Chapter 53: COVERING THE CLUES
At the warehouse by the border of Ebonmere where Irene and Emelia were held captives, Alphonse was sitting by John's body, his only son, the bodies were everywhere around him but he only cared about his son, his eyes were wide open from the shock, John wasn't just killed, he was tortured before his death, he felt his limbs severed one by one and the numerous stabs, all of that pushed him to use the suicide spell, he reached a level he can't endure it anymore, but even the spell didn't kill him, it's Jaxith's sword in the chest, the spell didn't have enough time to spread across John's body and Jaxith killed him before he gets a death without any pain, he didn't even let him die like that, Alphonse noticed how the black veins didn't spread across John's body, that's how he concluded what happened, his eyes started tearing while looking at John with grief.
"I'm sorry, John, in the last few years I've been harsh on you because you failed your ritual, I just wanted you to get better than me, I deceived you by telling that Cristina will be fine, I told you that you're a shame for the Rascliffes, and finally I sent you directly to your death.", Said Alphonse as his tears were running down his cheeks, he bowed a bit and raised his son's head and hugged it.
"You faced that monster by yourself, why didn't you run away? Why didn't you listen to Edward?", Said Alphonse in a shock, he still can't believe how his son was massacred like that, suddenly Alphonse felt a warm hand over his shoulder but he didn't turn to see the person behind him, he already knows.
"Alphonse, I'm really sorry for your loss, he was a great kid.", Said a hooded person wearing a cloak, his eyes were black and he was a bit taller than Alphonse, he has a light black beard unlike Alphonse who doesn't have a beard, but he looks somehow terrifying too.
"It's my fault, I pushed him to this limit, I made my son afraid from my judgement, he became afraid from me, I killed my son, Vossler, if I had accepted how he wanted to live I wouldn't have lost him now, he was everything to me.", Said Alphonse in even more grief while lowering his head more and crying harder, Vossler, the hooded person, lowered his hand while looking sadly at Alphonse, for someone to lose his son in this horrible way is truly heartbreaking, Alphonse loved his son, but after he failed his ritual Alphonse was blinded by only one thing, John must do it again and be stronger, he wanted John to be better and stronger than him, he wanted him to be a dark caster that serves the purpose of the upcoming new era, but while doing this he forgot that he was dealing with his only son, he didn't care about his feelings or emotions, even the day when Cristina died he didn't care and blamed him for failing and didn't even attend her funeral, it was this moment that he realised that Edward was always right, he should have gotten closer to him after failing the ritual, not to push him away.
"I can't say much to you, Alphonse, I'll leave you and do what I've come her to do, I must perform the task that lord Blamore told me to do, and there's much to clean around.", Said Vossler before looking at the bodies everywhere in front of the warehouse, the place where Jaxith wrecked those guards without showing any sign of mercy, Vossler walked closer and removed his hood revealing his short black hair and intense features, he looks like a person in his forties, he raised both of his hands and his eyes started emitting dark energy, his hands started producing the same energy before suddenly the dark energy turned into green fire!
Both Vossler's eyes and hands were emitting this strange looking fire.
"BY THE FIRE GRANTED BY PALADIN BETHRA, LET THOSE POOR BODIES BURN.", Said Vossler in a serious voice before a green strange looking sign was formed behind him, a circle containing green demonic raging eyes and strange words were surrounding it, just after the activation of this sign it disappeared and a similar sign was created below each body from the dead guards.
"K'SIRMA!", Shouted Vossler before a raging green fire was created all over each dead body completely covering them, the temperature was so high that it was easy to conclude that this type of fire is clearly stronger from normal pyromancy, well, because pyromancy depends on divine energy while this here is dark magic and not even the normal dark casting, this is the upper level of dark casters, people like Vossler, Alphonse and few casters like them weren't just granted a vessel for dark energy after successfully completing their ritual to perform basic dark spells, no, they were granted the blessings from one of the few scarlet paladins that didn't die in the war with the gods and was imprisoned with their demon lord after the demons lost the war against the gods, they were sealed in the realm created just for them to contain their power.
Those paladins can be compared with high rankings generals in any army in terms of rankings but of course they are much stronger, they were the highest ranking among the demon knights and serving directly under the demon lord's orders, each one of them had their own battalion of scarlet demons, most of them died during the war and the few that survived were imprisoned as mentioned before with the cursed demon lord.
But sometimes during scarificial rituals rare things happen, and as mentioned before, the more you sacrifice someone you love, the more power you gain in the end, and so in the case of those unique dark casters, they prove their strong faith and devotion by offering someone very close to them and by that instead of getting just a vessel from a common scarlet demon, they're recognized by one of the scarlet paladins and gets their blessings to use and instead of normal dark spells they use a very dangerous spells infused with the power of the paladin that offered his blessings for the dark caster.
