The forest felt wrong from the moment they stepped back into it—too still, too suffocating, as though the trees themselves had witnessed something so vile that even the wind dared not speak. Mist clung low to the ground, weaving between roots and fallen leaves in quiet, pale coils, and for a moment the world seemed suspended in a breathless hush.

They moved silently along the path where the mother and daughter had disappeared minutes earlier. Luca led the way, expression unreadable, while the others followed close behind with growing unease prickling the edges of their senses.

Then—a sound.

A wet, choked whimper.

A strangled sob.

They froze as one, instincts sharpening, breath tightening.

Aurelia drew her spear.

Selena lifted her hand, mana crackling faintly at her fingertips.

Sylthara's ears twitched, pupils narrowing to slits.

Together, they pushed through the last veil of branches—

—and the scene waiting in the clearing hollowed the breath from their lungs.

The woman stood in the center of the glade, but the gentle mother they had spoken to minutes ago was gone—erased. In her place stood something twisted, something wearing human skin like a poorly fitted mask. Her hair hung wild and matted around her face, her fingers digging mercilessly into the neck of the little girl she held dangling in the air.

The child kicked, her small legs flailing weakly, tears streaking down her cheeks, each sob a faint rasp as her voice choked against the constriction crushing her throat.

"Mama… stop… it hurts…"

But the woman's expression was a grotesque mockery of motherhood. Her lips, once trembling with relief, peeled back into a hideous grin that split her cheeks unnaturally wide. Veins pulsed darkly beneath her skin, writhing like worms beneath the surface, and when she opened her mouth, her jaw cracked with a sickening pop, stretching far beyond anything human.

The grin widened.

Her pupils shrank to needle points.

And an inhuman hunger gleamed in her gaze.

Without warning, she lunged forward, sinking her teeth into her daughter's neck.

The sound was obscene—a wet crunch followed by a soft, broken cry. Blood welled instantly, spilling over the child's shoulder and down the woman's chin in warm, steaming rivulets. The woman drank greedily, trembling with manic delight, each swallow making her throat bulge unnaturally.

For a heartbeat, the world stood still.

Luca's fingers clenched around nothing, his mind blank.

Aurelia staggered back a step, horror widening her eyes.

Even Kyle, reckless and brash, felt his stomach twist violently.

But while everyone else remained frozen—

Sylthara moved.

The moment the blood touched the ground, she vanished into the shadows with a burst of speed so violent it warped the air behind her. Darkness rippled at her feet as she erupted into the clearing, her dagger drawn and gleaming with a cold, merciless arc.

She didn't shout.

She didn't hesitate.

She didn't breathe.

Her dagger flashed—

—and the woman's right arm flew from her body in a spray of crimson that stained the surrounding ferns. The girl dropped like a discarded ragdoll, her fragile form hitting the earth with a soft, heart-wrenching thud.

"Liliane!" Aurelia cried as the group sprinted forward.

Liliane reached the girl first, skidding to her knees, hands trembling as she touched the child's cheek. "She's alive… she's still alive!" she gasped, voice cracking with relief and terror interwoven. "Get the potions—quickly!"

Selena was already there, uncorking bottles, her hands steady despite the tremor in her jaw. She held the girl's head gently as Liliane began pouring healing mixtures over the wound, the air filling with sharp herbal scents and soft sizzles of magic reacting with torn flesh.

Aurelia and Kyle emptied their storage rings, scattering vials, bandages, compresses—anything they could find. The forest floor became a frantic mess of clinking glass and spilled potion light.

"Stay with us… please stay with us…" Liliane whispered, tapping the girl's cheek as if willing her to respond.

While they fought desperately to keep the child alive, Luca stepped forward, joining Sylthara at the front of the clearing.

Sylthara's back was shaking—lightly, almost imperceptibly—but the tremble was unmistakable. Her dagger dripped with the woman's blood, each drop falling with a dull thud into the leaves. Luca stood beside her silently, his face a dead mask, his eyes dark and hollow.

The woman lay on the ground, one arm gone, body twitching in grotesque spasms. Her head lolled to the side, mouth smeared with her daughter's blood, eyes rolled back until only the whites showed.

Sylthara's voice broke the suffocating silence.

"Why…"

Her breath hitched.

"Why did you do it…?"

Her words trembled with agony—raw, wounded, helpless.

The woman didn't answer.

Instead, she tilted her head back, her spine arching in a sharp, unnatural bend as a deep, guttural croak crawled up her throat.

Then—

She laughed.

"HEEHHAHAHAHHEHEHAHHAHAHAHHSAH!"

A high, shrill, hysterical laughter that tore from her lungs like the scream of a broken instrument. It echoed through the trees, scraping against the air, wild and violent and utterly mad, as if something inside her—something wearing her soul like a puppet—rejoiced in the horror it had unleashed.

Blood bubbled from her lips as she cackled, the sound rising, cracking, distorting—

A laughter not meant for human lungs.

Kyle burst out of the undergrowth a moment later, breath ragged, face contorted with rage so fierce it almost disfigured him. His eyes locked onto the bleeding, hysterically laughing woman sprawled before them, and something in him snapped. Veins bulged along his neck and arms as he took a step forward, fists curling so tightly his knuckles went white.

"Why the hell are you talking to her?" he roared, his voice trembling with fury. "Just kill her already! She doesn't deserve to breathe—"

But before he could take another step, Luca raised a single hand in front of him.

He didn't speak.

He didn't even look back.

Just the simple gesture—calm, silent, absolute—was enough to stop Kyle dead in his tracks. The raw violence in Kyle's eyes flickered, confused, before simmering beneath the surface. He clenched his teeth, jaw twitching, but he didn't push past Luca.

Sylthara's voice cut through the tension—fractured, trembling, but unyielding.

