"What is this? What the hell happened to them?"
Caelum asked as he too was stunned by the sight in front of him. There were many cages in this basement, each of them as large as cages in a zoo.
However rather than animals, these cages contained humans. More specifically, the Chosen who were sent to clear the dungeon before them.
"Are they even alive?"
Caelum wondered as he approached the closest cage. There were seven people in it, and like the rest, they were either unconscious or unresponsive, lifeless even. They looked to be barely breathing which made the entire room feel like a mass gravesite.
Caelum broke open the cage to inspect them more closely. Erta thought that his behaviour was unnatural. He would not normally move impulsively when they were in such uncertain and strange situations. She wondered if she should stop him.
Caelum, on the other hand, found the whole situation suspicious. Not even including the fact that they found so many survivors all of a sudden after hours of finding no signs of life or activity anywhere in the castle, just the very condition of these survivors seemed wrong to him.
And as though to prove them both correct, one of the lifeless survivors suddenly twitched and jerked. Its body snapping into a grotesque form that was clearly not possible with human physiology. And then it screeched and lunged at Caelum.
Their pale skin highlighted their bloodshot eyes as they tried to bite at his flesh.
A single swipe of his wing was all it took to get them off, but Caelum and Erta soon realised that the others in the entire basement had reacted to the inhuman screech of the first one.
All of the survivors looked at them with bloodshot eyes, growling like mindless wild beasts. Then the others that were freed began to move.
"Stay down!"
Just as the other survivors were about to jump at them, Caelum knocked them out with his black wing, throwing them against the walls and other cages.
The silence of the castle was finally disturbed by the feral growls of the survivors trying to break free of their cages. Their eyes filled with madness and hunger. Clearly, they were no longer human.
Then the voice they heard upon entering the castle once again echoed through the halls.
[Oh my, how rude. I did say make yourselves at home, but how could you take advantage of your host and cause trouble in his house? Now you've angered my pets. Do you know how long it took to calm them down?]
"What the hell did you do to them?"
Caelum asked as he threw the feral survivors back into their cage and locked them in using some of the materials he had brought. Even if the survivors wanted to break out, the gate to the cage was now much stronger than earlier. The voice answered with a chuckle.
[Oh nothing much. I just made them my thralls.]
"Impossible! I would've noticed it right away if they were under a curse!"
Erta's Holy Light and Holy Flame were sensitive to malicious powers like curses. She would have immediately felt it the moment she saw the survivors, regardless if they were under an illusion. The very fact that her two aspects did not react meant that there was no curse laid upon them. And as she did not understand how such thralls would have been created without a curse, she denied its possibility.
[Who said anything about curses? I merely sucked them of their blood until only a strand of life force is left. That was enough to keep them barely alive as husks that move only on instinct. And they only have one instinct. To feed.]
The voice burst out in maniacal laughter. It seemed satisfied with their expressions of disgust. Caelum dragged Erta out of the basement. Rescuing the survivors was not their main priority.
In fact, if the situation grew much worse, he was even willing to sacrifice them altogether. The enthrallment of the survivors was not something they could easily resolve with purification as it was not a curse. In his mind, he already saw them as potential enemies.
"Cal, the darkness wasn't only weakening our minds. It was tampering with them. It made us ignore the illusion and then it heightened our emotions, making us more impulsive."
"I know. I felt it too, but there's not much we can do against it. Let's just keep moving for now."
[Did you truly believe I would let you walk freely after what you just did? I welcomed you into my home and you disrespect me in return. I say this calls for punishment. Come out, my servants! 'Tis time to hunt!]
With those words, the two finally felt something from within the darkness.
What was once a deathly silence was now a cacophony of howls and ticking claws. What was once still air was now filled with the stench of blood.
They were not near, but just the fact that their presence had suddenly filled the empty and lifeless castle made it all the more horrific and dreadful. But somewhere within that mess, Caelum caught a whiff of a sweet scent.
"Stick close and follow me! From now on, we'll be ambushed from all sides. Get ready."
They moved through the winding halls of the castle. He followed the sweet scent, but something caught his attention. The scent was leading them back the way they came from, but not everything was the same.
