Glenn blinked as he massaged his forehead, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"Sigh... I've only had two beers, how come I'm already dreaming...? ?" He pondered, before forcing his eyes open wide. Thorn's church was burning as fiercely as when he'd first noticed the arson, red flames rising high into the sky as a cloud of black smoke began to envelop the Twilight Gate. Glenn coughed before looking down at his hands, frowning. No matter how hard he tried to think about it, he didn't feel drunk at all...

'So, are you going to continue to miss the fun or pull your head out of your ass, you fool?!?' Diamanes' exclamation woke him up, a surge of adrenaline fueling his body. He lunged forward, chasing the smoke away with a wave of his hand as he tried to understand what was happening and what happened. A smoldering figure came out screaming in pain from the building, bringing with him an appetizing smell of roasted meat. Glenn gasped and hurriedly shot a reduced wave of Nitrogen, just enough to cool down the poor man but unable to hurt him besides giving him a chill.

"Hey, are you okay... ?" the young man asked hurriedly as the figure collapsed to the floor, his arms wrapped tightly around him. He continued to moan painfully, unwilling or unable to answer Glenn's questions. He touched the dress, only to see it unravel to reveal skin scarred with tattoos he'd never forget. Glenn's concern turned to cold indifference, and he stood up quickly, dusting off his hands. His eyes darted back and forth between the half-dead cultist and the burning church from which the latter had emerged. Glenn smacked his lips, wrinkling his nose, until he interrupted his train of thought with a shrug and sent the cultist back into the burning building.

"...Back in the hell you belong," Glenn muttered, before dashing to the church's side. He needed to see who attacked the Thorn's Church. That Aura blade made him think of a particular race of people who were more than capable of creating this kind of chaos in Thorn's Church's main HQ.

"Hey, there's a fire! Guards, guards!!!" Someone shouted from across the road, probably from the Twilight Inn. Glenn glanced back, squinting through the black smoke to see if the guards would react, but they didn't seem to care at all. It was as if they were used to it, relaxed expressions forming on their faces as they limply held their halberds. They weren't the most impressive guards, that's for sure, but they seemed unafraid in the face of such enormous fire.

'Let's ignore those idiots, and take a peek at the arsonist's face...' Glenn decided, pushing his sleeve against his mouth to try and breathe as little smoke as possible. His eyes were stinging from the heat and the ashes released by the church on fire, but he kept pushing through, a bloodthirsty smile hanging on his face. If there was an opportunity to squash a few cultists' heads, there was no reason for him not to take it. A figure dashed through the flames out of the building right in front of the young man's eyes, the figure enveloped by a warm coat of fire. Glenn was about to jump forward to try and help the burning man but instead chose to bite down on his lips and see what would happen. The figure rolled on the ground painfully, groaning and grunting with certain pain and discomfort. Burning alive was supposed to be one of the most painful deaths one could experience, (not that Glenn knew).

The figure angrily ripped the black cloak, revealing a stunted but strangely muscular body underneath it. It was as if the man's muscles had been compressed, making them look like they were sculpted out of cold hard steel.

"Damn it, the second the Abbot left...!" The bald and scarred man spat as he slowly acquainted himself with his surroundings. His eyes froze on Glenn's barely noticeable figure through the thick smoke, trembling slightly. A fanatical smile warped his face from weird to insane as the man revealed the scars covering his whole body. Traces of lacerations, burns, knife or whip wounds, whatever concept of hurting oneself already explored by the crazy cultist. The madman unsheathed a plain longsword with a brass pommel that gleamed under the embers of the smoldering church. Glenn prepared his magic without losing a second, ready to try his new Carbon Blade on a live target. The madman stumbled forward as he ripped a part of burned flesh off his shoulder, throwing it to the side.

"...Weakness of the flesh...!" He spat, his longsword rattling against the ground as he took one step forward after the other toward Glenn. The young man almost whipped a Carbon Blade at the weirdo, when the scene strangely superimposed with one he lived what he felt was an eternity ago. A team of hooded figures with different weapons, their leader holding a plain but sharp sword, his shabby robe serving as a terrible cover for his god-forsaken powers... A sense of foreboding and deja-vu shook Glenn to the core and he hurriedly rolled back, staring in shock at the flurry of thorny vines that pierced through the ground and filled the space he was previously occupying.

"This is...This...!" Glenn's eyes shook and he fell on his knees, the memory of the constant torture, the constant abuse, and the forceful ingestion of another mouthful of Beast Blood every single day...

