Before Jay and Ben's dire situation became worse, the heads and blood trails of the citizens flew up from the distance, and quickly grew closer, until eventually reaching the two. The sounds of a sword piercing the wind could be heard, and in almost an instant, the zombified citizens surrounding them were all slaughtered. Jay opened his eyes, noticing above him a young, lightly-armoured woman with long, black hair that flowed in the wind. The warm, enlightening smile she had on her face made her seem sincere, regardless of the blood that was splattered all over her. Smiling softly, Jay felt glad she was here to save them.
The woman let out her hand and lifted him off the ground after he grabbed it. One of the many soldiers that had arrived had also helped Ben up in the background. After he got up, he walked up to Jay and the woman after quickly looking around for him. Both of them were fairly bruised, the woman noticed, and none of them had any lethal wounds.
"Are you two feeling alright?" She asked, raising one of her eyebrows.
"Yea, I'm fine." Ben said; Jay nodded his head in agreement.
"But what about the villa…. Gers…?" Ben asked, soon falling to the ground after taking a look at the blood of the disappearing bodies around him, and the countless amount of soldiers slaughtering the villagers.
After a quick moment of silence, Ben yelled, "You didn't have to kill them all!"
"I'm sorry, as much as I didn't want to, there was no other way around it." The woman said anxiously.
After letting out a deep, displeasured sigh, Ben replied, "You're right, nothing else could've been done, and as long as their souls still exist, I could still save them." He said, looking over at the countless floating orbs which softly glowed a dark red tint, indicating malevolence.
"I should be thanking you, honestly; If it wasn't for you, we would have been goners… But what is my life worth if I couldn't even save them without your help…?" He added on.
"We tried our best, Ben." Jay said. "The only thing we can do is get stronger."
"I could help you with that." The woman said. "But before that, we have to take care of the situation right now…. Ah! I almost forgot to introduce myself! I am Christine Wright, leader of Nirvana, the faction of the kingdom of Belenus. Pleasure to meet you both."
"My name's Ben Allen, nice to meet you too." He said.
"Call me Jay. Thank you for saving us." Jay said.
"I'm glad to have been your help." Christine replied, smiling. As soon as they finished their introductions, a dark-suited man with short, black hair and silver eyes under a pair of glasses had approached her with a small group of armed men following after him.
"All of them have been cleared, Ma'am." The man said, sheathing his sword.
"Good work." She replied. "Check the perimeter for any remaining villagers. Ensure they are corrupted before killing them."
"On it. Men, let's go!" He said, beginning to run off with the group of soldiers. However, as soon as they did, the cries and grunting of the soldiers could be heard in the near distance. A group of soldiers had been blasted by a large gust of wind. Everyone averted their attention to the site, and one of the corrupted villagers on the ground had begun absorbing all of the other souls within the entire village as it slowly got off the ground. The more souls it absorbed, the larger and more deformed the villager became, until it became a giant, deformed humanoid monster with hardened, dark-red skin and horns.
"Cain! You're with me." said Christine, looking towards him. Cain nodded, walking towards the raging monster with her as they both held out their swords. Starting it off, Cain began to quickly approach the beast. Upon quick notice, the demonic beast threw its fist at him. Cain successfully guarded the attack, but the monster's brute strength kept pushing him back. As Christine ran forth, she sliced the beasts arm, forcing it to recoil. She then ran behind the monster as it launched its elbow towards her. She sprung into the air, dodging its entire arm.
Cain, running up the beast's other arm, jumped up to land on its face, slicing its eyes. Before the beast could grab its own face, he leapt away. High above the creature's head as Christine began falling down, she prepared to bury her sword. Preventing that from happening, however, the beast threw its fist. As it approached her, in an instant of quick flashes, the beast's entire hand had been sliced to thousands of pieces. Falling past its arm, she then landed her sword on the top of its head, creating a massive shockwave.
Leaping off its head, she landed gracefully, giving a proud smile as the beast's large body fell to the ground, quickly disintegrating. The hundreds of bright souls then slowly began to rise out of its corpse. Ben had his eyes widened in awe as Jay remained stern.
"Wow!" Ben exclaimed. "You guys are strong!"
"Ofcourse." Christine said, smiling. "It took a lot of training and fighting."
"I couldn't even imagine how long it must've taken..." Ben said.
"Well, we're currently on a mission, so we could use your help. I'm sure you guys are strong, too."
Looking disappointed in himself, Ben replied, "Strong? Me…? Did you not see us almost die to villagers?"
"Well, even as you may be now, I'm sure you angels can get stronger much faster. I'll have my faith in you." She said.
Looking hopeful from the reassuring statement, Ben said, "Alright, guess I'll tag along. How about you, Jay?" Responding to him, he nodded in agreement. A few seconds later, a carriage came along, stopping right beside Christine.
After noticing, she looked back to the two boys and said, "Alright, hop on." As she gestured to them, walking over and sitting next to the coachman. Jay and Ben both went in the carriage.
"We're headed for Belenus." She said as the carriage began to move.
***
Halfway en route, Ben began to talk about the mission Christine had mentioned.
"So, what's this mission all about?" He asked.
Turning her head to face the carriage, she said, "There were reports about a major crime that happened recently in Y'vette."
