Ben walked in the training room holding a sandwich and scanned the room, searching for Jay. Immediately, he noticed him laid down on his stomach in the middle of the room.
"Hey... you alright?" Ben asked. With a little surprise, Jay sat up, squinting in Ben's direction after rubbing his eyes.
"Yeah, I'm fine." He said, preparing to get up. "I was just messing around a bit."
"If that was the case… I don't think you would be on the floor right now." Ben said doubtfully.
"Ben, despite everything I already know so far, there's still a lot about the world I'd like to find out. I want to discover new experiences. I'm curious about what's here."
"So…" Ben responded.
"I want you to guide me on a bit of an adventure." Jay added on.
"Sure thing. I could take you to another kingdom. Follow me." He said, walking out of the room. As Jay followed behind, he asked, "Where's that?"
"It's the kingdom of Belenus. Although it's located in another continent, it shouldn't take us too long to get there."
***
It's a dark night, and the two soared right above the thick sheet of clouds not far from the guildhall.
"So, what do you know about the world?" Ben asked.
"All I know is that it's called Residuum, and that the entire planet was re-made after being destroyed." Jay answered.
"Well, before all that, this world was originally called Zuna. Humans inhabited it for a very long time, so technology was much more advanced. Humanity was happy and thriving, until everything was taken over by a fallen demigod and his army."
"What was his name?"
"His name was Vito, but nothing else about him is known. A league of angels from another world attempted to put an end to him, but the damage done was enough to put the planet in pieces. Many casualties were prevented, however. They transported the humans to safety before the battle until they defeated Vito and made the planet habitable again."
"How are they all that powerful?" Jay replied, then plunging through the clouds with Ben.
They were soon greeted with a fantastic view of the large mass of small floating islands and white puffs of clouds that surrounded them, which hovered high above a foggy rift. Still diving, they dropped below a massive island, then began flapping their wings.
"What's under the mist below us?" Jay asked, staring directly under him.
"It's mostly just water, and rarely is there ever land down there." Ben replied, flying past another large floating rock.
"After that war ended, humanity was sent back to their home planet, but everything they made was gone, so they had to rebuild civilization again."
"How long ago was this?"
"A couple hundred years ago. It also took them a few years to restore the planet as much as they could." Ben said.
"However, the humans remained confused, since cultures were mixed and their location unknown. The world was pretty much completely different to them. Not only that, but they didn't really know what to do at that point, since everything was gone." He stated, soaring above the rift.
An enormous island was barely seen in the far distance, which was the location where they seemingly headed.
"That should explain why I see people in armour and others in modern three piece suits." Jay replied.
"That also explains what you're wearing, Jay." Ben said. Looking down with a bit of surprise, he finally noticed he was wearing black jeans and a black shirt under his navy blue hoodie.
"...But how? I wasn't around that long ago." Jay said.
"You still came from another world, just like me." Ben said, pointing out the modern black pants and white t-shirt under the green bomber jacket that he was wearing.
"....But wait, how are the people from back then still alive?"
"Well anyone could live forever but, then again, most of them have probably died off to other things. Their fashion sense could have also been passed down." Ben said.
After a moment of flying, Jay looked over to Ben and asked, "So, do you know where we're headed?"
"The Kingdom of Belenus, on the continent of Emura."
"Is that the one ahead of us?" He asked as they flew close enough to continental island to see the kingdom from afar. But as he looked beside him, he noticed Ben wasn't there. He looked back and saw Ben far behind him, hovering in the air. Jay began to approach him, and the more he did, the more he saw the misery in his eyes.
"What's wrong? Did something happen?" Jay asked, observing Ben. Ignoring him, Ben continued to stare ahead. After having tried to grab his attention, Jay followed Ben's eyes, scanning around for what could have put him in so much shock. After a short moment, he had caught his answer.
"H-hey, that village… isn't burning, is it?" Ben said, finally reclaiming his sanity.
Despite a sudden feeling of anxiety, Jay remained calm and said, "...I don't think we should get ourselves into trouble."
"What do you mean, Jay? Are you saying we shouldn't save them?" He said, looking upset at Jay.
"We shouldn't risk our lives for a situation we have no idea about. Who knows what caused it."
"Have you forgotten what it means to be an angel? Risking our lives shouldn't be an issue. We have to protect innocent people no matter what it takes!" Ben said, immediately flying off. With a long sigh and a feeling of deep regret, Jay then chased after him.
***
"Aaaggghhh!"
