But the moment they were close to eliminating the apple, corpses rose from the ground, each covered in brambles.

  Bitter Thorns had emerged to stop them.

  “Rockie – Please protect Three Paw and I!”

  “Brrr!”

  Thankfully, these versions of the Bitter Thorns were far weaker than the ones they had been fighting till now. Dozens fell in the blink of an eye. Rockie could not be stopped. Each of its six limbs were like six different sets of blades.

  They easily bisected the bodies of these reanimated corpses.

  “Almost there!” Red shouted.

  A few more strikes were needed to destroy the apple.

  Then – to her surprise, her blade managed to remove a chunk of the apple’s outer flesh.

  The hacked chunk, which fell just a meter away, should have been a solid piece of the juiciest apple. Instead, it was a decaying, rotten piece that was infested with black brambles which resembled maggots.

  Those maggots dug into the ground. They buried into the chests and craniums of corpses, forming a husk-like creature that removed all features of the human they took after. They were faceless, and so thin that one could easily mistake them for human-shaped brambles.

  There was a single eye embedded into their chest.

  It was the one thing other than their shape that resembled a human.

  //////// < WARNING > ////////

  < Major Resonance Detected >

  “Resonance…? With who? What’s being resonated with? You’re not making any sense!”

  The light.

  That was the only answer Red could come up with.

  The creatures that stood before her were not the same as the ones from the Corrupted.

  They were born from something else entirely.

  They were incredibly weak, to the point where Red could easily ignore them. But the fact that they were appearing meant that something even stranger was going on.

  Not only that, but it had the Origin of ‘Sin’.

  “What… are those…?” Snow herself had never seen such creatures before. “They’re not Corrupted! Red! Be careful!”

  “They’re too weak to do anything to me! But take a look at their Origin! Sin! Of Envy!”

  “Envy…?”

  “Yeah! Envy! I didn’t know that was a sin! Isn’t it fine to want something you don’t have!?”

  “No, Red. Sins. Justica Arms… arbitrates sins. Sins are just that. Acts. So why… are there physical manifestations of it here? Is it because of this Corrupted?”

  Snow tried to wrack her mind over this. She plunged her mouth into the pool of blood, trying to find an answer.

  But her diary came back blank, as though there was no information regarding ‘Sins’ out there. The fact that it was the first time someone like Snow had heard of this Origin alarmed Red.

  Red tried to connect the pieces together herself, to weave it all from her own unique perspective.

  But it had no connection with the Attribute of Ignorance.

  “Does it surprise you, my old nemesis?”

  A voice then spoke from within the apple itself.

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  “That even the very dregs of our emotions can assume a form it lacks?”

  Not the apple… It’s coming from the tree!

  “Yet here we are. Hidden within this forest. Lacking a form appropriate for the cognizant.”

  The voice was melancholic, and it spoke from a place of hatred.

  “Though we are one in the same, why is that you – A-V-T-121-01: Vengeful Red – possess the shell of humanity?”

  That hatred stemmed from the purest form of envy.

  “You… can talk…?” Red was shocked by this revelation.

  The Queen of Sweet and Bitter Thorns was supposed to be a Corrupted.

  And yet, like her, it could communicate rather than spew random nonsense.

  But it did not stop Red from landing the few final blows on the apple.

  “I wished upon a star.”

  “And I was given the intelligence of humanity.”

  “However, that cruel star did not give me the body I so desired.”

  The last strike brought the apple’s HP to 0.

  That final chunk tore off like she had struck stretched fabric.

  It ripped, revealing the innards of a rotting apple.

  “In my everlasting hope to achieve that form of humanity, I hoped to acquire the nutrients of humans to create a fruit capable of granting my wish.”

  The (False) Fruit of Everlasting Miracles

  HP : 0

  “False…? It wasn’t the real one at all!?” Red threw herself backwards, narrowly avoiding the brambles that had reached out for her from within the apple. “Ignorance meant exactly that, huh! Tch… So you’re the tree!”