"Really?" Ben said, looking surprised. "We just came from there. What happened?"
"A large amount of destruction and debris were found close by a popular inn. A man was also found tied up in an alleyway. Their soldiers also found traces of blood in some underground chamber right next to him." A bit surprised from her statement, Jay switched his focus to the woman, paying attention to her story as he almost certainly knew what she was going to say.
"After a quick interrogation, the man allegedly tortured a girl, along with countless other people in the past. He had also confirmed working alongside two other people that he described, which we also found and arrested. However, he denied the rest of the incident, claiming two other people were the culprits. He described them, saying one of them was tall and skinny, with long black hair and black eyes. He had also worn a black two-piece suit at the time. The other man, he was incapable of describing."
"When did all this happen..?" Ben asked.
"Just a few days ago." She replied.
"Later on, the man was arrested. Then undergoing further interrogation, he claimed it the workings of an organization that he was in, which was formed not too long ago. He gave us the name and their symbol. The kingdom has yet to identify their goals and current objectives."
"So what was their name?"
"Their organization went by the name of Diabolus. That being said, any of you have any more information on it?"
"Not r-"
"Yes." Jay said, interrupting Harry. Christine averted her attention to him, looking curious.
"That man you described before is dead; I killed him."
"Really? How come?" She asked.
"It was a life or death situation. I had no other choice. Anyways after falling into a forest, I came across that man. I didn't know him at the time. We talked about random stuff for a bit, and afterwards he had left. Next day, I woke up in some cabin that two other people had lived in. It was a human girl and her father, Harry, who was also an angel."
"They had taken me in, allowing me to stay for a while. After getting to know them for a few days, we were in a forest getting chased down by some demonic beast, and I'm almost certain that man had summoned it. It almost took Lisa's life, but her soul was snatched away when her father saved us. Almost certain of where we could find her, we went to that inn."
"After a while of searching we eventually found the group of men that had her locked in there. We took them down and went inside where we met up with Lisa, who was badly injured. We were then ambushed by the man I first met, and some guy under a hooded cloak. I wasn't able to see his face. After I killed the guy in the suit, I blacked out, then I woke up seeing the dying body of Lisa's father. I don't remember anything else important after that." Jay said, wrapping up his story.
"Amazing." Christine said as her eyes shined in awe.
"Now you're forced to assist me. You could help gather some more useful information." She added as Jay began to look slightly bothered.
"I'll report the information to the kingdom once we get there."
***
After having arrived at the kingdom of Belenus, they continued past the entrance as Jay and Ben gazed around. The environment looked almost about the same as Y'vette.
"Where are we headed now?" Ben asked.
"To the factions headquarters." She replied.
***
Eventually, they reached their destination, arriving at the kingdom's castle. They stood by a large wooden double-door which was guarded by armored soldiers.
"Come inside." Christine said, gesturing towards the castle, then beginning to walk. "I'll introduce you to some of my associates."
"Uh… Your faction is in here…?" Ben asked, feeling a bit nervous as they headed towards it.
"Yup, the headquarters share a small portion of the castle." She said as they reached inside the castle's faction headquarters. Upon gazing around the area, Ben was astonished.
"Small, you said…?" He questioned.
Although a lot bigger than Ben's guildhall, the interior format looked similar. There were plenty of people in the headquarters as most of them sat in front of the tables. With Jay and Harry following her, Christine approached one of the tables which sat fairly pronounced people.
"Hey, dummy!" A pointy-eared dark-skinned girl said. She had blonde hair and had a large ponytail. Also odd-eyed, one side was yellow while the other was violet.
"What?" A boy with messy orange hair and replied.
"Ya got somethin' on your shirt!"
"Eh?" He said. He was given a hard flick on the nose as he looked down.
Getting annoyed, he quickly got up off his chair and shouted, "Hey, you wanna fight or somethin'?"
"Bring it!" She said, smirking, also jumping off hers as they glared at each other with their fists raised.
"Ehh…." Christine said anxiously, twirling her hair as Ben also looked worried. "That's…. Emily. The other one is Arin."
"Oh my…" A woman said with a soft, charming voice. She had long and wavy dark-purple hair and wore a rather revealing dress. "Why don't you two just get along? You're scaring my sweetie away."
Peaking over the table was a girl with light blue hair.
"The lady's name over there is Seira. The other one hiding under the table next to her is Nora."
Sighing, a bluish-white haired boy said, "Why is my cousin so afraid of everything..?" Crossing his arms as he spoke, leaning against the wall near the table.
"The other boy's name is Zane." Christine said.
Opening the door behind them was the same suited man from before. "Am I late to the feast?"
After having heard him from the distance, she shouted, "No; you came just in time, actually!" She then pointed towards him as she faced Jay and Ben. "As you probably already know, that's Cain. As for Narumi… she's not here for some reason."
Turning back around and placing her hands on her hips, she said, "And that's all of the faction's representatives! I hope you'll be able to get to know them we- ...Hey, you alright..?"
Jay tightly pressed his hands against his head as he felt a sharp pain, soon collapsing, curling as he suffered from the intense agony.
"Hey!" Ben said, looking worried, crouching down as he tried to hold him up. The surrounding people in the room looked over in slight concern.
His sight had gotten hazy, and in an instant, his vision had gone completely dark.