After the portal closed, Lamia looked around, finding no one in view but darkness and herself in the middle of a stone-paved road. She looked to the back and saw a sky-challenging fortress of gargantuan proportions in the distance.
She unceremoniously turned on her heels and took hold of the long ropes ending in a small knob extending from the furred collar of her coat and infused her spiritual energy into the coat, through the knobs.
The spirit codes in the coat functioned and generated a veil of darkness over Lamia's figure, veiling her figure with the darkness of the night, undetectable to mortal sight.
Her serpentine eyes glinted in the dark, full of resolve she muttered to herself, "Pseudo-human kingdom... I'll be the queen of terrestrial monster kinds."
Thus, she went on her journey, a journey of vengeance and blood, and with undying conatus, she will make it to the top.
As The Keeper Of Specters.
A legend in the making...
...
Meanwhile, Conan didn't know that he had attracted the attention of many unknown forces with the explosion...
In the formless parts of darkness, four pairs of violet eyes looked at the explosion and laughed spookily.
"He's there... HeHeHe."A whimsical voice echoed creepily.
"Shh... You're talking too loud" Another slothful and drunken voice reprimanded from the background.
"Let's go after him, we'll find the other one that way, they know each other."A calculative voice echoed. To what she said the other voices whooped.
"Nooo! You don't mean we ambush them, do you?"An excited voice rang out in anticipation.
"Oh yeah, I say we ambush them, girls!"The whimsical voice echoed loudly to which three consecutive slaps were heard, followed by scoldings of her being noisy.
"Hey that was mean, that's just how my voice is..."The owner of the whimsical voice innocently defended herself, but couldn't save herself from the hands that sealed her mouth shut.
On the side, were slothfully opened deep violet eyes, holding a lot of deliberateness and intellect in them. The eyes closed and merged with the darkness but the voice came out:
"Let's move after twenty seconds..."
"Oh, Yeah!"Whoops, and clapping sounds of palms slapping another could be heard after...
#The Estries
...
At the same time, under the veil of the night, were the eyes of humans, all possessing night-black eyeballs that held a lot of strictness and uprightness in them.
"Sir, what could this be?"A curious voice came out, a hint of expectation in the tone with which he spoke.
"There's only one person we know that uses that kind of flame and we met him tonight."A voice full of cleverness came out and deduced, however, it was not the captain.
"Captain, I think it is that same man in black and gold, dressed like an assassin. From my viewpoint, he loves to fight and probably he's goading us with that flame."A woman deduced, with a voice that oozed with confidence.
Only then did the captain's eyes which seemed to be rigid twitch a bit, but he remained silent for a while.
"He might be luring us into a trap, I'd say we don't fall for it."Another voice added, further putting the rest on a cliffhanger. All looking forward to the decision of the captain.
"We are going and we are going to take him down, together."The timbre of the captain's voice finally came out and boosted the morale of his inferiors with the sheer charisma oozing from it.
"Yes sir!"They chorused albeit in a good decorum and low volume "...Together we shall apprehend the terrors of the night!"Sounds of fists hitting chest plates followed as they recited their pledge, albeit not that loud.
The Captain's eyes narrowed, and he watched the fading, bright yellow fire, Which burned nearby clouds into water drops.
"He calls himself a dragon..."He muttered to no one in particular.
#The Night Knights
....
In the Kramdery forest, on a tree was a man in a black skin-tight one-piece suit, with golden designs. His face was masked and but his draconic eyes were visible.
"Now, where's my harem..."He muttered to himself, he looked around, and though, he could see to a considerable extent in the darkness, he didn't move away from the tree, nor did he find a single living being.
He had come across a group of girls and now he was playing hide and seek with them, they would seldomly attack him from nowhere, while he ran but now they were not coming anymore.
Not to talk of the righteous people that accused him of being a terrorist of the night, but he had forgotten about them since the moment he laid his eyes on the vixens.
He felt left down a bit, but his train of thought was disrupted when a boom sounded from somewhere in the South of the forest. He looked back and saw the light, immediately, he knew the one who caused the explosion.
"Ol' father..."
He beamed, knowing who to find, he dashed towards the direction he guessed his old father would take. He just took a wild guess, but also followed his intuition.
#Liam...
...
On another side were the Three Enforcers at the crime scene...
They looked upon seeing the light in the distance, but none of them felt the need to go, it was just curiosity that made them study it cognitively for a while.
"What do you think caused that?"The woman with a ponytail asked, making the others avert their gaze from the fiery light and look at her.
"It's probably the Cubus girls, I think they have new tricks up their sleeves and are terrorizing the night, killing men around again."The stern man deduced from rational thoughts.
