"GGGGGGGGGGGKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK—"

The weird sound echoed throughout the entire province. Everyone who was fighting halted their movement when they heard this bizarre, piercing noise… it was like the agonising screech of a fingernail dragged across a chalkboard, slicing straight through bone and brain.

Every single one of them clenched their teeth and squeezed their eyes shut as they covered their ears, the scream echoing inside their heads and pounding against their skulls.

Valra and Azrael, who were pushing their way through the horde of black sticky monsters, froze mid-attack. Valra's ring of razor-sharp flames flickered and shuddered as she let out a short gasp, her hands flying up to cover her ears.

"Aaah—what the hell is that sound?! It feels like it's cutting straight into my skull!" Valra hissed, her voice ragged.

Azrael, who'd been pulling the trigger with precision, stopped, bullets falling from her grip as she doubled over, clutching her head.

"M-My ear hurts!! Stop it—please, make it stop!" Azrael's voice broke as the pain intensified.

Both of them staggered, completely vulnerable, knees buckling as their senses were overwhelmed. This was the perfect moment for the black sticky monsters to close in and attack… but even the monsters recoiled in terror, shuddering and pressing their misshapen black hands over the places where their heads should be. Their sticky forms quivered, heads warped by agony.

Dracula, who had been walking forward with a confused, cold expression, still trying to piece together where he'd landed after facing Essa, suddenly stopped and scowled, clenching his ears with one hand. "W-What is that!!" he roared, his voice echoing. Even pressing his palms over his ears, the shrill sound drilled deeper.

"It's in my head… why won't it stop?!"

Essa, running breathless through shattered alleys to find Leo, was struck down in mid-stride. She collapsed, rolling across the ground as she shrieked in pain, her ears trickling blood, crimson staining her fingers. "No, no—please!" she sobbed, hands over her ears.

Ophis, high above, flying with Raphael clutched in her arms, wavered in the air. Her wings faltered, her whole body tensed as they crashed to the earth. She hit the ground hard, twisting to shield Raphael, then curled around her, both of them covering their ears.

"Arrhhhh!! It hurts—Raphael, cover your ears!" Ophis cried, voice cracking.

"W… What is going on?" Raphael whimpered.

Fallen Camazotz clenched his head, grinding his fangs together. He dropped into a crouch, folding his huge bat wings around his body to block the noise.

While everyone was suffering in agony, meanwhile, Fallen Pride stood alone atop the edge of a twisting building, her posture perfectly calm. Her sharp, icy gaze focused only on the relic hovering before her. The relic suddenly jerked, another one petal snapping open as its blue light brightened, a beam shooting skyward.

Fallen Pride narrowed her eyes, watching as the relic started to spin and rise faster into the sky, the blue glow intensifying. She turned her head to the side, raising one gloved hand to her right ear. Warm black blood dripped onto her fingers. She frowned, rubbing her ear.

She muttered under her breath, "Something is wrong." For the first time, she tore her attention away from the relic. Her Darkness Energy was shivering at the noise, unstable, as if the sound itself could wound even what darkness fears.

"What the hell is that…? Darkness itself… afraid?"

The Darkness… is it scared?

This was something she needed to look into. Something new... something far worse than any darkness she'd ever known... was lurking out there.

And when the sound finally stopped, everyone gasped for air as if they had been suffocating.

Valra staggered to her knees, panting and shaking, her hands still cupping her ears. "I… can't hear anything… just… just ringing…" she whispered, terrified, staring at the blood on her palms.

Nnnngggggggggggg!

A humming sound in her ear echoed.

She looked around and noticed the monsters were still shaking and trembling.

"We need to leave now—Azrael?" She was shocked to see that Azrael was not with her. Her face turned pale.

****

Meanwhile, Azrael walked alone on the empty, ruined dark street… There was nothing visible in this darkness, as if it were a void cut off from the rest of the world.

"L-Leo?" she softly called, but there was no response other than the deep, suffocating darkness. She swallowed, her throat dry, eyes flicking in every direction, alert and searching through the endless night. She muttered quietly, trying to comfort herself with a gentle humming sound.

"Leo~ It's mommy~" she called in a calm tone, voice echoing into nothing.

Crack!

She flinched, looking down, and saw… a piece of metal junk had been chewed and crushed down into paste, flattened on the ground.

'What happened?' she thought, stepping closer. As she crouched, she realised it was a small part of Fallen Nergal's weapon.

She swallowed hard. Nergal's weapon—even the gods had a hard time destroying it, yet here it was, mangled like a child's toy and flattened as if someone had sat on it.

She gripped her rifle tightly as she stepped forward.

"Leo~ It's mommy here~ come to mommy~"

She sang in a lovely, coaxing tone, her footsteps slow and measured as she walked deeper into the void. She remembered something and paused.

