Visitors from the Darkness

"This is... My hometown?"

Fina, who switched places with her Envoy and instantly returned from the big city to her hometown, looked around in shock.

The town of Crowe had been reduced to a strange ruin.

Under the dusk of the broken sun, there were ruins as far as the eye could see, and the ragged townspeople wandered around in the wreckage of the buildings like the walking dead.

Suddenly, a bred earth dog ran out of the ruins, while the townspeople around them stumbled after it with their arms eerily outstretched.

"What's going on here?"

Fina was trying to see the men change when a pair of arms slowly reached out from the shadows behind her, covered her mouth, and yanked her toward the darkness.

"Eleazar... It's me!"

A familiar voice came from behind her, and Fina's tense body loosened up then turned her head to look.

"Father? What happened to you? What happened!?"

"They... Ahem! They came looking for us..."

Fioz covers the appalling wound on his chest.

"They?" Fina froze, then sounded incredulous.

"Parliament!?"

"Whew... Yes, after all these years, it turns out that they never gave up looking..."

Leaning against the broken wall, Fioz breathed hard and loomed as he pulled out two dark golden space crystals.

"This is your and Eleazar's stash room, it's the capital you can hold up and live on, make sure you keep it safe, don't let them take it away from you..."

"Dad..."

Fina cried and examined his wounds for him before realizing that her father's heart had long since been crushed by an unknown force and that he had managed to hang on until now entirely by the strength of his breath.

And at that moment, after accomplishing his last dying wish, the vitality in his body quickly dissipated.

"Nana, do you remember our agreement..."

"Don't! I don't want it!!!" Fioz, whose eyes had begun to fester, lifted his hands with difficulty and groped around for a moment, taking Fina's hands in both of his.

"Listen... Listen to me, Nana..."

"They sent a high-ranking bloodblood, and all the people in the town were turned into blood slaves, no... Don't let me become that monster..."

Fina could feel that her father's nails were slowly growing longer and sharper.

She had absolutely no idea what to do, her head went blank, and her evil energy subconsciously invaded along the palm that was starting to mutate.

"Yeah, that's it... Come on, I'm losing control..."

In a fire of souls ignited within his body, Fioz's eyes, nose, mouth, and ears slowly emitted black smoke, but laughed with immense satisfaction:

"It was great to get you guys out of that place ..."

Fina's eyes were vacant, frozen as she watched the deep purple soul crystal rise from the dissipating corpse.

After a long time, amidst the low roars that continued to come from all around her, she slowly stood up and walked out of the shadows with the three crystals and her head down.

The sun had completely disappeared, but with it came not blackness, but blood red.

The town looked like it had fallen into a different time, the sky reflecting the blood moon and the earth below a red glow.

The blood slaves who had their hearts and eyes removed also became incomparably frantic in the red light, getting down on all fours and roaming around like wild beasts, swarming at the slightest sound of the wind.

Fina, who was carefully hiding her figure, was stopped in her tracks by a couple of men in white robes.

"You guys..." Fina stared at them in disbelief.

In the chest was a fist-sized hole, the ribs folded back out, the five senses were bleeding from the seven orifices, and the white robes that represented holiness had long since been strewn with dried blood.

Even the Acolyte Squad is all but wiped out.

"These people don't take everything into account just because they can turn into light, obviously they only have 1st-rank strength, how did they dare to challenge the Blood Count?"

A levitating figure floated down from the blood moon.

A vintage courtly tuxedo, his stance erect, as graceful as an aristocrat, his handsome features pale without a trace of blood, a pair of fangs protruding from his only red lips, full of demonic.

"Did that old man break his own heart to hide from me for half a day, just to summon you?"

Crimson eyes gazed at her for a long moment.

"No, you're not the Witcher who completed the Legendary Ritual, so it's someone else, his name is Eleazar isn't it?"

He licked his lips and smiled, "You guys live right next door as neighbors, what a find."

The information that even the Church had failed to find out was found by this Blood who had only lurked in for a short while, Fina mused silently.

The other side must not be allowed to return with this information!

"You smell like those old undead, um... Is it the wailing of souls?"

The Blood Man looked around in amazement at the slowly growing dimness.

"You're not a warlock by any chance, are you?"

Fina looked up, her radiant eyes slowly being infiltrated by a destructive glow.

No more repression, no more hiding.

Amid a slowly levitating soul crystal shattering, she whispered in a voice so cold that it lacked a trace of emotion:

"Destroy..."

"Boom--"

While the blood moon hung in the sky, the earth rose in a sea of ghostly purple fire, engulfing the group of bats that had scattered and fled more than halfway, and a somewhat wretched figure emerged from the heights, patting down the tuxedo that had been set ablaze in a frenzy of hands and feet.

"Are you crazy?"

"Since you have become a warlock, is there still a place for you to stay on this continent, the only way for you to go is the Shadow Council!"

"And I'm the one who can introduce you back to the organization, and you dare to make a move on me?"

What answered him were three soul crystals that shattered again.

Space solidified, thunder flashed, and the burning fire from the Underworld shot straight up into the sky!

The Bloods, whisked around by the horrific spell, screamed.

"What's in it for you!!!"

"Crack!"

Two more soul crystals shattered.

The blood-red gaze froze, and his figure disappeared in an instant before slowly withdrawing the hand that covered his heart from the collapsing spell barrier.

Using his blood aura to isolate the soul fire, the Blood Earl who instantly appeared behind the warlock had a cold voice.

"Can you keep it down, are you trying to lure the church over here?"

Another soul crystal floated out of the warlock's corpse, and the Blood reached out quickly to take control of his opponent's resurrection, only to be caught off guard by an eruption of soul fire that smeared all over him.

"AHHH!!!"

A large, charred bat flew backward.

The second crystal then blossomed into a purple light, and the warlock's form and the distant Bloods emerged at the same time.

...

In the station in the city of Dallon, the two men, Eleazar and Evelea, sat on a bench on the platform and waited from evening until dark without seeing the train for their home come in.

Station notice: "Just received the latest news, the railroad to South County is temporarily closed due to emergency construction, and the recovery time is unknown, we apologize for any inconvenience caused to you, passengers who have purchased tickets can go to the front desk for a refund."