Mystery of Souls

Wings spread, Juniper flies through the night, letting the wind brush against her face as she makes her way to the city of Gresit where the main characters of this world would meet up, before moving on to enact onto their quest of slaying Dracula, all the while the number of connection between her perfect version of the T-Virus and the beings infected by the soul stealing version increase quickly.

The moon shines down on the green fields and forests as she passes them, and thanks to her demonic physique that allowed her to see even in the dark and sooth-filled abyss, the moth is able to take in the peaceful scenery with no problem at all.

It filled her with a sense of calm and peace that she had forgotten she even was capable of feeling.

For the past months since her rebirth, Juniper has been constantly fighting and killing in an eerie world of brimstone and flames, full of the smell of sulfur and blood.

It has stopped her from ever really calming down and relax, after all, her time as demon is still nothing compared to that when she was still human and living on earth.

Now that she was back in her old world, though in a different universe and time period, the tension built from the violent and brutal atmosphere of the abyss, slowly starts to drain out of her.

"Hmm, this is such a tranquil night, I might even get emotional and question my morals. Maybe I should rethink some of the plans I have readied…" The moth ponders somberly.

"PFFFFFFF! Hehehehahahaha naaaaaaah! That would be really bad!!" Before breaking out into loud laughter.

"Haa~, seriously, there are way too many things I want to use my system for, and it just so happens that it is fueled by souls. So, like a wise goose once said, "Peace was never an option"." Juniper mutters once she calmed down again while an amused smirk adores her lips.

Traveling for a while, the moth pulls out the black book that the bishop took from the churches vault hording all things heretical.

Flipping through the black pages with red writing, she confirms that the guy who wrote it had at least some contact with the abyss, after all the real content is written in demonic characters.

Lying in between the pages are separate notes with what she guessed were translations made by the priests to understand what was written within.

Reason for that thought is the fact that none of the priest were able to read the content of the contract into which she had tricked them, so they clearly didn't truly learn the language.

The whole scam of making the contract appear with demonic letters that they can't read is something that she had thought out before she even got summoned.

Normally the content of a contract is presented in a way that allowed both parties to confirm it, otherwise it would be very hard to reach an agreement after all.

In other words, if any of the priests had vocalized his inability to read the content of the contract, the demonic characters would have changed to something they could in fact understand, for that is the authority of the abyss who manages the whole contract system of the demons. The whole system is obviously laid out in favor of the demons but still holds onto a foundation of mutual agreement, but if the other party decides to be an idiot, the abyss won't bother to correct them.

Back to the book.

The summoning explained in its pages specifically targeted the demon's origin plane, but other than that there also was a whole lot of rubbish which is most likely partly responsible for the bishop's delusions that led to her summoning.

Throwing it into the distance without a care, she continues flying till two shadows in the distance cause her antennas to perk up.

Much like herself, these shadows are flying and traveling roughly in the same direction.

Taking a moment to consider, Juniper speeds up, slowly shortening the distance between them.

Once closer, she could make out the appearance of the two flying creatures.

Naked grey skin covers the gargoyle like things that she easily identifies as the mass-produced versions of night-creatures created by Dracula's two Forgemaster's.

The idea of infusing corpses with a soul from hell and reshape the body to fit that soul is an interesting combination of necromancy and demonic summoning.

Intrigued, Juniper too turns to look in the direction that they are flying, easily noticing the lights in the distance belonging to a village.

Contemplating for a moment, she flaps her wings and accelerates forward.

The first of the two night-creatures has barely time to screech in pain as Juniper's two blades dig into its back and abruptly cut off when she twisted them before pulling in opposite directions, cutting the creature in twain.

Alerted by its partners scream, the second night-creature turns around, only to catch glimpse of the strange insectile figure that is pointing a clawed hand in its direction.

Then, an invisible force took hold of its head, and its vision forcefully spins 360 degrees, accompanied by a crunching sound of its spine breaking and skin tearing.

'Damn, forgot that with my magic power at 300, I can actually utilize my psychokinesis.' Happily collecting her kills, Juniper uses the skill to catch both bodies and stores them away in her inventory before holding up the two souls belonging to the night-creatures for closer examination.

