One month later,
As he stared at the piles of shattered corpses lying on the ground, Lampard, who had come to this location after hearing sounds of fighting, couldn't help but feel a chill in his heart.
This display made Lampard realise that while being a Peak Mage, whatever caused this carnage was out of his league and he needed to get out as fast as he could. Fearing for his life, and of whatever was the culprit of the massacre, he discreetly distanced himself but the feeling of wrongness intensified.
Lampard clenched his teeth... This feeling ... someone or something was watching him. He sent several light arrows in the general direction of whatever lurked in the shadows, hoping it would create an opening.
...
'Looks like I've been spotted, impressive' thought Beatrice, while she stoically stood on the receiving end of the rapidly approaching light arrows.
Before any of the projectiles could hit their target, Beatrice nimbly evaded them.
She got out of hiding and slowly approached the panicking Lampard, who, driven by dread kept sending arrows.
The futile resistance could not even graze Beatrice, her body twisting in unnatural angles to smoothly avoid each attacks. The closer she got, the more details she could see of her victim's face : the poor guy's face was ashen, streak of sweat covering his forehead and adorning trembling bloodshot eyes.
As she came face to face with other mage, she smiled faintly. Suddenly distorted dark bolts surrounded the peak mage and slowly went for the kill.
The poor light mage now looked like a trapped animal, his eye reddened by rage and despair while Beatrice smiled sadistically, satisfied by the display of her prey.
...
As he looked at the Dark Bolts that were surrounding him threateningly, without giving him any chance to retreat, Lampard suddenly knew that his life was in danger.
"Come at be you Dark dog, just wait till I get my hands on you!!" shouted Lampard, using this as one last desperate attempt to enrage his opponent into attacking him without thinking.
Even though Lampard knew that this was a rather hopeless thing to do, he still did it anyway, using every single chance he had to try to survive.
Only a few moments after that, under Lampard's horrified eyes, a human sized figure suddenly materialized in front of him.
Even though he could not see the face of the woman in front of him, Because of the mask, and hood that were covering her face, as he stared at the woman, dread began building up in Lampard.
"Very well, let me fulfill your wish," said Beatrice as a faint smile appeared on her face, causing the air in front of her to suddenly begin distorting.
Seeing this, the dread within Lampard's mind instantly magnified a hundred times over, causing him to suddenly start desperately run away from the thing in front of him.
Sadly though, by now it was far too late for Lampard to truly run away, as a second later, when Lampard was around 500 meters away, the thing in front of Beatrice finally revealed its true shape.
A fraction of a moment later, the Dark Arrow that Beatrice had just created flew through the middle of Lampard's chest, completely eviscerating his body from the face of the earth, leaving nothing of him behind.
Of course, the moment the Dark Arrow did so, Beatrice let her control of it go, as she didn't want to waste even a bit more of her mana.
"A waste, even the elemental stones were pulverized," mumbled Beatrice as she shook her head, silently cursing her past self from a few seconds ago for toying with her prey.
After all, Beatrice was not hunting because she liked doing so, rather, she was doing it out of necessity, so that she could accrue more elemental stones.
...
As she looked at the woman who was slowly walking towards her, the receptionist of the Rose Guild, Alice, couldn't help but suddenly freeze, causing Beatrice to let out a slight chuckle before throwing a bag of elemental stones towards her.
In response, Alice subconsciously grabbed the bag of elemental stones before beginning to mechanically count them for a few moments.
After that, Alice then handed the Beatrice her ticket, without any sort of expression on her face.
Seeing this, Beatrice let out another slight chuckle and walked out of the building.
Around five seconds after Beatrice had walked out of the building, Alice regained her senses, exhausted by this encounter, she fell into her chair.
The more she thought of this client, the more bothered she became to the point where she couldn't help but slightly bite her upper lip, causing a bit of blood to stain her teeth.
A moment later though, Alice picked up the bag of elemental stones and was just about to place it into the counter, before abruptly stopping mid-action.
Feeling the weight of the bag, a frown instantly appeared on her face, something felt wrong, the bag felt heavier than the regular payment she is used to get with every clients. She emptied the pouch's content and re counted the stones... There was an extra elemental stone.
As she stared at it, the chilling memory depicting the owner of this payment went through her mind. A mysterious women with a terrifying aura and uncanny demeanor... definitely someone who she shouldn't mess with.
'It looks like she gave me an extra elemental stone just now, I need to give it back to her,' thought Alice before looking around, noticing that no new customer was about to arrive.
A few moments later, Alice walked out of the building and closed the door behind her, she then walked into the flying ship itself, which was not far away.
...
As she opened her eyes and looked at the woman who was staring straight at her, Alice couldn't help but lower herself deeper into the blanket she was in, causing the woman, who now seemed much younger to Alice than at first glance, to chuckle.
"It seems quite comfy in there," mumbled Beatrice as she suddenly lowered into the blanket as well, quickly catching Alice, who had wanted to hide from her grasp.