The paths led to different ways, different from what he expected. The map that Ciel had charted was no longer correct. However, there was not even a time for him to panic as the enemies had finally appeared.
"Brave Heart!"
Erta cast a spell that increased everyone's courage and resistance to fear. She could no longer hold back as she could feel both she and Caelum were slowly being encroached by fear. They were the strongest beings in the world. They treaded the line of life and death all the time. So how could they be afraid?
This fear was simply too unnatural and ridiculous. She could not believe that they had still underestimated the power of this divine darkness. Worse yet, their enemies were now closing in, baring down their fangs at them.
The hounds' eyes were glowing red, reflecting their lost sanity. Erta brought out Aldurin's whip which blazed with white golden flames that quickly spread to her own body.
Indeed, this was one of their insurances. Through the Life Covenant, Erta is able to pull upon just a single ember of the Eternal Flame. But that single ember was all that she truly needed.
"Cal, focus on finding our way out! I'll deal with them!"
With all four wings released, Erta flew above while lashing out at the hounds that jumped at them. The moment the whip touched the hounds, even just a graze, they vanished in a puff of white smoke, purified.
Caelum trusted Erta wholeheartedly and sped through the castle following the scent. However, he could not leave all the fighting to her as more and more enemies appeared.
"Be careful at the back! Those are ghouls!"
Caelum shouted while slamming his black wing on the humanoid corpse-eaters that appeared out of nowhere. Soon, even the space above them became a battlefield as humanoid monsters with only the upper half of their bodies swarmed them.
Caelum tried to pierce through the waves of monstrosities, unleashing surging waves of Eternal Flame that was the most effective method of attack against them, but they were still slowed down. They were stranded in the middle of a horde. The twisted halls that rendered their map useless did not help their case either. Finally, Erta decided it was time to end it.
"Nightless Fire!"
It was Erta's strongest spell and her trump card. Her four wings transformed into large tongues of white golden flames, evidently still empowered by the Eternal Flame.
Revolving around her were several swords of brilliant white golden flames. But the most fascinating thing about this spell which had not been fully shown in her battle with the Fairies' Wild Hunt was the great amount of divinity she exploded with.
This divinity did not only come from the Eternal Flame, but from one of Erta's titles. She was the Cherished Light of the Divine Obelisk. Even among the Avatars of the Divine Obelisk, she was the only one who could truly inherit its light and divinity. And this was what she tapped into, her legacy.
It made her shine like a brilliant star in the night sky as the divine darkness seemed to shriek in agony and retreat away from her light.
Caelum looked at her in worry, but in her eyes which resembled twin suns, he only saw resolve. She let go of the whip which vanished into bluish particles as Ciel immediately stored it in the Wing of Reason. Then with both hands in front, Gungnir materialised in her grasp and erupted in the same white golden flames.
"By the light of the Divine Obelisk, Judgement!"
The flames that enveloped Gungnir raged even more as they grew larger and larger until it formed the shape of a gigantic claymore. And with a spirited shout, she swung it down before her.
No monster could even get close enough to stop her all this while. Her divine aura either pushed them away or burned their very existence to ash and dust. And the claymore she swung blazed through the castle, destroying the darkness before them.
All the monsters in its path vanished and even the walls were not spared of her judgement. Finally, the castle that had been drowned in utter madness had become silent once more.
"Cal, let's go before I lose this power!"
The claymore was gone and only Gungnir was left in Erta's hands. She was still under the effects of Nightless Fire, but Caelum could see that she was extremely exhausted and weak.
Before Erta lost all her strength, he had to find a way through the castle to wherever the source of that sweet scent is. He did not know why, but he felt it calling to him. And somehow, he knew that their objective was there.
"Alright, then let me carry you! Let's go!"
He stretched out his wings which coiled around Erta and brought her to him. She did not need to spend any more energy flying. As long as she had her aura of divinity, no monsters would dare come for them.
They dashed through the path that Erta created by breaking down practically every wall before her.
Surprisingly, the sweet scent came from straight ahead. With the darkness gone, it seemed even the strange manipulation of space had vanished. And they finally reached a long corridor sunk in utter pitch black.
A single wisp of orange light at the end told them of its path. And the sweet scent seemed to flow like a river through it.