Red mist

'Ah shit' Nathan couldn't help but curse at the mention of his sister.

Both Lynn and Faye were government agents, but Nathan never expected his sister to be the superior of the young woman in front of him.

Nathan remained thoughtful as Lynn continued to praise Faye in every possible way.

'Should I kill her? ...Maybe helping her can work as a favor for me later'

Many ideas ran through Nathan's head, but in the end, he decided to stay with Lynn for a while. 

Suddenly they both felt the ground tremble slightly. Nathan frowned and sighed.

'There's someone fighting'

He could feel a large amount of essence from a point far away, though he couldn't tell where exactly. But the fact that he felt someone's burst of essence from such a distance meant it was someone powerful... too powerful.

'Faye is on that level?'

Nathan looked at Lynn who frowned.

Each essence was unique, as if it had a signature. That's why Nathan was able to recognize certain types of essences, like Syril's or Dilliard's. But when he saw Lynn with a frown on her face, he realized that she didn't recognize that essence either, so it couldn't be Faye.

The trembling stopped and Nathan stopped feeling the essence, so he went back to lie down and rest, indifferent to everything around him.

Nathan had learned the importance of rest, and even if he wasn't really tired since all he had done since he had arrived was walk, he never knew when he would be confronted with something, so he preferred to be at his best.

Listening to the stories of the upper rifts, he thought that as soon as he entered, he would encounter second rank calamities in large numbers and more third rank ones. But so far, he hadn't even come across a calamity, not counting those transformed humans.

In the end he couldn't figure out what had happened to those humans, but whatever it was that had turned them, Nathan preferred to avoid it.

Sometimes fate is a bitch, though.

Nathan smelled something odd and opened his eyes before looking over at Lynn, who was nodding off on the verge of falling asleep.

"Hey!" Nathan walked over to Lynn and shook her hard to keep her from falling asleep.

Nathan quickly bolstered his body with essence trying to resist the strange effect of the smell. It wasn't more than a second before he noticed that there was a faint red mist covering the floor that came through the gap between the door and the floor.

Lynn's eyes widened abruptly, and she looked around in confusion as she sat up alertly.

"What, what's going on?!"

"Don't you dare go to sleep!" Nathan shouted at her making her react.

Another moment and Nathan would surely have fallen asleep next to Lynn.  Suddenly, he felt the gravity about to shift and he paled. 

"Shit!"

He quickly ripped the cloth surrounding the bed and pulled it over his face as he gave a piece to Lynn who did the same.

They both fell to the ceiling and the mist that was previously on the floor began to descend from above. An instant later, they were completely covered in red mist from head to toe.

Both had their eyes tightly closed as they held their breath.

Falling asleep would mean their death, so they had to resist any way they could. But no matter how much they covered their faces, the mist brushed against their hands and all their exposed skin.

Nathan felt strangely drowsy, as if he hadn't slept for weeks. He knew too well what insomnia was, thanks to the concurrent nightmares that still plagued him from time to time, but the sleep he was feeling right now could not be compared.

His body swayed, threatening to lose his balance, but Nathan bit his tongue hard and regained some consciousness.

Next to him, Lynn was also barely hanging on. But she could not go on like this, so Nathan decided to leave the room.

He took her by the hand and, using some of his essence to feel the room around him, he approached the door, which was turned upside down.

Opening the door by raising his arm to turn the knob, Nathan jumped over the door frame and landed in the corridor. Shortly after, Lynn followed him and almost tripped.

Nathan opened his eyes slightly and looked in front of him.

From inside the room, he had sensed something outside the room, but now that he saw it with his own eyes, he could see what it was.

A calamity with grey, wrinkled skin. Was bipedal, but its back was curved forward. Sharp claws protruded from its hands and large fangs protruded from its face.

Nathan remembered the hundreds of calamities he had memorized over the past seven months, and he didn't have to think for more than a couple of seconds to recognize the creature in front of him.

"A ghoul..."

Ghouls were second rank first category calamities, something Nathan wasn't so sure he could deal with no matter how much he'd improved since fighting the blood ogre.

Not only that, the effect of the strange red mist prevented him from thinking coherently at all, let alone fighting properly.

The ghoul stared at him with a depressed expression and grunted in annoyance. Nathan frowned as he watched the ghoul hit his head with his palm, as if he wanted to get something out of his brain.

Somehow the ghoul looked more tired than he did, but Nathan didn't let his guard down anyway.

One of the ghoul's abilities was that it could infect other beings with its blood and turn them into ghouls, though only temporarily, since the converted ones would die in a short time if they were not fed properly.

Nathan finally understood what had happened to all those humans who had chased him before. As much as he had essence and the mundane humans didn't, Nathan wasn't sure he could resist the poison in the ghoul's blood, so a direct confrontation would be very disadvantageous for him.

Fortunately, next to him was Lynn, who specialized in ranged combat. As Nathan turned his head to speak to her, he noticed that the young woman was lying on the ground passed out.

"Damn it!"

Nathan turned his body slightly and dodged the ghoul's sharp claws that came dangerously close to his neck.

Nathan clicked his tongue and backed up a few steps.

Lynn's body was left in front of the ghoul, but Nathan couldn't care about her in her current condition, yet somehow the ghoul ignored her as he hit his head and turned to face Nathan.

Nathan smiled nervously.

"...Fuck"

Contrary to his ability to turn others into ghouls, the ghoul had rather weak physical strength for a second ranker. But Nathan couldn't give it all away with his head so sleepy, so he simply raised his sword and took a defensive stance.

"Come here you damned vampire"