"The madman frowned, before exploding in laughter, his sword pointed at Glenn.

"You? You're 3333!?" He bent forward, holding his belly from how much he was laughing. Glenn calmed himself with deep and slow breaths, coldness and hate slowly replacing the memories of torture and dehumanization. His blood became ice that flowed in his veins as he stared down at the madman with the sharp eyes of a predator looking at his prey. The mad man laughed out aloud again, crazily summoning thorny vines from the ground one after the other to try and pierce Glenn's apart. The young man didn't even bother to move away, satisfied with only pushing his left hand in front of him. A Carbon Blade flew through the air, cutting right through the vines as if they were made of paper, before crashing against the bastard. The ground shook at the collision, and the purple glint surrounding the madman informed Glenn that the man had a protective shield, much like what the assault team that killed Prince had.

"Hahaha!! I, Droka, will offer up my suffering and pain for the God of Thorns, the Ruler of Redemption!" Droka chanted fanatically, raising his sword to the sky, the cold glint reflecting the light of the fire. Glenn sneered and shot a flurry of Carbon Blades that diced up everything on their way, the young man hoping to get rid of the cultist before he had the chance to finish whatever he was trying to do. The blades crashed and dissipated against the purple shield, once, twice, thrice...

But the fourth blade was enough to put a crack in the shield.

The fifth made the crack grow, while the sixth initiated the transformation from crack to rift.

The seventh shattered the shield into a flurry of purple magic dust, the evil energy making it dissipate among the ambient Mana.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

The eighth blade seemed to be the one that would slice the cultist in two. Sadly, the eighth blade was never shot.

Because a car-sized fucking thorny vine just came out of the ground and grabbed Glenn's waist, wrapping around him tightly before dragging the young man against the ground and throwing him away.

'Shit, I was almost done!' Glenn thought as he hurriedly used Gravity Manipulation to stop his momentum. He remained still in the air for a few seconds, his right hand brimming with energy. He ignored the pain that came from being dragged on the ground, his eyes searching through the smoke to try and find that cultist bastard, without much success.

"If the Carbon Blade doesn't cut it, I guess it leaves me no choice but to use the most powerful spell in my collection," Glenn reluctantly said, his face all but sad at the thought of using the Nitrogen Lance. The Blackhole in his right hand shook with power as he pressed his left hand infused with Nitrogen against it, preparing a spell that would probably evaporate both Droka, the Thorn's Church, and anything hiding beneath these two. His breathing slowed down as he noticed a small drop of water fall in front of him and splash against his arm, cold but freshening in the brazier of the burning church.

The start of the rain acted as a fuse and initiated the spell, Glenn thrusting both his hands forward with bloodthirsty eyes, shooting a pillar-sized laser beam of pure cold and infinite weight that pierced everything in its way. The fire was instantly snuffed out, frozen by the gust of freezing wind produced by the attack. The ground exploded as the beam touched it, digging deep into the surface while leaving everything covered in a slippery ice layer behind it. The Mana fueling the spell was cut off as Glenn willed it so, his body plunging in a controlled manner to the ground. He slowed down and gently landed on the cold dirt, nodding with satisfaction at the work he had done. The spot where the mad cultist was standing had been completely erased from this world's face, and the Thorn's Church had been successfully untouched...

"Wait, no!" Glenn shook his head suddenly, protesting. He rubbed his eyes, staring at the almost-not-destroyed Church which, all things considered, stood firmly despite the terrible attack it took on.

"What do you mean it's untouched?!" Glenn blurted out, blinking in confusion. The rain suddenly poured down violently, soaking Glenn's clothes with cold water that was all but refreshing. One drop was great, a whole ocean of it, not so much.

'Oh, it seems like you missed, my man! Try again!' Diamanes mocked his host from inside his mind, his sarcastic comments never failing to annoy the young man to no end. Glenn gritted his teeth and shot a Carbon Blade toward the Church, aiming to slice one of the walls up, only to see his magic dissipated against an ominously purple transparent barrier.

"A shield? So I didn't miss...But what the hell can endure a fucking Nitrogen Lance?" Glenn questioned in awe, his eyes wide open. These eyes stretched even wider when he saw a huge figure who looked like a real hulk pulling himself out of a hole in the Church's wall. The sound of something rattling against the ground accompanied him, Glenn guessing the human giant was dragging something behind him. The young man squinted, licking his lower lips in puzzlement.

"...The fuck is this huge book under his arm?" He silently pondered, staring at a dark book with no cover that gave him creeps from just looking at it. There was something deeply wrong with that book, something so horrible it made him shiver and want to take a step back.

