There were eyes in the trees.

Yellow, sickly, and rotting, they grew from within their wooden knots and hung like fruit alongside long browned leaves. A pitiful nest rested precariously on one of the branches, inhabited by a three-eyed raven and her twisted offspring, watching their every movement with silent, unnatural focus.

Lorenzo looked out into the forest around them, a frown deeply etched into the bark of his face. The vines in his grip seemed to coil in response to his distress, though he paid them no mind, focusing instead on his vigil at the edge of the Bed of Roses.

Clinging to one of its great thorny legs he pushed his magic into the vines, iterating on them in conjunction with Spinosa's own spells. With each step the Bed took his limbs shook and he was forced to rebalance lest he lose his grip. It was a necessary task, despite how awkward of a position it left him in. Ever since they'd first arrived in the All-Seeing's territory a subtle miasma had begun to sink into the construct itself, mucus and rot seeping in like seeds as each 'foot' tromped across these blighted lands.

Even now he forced the vines to grow and change as Demonic pestilence tried to force its way into the prickly flesh of the Bed. Stronger veins, thicker trunks, more resilient cells, a thousand and one tiny upgrades to keep out the rot for a mere minute longer.

It was exhausting, yet if anything this was the easy job compared to what the rest of his party were dealing with.

Speaking of…

An emerald bear roared far below him, smashing corrupted wildlife beneath its powerful paws in a warped reflection of his own Bella. It thrashed and crackled as it tore great swaths through the rotting hordes, the unnatural scintillating screech matched by the screams of Dire Bullfrogs and White Rabbits which struggled in vain to pierce its crystalline skin. Arrows joined in raining down on what the bear could not kill, striking down dozens of monsters a minute and granting enough of a reprieve for the beast to turn carnage into conquest—if only briefly.

And this was but one battle raging around one leg. For over a day now a veritable horde had been accosting them at every waking moment, hounding their steps across the blighted lands of the Demon Nypholeph.

It seemed that unlike the Lich-King's territory—which was a Dead Land pantomiming the act of life—the All-Seeing's territory—though rotting—was still undeniably, violently alive.

Or perhaps the mere fact that the local population of monsters still had a leader was what had brought about the change. The Demon Lord was, after all, all seeing. What little subtly they had clung to had long gone out the window. Here in the heart of the All-Seeing's power, there was no such thing as 'stealth.' The creature knew where they were the moment they arrived, and even if the monsters weren't currently informing their master with each death the trees were watching enough for all of them.

Once they realized that, they stopped attempting to avoid the monsters which crossed their path. Better to just bulldoze through with righteous violence than worry about hiding from a Demon from whom it was impossible to hide.

A faint roar was heard from above, and Lorzeno risked a glance to see Leo hurl a thorny javelin, spiking a Gazer which had snuck just a bit too close right in its single oversized eye and sending it hurtling to the ground with a loud wet 'squelch.'

He shuddered, before turning back to his task. Already his brief moment of inaction had caused a resurgence in one of the root clusters, and he'd be damned if he saw the Bed itself fall before he did.

With how it was the only thing keeping them away from the corrupted hordes, he certainly had plenty of motivation.

-<X>-

After three straight days of fighting, Teresa could safely say she had a new most-hated Demon Lord.

It wasn't just the constant deluge of monsters. That, if nothing else, was expected. Having made it so deep into the Demon Lands you'd be a fool to expect otherwise.

No, it wasn't the fighting that had gotten to her. It was the corruption. That constant miasma which seemed to choke the Demon's territory with such proficiency it was a shock the air was not soup. The sky itself had turned a bile-green from the sheer amount of it, and her throat felt like she had been chugging gravel from how long she had been forced to pray just to keep it at bay.

It gave her a new appreciation for fighting the Woman-Serpent, if anything. At least she just killed you.

All that was to say, however, was that when they crossed some invisible barrier and the miasma began to lessen, they were all instantly on guard.

They had been marching on the Demon Lord's center of power, after all. It did not get weaker the closer you got to it.

"Leo," she rasped to the massive Orc as she stumbled up to the edge of the Bed. "Report."

Leo grunted, and spoke not a word more.

"That bad, huh?" she groused in commiseration. He was an Orc of few words—to the point she couldn't remember the last time she'd heard him speak—but that was a particularly exhausted grunt. That even a man as stoic as him could be so wrung out spoke volumes.

