The moment the girl spoke, Tina confirmed it: Castina was a magical beast.
And she was no ordinary magical beast.
She was the Heavenly Magical Beast, the entity that had once nearly destroyed the world.
Both the voice and the tone were unmistakably hers.
The scene then rapidly shifted. The surrounding wheat fields quickly vanished, morphing into a completely different landscape.
The pungent stench of blood hung heavy in the air. On the muddy ground trampled by horses lay countless cold corpses.
The buildings of the small town looked as if they had been gnawed on by some monstrous beast.
A deathly silence blanketed the path of the marching army. Tina floated up from the ground and saw Elcalan in the distance leaping off her horse, walking over to Castina, who was crouching on the ground.
The muscles on her face contorted, twisting into a mask of pure rage.
“Damn it... Damn the Magical Beast Cult! All these people were sacrificed! Dammit!”
“...”
“Curse them! Those bastards are worse than beasts, yet they still claim to represent justice and reject order! By what right?!”
Castina screamed, but her voice was drowned out by the sudden downpour. Accompanied by the rumble of thunder, a torrential rain began to fall, as if trying to wash away all evidence of this calamity.
Elcalan nodded slightly. Her voice was quiet, yet it carried clearly. “We will destroy the Magical Beast Cult.”
Tina wanted to step forward and say something, but she realized she did not seem to exist in this illusion. Even when she began to use her power, no one noticed. The miasma she released only served to make the already gloomy sky look even darker.
The memory cut off there. In the next fragment, Tina found herself inside a laboratory.
A laboratory belonging to the Magical Beast Cult.
Honestly, Tina had expected the memory to end here, but to her surprise, something unexpected occurred.
Castina and Elcalan opened all the passages of the breached laboratory, illuminating the entire area with holy light magic.
If one ignored the rotting, unidentifiable chunks of flesh piled in the corners and the numerous massive glass vats, the place was relatively clean.
Elcalan rounded up the cultists and threw them all into a single room.
Then, leading the Paladin Legion, she began clearing the various rooms to eliminate any enemies hiding in the corners... But when they opened the final door, they saw three little girls poking their heads out of the dark space, warily peering out at the corridor illuminated by holy fire.
Tina followed them.
Two of the three girls looked incredibly familiar.
They had dark red hair and black hair, petite lolita-like figures, and wore white socks and trousers.
They were Black Lotus and Blood Lotus, apparently rescued by Castina's Paladin Legion.
However, there was another girl who had fainted behind them.
She had purplish-red hair. Though petite, she possessed the voluptuous curves of a mature woman, which was easily visible in her tight, undersized clothing.
Who was she?
“I am Castina~ You must be the last survivors, right? Come with us. The Church is where you belong.”
The scene shifted once more.
This time, Tina was astonished to find that, just as Velrose had said, the situation was perhaps far more complicated than she had imagined.
It was another torrential downpour. Elcalan was clad in her paladin armor, gripping her sword with one hand. If looks could kill, she would have already hacked Roserosa into a thousand pieces.
She had shown a similar anger in front of Sathya—an emotion completely different from the aloof, wandering "swordsman" she usually portrayed. She clearly harbored deep hatred for the enemy before her.
That enemy was the purplish-red-haired girl Tina didn't recognize.
Two ornate, purplish-red ribbons hung from her chest down to the base of her thighs, partially covering her proud, full breasts and lower abdomen. A latex-like bodysuit hugged the plump, slender thighs revealed beneath her wizard robes. Together with her torn, melting shirt and purple, monstrous horns, it outlined a figure that was three parts innocent and seven parts seductive. The black, beast-like markings of her magical beast transformation made her look even more phantom-like.
Her sclerae were pitch-black, and two circular purple gems formed her pupils. With a playful, mocking expression, she looked down upon the woman before her, Elcalan.
“You're pretty strong, but you're still no match for me~”
Yet, Tina did recognize this person...
Roserosa.
The leader of the Rebel Army.
Why was she here? Or rather, why did she have such a past?
More importantly...
This person was a magical beast—a genuine, bona fide magical beast.
Had the Magical Beast Cult actually succeeded?
Suddenly, everything clicked for Tina...
She had written a letter asking Magnar to treat Roserosa's illness, but was that "illness" actually just the lingering injuries Elcalan had inflicted upon this magical beast?
“Castina trusted you so much! Why would you do this to her?!”
Elcalan demanded loudly, “She treated you like her own daughter, yet you...”
“Yeah, why indeed?”
Roserosa laughed.
It was a chilling sneer that cut straight to the bone.
“Maybe I just simply detest you humans? Simply because she's a human, I just couldn't resist raising my hand against her~”
Although Tina wanted to keep watching, Elcalan's turbulent emotions caused the entire scene to melt like ice. It was as if an ink-dipped brush were being scribbled haphazardly across a black-and-white picture book, distorting the very fabric of the space.
Her memories permanently froze on Roserosa's atrocious smile, forever branded into Elcalan's heart.
Amidst the melting scenery, Tina felt as if she were hurtling through a tunnel filled with memory fragments. It was like being at the bottom of a colorful ocean—boundless, silent, with no ground or sky.
Tina tried to reach out and tear open a passage, but she sensed that if she forcibly broke this chaotic scene, she would be ejected from this "dream."
Fortunately, after a few seconds, the shattered, melting fragments seemed to come alive. Gathering and dispersing in an orderly rhythm, they gradually pieced together another complete scene.
Before her, a crimson-haired woman sat alone on a magnificent throne. Her slender neck and limbs were securely bound by chains, pinning her to the seat. Her eyes were covered with a silk blindfold, yet she seemed able to perceive the paladin, Elcalan, standing before her.
Her rosy lips parted slightly, as if she wanted to say something.
But before she could speak, Elcalan beat her to it, her voice cold as ice:
“Magical beast Castina, I will kill you with my own hands.”
She turned and walked away, leaving behind nothing but the freezing air.
...
The memories came to an absolute end.
Tina opened her eyes and gently tapped the dark blue halo that had appeared over Elcalan's head at some point.
“Join me.”
Tina spoke softly, placing her hand on the defenseless Elcalan. The pitch-black power of chaos flowed into her body like a dark mist, gradually calming her trembling form.
Rate on N.U.
