Ethereal Paradigm: A Canvas of Black - Chapter 74 Pride and Resentmen

“Pride and resentment are not indigenous to the human heart, and perhaps it is due to the gardener’s innate love of the exotic that we take such pains to make them thrive.”

-Hope Mirrlees

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“Paradigm Shift! Bloody Butterfly!”

Suddenly, the monochromatic brilliance of the moon up above ceased its endearing beauty and what replaced it was a moon tainted with blood as if millions have been slain there at that moment.

Using the mythical weapon, Grendel in its primal form, they wounded themselves in the wrist enough for a drop of blood to spill on the ground… and with that single droplet, came an instantaneous downpour of gore that altered the color of the atmosphere, from its monochromatic taints, to now a grim visage of vermeil death and resentment. Blood filled the whole scenery.

Shiro, under the supervision of her Synthesized Angel acquaintance, starts to float right up high in the air as if an unseen hand lifts her up to prevent her soles from touching the verdant filthy terra firmas… and then from the same ground where she stood, the downpour of blood mysteriously started to alter forms, developing to become the likes of a tornado, but not made up of wings but of blood… and amidst it was the little girl, slowly metamorphosing to something that mere humans can not.

“HOOO??? SO YOU NOW KNOW OFFENSE.” The hero, seeing for the first time what the synthesized angel is really capable of, now that she’s inside a human who just received her own paradigm marveled at the cardinal visage and the crimson tornado, as though it means a demon lord’s entrance to another parallel universe began to spurt out this massive array of red flashes of lightning and the vehement surge of the winds that made the other ones except the persistent hero draw back in fear of the visage alone…

Then, the rather, the roseate sudden cyclone began to relinquish and inside was a dark orb shining in the brilliance of the redness of rubies…

“Be careful, Count Rosewald… This is unlike the novice earlier. We are talking about a Synthesized Angel with a hundred times more healing prowess than your pet… Not to mention that now she’s inside a second realm denizen, we don’t know for sure what she really is able of doing.”

“YES… YES… I KNOW… Y’ALL BETTER STEP BACK AND CALL FOR REINFORCEMENTS… I’LL KEEP AN EYE ON THE UNDERDOG IF IT TRIES TO ESCAPE AGAIN.”

“Yes… Men! Drawback!” the priest commanded the assassins and having great trust for their hero, without a second thought, fled the battlefield to call their allies.

The hero turned his focus at the bloody visage again, but this time, not with the uncanny frivolousness and reckless nonchalance but only with the pride that he must withhold, the pride as a kingdom’s hero endowed with the responsibility to once again claim their kingdom’s lost healer whose skills are second to none, a widely-considered ‘material’ for their kingdom’s growth and continuous rise to major fame and power.

The red-like orb laid afore, which was the outcome of the bloody cyclone started to break piece by piece slowly evaporating to glossy cerise specks of dust, and it was not long before a powerful entity’s appearance… so the hero thought, with his ever-arrogant pose and with his rather overbearing smile as the Gorgon and its vast army of trees given life were in his rear, f which he hope is ready to go against a powerful countenance.

The orb completely broke and what then revealed was the Synthesized Angel and the little girl, still in one body, but in a different demeanor.

Shiro’s hair became red as blood, her eyes became bright crimson in color, and her hair, scarlet… and in her back, was surreal wings alike to that of a butterfly but is made of blood and in their hands was not the mythical weapon, but a shiny red scythe larger than that of the body of the girl.

“Kisamara! Oni-chama o tōgoku suru yūki!” (English: You! How dare you imprison oni-chama!) Shiro suddenly talked pointing her hand to the iron maiden where Jaiden is currently sealed.

“Oh, Shiro-san… That man is very stubborn. He does not understand. Let us take our intentions by force now, kay?” Kurenai asserted.

“Hai! Kurenai onee-chan”

“Yosh!”

Shiro and Kurenai started to boldly talk with each other in one biological body and seeing them talk like that were like seeing the utmost visage of someone having an identity disorder at its peak.

“GAH GAH GAH! I SURELY DID NOT UNDERSTAND A WORD THAT YOUR COUNTERPART HAD SAID, BUT THERE’S NO WAY I AM STUBBORN… GAH GAH GAH!! BY FORCE EH! EURYALE ATTACK THEM!!!”

The Gorgon came dashing forth once again with great wrath together with its army of giant wooden statues. They then with all power started to throw big boulders to the girl, while some were planning on engaging close range… but the girl seeing all of the farce, was not even responsive to the upcoming danger. She just stood there doing nothing and letting all of the attacks into her without resorting to any guard or such.

She was then vividly hit by the various blitz of the giant statues who all bombarded her with melee attacks, but it all has no effect on her. Not a wound is even showing…

“Kawaikoto.” Kurenai said in plain mockery. Moreover, it was her first time doing this, finally confronting the hero who partly symbolized the overall image of the kingdom itself which stripped her of her will and she was happy and the feeling of going to the offensive which he hasn’t done directly before is very ecstatic.

