Henry and Anna's betrayal

The soldiers' attention fixed their gaze to the head of their captain, his expression unexpecting of death. Fear clouded their mind, joy drained from their face as they realized what had happened.

"Ca-captain…" a soldier called out. Clasius, once a bastion of their will, soulless.

Their rage turned toward Henry.

"Y-you!"

"Traitor!" a soldier shouted.

Their weapons clenched in their hands, prepared to fight to the last man.

Henry's professionalism remained, his silence unchanged. 

He continued with his duty. His rapier moved, slashing a light blue energy to them. His intent clear, his sword aimed with deadly precision at their life.

"Invisibilia testudine!" the mages casted upon seeing the attack. A protective dome created by mana that once sheltered their lives from the swarm of ants, now used to escape the grip of death from their own kin.

The soldiers readied their shields and swords, halberdiers and wills. They knew the moment just one of them started running would mean the doom of them all. 

They all gathered in front of the only person that they thought could save them from the doomed and damned situation, Kira. 

Sweat trickled down their foreheads and saliva gulped as they readied themselves.

"May the goddess be with us," one of them prayed, desperation and hope mingled with each other in his voice.

Crack!

The crescent shaped energy bashed against their dome, instantly fragmenting it into thin air. Their effort in vain, their shields became the last and only thing that protected them from Henry's unexplainable betrayal.

Henry slashed again, yet another crescent shaped energy shot to them.

The mages were exhausted, their lungs gasping for air and their mana depleted. The soldiers, though joying over their victory just moments ago, too were worn out from the fight.

They raised their shield, a last ditch effort for the fight of their life.

Those shields disappointed them. Their armor was useless in face of such advanced technique. Their flesh was similar to the steaks on a dinner platter and bones akin to mere sticks in the face of a powerful axe swing.

A violent burst of blood came from their split body, that spurt created a rain in the hall of the catacomb. Powerless, mages, swordsmen, and halberdiers joined the corpses of ants.

Thuds

"Uagh!" groans could be heard. Thuds accompanied the falling of bodies.

Red blood of soldiers mixed with green blood of ants, creating a murky brown color. Once enemies, now brothers in death.

"N-no…" a soldier groaned in pain, refusing to believe Henry's doing.

"May th- Godd-des-" another prayed, his soul leaked as his voice became increasingly weaker and softer.

"My wi-wife…" another remembered of home, the warmth of its embrace, the joy of family and the peace of living. 

Yet they all found themselves, lying on the ground of the wet, damp, bloodied and cold catacomb of which he would be a part of soon.

The place once bustling with struggle, now grim, silent and dark. Its atmosphere was choking as the putrid smell of blood struck any nose it could find.

Henry then grabbed the queen's jaw-like claw after detaching it from her arms. Then he turned around toward Kira.

He walked in the middle of it all, corpses of ants and men, of which his rapier tasted both kinds. His gaze undeterred from such sight of his massacre as he made his way to Kira.

Cough!

Her face pale and her eyes strained red, her cough echoed through the silence, accompanied with green liquid that gushed out. Familiar and distinctive characteristic of the ant's poison in her system.

"Coa-coachman… No, He-henry," she called out, her trembling hand extended upward to Henry's face. His gaze leered at her.

"An-anna sent you… here, huh?" she mentioned.

Henry nodded, though his silence was unbroken.

Kira's red eyes, once energized and lusting for a fight, looked around the place of battle. She chuckled slightly, just like the queen ant, her gaze turning blank and empty.

"Ah… It is my si-sin to desp-depise her?" she muttered in her last moment, remembering Anna and what they once were, slightly envious. Both joined the church, yet one succeeded and another rotted in the countryside.

Henry's finger tightened its grip, the queen's claw in his hand. His eyes slightly glanced at it. Then his muscles pulled back and readied itself.

His coil-like muscle sprung forward, stabbing Kira on the abdomen with the queen's chipped and serrated claw. Like a nail piercing through a wood, attaching it into a large structure, Kira, as the wood, met her end.

