In the decrepit inn, old Green was wiping the battered wooden tables, accompanied by the screeching whisper of wind slipping through cracked windows.
It had been half a day since the boy, Ri, had entered his room and not emerged.
Green vividly recalled how the young man's searing questions had made his head throb.
But he had made a wise decision: not to think too much.
He knew that meddling in the affairs of a Altar Demon."...
was nothing short of inviting a painful death.
Suddenly, the heavy sound of approaching footsteps broke his thoughts, moving toward the inn's front door.
With a violent push, the door swung open and a masked figure entered.
His voice, soaked with something inhuman, laughed as he said:
"Finally... I found this place."
Then, with a tone mixing mockery and menace, he added:
"Oh, old man... may I ask you a little question?"
Green stayed silent. His heart pounded wildly, but he kept his head down, knowing any mistake in dealing with this stranger would mean certain doom.
Meanwhile, far to the south of the Kingdom of Elshind...
a true massacre was unfolding.
A battlefield, drenched in blood, where the ground itself was hidden beneath countless corpses. The stench of death and betrayal hung heavy in the air.
At the center of this hellscape stood a fat man, his bloated skin stretched taut over trembling flesh.
A grotesque smile split his face as he leaned on a massive polearm, dripping with blood.
He spoke with a voice thick with contempt:
"What shame... to stand against the bloodied hand of our sacred Church!"
From behind him, a hideous laugh erupted.
He turned to see another man, a ceramic sack covering his face, only mad, gleaming eyes visible.
The newcomer held two serrated daggers, and slung over his back was a grotesque sash...
made entirely of severed human hands, swinging like cursed bells in the wind.
With a vile voice, the man said:
"Don't be too harsh on them, Magellan. You know well... they cannot stand against our master."
Magellan grinned, his mouth stretching unnaturally:
"You're right, Horus... it is an honor for them to die by our master's hand."
Horus turned his gaze to the corpse of a woman, her head freshly severed, and with a sickening gasp of delight, said:
"What a loss... she would have been a fine addition to my collection."
Before he could continue, one surviving knight charged him, sword raised high in a desperate strike.
Yet Horus did not even flinch.
In a horrifying instant, a black claw mark appeared on the knight's chest.
His body froze... then exploded into a grotesque rain of spikes and torn flesh, forming a twisted, monstrous artwork in the air.
A few steps away, stood a figure clad in a black mask.
His right arm had morphed into bloody blades, and the aura of slaughter around him was so thick it seemed to suffocate the air itself.
His black cloak flapped in the wind, like a sacred banner of bloody war.
From the heaps of corpses, an old man rose, bleeding heavily, his left arm severed.
With eyes burning with hatred, he shouted at the masked figure:
"De Meglian! You wretch! When Rahigh learns of what you've done... he will destroy you! You will regret ever touching his followers!"
Both Horus and Magellan burst into mocking laughter, and Horus sneered:
"You foolish patriarch... De Meglian is stronger than your little demon."
De Meglian approached slowly, each step leaving a new bloodstain on the ground.
His voice was calm deathly calm as he spoke:
"Blood alone creates a man... and blood alone destroys him. But only he who masters the blood... becomes a saint."
Without hesitation or mercy, he grabbed the old man's head and tore it from his shoulders as easily as plucking a rotten flower.
Raising the severed head high, he declared coldly:
"Through blood, the commandments are written... and through blood, kingdoms fall."