For example, in Vossler's case he got Bethra's blessings, so in other words, Vossler can use dark spells infused with this green fire named bethra's ember (the green fire itself is called Bethra's ember), Bethra was one of the strongest paladins that survived the war and still alive but sealed away with the remaining scarlet army, he was the first demon to be born with this strange green fire which was named upon his name, Bethra's ember, now he passes a glimpse of his power to the most loyal servants he sees them worthy of his power when the ritual creates a tiny preach barely enough to pass the ability to use dark energy.
(The sacrificial ritual only allows for the descending of the vessel for humans wanting to use dark energy like demons but it's not even close to allow for a single demon to pass from the scarlet realm to the human realm, this requires the art of scarlet summoning which is another complicated art that focus on summoning weaker demons from the scarlet realms as this requires massive amount of dark energy to summon the lesser scarlet one, so it's nearly impossible for someone to have enough dark energy to be able to someone a higher grade demon such as the paladins, the scarlet giant which isn't considered a very strong scarlet demon is even hard to summon, that's because the scarlet realm was sealed tightly by the gods to prevent the scarlet army from being free again, the small incidents that happens from time to time due to the rare demon attacks caused from summoning scarlet demons aren't dangerous at all compared to the hell sealed behind the scarlet realm.)
And so, the same happens with anyone granted the blessings from one of the scarlet paladins, he/she will be able to use dark spells infused with the power of the donor paladin, Alphonse here is another example with another different paladin.
Vossler lowered his hands and looked coldly as the bodies were rapidly changed into ashes! This was a clear sign for the power of bethra's ember, that green fire can consume a large city in minutes, but Vossler was remembering something else, he was remembering what Blamore asked him to do after he called him last night right after what happened with John.
"I need you to get to a village called Ebonmere in Vidin right now, I'll open a portal for you, tomorrow morning you will find Alphonse Rascliffe in a warehouse outside the village with numerous dead bodies, and since you you're one of the few carriers of Bethra's blessing that I trust.", Said Blamore before Vossler who was kneeling before him in respect interrupted him politely, they were in the same balcony that Blamore prefers to stand in facing the ocean.
"You demand that I burn all the corpses to ashes and hide their presence.", Said Vossler politely, Blamore smiled.
"Exactly, Alphonse's son made a very lethal mistake that could destroy all of our plans with Vidin, he tried to face the hunter who protected the child by himself and that didn't go as planned, the warehouse where they fought is actually a Rascliffe property, Alphonse's precisely, I don't want any dead bodies there to attract unwanted attention for him, to avoid anyone from even recognizing the guards and connecting them with Alphonse, he will get rid of the property too in a smart way to exclude any suspicions, your job is burning them completely, take a look inside too and check if there's any body around, we can't lose Alphonse now, he's the second most important zealot in Vidin and losing him now with that girl in the same kingdom won't be fine, clear the warehouse, Vossler, effectively without any witnesses.", Said Blamore seriously.
"Yes, my lord, your demands shall be obeyed.", Said Vossler politely.
"Another thing, there was a witness, a female alchemist that was kidnapped to push her father to poison the hunter, I don't know how he survived such a lethal poison but what matters now is this female, she escaped after the hunter freed the child, find her and execute her, we can't allow her to talk, she may have heard anything she shouldn't have, her name is Emelia Miller, get it done too.", Said Blamore boldly before Vossler nodded positively.
After Vossler remembered what happened he looked at Alphonse who was still hugging his dead son's body, he didn't know what to say for this father mourning his son so he decided to get inside the warehouse to finish this quickly as he still needs to find Emelia.
After Vossler entered the warehouse the green fire began to die out as the bodies were already turning to ashes, but even though the fire was dying out, someone noticed it from far!
A single guard was approaching the warehouse with his horse after he noticed the green lights shining in front of the warehouse from far, it looks like he was patrolling the area alone when he noticed Bethra's ember so he decided to check it.
"HEY, WATCH OUT!", Shouted the guard as he saw someone on the ground hugging someone between the numerous fire sites, he shoke the bridle intensely and the horse started sprinting towards Alphonse whose back was facing them and didn't move a muscle.
"GET AWAY FROM THE FIRE, THIS WAREHOUSE MIGHT BE CONNECTED WITH SEVERAL MURDERS IN THE VILLAGE.", Shouted the guard while approaching Alphonse who still didn't move a muscle.
"Why isn't he moving away from that strange fire? He might get burnt easily, I'm already feeling the heat from here.", Thought the guard.
