"El," Anselma von Arundel replied.
"Patricia?" Dimitri asked.
"That's not my name, Dimitri," Anselma informed him. "I always hated pretending to be Patricia. I am Anselma von Arundel."
"Anselma, then," Dimitri clarified. "When I last saw you, the Tragedy of Duscur was about to happen. Why are you here?"
"Duscur," Anselma recalled. "Yes, I remember Duscur. I imagine you did find it tragic."
"Anselma," Dimitri said in a commanding tone. "What happened on that day?"
"Your father had kept me from my Ionius, my children, for far too long," Anselma said bitterly. "I paid my suffering back in full. I did away with him. After that, Volkhard freed me from my human limitations."
A moment of silence rang across the battlefield.
"Damn you to the deepest corner of hell."
The voice that broke the silence was Dedue's. "You set up my people to be slaughtered, simply because you were unhappy with your marriage? Thousands of the people of Duscur were killed because of King Lambert's death! Did their lives mean so little to you?"
"What do the lives of cattle mean to the farmer?" Anselma answered. Dedue, angered by her answer, attempted to decapitate her, but she simply tossed him aside.
"Mother, how could you? How can you serve Thales, the man who killed your children?" Edelgard demanded, her voice wavering.
"I can bring them back!" Anselma told Edelgard. "I can return them to life, freed of their mortality! I can free you of your humanity as well. If you want revenge on Thales, we can gorge ourselves on his blood! We can rule the very world, as mother and daughter!"
"No," Edelgard shook her head. "My mother is dead. You are nothing but a warped reflection."
"I see," Anselma said, her voice growing cold. "Drinker of Blood?"
"Yes?" the sasquatch warrior answered.
"Deal with the rest of this rabble. My daughter needs to be disciplined."
"Fine," Blood grumbled. Seeing General Randolph attempt to come to his liege's aid, he charged to intercept and tore off the man's head. "Now, who's next?"
Constance, realizing how much of a threat Drinker of Blood could be, threw a lightning blast at him, only to see it seemingly flow down the sasquatch's body and into the ground. "Well, that isn't good."
Byleth, realizing that most of the others wouldn't stand a chance against Blood, struck out with the Sword of the Creator. While his blow didn't do much damage, it did draw blood, which caught his attention.
While Byleth kept the giant focused on him, Edelgard kept her focus on the thing that had once been her mother. It was easier to think of it that way.
A giant spider attempted to take advantage of her seeming distraction by attacking her from behind, as the rest of its swarm attacked the Fódlani attack force. Edelgard didn't even spare it a glance as she sidestepped its lunge and cut off its head. Anselma tried to take advantage of her seeming distraction by slinging a spell at her, but Edelgard dodged it easily.
Edelgard retaliated by throwing a fireball at Anselma, and it connected, but Anselma was unhurt when the explosion faded.
Anselma and Edelgard charged toward each other, only for Dimitri to interpose himself. "I can't let you do that."
"I should have killed you when I had the chance!" Anselma shrieked. Before the two could attack each other, Dedue attempted to decapitate her from behind, but she noticed and turned around, punching the head off his axe and knocking him back two meters with one punch.
She then started throwing dark spells at Edelgard and Dimitri, which the two dodged. Edelgard cast a Luna Λ spell, which did a bit more damage to Anselma, and Dimitri followed up with a strike with Areadbhar, but Anselma caught it.
Edelgard struck at Anselma with her axe, but Anselma blocked her blow with a kukri. Edelgard latched onto that as something to focus on. She hated kukris, they were effective weapons to be sure, but they were also horribly ugly. "How could you betray me, my daughter? How can you fight your dear mother, alongside that Faerghan scum?"
Edelgard didn't answer and instead punched Anselma in an unarmored spot where she knew it would hurt. Anselma recoiled, and threw more spells at Edelgard and Dimitri, but Edelgard used a Ragnarok spell just behind her to force her toward Dimitri.
"Atrocity!" Dimitri shouted, calling on the power of his lance. "Return to your grave!"