Henry looked as he stood. All the people and ants around him lay dead, lifeless on the ground. Not an ounce of regret on his still and professional expression. After all, it was his duty, his fate and his master's words that made him do it.

His grey moustache vibrated slightly as he placed his rapier back in its sheath. His suit, though ripped and holed by the fight, was clean of a spot of blood. Though the sole of his black boots were dirtied by puddles of blood and mud. 

Henry was finally alone.

The night's moonlight, its presence cold and dark, leaked into the bishop's room from the window as he sat on his desk. His body trembled as he sat still, his weak and slow eyes fixed on the door. He waited.

Creak.

The door slowly opened, its creak overwrote the sounds of crickets chirping or the leaves rubbing against each other. Anna walked into the room, her warm smile greeted the bishop.

The moonlight glinted on her white silky hair, her silver eyes like a gaze of coldness as determination nested in there.

"An-na…" the bishop called, weakness burrowing itself deeper in his voice .

Cough

His cough echoed through the room. Anna looked at him, her face beautiful and graceful.

"Bishop… No, Livius, I wonder… What were you thinking when you betrayed us?" Anna questioned, pressing her tone.

"For-forgive me… but Tristan mu-must be stopped," his weak voice akin to a whisper as he stood up and looked at his lance on the display on the wall.

"He saved you once and he has the power to end you," her voice said, calmly.

Livius slowly picked his lance from its display, his eyes focused on its beauty. A white lance of gold engravings, a sign of glory and faith to his years of dedication.

"Th-then, end m-me," his voice trembled as he challenged.

"I will," she said.

Livius turned to her, his lance gleaming with eagerness of a fight.

Flick!

She flicked her finger. The time slowed.

Livius stood still, his eyes determined as his trembling hand raised his lance, trying to point it at Anna. But his muscles felt heavy, like being chained by a thousand chains, his strength, though diminishing, pulled as hard as he could.

"Heavy huh? I shall applaud you for your power, even in that weakened state and hit by my power, you could still move," Anna exclaimed.

Step step step

Her steps echoed against the room's wall as she made her way to Livius.

Livius's eyes moved, yet his body was slow to follow, his lance tried to change direction.

"Your effort is in vain, this is a secret technique, some random bishop protecting a tomb obviously won't know of this," Anna boasted, her tone prideful.

Then she stood beside Livius. She placed her open palm on Livius' face.

His eyes widened, his muscles numbed and his body unmoved. The only thing he could do was watch.

"Past Lance Paladin, I, servant of the Goddess and Sir Tristan, hereby punish you," she whispered.

Then from Anna's palm, came a ring of magic.

"Procursus," she whispered, chanting her magic.

An explosion occurred, invisible from the outside. Livius' brain had exploded. 

His eyes blanked from the embrace of death and red from the poison of the ants. Green liquid gushed out of his mouth as his muscles ceased to work.

Clank!

His golden lance fell to the floor, accompanied by a loud and thunderous ring that rang on Anna's ear. Soon, Livius followed, his lifeless body collapsed on Anna's hand.

Livius, Bishop of Darly, 7th Lance Paladin, was dead.

Meanwhile, deep underground, in the catacomb of Saint Atis. Henry sheathed his rapier in its scabbard.

Step

A sound echoed. Though far, he could feel it growing closer and getting to him. Henry's eyes instantly fixed into the passageway of which he and the slaughtered party came from.

Step

His brown eyes peered, his face wrinkled, searching for any sign of danger.

His mind sent a signal of danger. His hand slightly trembled, sweat trickled down his forehead. His fist clenched, convincing himself that anything that revealed its presence from the passageway, wouldn't be much of a danger.

Step

The sound became louder, himself becoming more nervous of such pressure. His hand instinctively reached out for his just sheathed rapier. Readying it by his side for cutting the pressuring being.

Then he was greeted by a blank stare and an emotionless face. In the being's hand, a shovel.

Ron had come.