Chapter 132: The Makings of a Cult

Sarael slaughtered everything in her path without hesitation.

Shadows lashed out like jagged spikes, cutting down anything that drew near before it could even make a sound. She moved forward in a straight line, carving a road through the hellscape with no care for what stood in her way.

The sides of her route were littered with corpses, blood soaking into the dead earth. The center, where she walked, remained almost clean. A path of convenience, nothing more.

"To think Ronan and I were so cautious against these things before," she murmured, barely sparing the bodies a glance.

She continued forward, her shadows clearing the way with mechanical efficiency, when something caught her attention.

A group of hunters stood in a tight formation, spears bristling outward like a phalanx. They were surrounded.

Circling them were creatures that looked like the twisted offspring of dogs and cats, each one the size of a small car. They moved with predatory patience, testing the formation, waiting for an opening.

One charge could collapse the entire line. The hunters knew it. The creatures knew it too.

Sarael tilted her head, watching the scene with the same detached curiosity she'd once reserved for the foxes in the snow. The hunters were exhausted, their movements sluggish, their spears trembling. They wouldn't last much longer.

One of the creatures lunged, and the phalanx buckled. A spear snapped. A hunter screamed.

Sarael moved.

Not out of pity. Not out of some sense of duty. It was simply easier to cut through the pack than to walk around it.

The shadows answered before she'd even fully decided. Black tendrils erupted from the ground in a perfect ring around the besieged hunters, spearing through flesh and bone with surgical precision.

The creatures didn't have time to shriek. One moment they were circling. The next, they were pinned to the dead earth in a circle of black spikes, their blood steaming against the cold.

Silence fell like a hammer.

The hunters stared at her. Their faces were white with shock, their weapons still raised, their breath coming in ragged gasps.

One of them, a boy who couldn't have been older than twenty, had his mouth hanging open. The spear in his hands was still pointed vaguely in her direction.

Sarael let her shadows retract. She smoothed her battle dress with one hand, then offered the group a polite smile.

"Good afternoon. Have any of you seen a man in dark armor? Very handsome, violet eyes, probably cutting through monsters just like this~"

For a second, no one answered. Then the nearest hunter, a grizzled man with a gash across his brow, lowered his spear just enough to show he wasn't about to attack.

"Y-You... How did you..."

"The monsters," Sarael interrupted, gesturing vaguely at the circle of corpses. "They were in my way."

The man swallowed hard, the gash on his brow still glistening with half-dried blood. He exchanged a quick look with the woman beside him before turning back to Sarael.

"No, we haven't seen anyone... but—"

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, fighting to keep his voice steady.

"Whoever you're looking for, we'd like to help."

"Brandt, what are you—"

"It's better to join her than survive out here on our own."

Sarael considered the offer for a moment, then nodded. Ronan had always said more bodies between them and the monsters was a good idea. She was simply following that rule.

Besides, after reclaiming so many of her old ruins, she wanted to know what it felt like to be a goddess again. Leading a group of desperate hunters through the dark, their lives resting on her mercy, felt like a fitting place to start.

Sarael glanced back at the hunters, her smile still in place. "Then follow me. Stay close, keep quiet, and don't touch anything I don't tell you to touch."

The grizzled man, Brandt, nodded and barked a few orders to the others. The group fell in behind her without argument, their fear of the monsters outweighed only by their fear of losing their only chance at survival.

Sarael walked forward, and the shadows around her feet deepened, spreading outward in a protective ring. The hunters, even the ones who'd barely been able to lift their weapons a minute ago, found themselves moving with more steadiness now that they were inside her shadow.

"Here's my number one rule. If the next pack comes, don't break formation."

Her voice was light, almost playful, but no one laughed. The young hunter with the broken spear swallowed hard and held it a little tighter.

"Do you do this kind of thing often?" Brandt asked from just behind her.

"Kill monsters? Yes. Escort lost hunters? This is new for me."

Sarael tilted her head slightly, as if listening for something only she could hear.

"But I'm adaptable."