The intense agony of one of the civilians was roused with a sharp cry, as a mysterious individual hidden under the darkness of their cloak let out their hand and expended a dark energy into the man. The innocent man had then fallen into the ground, curling up into a ball and convulsing as if he turned completely insane. The cloaked person then jumped onto a nearby roof of a burning house, where they met up with another mysterious individual.
"We've got all of them." Said the voice of the young man that jumped onto the roof.
"Good, now we wait. The malevolence should mutate them soon." Said the soft voice of a young woman. After a short while, the woman slightly turned her head, as if she noticed something.
"Unfortunately, we can't wait any longer." She said. "It seems the angels are already on their way."
"Who cares, they shouldn't be a problem. Their presences are rather weak, they're not worth scrapping the mission."
"They aren't the issue, however. It seems plenty of others are also on their way. We must leave." She said, vanishing away and leaving behind a veil of darkness. After a frustrating kissing of his teeth and grunting, the other mysterious individual disappeared.
***
Upon their arrival, Ben felt even more terrified. While also being at dismay, Jay maintained a calm attitude.
"What the hell… is going on?" Ben said as he observed the villagers roaming around as if the burning houses weren't even a problem. He began rushing towards a nearby villager. Jay, right about to run after him, was stopped by a sudden intense headache. He then heard the voice of a girl call after his name multiple times, each time being more intense and distressful.
He looked around and quickly noticed the same ghostly figure of a girl that he once saw before. This time, however, the ghost had come closer to him than last time.
Once again, after blinking, the ghostly figure vanished alongside with his headache.
"Hey, are you okay?" Ben asked one of the villagers that appeared to be a middle-aged man. The man continued slowly walking away with no response. "Hey!" He repeated, placing his hand on him. Immediately, the villager swiped his hand away and attempted to claw at him. Ben managed to dodge the attack, but stumbled and fell down. He soon noticed the red glow in the man's eyes, manifesting nothing but malice, terror and agony. Coming from behind Ben, Jay reached out and helped him back on his feet, then they quickly moved away from the villagers into an alley.
"This isn't good… this isn't good at all!" Ben said, panicking. "This is the absolute worst case scenario that I thought of! This is what I was worried about!"
"What is it?" Jay said.
"The people of this village have been corrupted. Someone, or something -- I don't know what it was -- injected malevolence in them."
"What is that?"
"It's a dark energy originally manifested by demons, capable of corrupting humans and even angels. Having intense bad thoughts can create even more of it. If successful, a human will turn into a demon, and an angel will turn into a dark angel. The more of it a demon or dark angel has, the stronger they become. The only way of destroying it is through exorcism using the light of Demiurge. But don't worry, I have a plan." The sound of agonizing moans was heard behind them.
As they looked, they saw one of the mindless villagers had appeared behind them. On an impulse, they ran out of the alley directly into the central plaza, where they instantly had a bad feeling, as they were surrounded by zombie-like villagers all over. Unexpectedly, a few came charging after Jay. Thankfully, he managed to fight them off with the hopes of knocking them out as he plummeted them into the ground. However, they instantly got back up, then tackling Jay into the ground. With no hopes of getting them off, he discharged high volts of electricity, stretching 3 meters from his body.
With success, the mindless zombies fell down, this time without getting back up as the electricity arcing around them kept them paralyzed. Unnoticingly, another one came rushing from his blindspot. Right before grabbing Jay, they were stopped by a green arrow with a bright glow. The arrow quickly vanished before the victim fell to the ground. As Jay looked, he noticed that there were no pierce wounds. He looked back and saw Ben holding a curve bow, creating a small vortex of wind as he began pulling the string, making another glowing arrow and releasing it.
He proceeded to look around, noticing more of the insane people coming his way, then prepared to fight the rest of them off, charging his fists with electricity. Both Jay and Ben handled them with ease as they fought, but the longer it went for, the stronger the horde became. Soon enough, they were starting to get overwhelmed, and Ben was increasingly getting anxious. The surrounding army of villagers started closing in on them. Soon, one of them leaped at Jay, once again forcing him on the ground.
Jay attempted expelling more of his magic, but all hope was soon lost once he had already used up all of it. Preventing Jay's circumstances from becoming worse, Ben averted his attention to his situation and continued shooting them with arrows. Unfortunately, the other surrounding horde managed to stop Ben, piling on top of him. The clear horror on Ben's face was soon swallowed by the swarm.
As the malevolence overtook them, they knew that all hope was now gone.