"It could be worse," Spinosa sighed as she approached them. Not by walking, of course—the woman was a Nymph in the heart of her own garden, she would never debase herself in so ugly a manner—but lounging on the petals of a man-sized rose, which itself waddled over on stubby legs like it was a mini-Bed itself. "We've been granted a moment of reprieve, something I so worried we might never see again."

"It's for that very reason I'm so worried," Teresa countered, before coughing and rubbing her throat. Yeah, Leo had the right idea, no talking for as long as she could once this was done. If only it were possible to heal her own body of divine overuse, but she supposed even the Goddess had her limits.

…She should teach the cleansing prayer to Catherina while they had the chance. Let the newbie deal with this crap instead.

"Then, like, worry while you rest," the Nymph yawned theatrically, flopping deeper into her petals. "Perhaps we are being led into a trap—perhaps we simply killed so many of the Demon's monsters it has run out. Either way, I shall be taking a nap. A rose such as myself needs her beauty sleep, don't ya know?"

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

If only it were so easy.

It wasn't even the potential of a trap that was stressing her out so much. No, there had been something else that had begun to worry her, something she'd only been able to consider now that she'd been granted a moment to sit down and think.

They had been in the Demon Lands for nearly two weeks now. And yet, at no point had they encountered an actual Demon.

In the Lich-King's territory, that could have been rationalized away. Its not like his followers would necessarily stick around without their lord—and if they had, they were likely too busy fighting on the borders than worrying about a single small party running through their lands. Hell, they might not have even realized they were there.

But Nypheloph knew they were here. It had known for days and had been throwing everything it had into corrupting or killing them. If it weren't for how fast the damned rabbits bred she might have even been proud of the dent they'd put in its forces.

Yet still, not a single Demon had appeared.

It was unnerving. And despite technically being a good thing, she was concerned that this was merely the calm before the inevitable storm.

"…I still worry," she grunted instead of speaking such fears aloud. She didn't know if they trees could hear, but they could certainly read lips and she had no intention of giving the Demon Lord any ideas. "I suppose it is in my nature to—wait. Stop. What is that?"

"What is what?" Spinosa drawled through half-lidded eyes, rolling over to look at where she was pointing. "I don't see—oh. Oh shit."

The Bed of Roses suddenly ground to a complete and utter stop.

The others scattered about (at least those who were not currently asleep) perked up, approaching to figure out why they'd halted.

But Teresa did not pay them any mind, for she had eyes only for a form a few meters away, hidden half behind the trees and shaking in their shade.

A young girl, perhaps eleven or twelve at best, stared back out from her hiding place with wide, fearful eyes.

"Holy fuck," Spinosa whispered, and Teresa could not even reprimand her for the minor blasphemy because her thoughts were exactly the same.

The young girl—younger than should have been possible, so far from the edge of civilization—was a familiar impossibility. With a face tanned from long hours in the sun, weather-beaten freckles all along her arms, and stringy brown hair that fell past her shoulders, she looked like she could have been a peasant girl from anywhere in the world.

If it weren't, of course, for the cursed gift of the All-Seeing clinging to her skull. Half her face was drooping, sickly yellow veins stretching like scars along her cheek, which all led to the bright, pulsating eye which grew prominently out from the side of her forehead.

The girl clutched a half-full basket of wilting neon orange berries to her chest, staring up in wide-eyed horror at the Bed of Roses. As though it were a monster come to kill her and not the only pure life which existed on this wretched corner of the continent.

"What in the world is…" Charles grumbled as he stomped up to them, only to trail off as he caught sight of what they were all looking at. "Fucking—Teresa, no."

"I haven't even said anything yet," she hissed, though she knew what he was talking about. That there was a Human so far out here…

Beyond the simple desire to save this girl from whatever horrible fate had led her here, there was a horrified curiosity which pushed her to act. After all, if there was one Human alive out here…

Who's to say there isn't more?

"This is obviously a trap," the old man told her as though she hadn't already considered that.

"The tower wasn't a trap."

"There are so many reasons that logic doesn't work I'm not even going to begin to list them," Charles groaned. "She's probably fully corrupted anyway! You'll just have to kill her, and then you'll be sad about it and mope for the next week that you couldn't save the girl. We have a job to do Teresa!"

