CXLIII. Here Comes the Sword

The burning coastal village reflected a blood-red sky, with tall dark shadows in the fire resembling ghosts, their limbs as segmented as bamboo bugs, and the executioner draped in black chain mail headgear, with eye sockets like black whirlpools.

He wielded an iron axe with a handle three meters long,

already swinging it towards his face.

He had no choice but to become a desperado, just as everyone... in the end,

had no choice but to die.

Great Wetland waystation's inn.

Liszt awoke abruptly from the nightmare, sitting up suddenly as if he could still feel that agonizing pain of imminent death, a sensation of being bisected right through the middle of his head, his bones halved, gasping deep as if choked for ten thousand years, his chest heaving violently, back drenched in cold sweat.

It was already the next morning.

Claude had woken up long ago, his military efficiency had already packed up all luggage, looking at Liszt with a slight astonishment.