"NO."

She stepped forward, the shadows clinging to her ankles. "I want to know why she did that. Her own daughter… a child who trusted her… Why? How could a mother do this?"

Her voice cracked on the last word, pain bleeding through the edges of her normally steady tone. For Sylthara—who rarely showed even a hint of emotion—it was a shattering moment.

The woman, still lying in a pool of her own blood, turned her head slowly. Her hair stuck to her face in clotted strands. Blood had smeared into her skin, drying in dark streaks that made her look more monster than human.

She stared at Sylthara with a flat, mocking expression.

Then, with a small snort, she smirked like she was looking at a child who didn't understand the world.

"Are you living in your own fantasy world, girl?" she rasped, voice gravelly and wet with blood. "After what I saw back there…"

Her face shifted—slowly at first, then violently—contorting into an expression of euphoric awe. Her eyes widened, pupils dilating until they nearly swallowed the iris. Her lips peeled back again, stretching over bloodstained teeth.

"I want that," she breathed, her voice trembling with manic devotion. "I want to worship the Supreme Being."

The last two words were spoken with reverence so twisted it curdled the air.

Then the hysteria surged again.

She broke into laughter—wild, choking, ugly. It shook her entire body, making blood bubble at the corners of her mouth. Her laughter echoed through the trees, warping the silence, splintering the moment into jagged edges.

Sylthara flinched.

"But why…" her voice was a whisper now, raw and breaking, "why did you have to do that to your own daughter?"

Before the woman could respond—

Another laugh answered.

But it didn't come from her.

It came from the forest.

A sound like cracking bones mixed with broken mirth:

"Jijeijeijeijeijeijei… jie… jejejejeje…"

A cold ripple ran through the air, like the forest itself shuddered.

Luca's eyes narrowed.

Aurelia's grip tightened on her spear.

Kyle snapped his head toward the trees, fury sharpening into dread.

From between the trunks—shadows shifted.

One figure… then two… then five.

Black cloaks spilled out from the darkness, their movements too fluid, too synchronized, too silent. Their faces were hidden beneath hoods, shadows twisting around them like living things. The symbol on their chests—half-burned, half-carved—seemed to writhe in the dim light.

The laughter stopped.

The forest exhaled.

And five cultists stood before them, their presence like a stain upon the world.

The cultists didn't spare Luca or the others a single glance. Their hungry, fever-shining eyes fell instead on the blood-soaked woman lying in the dirt.

"Jijeiejiejiejie… well done, woman," one of them rasped, voice muffled under his hood. "You've shown true loyalty to the Devil Cult."

The others burst into their twisted chorus of laughter—

"Jijejejejejeje!"

Shrill, broken, like metal scraping bone.

"When we're done with these brats," the first cultist said, "you'll join our ranks. A reward well-earned."

The woman trembled, not in fear, but in worshipping bliss—her face twisted in ecstasy. Then the cultists finally looked at Luca's group.

"Ooh… such pretty children," one of them hissed, stepping forward. He never finished that step.

A thin red line drew itself across his throat—so fast it seemed to appear out of nowhere. A wet choke followed, and he collapsed.

Sylthara stood behind him, her eyes hollow, her voice stripped clean of emotion."So you did all that… just to prove loyalty to these pieces of trash?"

Another blur—another throat opened under her blade.

"Just what… what were you chasing? What could be so precious that you—"

But even she couldn't finish the sentence. The horror was too thick, too deep.

A flash of silver cut through the air. Luca's saber drove through the third cultist's chest, ending him before his laughter could rise.

Now only two remained. One tried to bolt. He didn't get far. Selena simply flicked her fingers.Cold clamped the air with a snap—The cultist froze mid-step, a perfect ice sculpture of panic.

Then she closed her hand.

Shrrrk.

He shattered into glittering shards.

Only one cultist remained. He didn't run. He didn't beg.

He simply raised his face toward them.No fear. No regret. Only mockery. A grin split beneath his hood.

"Well, well," he chuckled, "looks like we hit an iron plate, huh?" His laughter began soft—then swelled, bubbling, crackling, turning manic.

"JIJEJEJEJEJEJE!"

He pointed at all of them with a trembling finger. "So WHAT? You think this is victory? You think killing a handful of us matters?" His laughter sharpened like glass. "Right now—yes, right now—across the whole continent… villages are burning. Trashed are getting sacrificed"

His voice dripped poison. "People like her—" he pointed at the blood-drunk woman "—are drinking the blood of their own kin."

He leaned forward, whispering with a tremor of sick delight:

"Can you stop all of us?"

Kyle's jaw tightened. Sylthara's fingers shook. Even Luca's breath hitched. The cultist spread his arms.

"Well, I'll be meeting my Emperor soon anyway."

A second before the explosion, he grinned—

"JIJEJEJEJE—"

BOOM.

Flame and dirt blasted outward, muffled by the trees.

His body vanished, but his voice lingered in the smoke, echoing faintly:

"…Can you stop all of us?"

"Can you stop all of us…?"

"Stop all of us…?"

Then—

Silence.A suffocating, absolute silence. No bird. No wind. Nothing.

Kyle moved first.

He walked up to the trembling woman—the one who had betrayed her own blood—and without a word, he swung his spear.

A clean, merciful cut.

She fell in two.

Kyle turned to Luca, fire burning violently in his eyes.

"Can we not rest?" he growled. "I don't WANT to rest. Keep your promise. Make us stronger. No stopping. No breaks."

Luca met his gaze… then looked at the others.

That same fire. In every pair of eyes.

Aurelia. Selena. Sylthara.

Luca tightened his grip on his sabers. His voice rang sharp as steel:

"Then let's move."

He stepped forward.

"We don't stop. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not UNTIL this world is cleansed of this filth."

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