Anselma guarded her chest, trying to dodge and weave through Dimitri's blows, to mixed success. Anselma managed to retaliate, however, and she kicked Dimitri, with enough force to shatter ribs through his armor. As Anselma attempted to finish him off, Edelgard tried to cut her down, but failed.
"You ungrateful brat! You're nothing but an idealistic fool! A thief and betrayer!" Anselma shrieked.
Edelgard noticed something that Anselma missed, however. "Unfortunately for you, history will not see it that way."
Anselma angrily growled and prepared another spell, but then she noticed the broken haft of Dedue's axe emerging from her chest, having drawn heart's blood. Anselma screamed as her skin and flesh disintegrated, leaving only her bones. Soon, even those turned to dust.
"Finally. I thought she'd never shut up," Drinker of Blood commented, and spikes of ice fell from the sky.
Byleth saw the spikes of ice fall, impaling many of the strike force members.
Divine Pulse.
Using the power of Sothis, Byleth turned back the hands of time. He couldn't rewind time for very long, and Drinker of Blood had likely been preparing that attack since the battle began. But Byleth didn't need to keep him from freezing the rain at all.
"Finally. I thought—"
What, exactly, he had thought was cut short this time as the Sword of the Creator struck in its extended form, and cut out the yeti's eyes. The spell was disrupted, and the icicles broke apart in the air. Blood screamed and tried to smash Byleth, cracking the ground where Byleth had been standing a moment ago.
Not willing to stop, Blood cast another spell, transforming the rain nearby into small chunks of ice. Hearing the chunks of ice bounce from a suit of armor, Blood charged towards Baron Dominic and punched him hard. The way the baron landed, it was fairly obvious he had broken his neck. He then followed it up by killing several of Dominic's men.
When he had finished killing everything in arm's reach, he went still. One man's foot noisily crushed a few chunks of ice, and Blood was immediately upon him. What Blood didn't realize was that the unlucky bastard was one of his fellow Stygians.
"Wait! I'm on your—" the Stygian Knight's voice was cut off by Blood breaking his neck. With that, the battlefield suddenly became very still. Even the revenants didn't dare move.
Adara and the three still-active Ashen Wolves were among those who had circumvented the Knights of Styx in order to strike at the necromancers. One of them, a human-looking but obviously not human man who was unnaturally beautiful, attempted to kill them with throwing knives before eventually being cut down by Yuri.
Another necromancer, a very thin, balding Agarthan man with a goatee, shouted at the revenants he had reanimated. "Kill them!"
Most of them attacked, as commanded, but two of the revenants hesitated upon seeing Adara.
The necromancer snarled and hurled a bottle of something at Adara, shouting, "Traitor!" However, one of the revenants physically blocked the bottle, which shattered and spilled on him. As the contents of the bottle caused him to decay, his mask fell off, revealing a face that Adara recognized. "Father?"
"Adara. It is you. You're alive," Odesse smiled, looking truly happy, before his face began to decay. "You're alive."
With that, Odesse fell over, fully dead once again.
On the other side of the room, the other revenant had already killed the necromancer. Looking at the undead warrior, Adara recognized her sister. "Kronya. Kronya, I'm so sorry. I should never have left you behind."
Kronya said nothing, instead simply embracing her sister. After several seconds, Kronya gave Adara her athame.
"Why?" Adara asked.
"It hurts," Kronya answered. "Having your soul broken in two. The feeling of being incomplete on an existential level."
"You want me to...no, I can't do it," Adara said, lowering the athame.
Kronya nodded. "You're right. There's still work to be done." She grabbed a shortsword from one of the fallen revenants and continued after the remaining necromancers.
That wasn't what Adara meant, but she followed her sister.
Catching up with the others, Adara saw that the Mockingbird's men had already killed the last two necromancers and were just finishing killing off the last of the revenants. Hapi then noticed someone familiar at a summoning circle. "I know you. It's been a while, Cornelia."
A light of recognition went off in Cornelia's eyes. "Hapi."
"Remember when you tortured me, and made it so my sighs summoned monsters bent on killing me?" Hapi asked sardonically. "I think it's time for some payback."