"A...Abbot Hank!" A weak voice came out of a pile of rubble in a dark corner Glenn hadn't previously looked at. There, half-buried amidst burnt wooden beams and broken stones was Droka, his lower body entirely gone, replaced by an incredibly detailed ice sculpture of broken legs.

'Stunning work, I'd dare to say...' Glenn thought with a smirk,

'It has its place in an art museum, impressive,' Diamanes commented with an impressed tone, a slow clap echoing in Glenn's mind. The giant man, "Abbot Hank", extricated himself from the Church's wall, bringing with him his ominous book and the heavy stuff he was dragging behind. Glenn peered through the rain, trying to figure out what that 'stuff' was when he realized it was no stuff at all. With dark skin and white marks on their forehead that clashed with their desert clothes, there were four Black Heirs, tied together with a thick, black vine, all unconscious.

Glenn didn't wait for a second to figure out the rest of it, his wet hair plastered against his skull as he dashed toward the giant Abbot, the cold mist of Nitrogen dripping down from his left hand. The young man clenched his teeth, his eyes clear but worried.

'I can't use any of my big attacks or I risk hitting the Black Heirs! Shit, it sucks to have no all in a fight!' He thought as his fingers crisped, shooting well-aimed Carbon Blade at Abbot Hank, all rendered useless by the purple shield. Glenn's eyes widened but he continued his attacks, his mind racing for a solution. Suddenly, a blue line appeared out of nowhere in front of him, passing right through the purple shield and stopping behind Abbot Hank. Sahro pulled his hair back, grinning as he got rid of the blood on his curved sword with a sharp movement. The crimson liquid dripped on the ground, Abbot Hank looked at the stump that was now his right arm silently. He crouched slowly, picking the arm Sahro cut off delicately, before sticking it back against his wound.

"Heh, that's not how it works you dumb—" The red light from the Abbot's ominous book cut Glenn off, a pained scream accompanying the light as it washed over the stump.

"May your souls fuel the whip of God, for they shall have no better redemption!" Abbot Hank chanted, a mad smile drawn on his face. Strips of flesh shot out from his shoulder's stump, piercing and tying the arm back where it belonged. Glenn's jaw almost dislocated itself from how low it was hanging, the young man staring with wide-opened eyes.

"...Thank you, Loratur. May your soul join the God of Thorns to enjoy eternal suffering..." Abbot Hank piously prayed, his eyes closed as the scream faded away alongside the red light emitted by the book. The giant cultist opened and closed his arm, satisfied, before turning toward Sahro. He opened his book in a seemingly random manner, before pulling a...a name out? Glenn rubbed the corner of his eyes, unsure of what he was watching. It looked like Hank had pulled the ink out of his book, a dried ink dark in color...Blood?

Hank threw the ink away like a dirty rag, before glancing at Drokar. The half-cultist grinned fanatically, his hands pressed together in a prayer.

"Yes, dear Abbot, please, give me back my legs so I can offer our God this heretic and give him back his Vessel!" He earnestly demanded, his smile widening at each step the Abbot took toward him. Abbot Hank gently grabbed Droka's hand, making a comforting smile.

"You've done well. I shall offer you the redemption you deserve."

Droka's smile froze and his eyes trembled in confusion.

"...What do you—!" Abbot Hank smashed Droka's head with his heavy black book, the blood, brain, and bones splurging to the side. Of the two eyeballs, one was ejected from its socket and was rolling on the ground, while the other was hanging by a thread, still attached but useless. Glenn and Sahro didn't move the entire time, watching the man's actions with shocked gaze, unable to say a word.

Abbot Hank lifted his book back up and plunged his other hand into the disgusting mashed-up mess that was previously Droka's head, painting his finger red and white from blood and brains. He opened his book at the latest page, wondering for a second until he turned toward Glenn.

"...You wouldn't know his name, by any chance?" Abbot Hank kindly asked, his face pious. Glenn's nose creased and he readied himself for a fight.

"...Droka," He spat out, his teeth clenched and his fists tightly closed. The Abbot nodded heavily, before making a sad smile.

"Ahh, Droka. Thank you," The giant cultist used his finger as a pen and wrote in the book, making some large and exaggerated movements as he did so. He lifted his bloodied finger in the air, hesitating, before shrugging and licking what was left of Droka's blood and brains.

"Perfect. Now..." The Abbot looked back to Glenn and Sahro, smiling gently.

"...Would you mind telling me your names, my kind friends?"