As she does, her nose catches a familiar scent, causing a trail of saliva to run down the corner of her mouth.

Wiping it away with a spare hand, Juniper also throws the two souls into the system.

'Interesting, these souls contain a lot more negative energy than others, not counting high-grade ones of course. Though, they probably are only around a third away from it.' Turning her gaze away from the system, she looks towards the village, which has been the target of the two night-creatures and decides to make her way over there.

On the way, she tries to figure out why the souls of night-creatures are different than the run-off the mile ones.

'I think somewhere in the third or fourth season of the show, Issac, one of Dracula's Forgemaster's, had a talk with one of his night-creatures. It was about their nature if I remember correctly. That revealed that the reason people get sent to hell is because they are sinners in the eyes of God, or at least in the eyes of Christianity. This would mean that there are a lot of not actually bad people that end up in hell, so not the reason why the souls of night creatures would be so close to becoming fallen ones.' Trying to remember the rest of the conversation, Juniper scratches her mandible while flying.

'There… is also the part where the night-creature said something about learning to like sin… I think. It could be this that caused the souls of every night-creature to come so close to turn into a high-grade fallen soul.' Pulling the memories of the conversation out of her mind, she nods to herself, satisfied with her theory for now.

"Hehe~, looks like the effects of repeatedly using [Focus] are starting to show. My memory has become a lot better, if I continue to use it, who knows, maybe I actually get more than a single pair of braincells hehehe *clack* *clack*." The moth giggles while her mandibles clack together before turning her attention to the houses strewn out in front her under the silver light of the moon.

Spreading her observation haki, she counts the number of people before knocking them all out cold with her conquers haki, even those already asleep.

Letting herself fall, Juniper crashes through the roof of a house and accurately lands on top of a large bed where a pair of husband and wife were lying unconscious.

Not sparing it much thought, our moth demon wipes out her mantis blades and decapitates the defenseless pair.

Out of their dead forms two wisps float out.

Looking at the souls, Juniper takes note of their light blue colour contrary to the pale white one from demons or the dark grey one from night-creatures.

'Interesting…' Blinking, she collects her bounty as her mind starts to drift.

'I haven't really thought about it, but what kind of difference is there between a demon soul and a human soul? Is there even one, other than appearance? If yes, then do other races have them too?' Pondering as she walks out of the room by kicking open a door, Juniper absent-mindedly makes her way to another room where she sensed another victim to slaughter.

Stepping up next to the straw bed on which an unconscious girl around 10 years old laid, the moth frowns.

'Definitely should put researching souls on the list of things to poke at a bit more when I got the needed basics and time.' With that she put that train of thought aside and reaches down, chitin clad claws closing around the small head of the child before they clench.

A bit over three hours passed until she was back in the air and on course for Gresit again, 63 souls richer, body drenched in fresh blood of the innocent and inventory full of random crap she looted from the village.

Since she became a demon, the moth has been fully immersing herself in that role as if she was playing game, making it so that Juniper's sense of right and wrong completely eroded away in some dark corner in the deep recesses of her mind.

Be it adult, child or elderly, the only ones she spared were the animals, especially the old guard dog of a couple near the small church, because he was adorable.

She even spent a soul on high-quality dog food for the senior pupper.

So, in other words, Juniper is a fucked-up role-player on a power high who actively follows her violent and chaotic intrusive thoughts, ignoring and defying the restrictions and weight of morals for shits and giggles.

Flying for the entire night without rest, thanks to the fresh batch of vitality that she drained in the earlier massacre to rid herself off all fatigue she may have built up, the moth travelled towards her goal while snacking on some bread and fruits snatched from her last stop, a very welcome change from her usual cannibalistic diet, till she finally caught sight of the fortified city in the distance as the sun's morning rays cut through the sky.

"Huh? Ain't that Trevor over there?" She mutters in surprise as her sharp eyes manage to make out the red cape with white fur lining the neck on the lone figure skulking around the walls of the city like a racoon trying to get into a dumpster in search of breakfast.