――Roaring, he swung his claws toward the enemy surging from the environs.
???: [Gaahhhh――!!]
Their soft bodies burst open upon getting ensnared in his claws, his field of vision dyed with blood of a brilliant crimson hue.
The sensation of robbing the life of a living creature, despite being accustomed to it, could have never been enjoyable. Though he felt the hunting instincts seated within him galvanize, it was far from indulgence.
However, he immersed himself during these moments, forgetting said value of life and virtues.
If not, he shall be swallowed by the enemy―― no, by the fiendish, multitudinous "Appetite" advancing from every direction, and fail to hold fast to even his own life.
???: [Shiiihk!]
A wrathful bellow, swinging his claws with no set aim, unleashing kicks. He still hit. It hit them. Ahead of his arms, by his shins, rebounded the dull sensation of shattering the bones of a tiny being.
Nauseating. However, forsaking all sentimentality, he bared his fangs in enmity, losing himself.
???: [――――]
He was in a wrought state. For as long as time permitted, he had tormented his own body with pain.
Weakness was a sin. His self, had once lost what he held close to his heart due to this sin. Neither was he able to grasp an opportunity to never release what he cherished. That was why, for when an identical opportunity returned, or in order to not lose anything more, he sought the utmost of limits.
He could not, render those days futile. His self, was no longer his weak self. In order to prove that, sojourning an emotion akin to vomiting blood, he smashed, incised, tore apart the tiny lives.
The dusky forest of the night was tainted with blood. He felt the volume of this flowing blood, to be the fruits of the days he had accreted――,
???: [――Urgh.]
A sharp ache running through, his right calf burst open by scorching heat.
Look there and the fangs of a white ball of fur had been wolfing his leg, severing the flesh with not an instant's worth of vacillation. He gnashed his molars and swung his right arm down like a sword, slaughtering the ball of fur into two slices.
However, he could not end this spar out of agony. In spite of robbing the life of the enemy, he had lost the firm support of his leg. Curtailment of mobility, in this battlefield, meant immediately shortening the distance to Death.
――Death, the instant he focused on that word, shivers ran through his entire frame.
???: [――This ain't, no goddamn joke!!]
He did not want to think of these shivers as fear or dismay.
Raising his voice as though repudiating his weak self and shoving aside the thoughts coming to his mind, he elevated his wounded right leg overhead and energetically pounded it into the ground.
That moment, an immense power was invoked below his feet, and the soil and bare earth were vigorously overturned.
Entire hordes of fluffballs within five meters of his tiptoes were all toppled by the rising ground, many dozens of them giving rise to death wails as their bodies were crushed and perished.
???: [Now――]
???: [――――Kyuuuhn.]
However, he was bestowed not even the time to be elated with triumph. Paying no heed to the entombing of dozens of their fellow comrades in the horde, the enemy's fervor was not withered by even an atom. ――No, rather than wither, saying it had augmented would also be appreciable. But, he was unable to identify any change in the horde charging towards his side.
The advancing white fluffballs, felt no rage, turmoil, or anything for that matter toward their comrades' deaths. With simply a blazing glimmer conceived in their eyes, befitting of fulfilling the desires of the individual, they clattered their fangs.
Clanging, clanking, clunking, clinking, an infinite harmony of the sound of devouring life, abrading his spirit.
???: [――~hk.]
Faintly clearing his throat, he pounded his legs whilst seeking to fall back. What would happen should he fall back now. By falling back, and bracing his stance, just want would that amount to――,
???: [――I suppose by now, you must've gotten how crazy the enemy is, right, Garfiel.]
Garfiel: [――~hk! Shut yer mouth! Shut the hell up ~hk!]
He reflexively yelled back at the voice abruptly thrown at him from behind.
Lit with the flame of rebelliousness was the fighting spirit momentarily yielding to reason, subsequently repelling the surging vanguard of furballs with a barrage of fists, as by the spray of blood the forest was yet again tinted. Tinted. Tinted――.
???: [That amounts to nothing but buying time. They need to be dealt with from the source.]
Garfiel: [For the last goddamn time, I'm tellin' ya ta shut the hell up! I ain't listenin' to yer directions, ya bastard!]
Upon getting preached by a visage indicating knowledge and experience, he howled back that nobody shall lend their ears to his say. Even should that advice hold accurate, he could never harbor the faith of entrusting his life to the one who offered the advice.
Never could he ever do so, at the very least, for the black haired youth spectating the battle from behind.
Garfiel: [――Piece of shit.]
With the gaze verging onto a sigh at his back, the battle with the white furballs resumed.
What he bore for the onlooker youth standing in the rear was distrust, and a sense of defeat excoriating his chest which he did not wish to admit. The resentment he directed towards his own self for having his state become per the youth's anticipation, per his words, a maelstrom of rage.
――The crisis imminent upon the Sanctuary, one of the Three Great Witchbeasts, was something beyond what his hands could possibly manage.
Repudiating such seeming folly, he had entered the subjugation paying no heed.
However, the slaves of ceaselessly gushing "Appetite", their overwhelming numbers and ruthlessness had waged a war of attrition as though sneering at his recklessness.
His wounds were deep. The Divine Protection of Earth Spirits that dwelled within his body accorded strength but could not heal wounds. He possessed no time, to use healing magic. Nor did he possess any comrades who would buy said time, nor did he possess any means to keep the enemy away.
He was alone. He was lonely. And that was something wished for by nobody but him.
That should he alone be strong, he would be able to protect everything till the very end. In order to make that childish illusion into reality, he had continued to train these fangs, these claws, this body.
And yet, and yet, and yet――
???: [It's beyond you to be able to do everything alone, Garfiel.]
Delegating even the rage to retort with a "Shut up" into his fangs, he smote the enemies before him.
Their soft bodies shattered, flowers of blood blossomed before his eyes. Eating the fluffball now a slice of meat, another fluffball approached. The fluffballs he had assuredly crushed quavered, and multiplied into two like magic.
In an identical vein, the more he crushed the fluffballs, the more they multiplied. No matter how much he abated them, diminished them, they shan't decrease.
Despair, distended within his chest. It felt as though it was being pronounced for him, that the entirety of the days he had spent until now had been futile, that illusions remained nothing but illusions.
――Warm tears of bitterness cascaded down his eyes, as he pierced them with his quivering fangs, and tore their flesh apart.