, Ryuuto—who should have been completely dead—suddenly flicked his wrist, throwing the cursed limb he had grabbed to the side; and Assassin was yanked by the tremendous force, her body smashing violently into the wall.
"...Cough cough... ah!"
With a pained groan, the black-robed girl collapsed into the debris like a discarded doll.
...
If anyone had stopped to think about it, they would have realized that Ryuuto couldn't possibly die from a mere fatal injury.
For a Beast like him, a human body was just a container created with magical energy.
Though his thoughts were briefly interrupted when his brain was destroyed, his soul and spirit quickly adjusted to the headless body.
This was exactly how he managed to block the attack aimed at Morgan.
That said, Morgan's reaction surprised him somewhat.
No matter how you looked at it, he wouldn't actually die from this, right? She should understand his powers better than anyone.
He had expected Morgan to be more composed. Now he felt awkward, not knowing when to stop pretending to be dead.
Ryuuto wanted to scratch the back of his head out of habit, but when he raised his arm, he remembered his head was completely gone.
"...Ryuuto?"
Morgan's face was streaked with tears, her mouth half-open as she stared at him.
The headless Ryuuto casually tossed away the broken cursed arm, helped Morgan up by supporting her arm, and slowly stood.
"I'm fine."
After hearing her Master's voice in her mind again, Morgan seemed to lose all her strength and sank to her knees.
Pressing a hand against her rapidly heaving chest, she asked anxiously, "You... you're really alive, Ryuuto? Do you still remember who you are?"
Instead of speaking, his answer came in the form of his head rapidly regenerating from the severed neck.
First bones, then teeth, muscles, nerves, and eyeballs—as if someone were rewinding time—they formed layer by layer from his neck upward. The skull emerged first, white bone rising from the stump, followed by a network of veins and arteries that branched across the forming structure. Sinews and muscle tissue crawled upward, wrapping around the skeleton and pulsing with life. Facial features took shape as skin stretched over the newly formed muscles, while hair sprouted from the scalp like dark grass.
In just seconds, a completely new head had grown.
"Of course I remember. I'm Ryuuto, Morgan's Master," he said with a playful smile, looking at the speechless witch beside him.
"Were you crying?"
"...N-no! What are you talking about? I knew you'd be fine! How could a monster like you die so easily?"
She quickly turned her face away, hunching her shoulders as she wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. "Don't look at me! Just... don't look!"
"Okay, okay, I understand," he said with a gentle smile.
'Thank you for crying for me, Morgan.'
…
"How is this possible?"
Assassin stumbled out from the debris, staring at them with a face showing as much shock as Morgan's had moments before.
She was so stunned that she even forgot to withdraw her broken cursed arm.
"How can someone survive having their head destroyed... and then grow a new one..."
"Enough."
Standing protectively in front of Caster, he turned to face the true killer of Ryuunosuke Uryuu.
The No Name Assassin.
The woman who failed to become the "Old Man of the Mountain."
Besides the founder, she was the final and most powerful cultist.
With skills so complete that she resembled a warrior more than an assassin—a woman without equal.
"What should I do with a little kitten who breaks into someone's home, makes a mess, and causes the lady of the house to cry?" Ryuuto asked, casually stroking his chin as he examined her.
"...!"
Their eyes didn't meet directly, but the black-robed assassin felt her legs trembling uncontrollably.
She couldn't move.
This body was a monster that took countless lives to demonstrate devotion to God.
Yet now, the boy before her was looking at her with the gaze of a predator eyeing its next meal.
She knew she couldn't win.
Her hands, stained with blood, had mastered all the techniques passed down by the previous Hassans—countless deadly skills named after the fallen angel Zabaniya.
But against this person, none of that mattered.
Because this person, this boy was—
"As expected from a rare genius who appears once in eighteen generations of the cult... you understand quickly," he said, spreading his arms with a childlike smile on his face.
"Today I'll give you a small demonstration. Watch carefully, zealot... this is how you properly use Delusional Heartbeat—what many call Satan's Hand."