  “But it is ineffective. The only way is to feed the apple to a suitable host. Humans are shells themselves, puppeted by pipework they call veins, and strands named nerves. An interconnected network of systems commanded by a single organ.”

  “The hell are you talking about!? You make it sound like humans are controlled by parasites!”

  “Is that not what the organ they call the ‘brain’ is? Without it, humans become mere vessels waiting to be filled.”

  “RED! THE TREE’S ABOUT TO OPEN! GET READY!” Snow warned.

  “My vessel… Has remained so pristine. No harm shall befall you. All you must do is take a bite from my apple… and you shall become liberated from my Forest of Everlasting Miracles.”

  The tree cracked apart.

  What walked out was a beautiful human woman with blue eyes, green hair and an ankle-long dress.

  They were utterly indistinguishable from a regular person. But they walked as though they were a newborn fawn, and their limbs bent at irregular angles.

  “What do you say, ‘Snow’? No one has to die. That wolf of yours will be spared. I guarantee it.”

  Her lips curved into a horrifying smile.

  Red glanced back at a trembling Snow.

  She was not trembling out of fear.

  Rather, it was out of hatred.

  The very thing that killed Theron was standing in front of her, smiling. But what caused her eyes to then burn a bright red was its offer to spare Three Paw.

  “Never… You… YOU DID THIS TO THREE PAW! YOU KILLED THERON! I’d rather die than take a bite from your apple!”

  “Heh. Hear that~! Since she said no, why don’t you just hand your head over and call it quits? It’ll be much easier for all of us!” Red mocked her unintentionally.

  She was being serious.

  “A human such as yourself trembles who trembles at the sight of blood cannot pretend to–!?”

  The Queen of Sweet and Bitter Thorns held her tongue the moment Snow carved her arm on the edge of her jagged shield. The amount of blood she lost would have caused an ordinary person to bleed out in seconds.

  She stared defiantly into the eyes of the Corrupted, wishing she could be the one to take Red’s place to put her down.

  “How unfortunate. That you disgrace the perfection that is the human flesh. You’re perfect. But first, there is a thorn I must remove from your side.”

  The Queen of Sweet and Bitter Thorns reached into the air.

  Black brambles rose from the ground, forming a pair of daggers. She then held them like scissors as she snipped the air.

  Then, she pointed them at Red, making her intentions clear.

  “O’ Red. Little Red. You’re no different from a parasite, like I. Only that your original appearance was unnaturally close to a human’s. Your nutrients, your very foundation, is closer to a human’s than humans themselves.”

  “Nutrients. Is that what all of this is about? This entire mountain?” Red twirled her blade, also preparing to fight this Corrupted head on.

  “Indeed. Is that not the purpose of a plant? It grows based on what it absorbs. When enough nutrients of humanity are syphoned into its fruit –!”

  She lunged forward, as did Red – and their weapons collided.

  Red and black light exploded in the form of light trails and broken thorns.

  “– Then that fruit will naturally carry its properties! A fruit of miracles to grant my one and only wish!”

  “You greedy shit – You already have a body!” Red roared. “You’ve done enough damage here. Humans… are supposed to help each other!”

  “Humans use other humans as stepping stools. You should know that. Otherwise, how else were you able to reach the heart of my forest!?”

  Their clash broke, and they were thrown back more than twenty meters apart.

  Her blade had taken a large chunk off the Corrupted’s weapon.

  But that was quickly repaired by her unlimited reservoir of brambles.

  The Queen of Sweet and Bitter Thorns was not going to be an easy fight.

  //////// < WARNING > ////////

  < HAILSTORM >

  < THE ARBITER’S TRUMPET SINGS >

  “Let’s enjoy this mortality we’ve been granted, shall we? As much as I’d love to have you as my vessel, you appear to be the type that eats the apple whole!”

  18 Chapters ahead over on the

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