"Do you think leaving her to die would make her mope less?" Spinosa asked, seemingly genuinely curious.

"Charles, either the girl is in peril, in which case it is my duty as a holy woman to save her. Or the girl is a corrupted monster, in which case it is my duty as a holy woman to slay her," she countered him. "Whichever is true, I'll need to go down there to know."

"You aren't budging on this, are you?"

"Nope. I've made my decision," Teresa grunted, pulling out her sword. "The rest of you, prepare to fire on my position should the worst happen. And… should it end up getting the best of me, leave me behind. I won't have the rest of you die for my foolish morality."

"I can't believe you're pulling the morality argument," Charles grumbled under his breath as she leapt off the Bed of Roses, leaving the rest of them behind as she landed on the ground for the first time in days.

Slamming into the dirt with a divinely appointed 'thwoom,' she quickly straightened, sword at the ready and muscles coiled as she turned to face directly at where the girl was hiding.

They locked eyes—

And then the girl turned and ran, screaming and crying as she dropped her basket and rushed away. Teresa held out a hand as if to stop her—

And the little girl—who had been so focused on getting away from the big scary warrior that she forgot to look at where she was going—tripped on a root, slamming her temple into a low-hanging branch of the tree next to her and instantly fell to the ground, having knocked herself out cold.

Even the eyes growing from the nearby trees seemed to pause, taking a moment to turn and join Teresa in staring down at the girl before once more returning to their previous vigil.

That… was not what she had expected to happen.

Still, she didn't put away her sword. Approaching slowly and cautiously, the holy woman marched her way slowly up to the unconscious child, stabbing at any eye which got within range of her blade.

And despite her well-worn wariness, she made it all the way to the girl without anything stopping her.

Teresa came to a stop above her, and—slowly—kneeled down, gently taking her head in her hand and with a murmured prayer began feeling out the child's injuries.

The bruise she'd gotten from where she'd knocked herself out from was prominent, mirroring the eye on the other side of her skull. It would heal, though it seems she'd given herself a concussion, something Teresa wasn't sure she should laugh or sigh about. But it was the eye which quickly drew her attention. Not because of the corruption—which while vile and blinding was not anything special—but because for all it was a prominent mutation, it was not deep. The twisted veins avoided the girl's brain, instead spreading only within her skin and bone, carving channels within her flesh from temple to thigh.

The corruption was intertwined with her body, but in such a way she felt confident she could burn it out. Somehow, despite the fact the girl could have had it in her body for years, it didn't look impossible to remove.

…In fact, it almost seems like that was intended.

Teresa swallowed, shaking away such thoughts. She needed to focus on curing the girl—everything else could come after. So she placed her hand against the Demonic eye, and with a rusty voice began to pray.

"It was spoken such, by the Daughter to her disciples: I am the Precedent, the Paragon, the Witness. Redemption written anew, solace granted through succor. I am Precedent; only through my birth may Man touch the Divine. I am Paragon; only through my works may Man hear the Divine. I am Witness; only through my eyes may Man see the Divine. Thus I declare: cast down your heterodoxies, your sacrilege and suffering. Embrace me, my Mother, my Self, and through the sacrifice of my birth may you baptize yourselves as true acolytes of the Goddess."

Her fingers tightened and then dug, pushing deep into the mutated eye-socket as burning light suffused them with holy purpose. Nails severed rotting arteries and set their remains alight with burning light. Then, with a sickening 'pop' she tore the corruption free from the girl's skull, freeing her of its infection for the first time in who knows how long.

The eye could not speak, but she imagined it screamed as she clenched her fist and turned it to naught but ash.

The girl squirmed in silent agony as her body was purged, and in this case her being unconscious was likely a blessing. She would not remember the pain, only the aftermath.

Teresa sighed as her work concluded. Grimacing down at her, she noted absently the gaping hole left behind, a prominent pockmark which would scar the girl for the rest of her days. It was a shame, but far better than the alternative.

Then she froze, eyes widening as the holy light receded and in its absence revealed something far, far worse than any mere scar.

With the parasite removed, the skin of the child's face was left bare, no longer infected and overwhelmed by the Demon's yellow taint. The side which had been left untouched was a normal tan, common amongst many in the south. The side which had been corrupted, though…

That skin was no longer Human, but a vibrant, unholy purple.

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.