“AS EXPECTED OF THE ANGEL OF HEALING… YOUR POWER IS SO POTENT THAT EVEN IF MY ATTACKS HIT YOU, NOT EVEN A TINY BRUISE IN YOUR SKIN IS SHOWING.”

“No… Your attacks are just plain weak. That’s all.

“GAH GAH GAH! NOW WE’RE TALKING!!…”

The hundred-hand statues continued the barrage of melee attacks directly at the girl while the Gorgon, standing half a kilometer away started to charge itself howling towards nature with an eerie cry to give her power, and then as if it heard its call, giant trees, thrice the size of the previous ones began to spurt quickly from the ground, and in the trees were these green luminous specks of lights of which the Gorgon started to compress in her mouth. The compressed green lights then began to take shape as a spheroid of emerald-green.

The spheroid in the Gorgon’s mouth then compressed to form a much larger state as it finished charging up energy from the surrounding newly-disgorged tree giants.

But the charge was far from its fruition while Kurenai and Shiro continuously take superfluous zero damage from the wooden statues in pursuits. Five layers of magic circles then appeared in front of it and it was so, that the spheroid then slowly began to pass by the five magical circles. First layer, it became dark green… Second layer, it became twice the size… Third layer, thrice the size and so on until it reached the fifth and final layer and it became five times its original size…

“YOU BETTER BE READY! IF I CAN’T EVEN INFLICT WOUNDS THEN WHY NOT BLOW YOU UP WHOLE? EURYALE! FIVE-LAYER NATURAL FULMINATION! ”

“Hmm…Insolent.”

The spheroid launched from the Gorgon’s grotesque-looking mouth towards the same spot where the little girl is still standing. who, as of now, have no intentions of dodging or whatsoever.

It then detonated right in the face of the bloody butterfly in a way that incinerated half of the statues, … A seemingly familiar scene back on Earth in its territorial wars.

The explosion then subsided wiping almost half of the wooden armies in pursuits, leaving this incinerated view of the point of impact, and set adrift in the air was the blood-winged girl whose lower half has been entirely blown off, but without even a single drop of blood spilling to the ground. It’s as if they both were two souls conjoined in an empty doll whose blood will stay clandestine as willed…

The hero, seeing the aftermath and the drifting body-half while the other half was blown to dust, a halcyon sign of him inflicting damage to such a creature, reveled in magnificence and his fathomless conceit, but literally as if its ashes were too corrected to be one with the ground once again, it began to rise up in the air in a split minute forming the little girl’s anatomy. It’s healing in its best resentment to never submit to pride.

“TSK! IT DID NOT EVEN WORK!”

“Are you done?” she asked, and the hero, seeing the ineffectiveness of his incursion ceased, gritting his teeth as the look of arrogance begins to depart from him.

“Then it’s my turn now.”

The bloody butterfly then took a tight hold of her lengthy cardinal scythe and got into the stance of someone who is about to display a unique prowess.

With one slash of the girl’s scythe, gushed forth a red-colored wave and with it, all of the remaining tree statues in 360-degree radius were slashed down without falters and not only them but as well as the Gorgon and every tree in the surrounding landscape. Some of the mountains standing afar were even hacked down like its nothing, re-altering the ever-changing landscape. From the deep sinister forest to a little arena, and to now, a perfect environment for major conflicts to rise.

But the Gorgon, given its immortality from the Synthesized Angel herself does not intend to die an insignificant death from that single slash.

“EURYALE!” the hero shouted, and the Gorgon healed, but the difference in regeneration is very apparent.

“Oh right… You’re immortal.” Kurenai exclaimed.

“GAH GAH GAH! DON’T ACT LIKE YOU DON’T KNOW A THING! WE KNOW THAT IT WAS YOU WHO BLESSED IT FOR YOU TO ESCAPE… FUNNY TO THINK NOW ISN’T IT? THAT THE MONSTER YOU EXPLOITED FOR YOU TO RUNOFF IS THE VERY SAME TOOL THAT I’LL USE TO RECAPTURE YOU..”

“I will not deny the allegation that it was I who made her seem immortal, and yes… I am the one.”

“GAH GAH GAH! SUCH HONESTY! THAT’S WHY ALL OF YOU AND YOUR SYNTHESIZED ANGEL FRIENDS ARE UTILIZED LIKE LIVESTOCK!”

“Hmmm… I see. Then should I reclaim its immortality then?

“WHAT?”

“Time for you to say goodbye to your pride, hero… Shiro-san. Let’s do this okay? After that, we will go get oni-Chama.”

“Wakatta! Kurenai Onee-chan.” (English: Got it! Big sister Kurenai!) Shiro responded.