"Idiot! I told you not to ghostify!"
Sensing the change in the air's magic and realizing what he intended, Ram's face paled, but she was too weak to do anything.
Ignoring Ram's warning, Shin was determined to go all out. He fully channeled his magic, and a pure white horn, glowing with a crimson halo, gradually emerged from his forehead.
The surrounding magic was forcibly drawn in, surging through his horn into his limbs, amplifying his strength while his magical power skyrocketed.
But the intruders showed no surprise, merely executing their mission as they charged at him.
In Shin's eyes, now glowing with pure golden brilliance, their movements seemed like slow motion. Though he couldn't keep up before, this time he finally had the speed to outmatch them.
"—AAAAHHH!!"
With his blood's battle frenzy fully awakened, he forgot his fear, let out a roar, and stomped the ground, charging at the lead enemy.
His small body erupted with power disproportionate to its size, moving far faster than before. He dodged an incoming blade, rushed into the lead black-robed figure's guard, and drove his dagger precisely into the man's heart.
A ferocious wind surged again, translucent blades slicing toward the surrounding black-robed figures with far greater speed and force than before.
Blood sprayed into the air. Two black-robed figures, unprepared for his ghostification-enhanced strength, were sliced in half by the wind blades and collapsed.
But the rest blocked the sudden, overly straightforward attack. Without a word, the moment Shin pushed aside the corpse in front of him, they hurled their swords at him. Clang!
"—Ugh!"
Though he saw the flying daggers and managed to deflect a few with his own, he couldn't avoid the rest. His thigh, abdomen, shoulder, and the arm shielding his face were struck by the precise blades.
The searing pain in his thigh stopped him from running, and he fell to his knees from the momentum.
The black-robed figures raised their hands in unison, summoning soccer-ball-sized fireballs one after another, hurling them mercilessly at him.
"—Carlos!!"
The overlapping cries of the young girls came from behind, but Shin had no time to react. He barely managed to press his hand to the ground, channeling all his magic to summon a rock wall.
BOOM!!
The combined explosion of multiple fireballs roared, shattering the sturdy rock wall instantly.
In that moment, Ram and Rem's vision filled with crimson, and the frail figure, riddled with daggers and seemingly unreliable, was blown away by the blast, tumbling several times.
Covered in blood and motionless, he looked... indistinguishable from a corpse.
"Carlos... No... It can't be true, right?"
The sisters, barely standing again before being knocked down by the blast's shockwave, stared blankly at the blood-soaked, silent figure, unable to accept the reality.
Unlike their parents and other tribesmen, who only treated them as people after they learned magic, Shin was the first to talk to them, teaching them what to do when hungry.
He shared stolen sweet potatoes with them, took the blame for his mistakes, and got beaten for it. Though just a neighbor, he felt more like family than their actual family.
But now, that person had... died right in front of them. Grief, fear, anger at unfair treatment, and—despair—countless negative emotions merged like a torrent, overwhelming their hearts and plunging them into chaos.
"Ah... Aaaah..."
Rem trembled, clutching her head and writhing, unable to accept the scene before her.
Ram, fighting the near-fainting dizziness from losing her horn, stood up, glaring at the expressionless black-robed figures with chilling rage and hatred. Her trembling lips let out a hysterical scream:
"—You bastards... Unforgivable!! I'll never forgive you! I'll kill you all...!!"
The young girl, ignoring the harsh reality that her missing horn prevented her from absorbing magic and that she could only survive on her remaining reserves, twisted the surrounding air violently, preparing a final, desperate strike.
But at that moment... the nearby figure stirred, slowly raising his head and climbing to his feet.
Everyone witnessing this fell silent, staring in disbelief at the small figure.
"Ugh...!"
The close-range explosion had briefly knocked Shin out. Unsure of what had happened, he gritted his teeth and struggled to rise, kneeling on one knee, panting and groaning in pain.
Rock fragments from the explosion had battered him, leaving his clothes, pants, and body riddled with wounds. Blood loss far exceeding a normal person's lethal limit pooled beneath him.
Yet, with a pained, contorted expression, he endured the agony threatening to make him pass out again, pulling the daggers from his body one by one.
In ghost transformation, free of obstructions, his already-enhanced recovery, boosted further by the Berserker Blessing that grew stronger with injury, healed his wounds at a visible rate.
The astonishing recovery generated intense heat, evaporating his blood into crimson steam.
The red mist swirling around him, combined with his crimson-glowing horn, gave him an eerie, ghostly aura that sent chills down spines.
Yet, despite being the enemy, the black-robed leader showed delight, clapping excitedly and raising his hand again.
Though neither the young girls nor the Witch Cultists could see it, Shin clearly noticed the same flame that had struck Ram hurtling toward him at a speed unimaginable for ordinary magic.
"Open Canon—Access Rule!!"
Lacking combat experience but having seen this move before, Shin, to avoid being countered by a defensive tactic and to maximize his Berserker Blessing's enhancement, summoned his trump card with surprising calm amidst the adrenaline surge dulling his pain.
As his words left his mouth, a half-meter-wide, sci-fi yet magical circular array appeared before his palm.
The array's center filled with a mosaic, quickly projecting a white metallic sphere about fifteen centimeters in diameter.
The sphere, turning from projection to reality, glowed and unfolded into a magical array that fully covered his front.
Radiating pale blue light like a lotus with countless petal patterns, the ornate array was flanked by two smaller, more sci-fi-styled arrays, distinct from traditional magic.
***