"AWOOOO"
Vine, who had turned into a beast lunged towards Avery with his sharp claws aiming at his neck. But Avery just stared at the beast without batting an eye.
When Vine's sharp claw reached Avery's throat, he stopped just at the end, only causing a small wound to appear from which a line of blood trickled down. Looking at Vine who had stopped, Avery smiled.
He had blew on the whistle again, which made Vine stop attacking him and listen to his commands. The whistle, Beast Whisperer, was a relic which could transform Seekers on the verge of lunacy and control them. Although Avery was using the whistle right now, he didn't know it's origin.
He had used the whistle to lure the Saint to Arcturus too. The whistle was a strong relic, but it didn't let him fully control the lunatized Saint, who was beyond Avery's level. He could only influence the Saint on taking certain actions, such as not harming him and making him move towards a direction Avery liked.
But in Vine's case, Avery could easily control him using the whistle. He only had to fulfill a certain condition which was to make Vine fall into lunacy using the whistle. 'Lucky me!' Avery smiled. 'Who knew someone who was on the verge of lunacy would serve themselves to me!' Avery noticed the bandaged hand of Vine and thought of different possibilities, and he became sure Vine was on the verge of lunacy seeing how he was reacting to the corpses of the people.
"What did you do to my brother?" Thorn stared at Avery with a cold gaze.
"Me?" Avery pointed at himself and smiled. "Nothing! I just fastened the fate that was waiting for Vine a bit! Haha!"
He looked at Thorn and his eye slit turned upside down, like a crescent moon. "Could it be?"
"Your brother was so close to lunacy and you didn't even know? You didn't even see your brother's struggle?" He clicked his tongue.
"Poor Vine, his own brother didn't even care about him." He looked at Thorn. "That's to be expected though. Otherwise you would have found your brother long ago! Hahaha!" He cackled.
Clenching his lance tightly in anger, Thorn couldn't hear another word out of Avery's mouth and dashed towards him.
"Attack him!" Avery's smiling expression was gone as he ordered Vine.
Vine turned his back to Avery and lunged towards Thorn to intercept him.
Clang
Sparks flew as Thorn blocked Vine's claw with his lance. Vine moved his hands and attacked Thorn in a flurry.
Thorn clenched his teeth and blocked all the incoming attacks with his lance, but he was being pushed back due to the aggressive attacks, step by step.
"Wake up brother! Vine! Wake up!" Thorn spat through clenched teeth, still blocking the flurry of claw swipes.
"Ha! That's useless!" Avery scoffed. "Don't you know a lunatized Seeker can't become normal once they turn into a beast?"
Thorn frowned at the words and moved his gaze towards Vine's eyes. The pitch black eyes of the beast didn't contain any sense of reason, Thorn could only see the primal desire to hunt in the beast's eyes. When he saw this, the feeling of grief overtook his body and he stopped blocking.
The beast raised his claw high up and swiftly attacked Thorn, who was staring at him, defenseless.
Clang
"Commander!" Edana arrived in front of Thorn at the last moment and blocked the heavy claw. But no matter how many times Edana called out for him, Thorn did not move. He just kept staring at Vine, who now shifted his focus on Edana.
Enchanting her sword with Azure Gaze, Edana skillfully blocked all incoming attacks, but the beast left no space for any counter attacks. "Commander Thorn!"
Thorn finally snapped out of his frozen state and looked before him. Seeing Edana defend against his beastly brother's attacks, he shook his head. "Edana..." He called out softly. "Can you give me 30 more seconds?"
Edana defended another one of Vine's attacks. Thinking about how Thorn must be feeling, she meekly nodded her head and went back to deflecting the attacks.
After seeing her agree with his request, Thorn closed his eyes and heaved a long sigh. He began remembering the childhood he spent with his brother.
He remembered their academy days, when they were a pair of rough kids who could never pass any classes as hard as they tried.
He remembered the day they became knights and how they smiled at each other with pride.
He remembered their first mission and how they had their legs shaking when they came face to face with a beast.
He remembered when they decided to work for different departments, and split for the first time in their lives.
He remembered the pain when he had lost him to the Cult of Mayhem for the first time.
And finally, he remembered the joy he felt when he was reunited with his brother again, after all those years.
Streams of tears rolled down from his closed eyes, across his face and down on the ground. With a long breath, Thorn finally steeled himself and opened his eyes, readying the lance in his hand.
"The warm sun sets and a bleak night finally arrives..." The lance on his hand began glowing in a deep azure light.
"It saddens me to send you off this early.... but rest assured brother... I will be joining you in time.." Using the opportunity when Edana parried the claws of his brother, Thorn dashed forward and thrust the lance in Vine's chest with all the strength he could muster.
"May the night protect you... brother..." Tears streamed down his face and the hands that clenched the lance tightly shook.
"woooo...." The beastly Vine let out a pitiful groan as he clutched the lance sticking in his chest with both his hands. The light in his eyes gradually dimmed, then he breathed his last breath.
Thorn kneeled down on the ground and softly let the corpse of his brother down on the ground. He looked at the corpse of the beast in front of him before throwing his head back and wailing.
When he was done mourning his brother, he left the corpse on the church grounds for the moment and turned towards Avery, his eyes burning with hatred.
"Commander..." Edana spoke, but Thorn stopped her with his hand.
"I know..." He clenched his teeth. "We'll take him to the interrogation chamber right away!" He stomped towards Avery and grabbed him by the collar.
"Gentle now~" Avery looked at Thorn with mocking eyes.
Ignoring him, Thorn stomped towards the entrance, pulling Avery with him. Edana closely followed behind them.
Opening the door, Thorn and the two appeared outside the church. When they came out of the church, the sky was blood red in color.
Taken aback by this unnatural occurrence, Thorn and the two raised their head up in the sky.
Thorn and Edana widened their eyes, recognizing the person who was being held by the Saint. But without getting any time to react, the three of them were blinded when the darkest black night they had experienced fell down.