"The purpose of that is for you to flush yourself of dark magic corruption," Cornelia corrected. "The monsters are simply a side effect."
Hapi brandished a battleaxe. "If we're going to split hairs, let's do it literally."
"Poor girl. You don't understand that even now, I'm still the one with the power," Cornelia mocked, before shouting something in a language none of them understood. In the middle of the summoning circle, a portal opened, and dark tendrils reached out.
Cornelia laughed maniacally, only to stop once she realized that the tendrils had latched onto her. Seeing the Mockingbird's thieves running away, she reached out. "Wait! Please! Save me! Or kill me, if you must!"
Hapi smirked. "Sorry, Cornelia. You made your bed." With that, she turned away, as Cornelia was dragged, kicking and screaming, through the portal.
Adara looked scornfully at the closing portal. "No less than you deserve."
With the necromancers dead, the remaining wights fell to pieces. The mutants, revenants, and Demonic Beasts continued to fight, but it was clear that the battle was decided already. Even still, the Knights of Styx refused to give in, either from pride or loyalty, and Drinker of the Blood of His Enemies fought on out of sheer bloodlust.
Blood heard the crunch of gravel and charged, knocking over Marianne's horse. Marianne was lucky enough to be thrown free, but Dorte the Horse wasn't so lucky. Marianne couldn't help herself; she screamed out in pain and anguish.
Blood attempted to crush Marianne, but before he could reach her, Felix stabbed Blood in the side, then channeled Thoron through his sword. Judging by Blood's reaction, it clearly hurt. Blood attempted to retaliate, but Lord Rodrigue pushed his son out of the way. As a result, Rodrigue was the one crushed by the sasquatch's fist.
"No! Father!" Felix shouted, and Blood turned to try to kill him as well, ignoring a cut from the Sword of the Creator. However, before he could get the chance to try to kill Felix, the revenant Kronya ran at him and jumped upon his back, stabbing him with her shortsword. He tried to grab her, but she was fast enough to avoid his hands, continuing to stab him. In an attempt to deal with her, Blood backed up to a cliff face in hopes of crushing her against it.
However, Byleth noticed a precarious-looking ledge above Blood, and used a Thunder spell to break it. Several hundred kilograms of stone fell upon him and Kronya. For several seconds, the battlefield seemed still.
"Did it work? Is he dead?" Caspar asked.
As if in answer, the boulder began to move. Blood, heavily injured but still alive, slowly began to lift the stone off of him. However, Byleth and Felix didn't give him time to recover, instead stabbing the Sword of the Creator and the Sword of Moralta through his eye sockets as he tried to pull himself free. He slumped over, having finally been slain.
Adara ran over to look for her sister, and she found her. Kronya wasn't dead, but she had been crushed from the waist down. "Adara. Please. End me."
Adara held the athame over Kronya's heart. "I can't do it."
"Please," Kronya asked. "It hurts."
Adara steeled her resolve and pushed the knife into Kronya's chest, awkwardly holding Kronya as she did so as if to comfort her. Kronya's second death wasn't dramatic, she just sighed and smiled as the ghoulish approximation of life that had been forced upon her faded.
By that point, the revenants and Stygians had all been killed. With the danger gone, the survivors of the attack force joined in the mourning of the dead.
While others mourned fallen friends, Edelgard and Dimitri returned to where Anselma had died. "Was she always like this?" Dimitri asked Edelgard. "Was what we saw today a side of Anselma that she had simply kept hidden? Or did they change her? Warp her into something far more horrible than she ever was before?"
Dedue walked over to them and kicked over the pile of dust. "It does not matter. In fact, I hope she was always this monstrous. That way, I can know for sure that her soul will face eternal torment for her crimes against my people."
Neither Edelgard nor Dimitri were willing to challenge him. He had the right to feel as he did. Still, together they quietly mourned the mother they had known, whether she had ever truly existed or not.
This stage of the battle was actually meant to be just one chapter rather than three. Next chapter will cover the fights against Nicodemus and Agony.