A long spear of black flame pierced through Talen’s shoulder blade.
He staggered, yet still forced himself to take another step.
The next spear struck him in the waist, and he finally collapsed completely.
In front of the great doors lay only the corpses of the black-clad accountants of the Dragon Worship Cult.
Black flames burned on their bodies.
The heavy money crates in their hands had scattered across the ground, and gold coins engraved with the dragon head of the Chen King flowed out from them.
The Stranger’s rear-guard action in death had served no purpose at all.
The black-flame spears thrown by the White Wizard had killed every black-clad man who escaped from the casino.
This was his revenge against the Dragon Worship Cult.
Beside the White Wizard, the silver-haired girl slightly raised her chin.
Her cherry lips parted lightly.
That song seemed to drift from the depths of the netherworld, carrying endless resentment and sorrow.
The song twisted and coiled through the air.
The executors in the underground plaza clamped both hands tightly over their heads and rolled on the ground in agony.
Their blood vessels pulsed madly, pumping vast amounts of blood plasma toward their heads.
Every one of their faces was blood-red.
If this continued for only a short while longer, the blood vessels in their brains would burst!
Richard was forcibly dragged out of the underground plaza by the executors.
He stretched out his hand unwillingly toward the money crates scattered on the ground, trying desperately to seize those gold coins.
The girl’s name was Abigail, daughter of Talen Cyrus.
Looking into Abigail’s sorrowful eyes, Talen seemed to return to thirteen years earlier.
The newly formed Kheshig army had been routed under the terror of the Steam Knights.
Talen had fled in fear for a full day and night.
When he finally collapsed from exhaustion, there were no companions left at his side.
Before him lay an unfamiliar coastline.
The low-hanging setting sun dyed the seawater the color of blood.
Under that blood-red residual sun, someone was singing.
It was a soul-captivating song.
Talen removed his damaged and filthy plate armor piece by piece.
When he reached the beach, he finally saw the owner of the song.
A woman with long silver hair sat on the reef with her eyes closed, singing.
She was so beautiful that Talen overlooked the membranous wings on her back and the long tail covered in sharp spines.
“Muse…” Talen gazed at her and murmured in a daze.
On that day he met his Muse.
On that day the deserter from the grasslands fell in love with the last banshee.
Whether it was the mutual understanding of two people trapped at the bottom of the valley, or two wounded beasts in the jungle licking each other’s wounds, they joined together beneath that residual sun.
The banshee confessed that her kind had been hunted to extinction by humans.
The last of her kin had sacrificed themselves to protect her while she was pregnant, and she herself had been severely wounded in that battle.
She decided to abandon her former name and live together with Talen under the name of Muse.
They hid their identities and built a small home in a fishing village on the coast.
The world lost one Kheshig and one banshee, and gained one hardworking fisherman and his pregnant wife.
Yet the happy days lasted only ten months.
Muse’s body grew weaker and weaker.
Her old wounds had never healed, yet the new life in her womb grew ever more greedy in draining the mother’s nutrients.
Banshees were a demonkin race consisting only of females.
They were single-sex reproductive beings.
Rather than giving birth to offspring, it was more accurate to say that the mother split herself.
This meant that childbirth would cause irreversible damage to the mother’s body.
Talen held Muse’s hand that hung by the bedside and urged his wife to take medicine to kill the focal point in her womb.
Muse weakly shook her head and said that her old wounds had already destined her to die soon.
She felt that if she was no longer in this world, there needed to be someone to stay with Talen.
She felt that her husband lacked love—he neither loved others nor was loved by others, except for her.
If there was someone he could love to keep him company, then he would not fall into hell.
The day Abigail was born was also the day Muse died.
Talen stood before his wife’s gravestone and swore an oath that he would protect Abigail for her entire life.
Yet Talen broke that oath.
In order to raise money for Abigail’s tuition, he cleverly decided to travel far away to work as a laborer and entrusted his daughter to the neighbors, hoping only to earn a few more gold coins to pave the way for her future.
Yet the affairs of the world were unpredictable.
The incident of the Mutual Aid Society’s attack on Kent Harbor rapidly fermented internationally.
The Heresy Inquisition Bureau immediately launched a nationwide investigation, intending to dig out hidden demonkin.
At that time Talen was working in another province.
When he rushed back to the fishing village, he saw only the corpses of an entire village whose brains had burst and killed them.
His heart was submerged in endless regret.
He knew full well that it was his own greed that had personally pushed his daughter into the abyss of killing.
Therefore, even though the black-flame spears had pierced him through, he could not retreat at this moment.
He crawled laboriously toward Abigail, dragging a long trail of blood behind him—dark red, thick, like a mop that had been dipped in blood and drawn across the ground.
In the next moment his eyes met Abigail’s.
The sorrow in the girl’s eyes turned into terror in an instant.
That soul-captivating ballad stopped.
The terror in Abigail’s eyes then turned into rage.
