Where the flames had licked past, bloodstains bloomed like flowers.
The principle was simple. Heat stole away moisture in an instant. Even the very source of life was no exception.
Blood bubbled and boiled before drying into a dark crimson crust. Yet the reason such gaudy patterns were still embroidered across the earth was simple.
There was simply too much blood pouring out.
The blood that gushed forth in surges was closer to a fountain. Or perhaps hot spring water overflowing through a split in the earth. Either way, the force of the blood pouring from the torn carotid artery was terrifying.
Enough that even a girl who occupied one of the seats among the Seven Deadly Sins could hardly endure it.
Stagger, stagger.
The girl stumbled backward, unable even to do anything about her wide-open eyes. The two hands that had been gripping her long saber were now pressing against her own neck, repeatedly attempting a meaningless act of hemostasis.
Though it truly was “meaningless.”
Under normal circumstances, it would not have been strange for her to die on the spot from such a wound. An injury accompanied by this much blood loss should have rendered her unconscious long ago, after which she would simply have met her end.
And yet there…