"Leave it to the Night knights."The buffed enforcer said seriously "...it's their job."
The woman Enforcer looked at the fading yellow flame, then at the corpses, then at the paved path, her mind working cognitively to come to a rational deduction.
It'll be a long night and she knew the moment she saw the corpses of the men of kongieus...
#The Enchantress/ Diligent Enforcer
....
At a secluded area, in the kramdery forest, in the still darkness of a small clearing not so far from the Duchy.
Pairs of devilishly alluring eyes opened under the blanket of leaves blocking out the faint rays from the stars.
Here the darkness was wispy, it seemed as though the area was secluded from the whole forest and it was connected at the same time, making the darkness coagulate into material wisps, due to the influence of neither energy.
Shouts and screams of men sounded within the darkness, however, it wasn't of pain, but of soul-destroying ecstasy. However, the wispy darkness won't let the sounds out, serving as a barrier.
Soon, all noises faded, and two devilishly alluring red eyeballs with purple scleras and pupils, colorful eyes that glinted in the dark as they watched the light from the distance.
The owners of the eyes seemed to look at each other and a mature, seductive voice of a woman came out.
"We're done here..."The eyes turned in the opposite direction from the light and seemed to leave.
The other eye which held a bit of naivety in them stared for a while longer and also turned to leave.
"Yeah... Let's leave."A sensual lady's voice was heard as they walked away, albeit full of reluctance.
Oh how she loved to cause trouble for the Night Knights, sadly there won't be fun for them tonight.
#Cubus Coven...
...
In another open clearing in a random part of the forest, sounds of meat being ripped apart and chewed on, sounds of bones being crushed, accompanied by muffled painful moans and sounds of futile struggles were heard, by no one in particular but the victims, and the assailants.
What was taking place was cloaked in the still darkness. It was eerie, to say the least.
Suddenly, yellow and fiery light shone in the distance, followed by a thundering boom, giving away the appearance of the diners of the night, who were all donned in hooded mantles.
The heads of these beings all snapped upwards in sync, all five, almost at the same time. Their faces which were stained with thick viscous blood and meaty bits were sickly pale with skin pulled over the bones. They bared their monstrous rows of teeth, which had guts and chunks stuck in between like a miniature butchery. Their leaf nose inflated as they watched the light, with their lifeless, dark scieras and crimson pupils in anger that seems to be a trait.
A croaky chuckle escaped the wide jaws of one "...The Knights..."
Another breathy voice came from another of the monstrosities "...Not the knights... Seems interesting though."
But a particular one of them stood up, looking at the fading light, removed the hood, and revealed the pale face of a girl in her late teens, with short bristle black hair.
In this little moment, the face of the teenager had distorted and had formed back to that of a normal human which she isn't. Her eyes, however, didn't change, nor did the filth on her face leave to help make her look more humane.
After much deliberation, she reached a decision and pointed in direction of the flame "Let's go there..."Her voice was of an eerie timbre amplified by the maniacal grin.
The others rose from their positions to pause from devouring, their 'precious meal' and their faces started turning more humane and healthy. It turned out that these monstrosities are all teenagers.
Two girls and three boys, wearing decent clothing beneath their hooded inky black mantles and black gloves that dripped crimson. Faces smeared with blood and meaty bits. They set forward to do something unknown to none but themselves.
The Forest of Kramdery had become a battle zone for the night, with Conan indirectly declaring it.
# The Cannibals
...
Closer to the duchy, in Kramdery forest, the sound of blades behind sheathed and buckles being buckled, and zips hissing frequented.
On the branch of a short tree, a lantern was hung. It shook continuously by the wind currents. The globe encased a purple orb that showered the dim light reflected from it on a group of people who were currently gearing up.
They all looked suspicious, all four of them. Two men and one woman and a teenage girl. Dressed in black suits, with pockets and sheaths strapped in abundance all over and covered with a Disguise Mantle.
"Where's tonight's mission at?"The mature woman asked, her voice soft but calculating. Her suit was simple, with two portable crossbows strapped to her waists and others in inconspicuous areas covered by her mantle, bolts on pockets strapped to almost all parts of her body, especially to her gauntlets and boots.
"To the Auction house, my informant told me last week that there's something special to be auctioned tonight, and all the specials we are taking."One of the men said, his confident timbre was vibrant.
He on the other hand had portable flails and hurlbats to his suit, dagger axes in the sheaths strapped by his boots, and other inconspicuous parts. All are covered by the mantle.
His eyes were drawn to the distance—to be precise towards the direction of the— Duchy Tavern— deliberating their moves for the night.
#The banditti family...