October 23, 1453, of the New Calendar.
Silvervein City.
The last rays of the setting sun slipped below the horizon.
A blood-red moon hung high in the sky.
To this world, it should have been just another ordinary night.
But for Silvervein City...
Doomsday had arrived.
Thick, heavy clouds blanketed the sky, shrouding the entire city in darkness.
Bang!
Seven hundred and sixty-seven vampire bats folded their wings, turning themselves into hundreds of black iron projectiles launched from catapults. In a suicidal frenzy, they slammed violently into the Twin Towers.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
In an instant, the mana crystal glass shattered into a storm of flying dust. Mixed with the mangled flesh and blood of the exploding bats, it wove a crimson rain in midair, tolling the first death knell of the night.
Under the relentless bombardment, the grand landmark that symbolized the glory of Silvervein City let out its first groan.
It was the screeching, teeth-gritting sound of steel and mana crystal grinding against each other.
The seventieth floor of the South Tower was the first to give way. The relentless, suicidal bombardment of the bat swarms had snapped the last support of the load-bearing mana crystal frame. The entire wall collapsed inward, and shattered glass poured from the clouds like silver scales whipped up by the wind.
Next was the North Tower.
It tilted toward the South Tower first, slowly, almost gently.
Then, in a single heartbeat, every supporting structure gave up the struggle at once.
Rumble!
Barely a dozen heartbeats apart, the two towering giants collapsed from their peaks in a devastating chain reaction.
Hundreds of tons of massive stone and magic iron crashed down layer by layer.
And falling along with the debris were the people inside the towers who had no time to escape.
Screams pierced the night sky. Citizens flung open their doors, staring up with wide, horrified eyes at the flailing, rapidly falling lives in midair.
...
Rustle, rustle.
Out in the wilderness on the outskirts, Kaila set down the tavern she had been carrying. Her steps paused for only a fraction of a second, and in the next instant, she was already standing in the center of the city.
She reached out and pushed.
Light burst forth.
A pale gold light, like the warm sun of a late afternoon.
The light split with absolute precision in midair, transforming into thousands of gentle hands that steadily caught every falling person who should have been dashed to pieces.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the light, the tons of lethal debris and sharp mana crystal shards disintegrated silently into a flurry of ash the moment they touched the halo, scattering into the wind.
Everyone was placed safely onto the ground.
Yet, the crisis had only just begun.
Sharp whistles echoed through the empty streets.
Countless sewer manhole covers were violently blown upward, and a thick, writhing mass of rats surged out.
Catching the scent of the living, they began clawing frantically into tightly shut wooden doors and window cracks.
Outside Silvervein City, shrill, agonizing cries for help were carried in waves by the cold wind.
The Green Mist King's transfer orders had long since drained the city of its guards. Beneath the city walls, thousands of civilians were cruelly bound together by glowing blood threads, forming a writhing, twitching net of flesh across the wilderness.
All around them, pairs of crimson wolf eyes lit up one after another in the darkness.
Inside the city were citizens about to be devoured; outside was the weeping bait.
Kaila stood at a dilapidated street corner, her long golden hair whipping in the gale, her gray nun's habit clinging to her slender frame.
Without a doubt, this was a plot targeted directly at her.
The Hero's placid eyes reflected the dual tragedies unfolding both inside and outside the city walls.
“Help! The monsters are inside! Where are the guards? Guards!”
A middle-aged man fell onto the muddy street, scrambling backward. In front of him was a sky-blocking horde of rats, emitting a hair-raising squeaking sound.
With no guards and no night watchmen, the only fate awaiting him seemed to be chewed to the bone.
The Hero heard his cry for help.
Kaila pivoted on her heel.
“【Judgment】”
A massive scythe condensed from brilliant light slashed upward at an angle!
There was no deafening explosion, only absolute purification. The magnificent arc of light that sliced through the night grazed past the middle-aged man's nose. The thick swarm of rats along its path and the bat swarm diving from midair were engulfed and vaporized in an instant by the blinding radiance, without even having time to scream.
“Th-Thank you...”
Still in shock, the middle-aged man sat paralyzed on the ground, staring blankly at the insurmountable chasm of light before him. He looked up at the young nun standing against the light, his teeth still chattering violently.
“Run,” Kaila said, looking down at him.
“Wh-What?” The man's brain was still completely blank.
“Start running,” Kaila repeated.