"IN THE NAME OF KING WALT, STAND UP AND REVEAL YOURSELF.", Shouted the guard again but this time he heard something coming from Alphonse's mouth in a cold calm voice.
"Curse you and your king.", Said Alphonse boldly before suddenly a violet light shined below the horse and it didn't even take a second and at once several violet large crystal like needles protruded out of the ground and into the bodies of the horse and the guard completely piercing them from different angles and pinning them!
The blood was dripping everywhere from the guard and the horse as they were breathing their last breath, Alphonse just turned the side of his head revealing violet light shining through his eyes, he looked boldly at the pinned guard with the side of his eye.
"Your voice is annoying.", Said Alphonse boldly, the guard saw the evil behind his look but he couldn't move a muscle, every part of his body is pierced like he's a puppet, just like his horse.
"Who a-are yo-you?", Asked the guard while looking shocked.
"SILENCE!", Shouted Alphonse before another violet crystal protruded out of the ground and pierced the horse then proceeded through the guard's skull completely silencing him!
The amount of dark energy could also be sensed from Alphonse with great measures, he just angrily revealed his paladin blessing,
Zelisk's blessing, another blessing granted by paladin Zelisk from the scarlet army, it allows its host to use dark spells infused with the mayhem glaciers, the type of power that Zelisk uses as he produces this violet crystals from his body or from the surrounding ground, Zelisk used to perform devastating attacks with them and also they contained several different types of curses that affect even the person scratched by it.
Alphonse can use dark spells that are infused with mayhem glaciers, something similar for the spell that shredded the guard and the horse.
Vossler has already searched the warehouse and found nothing suspicious except the cellar, he was now inside it and finally saw Edward, he was lying dead over some crates with wide wounds in his chest, Vossler looked sad.
"You were a good man too, Edward, may your sacrifice won't go in vain, rest in peace, old man.", Said Vossler before he raised his right hand and pointed it at Edward's body then the green fire was produced out of Vossler's hand towards Edward's body which started burning.
Vossler looked at his formal friend's body getting engulfed by the rage of Bethra's ember, he didn't think that one day he will be doing this for one of the zealots that were close to him, but there is no other choice, Edward is an important person that no one should know anything about what happened to him.
Vossler turned and started burning the blood trail from Shisk who came down here crawling after Jaxith damaged his leg and severed his arm, after that Vossler thought he finished everything with the warehouse, but actually there was something that he missed, between the crates that Edward was lying dead on, a little piece of cloth that was cut when Edward hit the crates after John casted his violet arrows at him, this piece of cloth got attached between the crates and even a few blood drops reached it, this little piece of cloth stayed hidden like that and Vossler didn't even notice it as he was focusing on blood and bodies and the piece was small and nearly the same brown color of the crates.
Back at the front of the warehouse, Alphonse was still hugging his son, Vossler finally came out and the green fire outside already died out, he noticed that Alphonse was still the same.
"I suggest you take him back to your manor, Alphonse, have a respectful funeral for him, but sitting here won't help you, I see you have already dealt with an intruder.", Said Vossler while approaching Alphonse and looking at the dead guard and horse pinned like a statue, he immediately casted his green fire upon them too.
"I'll see the alchemist that lord Blamore told me to take care of, take care, I'll see you soon.", Said Vossler while patting over Alphonse's shoulder.
"We'll make sure that he gets what he deserve, he missed with the wrong people, Alphonse, he won't get away without punishment.", Said Vossler in a caring manner before he turned and started walking away.
Alphonse on the other hand suddenly looked very angry while his eyes were glowing violet again.
"The hunter.", Said Alphonse angrily while gritting his teeth and looking at the message written by John's blood beside his body, the message that Jaxith left for Alphonse as a threat.
A.R.
YOU'RE NEXT
A clear sign that Jaxith knows about him now, but Alphonse now is even more determined for revenge after seeing this message written by his son's blood, his face expressions were raging with hatred and agony.
Vossler reached the village while being hooded to find several guards patrolling the village and asking questions, what Jaxith did last night didn't pass easily, the murders at the inn and the missing lumberjacks were creating havoc all over the village, such a violent event didn't happen before in a small quiet village like Ebonmere, but actually Vossler doesn't care, he only searched for Emelia, but for his bad luck she isn't in Ebonmere anymore, she has already left this morning with a coffin containing Miller's body and heading towards Bernia with her husband, the town that her husband lives in and she also have her shop there.
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darkash
darkash I'll leave the discord server link if anyone wanted to learn more about the novel, I have just made it as a way to narrow the distance between me and the readers:
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