She glared furiously at the White Wizard and at the same time let out a piercing screech toward the three members of the Mutual Aid Society.
The half-demon and the Orc were completely unprepared.
Just like those executors, they clamped both hands over their heads and half-knelt on the ground in pain.
The White Wizard covered his head with one hand while the other condensed a prison of black flame around Abigail, finally blocking the screech with the flames.
“What is this banshee spawn trying to do? Why is she attacking us?”
The half-demon struggled to his feet.
“Kill her, my lord! The Mutual Aid Society has no need for traitors!” The Orc roared at the White Wizard.
“No. Demonkin do not kill demonkin… That is our bottom line!” The White Wizard scolded sharply.
His voice carried deep anxiety.
Clearly he also did not understand why the little banshee had suddenly turned against them.
The Orc and the half-demon lifted the supply crates and left toward the exit of the Ant Nest.
The White Wizard followed behind them, one hand maintaining the black-flame prison.
Claire and Ophelia seized the opportunity to run to Talen’s side.
They supported him and withdrew toward the casino.
That limestone door with its extremely strong soundproofing would be their final refuge.
Ophelia could feel that Talen’s body was growing heavier and heavier.
His life force was rapidly draining from his body.
“Abigail… is right there… my daughter… my Abigail…”
Claire and Ophelia heard Talen’s hoarse voice beside their ears.
He struggled briefly for a moment.
Claire turned her head and looked in the direction Talen was staring.
It was the black-flame prison that was gradually dissipating.
When the figures of the three from the Mutual Aid Society disappeared into the underground passage, the prison condensed from black flame completely dispersed.
A little girl covered entirely in white scales revealed her form.
She was radiant, and she was also ferocious.
That long silver hair hung down as if flowing with starlight.
Her rage suddenly turned toward Claire and Ophelia.
The banshee’s screech rang out once more, carrying a fishy, cold wind.
Claire found herself once again inside the burning summer palace.
Shadows spraying steam reaped the lives of the court officials like the god of death.
Withered black human figures burned within the fierce flames.
Ophelia watched with her own eyes as her birth mother lay alone on a chair.
Her eyeballs shifted slightly, as if bidding farewell to Ophelia.
Ophelia understood in her heart that her mother was already dead.
In this dead-silent city she was the last person still alive.
She had been born in a small town ravaged by plague.
Her entire family had unfortunately died under the claws of the plague.
When despair enveloped her, a black warhorse slowly walked through the deserted streets.
On the horse’s back, a pale-faced man extended his hand toward her and said, “From now on, follow me.”
That was Sir Lycart.
It was he who had turned Ophelia into a vampire.
The deepest nightmare, the greatest fear in the heart, the loneliness of having no one to rely on, mixed with the pain of rats gnawing at the heart, surged up in an instant.
At this moment both of their faces twitched, and their eyes were hollow.
In the next instant, turbulent currents of fire element swirled around Abigail.
Firelight and electric arcs flashed and vanished.
She was once again trapped by a prison of flames.
Only this time it was not the White Wizard’s black flame, but Anne’s bright firelight.
Anne’s figure appeared in front of the casino’s great doors.
She gritted her teeth tightly, both hands trembling slightly, exerting every ounce of her strength to maintain the prison formed of fire element.
The screech was once again isolated by the flames.
Claire and Ophelia immediately felt a wave of relief and collapsed to their knees from the sudden loss of strength throughout their bodies.
Yet there was no time to rest at present.
They supported Talen and ran toward the casino.
“Get inside quickly!” Liz raised a rifle and aimed toward the direction of the flames.
“Abigail… do not harm my Abigail…”
Talen cried out hoarsely, as if begging for mercy, yet in the end Liz did not hear him.
Her finger rested steadily on the trigger and fired without the slightest hesitation.
The bullet instantly vanished into the sea of fire.
The gunshot echoed through the air, yet it brought no sound of striking any object.
Fine beads of sweat covered Anne’s forehead and slid down her cheeks, glittering under the reflection of the firelight.
The thing trapped inside the fire was not quiet.
Anne could feel that it might break through the cage at any moment.
Only in the final moment before the flames dissipated did the three of them rush into the casino hall.
By this time Talen had completely lost consciousness.
Wearing his heavy plate armor, he collapsed heavily onto the ground.
Blood gushed from the wounds caused by the black-flame spears.
The inertia of his fall caused Claire and Ophelia to tumble face-first onto the tiled floor of the hall.
In the vision of Liz and Anne, the scene of that thing tearing through the flames was complete.
White sickle-like wing-claws tore the flames apart.
Enormous bone wings slowly unfurled, thin layers of wing membrane existing between the bones.
Within the dissipating firelight appeared the graceful and upright body of a young girl together with a strikingly beautiful face.
Yet below her waist was a long tail like that of a snake.
After seventy years, the banshee race that had once been the most bloodthirsty and deadly during the human-demon war had returned once more to Parisie this night.