“But my belongings... the things in my shop are still...”
The man's voice suddenly caught in his throat.
For the petite-looking nun had turned her head.
Those flat, emotionless eyes locked onto him. Though she released no bloodlust, the man felt the surrounding air instantly vanish, his heart squeezed tightly by an invisible, icy hand.
What a terrifying gaze.
“U-Understood! I'm running!”
Shivering, the man scrambled to his feet from the mud. “B-But where do I run?!”
By the time his voice faded, only the empty night wind remained before him.
The nun had already vanished, leaving behind only a scattering of slowly fading light particles on the ground.
The man bit his lip hard, the taste of blood snapping him back to his senses.
He turned around and roared toward his precarious wooden door:
“Honey! Forget about that junk! Get the kids! We have to run for our lives!”
“Where are we supposed to go?!” his wife's sobbing voice cried from inside.
“I don't know! Anywhere but here! Just run!” The man flung the door open, shielding his wife and children in his arms. “Run! Don't look back!”
...
In the east of the city, on the roof of a two-story residence, a mutated giant bat had just shredded a window frame with its sharp claws. Before it could even poke its head inside—
A pale hand reached out from behind and gripped its skull.
The fingers clenched.
Pop.
If only Sophie were here. Even though I'm trying my best to look gentle, I still end up scaring most people.
Kaila thought.
But then again, it's a good thing Sophie isn't here.
The giant bat's head exploded like a rotten tomato. Before the foul blood could even touch the edge of her habit, Kaila had already leaped off the eaves toward the next target.
At an alleyway entrance.
An Advanced Vampire had just crushed an old woman's throat, a smirk beginning to play on its lips.
It instinctively turned its head.
Boom.
Kaila simply maintained her forward momentum, slamming straight into it in the most brutal, unreasonable manner.
Crack!
The sound of bones shattering inch by inch echoed.
The vampire was as fragile as a speed bump in front of a heavy-duty truck on a highway. Aside from a dull thud and an exploding cloud of blood mist, it failed to slow her down in the slightest.
She landed, leaned down, and placed her hand over the old woman's throat.
Light flared, then receded.
The trembling old woman stood in place, completely unharmed.
“Start running.”
Only her voice remained in the wind.
The old woman shakily but quickly ran out of the alley.
...
Outside the city.
The darkness rolled, and countless pairs of crimson eyes lit up within it.
The Twelfth Generation Vampires had been sent to lead the charge, bringing wolf packs with them as they lunged at the writhing, zombie-like crowd of people.
“Help... someone save us...”
“Stay back! No! Ahhh!”
Shrill cries of terror were carried by the cold wind, echoing off the city walls. Just as the first pale, distorted face opened its maw, its fangs about to snap a little girl's tender neck and cut her crying short—
Boom!
A brilliant beam of pale gold light erupted from inside the city, piercing through the city walls and instantly vaporizing the vampire nearest to the civilians.
The earth shook, and soil flew into the air.
Another pillar of light descended from the heavens.
With the impact point as the center, a ring of brilliant golden ripples blasted outward. It was a purifying fire filled with violent divine majesty.
The hundreds of Twelfth Generation Vampires and tens of thousands of demon wolves caught in the blast didn't even have time to howl before they were vaporized under the irresistible heat and light pressure.
The air was instantly filled with a pungent, scorched stench and the sharp scent of high-concentration ozone.
The blood threads binding the civilians dissolved inch by inch the moment they touched the light.
They were free.
They wanted to scatter and flee.
“Stand in the light,”
the girl called out.
The people stopped in their tracks.
They all raised their heads.
Right where they stood, an endless, radiant light was beginning to swell.
...
“Where on earth are we running?”
“I don't know... that girl just said to start running.”
Inside the city, people looked up and saw the monsters lunging at them turn into blood mist midair. Fearfully, they lowered their heads and kept running.
Just then.
“The... the light is over there!” someone who had just escaped death shrieked hysterically.
Everyone saw the light outside the city.
“Run toward the light! Start running!”
At first, it was only the civilians outside who had luckily broken free from their bonds.
Next was the middle-aged man rushing onto the street with his wife and children, the old woman who had survived the alley, the youth crawling out of the collapsed ruins, and the unarmed merchants and apprentices.
From the first street to the second corner; from dozens of people to hundreds, and then to thousands.