"Oh… I know a way to get you to come back to your mommy~" she said, forcing a smile, her voice trembling as she cleared her throat, then—

~LaLa~haha~LaLa~Laaaa~

She started to sing, her song soft and eerie as she took slow, careful steps forward.

"Laa~Laaa~La~La~"

As she moved deeper into the darkness.

Crack

No, this time it wasn't her. The sound came from somewhere in the void… something moved out there. Still, she didn't stop singing.

Flick~

She flinched as a wet, opening sound echoed behind her. Slowly, she turned, and saw… a huge, white eye had opened in the dark void, staring at her without blinking.

She forced a smile, keeping up her song.

"Oh? So you're hiding there… ahaha… My darling, you really know how to keep things interesting… hahaha… La~La~Laaa~Laaa~" She took a step toward the huge eye, one hand raised as if reaching out, but then, just as suddenly, the eye vanished.

She froze, nerves jangling, her face turning pale.

"Hah… S-So you want to play? So be it~" she whispered, covering her own eyes with one hand and beginning to sing again. This time, she kept singing while standing there without moving an inch.

"La~Laaaa~La~LaaaLaa~La… Hah~laa—"

"M.O.M.M.Y?"

An inaudible, hoarse and monotone voice echoed in her mind.

Inaudible?

Yes, because only she heard that.

She flinched when she heard it. Her body trembled, and her lips curled up in a strained smile.

"S-So you remember me, darling?" she whispered, slowly raising the hand that had been covering her eyes, still keeping them closed.

At first, her hand hovered in the darkness… for a second, she didn't feel anything—until something big nudged her palm. She flinched, her hand moving very slowly, feeling the rough, cold texture of whatever was nudging her.

"M-My baby's really grown up… hasn't he?" she said, voice quivering, and slowly opened her eyes. Before her, two humongous white eyes hovered, so close she could see her own reflection in them. Everything else was just an endless void; she couldn't see anything but those eyes.

She smiled, tears gathering in her eyes. "How is my darling, Leo?" she called out, but there was no answer.

She chuckled softly, voice shaking. "Still shy as ever," she murmured, about to raise her second hand when—

Clang.

Her other hand, the one holding the gun, clattered against the ground, the metal sound echoing in the darkness. Her face turned pale. 'Shit!' her mind screamed as she noticed the eyes focusing on her other hand.

"I-It's not what you think, darling… It's nothing, just—see?" she stammered, hurriedly putting the gun down, but the eyes slowly pulled back, rotating in a slow, clockwise arc, then rising up.

Azrael swallowed in horror as her head tilted back, staring up in awe and dread as it grew up,

"You… you've grown so much—"

CRUNCH!

****

"What happened here?" Essa muttered as she stood at the edge of a ruined, bright street.

Not just the street... the entire path was carved out, black metal splashed everywhere, and black blood pooled on the ground near a shattered building that held… the massive lower half of Fallen Nergal's body.

The streetlights flickered, the twisted buildings frozen in time, their windows flashing on and off, as if the world itself was caught between death and waking.

Essa swallowed, her stomach turning at the horror. Something terrible had happened here. She looked at the Fallen Nergal's half-body... only two legs, a small portion of hip joint wedged into broken walls, black blood spilling from the wound.

Whatever happened here… something dangerous was lurking among them.

As she walked on the ruined road, she spotted it—Leo's katana sword, stabbed into the ground.

Her face, shadowed beneath her hoodie, turned pale with horror.

"I need to find Leo—faster!" she shouted, panic rising in her voice, before running down the shattered street to search for him. The last one seen with Nergal was Leo—if this happened to the Nergal, then what about Leo?

What was he going through?

Was he dead?

Those possibilities made her legs tremble!

As she left the place,

Thud!

Fallen Pride landed on the ground and stared at the ruined street… her eyes briefly glanced at Fallen Nergal's remaining body.

Instead, she focused on the black metal that was mauled and flattened. She stared at it before muttering, "Interesting…" as her eyes lifted and she moved forward, determined to find the thing that had done all this.

Meanwhile, Ophis and Raphael sat on the pavement, gasping for air, blinking as they tried to process what had just happened to them.

"W-What was that?" Raphael asked in a curious tone, rubbing her ears with a pained expression. It felt like her hearing had been completely shut off by the piercing noise.

Ophis frowned as she shook her head. "I… I really don't know… but whatever it was, it hurt like hell," she said. Even though she could heal herself, the sound was still pounding inside her mind.

"Anyway, we need to find Leo and the others—fast—"

"Look what we got here~ Little Dracula~"

Both of them flinched when they saw… Fallen Camazotz smirking as he slowly walked toward them in his monstrous bat form.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.