Chapter 5: Embrace

Thorn looked back while running, he saw Edana running behind him, and Valentina and Cadell running a bit behind Edana. Thorn and Edana were not at their full speed, but they were catching up. 'They're so young but they can catch up to Edana. If they had proper training, they could become strong knights.' Thorn thought to himself. "Let's go a bit faster, we're almost there." Thorn then sped up a a bit leaving behind the three kids. Edana followed suit, and Valentina and Cadell tried their best to catch up to them but they were at their limits.

Valentina looked ahead at Edana. 'She must be around my brother's age. I think she's faster than him. I can tease him later that I met a girl stronger than him.' Her mouth curved into a tiny smile after thinking this. "Let's go Cadell, everyone is waiting." Cadell nodded and they both started running again.

The sun was already shining brightly. After running for quite a while, they finally saw a silhouette of the town. "There, we've reached the town." Valentina spoke. As they went closer and closer to the town, they could see that the buildings were no longer the same as when Valentina and Cadell left. The town was already destroyed.

"No..." Valentina walked towards the town. She could see that the buildings were destroyed. After going a bit further, she stepped on a puddle. Looking down slowly, she could see that she had stepped on a puddle of blood. The ground was filled with red puddles of blood. After realizing what she had stepped on, Valentina backed away and fell down. Then, she couldn't control her stomach and vomited. After she had nothing left in her stomach, she looked at the blood on the floor and lifted her hands towards her head. She scratched her hair with her nails which made her hairpin drop on the puddle of blood. "No...Everyone..." Then she started crying.

Thorn, Edana and Cadell caught up to Valentina. Edana quickly went to pick Valentina up but she refused her help. Cadell also took a moment to see the state of the town. "How..." He walked some steps and stopped in front of a puddle of blood. Then he picked up something from the puddle. It was a locket. "Mother...Father..." Tears immediately started to flow down from his face.

"We were too late..." Thorn stated. He walked up to Cadell and put his hands on his shoulders. "Son... We are truly sorry." Cadell nodded and he kept staring at the locket in his hands. At the back, Edana was tightly hugging Valentina with a sad look on her face while Valentina was crying her heart out.

---

Rodger and Callie were standing in front of all the townspeople. It took them quite some time to gather all the people. Even though all of them trusted Rodger, some found it hard to believe the situation. "So you're saying we need to escape the town before the patrons of the church who were actually cultists, sacrifice us in some ritual?" Someone from the crowd spoke up at the absurd situation they were in.

"Yes that is the situation." Rodger replied.

"That's crazy! How can we move the whole town based on that?" Just as someone from the crowd said that, the crowd parted from the middle. A fit man with black hair came forward with a body on his shoulders and his other hand dragging a body of one of the cultists. He threw the body of the cultist in the middle of the crowd and then he put down the body on his shoulders on the floor gently.

"What Mr. Rodger says is true, I found Mr. Henry's body inside the house given to the patrons. I was also attacked by this person after I found the body and after interrogating him for a while, I learned that they are the followers of the God of Mayhem." The crowd instantly broke into murmurs. A child came out running from within the crowd, "Father!!" It was Mr. Henry's son. He watched the lifeless body of his father and cried.

"Mr. Rodger, we need to go right now. But where should we go?" The man who brought the body asked. He deliberated for a second and added, "We could go to the beast-scourge forest, there's a ruin there where beasts don't come. It can also house all the townsfolk for the time being."

Mr. Rodger thought for a moment, "No Jack, we can't go near that forest, that's where the ritual is taking place. It could become dangerous for everyone. We should go towards the city for now. Cadell and Valentina have gone there to bring the Nox Order Knights."

"Hmm.. Okay we'll do as you say then. By the way, where's Zane?", Jack asked.

"Zane has gone to stall the leader of the cult. He'll come back and catch up."

"Alright everyone listen up!" Mr. Rodger shouted. "We're going to be heading towards the city."

Just as he was about to move, the cultists appeared and surrounded the crowd. A cultist came forward, "So it was you lot who were being all noisy. Hahaha forget escaping the town tonight. You all will die here." The cultist brought out a bell with a mouth on it. Just as he was about to shake it, Jack ran towards him and punched him on the stomach. The cultist dropped the bell and looked towards Jack. "Attack everyone, don't let them escape!", he shouted and the cultists surrounding the crowd immediately sprang to action.

The cultists and the townspeople were fighting each other. Amidst the fight, one cultist slowly approached the area where the bell fell. He picked up the bell and shook the bell. Immediately after, the houses in the town began exploding.

The crowd stopped fighting and the townspeople looked over at the houses in shock. "No!" "Our town!", the crowd was full of screams.

"What did you do!!?" Rodger came and grabbed the cultist who shook the bell.

"Hahahahah.. This is the end. Hahahhahah", The cultist was out of it and didn't respond to Rodger no matter what he did.

Just as Rodger was about to hit the cultist, everyone felt a formless wave coming over.

"Aaaah! What's happening to me??" Someone from the crowd screamed. His body began melting down fast and he became a puddle of blood. Seeing this, the crowd panicked and they all tried to escape. But everyone began melting slowly, and becoming a puddle of blood.

"Callie!" Rodger was shifting through the crowd searching for his wife. After searching through the crowd, he finally found his wife on her knees watching her body. "Callie!" Rodger ran towards his wife and hugged her tightly. Callie looked at Rodger and smiled. "I'm glad that I got to spend this life with you, and I'm glad that you sent our son somewhere safe." Rodger smiled. "I'm glad too." They both held each other in their arms and slowly melted away, in each other's embrace.

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