Fear spread, but in the darkness and despair, that pale gold light that constantly flickered through flesh and monsters, tearing open a path through the hopelessness, became the sole beacon of hope in their eyes.
The flow of people began to merge uncontrollably.
Like a colony of ants rushing toward water on parched earth, the survivors from inside and outside the city converged into a massive river of humanity. They were no longer running like headless chickens; they didn't need to check directions, let alone think about an escape route.
They simply stared forward.
Staring at that trail of light that relentlessly carved a path through the thick tide of beasts and bats.
The chaotic sound of tens of thousands of feet trampling over ruins and mud, heavy panting, and muffled sobs coalesced into a rumble that made the very earth tremble.
Darkness roared madly on both sides, claws swinging in the shadows, but as long as they stepped onto the path toward the light, not a single monster could get anywhere near them.
Huddled together, their steps were chaotic yet resolute as they instinctively chased after the light.
The Hero's figure leaped and flashed.
The sound of the wind conveyed her thoughts.
“—I am in front.”
“—The light is behind me.”
“—All of you, just follow the light.”
...
Inside the city, the crowd merged, running in unison toward the light outside.
Outside, the crowd huddled within the light, while any foolish monster that dared to approach was vaporized instantly.
Everything was heading in a positive direction.
Yet, far above the clouds, a pair of dark gold eyes reflecting the crimson blood moon looked down upon this scene with indifference. An existence hidden in the shadows watched the Hero carving out a path, a sneer of undisguised mockery playing on their lips.
Kaila did not look up, but she knew this attack was only the beginning.
Since they were using her identity as the Hero to target her, they must have come fully prepared.
She took another step forward.
The scorched earth groaned beneath her feet.
Simply from the impact of her step, the ground, unable to withstand the compressed divine light pressure that almost overflowed from her body, disintegrated directly into fine, translucent glass.
But what of it?
No matter what the enemies hiding in the dark had planned.
Before she fell...
...not a single soul in this city would die before her.
...
“How is she this strong?”
High up on the silent wilderness, several Advanced Vampires draped in crimson cloaks stared at the one-sided slaughter below, unable to hide the horror on their faces.
The speaker was a Vampire Marquis. His pride-and-joy dynamic vision was actually unable to track the afterimages of the moving nun.
He could only see golden torrents of light splitting the night sky, and beneath them, his kin being annihilated before they could even scream.
“This makes no sense!” a vampire snarled, gritting his teeth. “Even if she's the Hero, even if she's cursed by a Witch, her mana reserves should have a limit! She's currently maintaining a barrier of light that holds tens of thousands of people, while continuously unleashing large-scale high-tier purifications? How can her human vessel withstand that kind of output? She'll burn herself to ashes first!”
“This isn't holy magic at all...” another Count took a half-step back instinctively. “I've seen this light before. This is an innate magic that only the Saintess of the Solar Cult can use. Isn't she the Hero? Why does she have ties to the Solar Cult?”
“Besides, the Solar Cult is a heretical sect, right? Those bastards waste ingredients all the time, insisting on baking people to death under the sun until all their blood is dried up. For a wasteful cult like that, shouldn't she, as the Hero, judge herself first?”
“How long has it been since you last visited Solitude?” another vampire said helplessly. “The Solar Cult was completely destroyed by the Witches at least four hundred years ago. From the looks of it, this Hero might just have inherited their legacy and doesn't know the truth of what happened back then.”
“Maybe we can tell her about it and make her die of shame?”
“Great idea. Why don't you go then? Greet her first, and tell her you have something important to say.”
“Hehehehe...”
Fear was spreading like wildfire in the hearts of these noble predators of the night.
Yet, the petite figure darting through the battlefield below showed not the slightest hint of fatigue. Instead, she was like a waking star, her light growing more and more intense.
The Twelfth Generation Vampires sent as cannonballs dissolved like fresh snow under a blazing sun the moment they touched her light, leaving behind not a single drop of blood or bone.
“Because from the very beginning, she never even spared a glance for these cannon fodder.”
A low, elegant voice that carried a bone-chilling coldness echoed behind the vampires.
“Lord Duke!”
The vampires bowed their heads in greeting.
“That is exactly why the Ancestor decided we must eliminate the threat of the Hero here once and for all,” Vivian said softly. “Come, Phase 2. Since the Hero has sent her invitation, we should respond in kind.”
Rate on N.U.