She picked up the pace, letting her shadows scout ahead and confirm the safest route through the warped terrain. The hunters followed in silence, their boots crunching over stone that shifted between dead grass and cracked asphalt with no rhyme or reason.

They crested a rise and paused at the edge of a shallow crater. Beyond it, the gate stretched wide and endless, abandoned cities scattered across the landscape like the bones of a failed civilization. The horizon shimmered under the sickly violet glow.

"I didn't notice it before, but those buildings look way too much like Earth architecture."

One of the hunters spoke, his voice low, almost reverent.

Sarael tilted her head, studying the ruins with fresh eyes. She had passed through a few already, cutting down anything in her way without stopping to really look.

Now that the hunter mentioned it, the shape of the rooftops, the layout of the streets, even the way some of the buildings had collapsed in on themselves, it all matched.

Sarael didn't really notice much of it before, spending most of her life in rural areas with Ronan's grandma. But after everything, she was starting to recognize it.

"It really is strange."

She let the words hang for a moment before turning away.

"But it doesn't change anything. We keep moving."

Sarael continued forward, her pace measured and unhurried. The group behind her moved in a tight, anxious cluster, their weapons still raised despite the relative safety of her shadow.

It didn't take long for the next pack to find them.

These ones came from the ruins, skittering over broken walls and through collapsed windows. Their bodies were long and pale, all jagged limbs and too many joints. Sarael didn't even slow down.

Black tendrils rose from the ground and speared through the pack before they could close the distance. The creatures twitched once, then fell still, their blood hissing against the cracked pavement.

"Don't stop walking," Sarael said, her voice light. "You'll fall behind."

The hunters obeyed, stepping around the corpses with the kind of care that came from having narrowly survived too many close calls. The young one with the broken spear stared at the dead creatures as they passed, his expression caught somewhere between awe and terror.

"How are you doing that?" he asked, barely above a whisper.

"Doing what?"

"Killing them like it's nothing."

Sarael considered the question for a moment, then shrugged.

"Guess I was just born for it."

"Born?"

The boy blinked, clearly not sure if she was joking. Brandt shot him a look that said don't push, but the question had already been asked.

Sarael didn't seem bothered.

"Well, to be more specific, I was born to do a lot of things quite well."

She was deliberately avoiding the word goddess. But the hunters following behind her were already thinking it themselves, whether they realized it or not. The word hung over them like the sickly light of the moon, unspoken but impossible to ignore.

"You sound like a deity," the boy said quietly, more to himself than to her.

"Maybe."

Sarael smiled, and the shadows around her feet seemed to lean toward the sound of her voice.

"Does that scare you?"

The boy hesitated. Then, slowly, he shook his head, laughing.

"The opposite; I'm much more willing to make a cult for some powerful woman than die."

"If it makes you feel better, I'll allow it."

✧ ✦ ✧

Her following grew with every passing hour.

More survivors emerged from the ruins, drawn by the trail of monster corpses and the faint, impossible scent of night-blooming flowers that clung to the air in Sarael's wake.

They stumbled from collapsed buildings and crawled out of storm drains, wide-eyed and trembling, all of them looking for something to believe in.

She didn't turn any of them away.

It was simpler to let them fall in line than to stop and argue with every desperate soul who begged to stay close.

"Stay in the center. Don't wander. Don't scream. Don't touch the shadows."

Her rules were simple. The survivors obeyed them like scripture.

"She's been killing everything before it even gets close."

"She has to be an S-Rank."

"With that face? There's no way she's just a hunter."

The whispers started small, passed between ragged groups as they stumbled along behind her. But the longer they walked, the louder they grew, until the mutterings took on a different shape entirely.

A woman had emptied a canteen at the edge of the group and whispered a prayer, not to the System or the gates or whatever gods Earth acknowledged, but to her. To the violet-eyed stranger with shadows that moved like living things.

"She's like a goddess," someone said, too reverent to be casual.

"Maybe she is one."

Sarael heard it all. She said nothing.

But the shadows at her feet curled a little tighter, and the path ahead of her cleared with more ease than before.

She was clearly enjoying the attention.